Relentless and heavy, the manic bass beat hammered at my eardrums and pounded against my chest. The sharp, constant beep of the synth stabbed at the base of my skull. The air clawed my throat raw with its thick, acrid, smoky mix of tobacco and weed. The odour was undercut by the warm stink of damp, mould and stale sweat. The crowd, squeezed onto the dancefloor, twitched like mechanical automatons, their arms jerking in the air under the persistent blades of the strobe lighting that sliced through the darkness.

  A smile spread across my face. This was what I needed. This was where I belonged.

  Squeezing around the edge of the dancers, their heads lolling from side to side in a trance, I edged my way along the wall. Cold, damp paper peeled away under my fingers, revealing soggy, wet plaster and black, dappled blotches of dark mildew. I passed a handful of green, threadbare sofas slumped with people. Some, with their heads back and eyes rolled into their skulls, oblivious to the world around them. Others staring forward, their vacant, glazed eyes watching scenes that only they could see.

  My boots stuck to the rough wooden floor with every step as I jostled my way through the heaving, sweating mass of bodies.

  A flickering blue neon sign buzzed above a rough, sticky wooden bar. Clustered on the bar were a handful of grimy brass beer pumps, the dull brass catching the neon glow from the sign above.

  “Vodka!” I mouthed the words at the barman, my voice drowned out by the percussive din. The elastic band snapped against the back of my hand as I pulled a banknote free from the roll in my pocket and slapped it down onto the bar.

  The barman didn’t even look up. He just swiped the note away with a grimy hand before slamming a glass down in front of me. My first drink of the night.

  Tilting my head, I threw back the drink. The harsh, chemical scent of cheap vodka burned my nostrils before the fiery liquid hit my tongue and scraped a searing path down my throat and into my stomach.

  I signalled for another, which I knocked back just as quickly as the first.

  The crowded bar pressed in around me from all directions. Men leant over, shouting their orders at the bar staff. I wasn’t going to find any Ben Sherman shirts or neatly pressed trousers here. Tonight, it was dirty t-shirts, vests and greasy hair that surrounded me. I smiled to myself. I didn’t want clean; I was done with that. I wanted to bury myself in filth.

  Suddenly a solid, bone jarring thump hit me from behind and sent me sprawling into the bar. My glass was knocked from my grasp; I didn’t hear the smashing of the glass, but I felt the spray of vodka against my leg. I grabbed the damp wood of the bar and straightened my arms, forcing myself backwards against the weight. Spinning around, I rammed the heel of my hand into the chest of a woman, pushing her away from me. Lank hair hung over her face. Pallid skin was drawn tightly over hollow, yellowish cheeks. Deeply sunken eyes, red and bloodshot, looked in my direction, but their glazed stare was focused on something distant.

  Another lost soul.

  With my hand still on her chest, I shoved her backwards, harder this time. A muffled murmur of protest escaped her lips before she stumbled, falling into the crushing mass of the crowd.

  I didn’t bother to wait and see what happened to her; I didn’t care. Turning back to the bar, I raised a hand for another drink.

  “She’s smashed off her tits, that one.” A gruff voice beside me said. “I bet it’ll be a couple of days before she even feels that bruise.”

  I looked up at the man who had just elbowed his way to the bar. His dark eyes met mine, the hairs on my arms standing rigid as he looked at me with a stony-faced expression. His head was shaved smooth, but a grey-streaked goatee beard covered his chin. Deep, weathered lines spread out from his eyes and the corners of his mouth. A white scar stood out against the thick leather of his skin and tugged at his eyebrow. He wore a heavy khaki t-shirt, stained with dark patches of black grime. Surrounding him was the sharp smell of motor oil and grease.

  The air around us thickened as he loomed over me.

  My fist tightened around the latest glass of vodka, and I returned my gaze to linger on the labels of the various bottles behind the bar.

  “You know they just refill those bottles with the cheap crap, don’t you?” the man said. “Although by the time most people get in here, they’re not in any state to tell the difference. I’m Rune, by the way.”

  “Heidi.” I replied, my eyes remaining firmly fixed on the blue and yellow label of a Finnish vodka that I didn’t recognise.

  “I know that look, Heidi. That’s the look of someone trying to find a way out.” Rune said with a snort. Leaning in a little closer, his voice lowered, “Vodka’s a slow way to do it. Fancy a little something to help it along?”

  Dipping a hand into his pocket, he pulled out a small, transparent plastic bag. He shook it in front of my face; four small, round tablets rattled inside.

  The prickle of pins and needles raced across my skin. In a dark corner of the room, a pair of red glinting eyes suddenly appeared, eyes watching me from the shadows.

  “It’s an escape, a way out.” A rasping voice hissed from those shadows.

  My eyes locked onto the tablets as my tongue wet my lips.

  “Just a little escape from the world.” Rune said, as if repeating the voice.

  With a trembling hand, I reached out toward the package. The strobe lights flashed violently. My hand appeared to stutter as I stretched it out, my fingers hovering just centimetres from the promise of escape, even if only temporary.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  Slowly my fingers began to close around the bag when suddenly Rune snatched it away from me.

  My eyes snapped to his; an amused grin stretched across his lips.

  “Now, now, young lady,” he said with a gruff laugh. “I don’t give out freebies, not even to pretty little things like you.”

  “What do you want?” I snapped.

  Rune’s eyes lingered on the neck of my t-shirt with a predatory glint. He leant over the bar, his face coming close enough that I could feel his breath on my cheek. I could smell the stench of beer and something cloyingly sweet that I couldn’t quite place.

  “Normally, I’d give them to you for two hundred kroner each. But you look like you need a double drop, so how about I do you a mate’s deal? I’ll let you have the lot for six hundred.” His voice dropped to a deep, husky whisper.

  Six hundred kroner? My fingers fumbled with the notes that were now scrunched and loose in my pocket.

  “That’s the best price you’ll get around here, unless you’d rather take your chances with the vultures out in the Plata. I wouldn’t fancy your chances; they’d eat a little elskling like you alive.” His eyes narrowed, getting darker as he spoke, the corner of his lips twisted upwards. “Of course, if that’s too rich for you, I’m sure we can think of another way for you to pay.”

  I fixed his stare with mine, daring him to look away. He didn’t flinch; he wasn’t some boy on a street corner. There was a stillness about him, a heavy set to his jaw, a cold hardness in his eyes. My shoulders twitched, a tremor that betrayed the tight twist in my stomach. It was my resolve that wavered first, my gaze that broke, and my eyes that dropped to the bar top.

  Slamming the handful of notes onto the bar top, I smoothed them out with a trembling hand… one hundred… two hundred.

  “There’s five hundred there.” My voice quivered as I spoke. “That’s all I’ve got. Five hundred kroner for three?”

  A slow smile spread across Rune’s face. He didn’t even look at the pile of cash. He just reached out, grabbed the notes and stuffed them into his pocket. With agonising slowness, he opened the bag, tipped three of the small white tablets into his palm before dropping them on the bar in front of me.

  “I don’t do deals for everyone,” he said, the corner of his mouth turning up into a smirk, “but I like you, Heidi.”

  “You don’t need to patronise me,” I said as I snatched up the small, hard pills in one hand and a glass of vodka in the other.

  Before I could raise them to my mouth, Rune’s hand clamped over mine with a hard, calloused grip.

  “Whoa, steady on, Wallflower! A double drop will sort you out for the night. All three and you’ll be lucky to wake up tomorrow. Save the third for a parachute later.”

  I snatched my hand away from his rough grasp. Dozens of red, glittering eyes suddenly appeared around me. I could hear their claws scratching on the wood floor as they scurried in the shadows.

  Their voices rose in a rasping chorus, “He doesn’t care about you, Heidi, nobody does.”

  “Like you’d care, anyway!” I bit back. Whether I aimed that at Rune or the creatures, I’m still not sure.

  Rune shrugged his shoulders. “Just a friendly bit of advice. It’d be a shame to see such a pretty little thing end up on the slab.”

  Sniffing sharply, I placed two tablets onto my tongue and, with a mouthful of vodka, swallowed them. The third, I slipped into the pocket of my jeans.

  “Now we can have ourselves a proper party,” said Rune, tipping the fourth and remaining pill from the bag straight into his mouth.

  He didn’t wait for a reply. His hand landed on the small of my back and with a gentle but determined pressure, he pushed me towards the pulsating mass of the crowd.

  Something inside me screamed at me to go, to run away. But where would I go? I had nothing. I had nobody, so I went with Rune. I let him herd me into the sea of bodies, and they swallowed us whole.

  His arm tightened around my waist as we danced. Already the edges of the room were starting to blur; the hard lines were beginning to soften. The music, that heavy pounding beat, no longer hammered against my eardrums. Now it came from deep inside myself, its beat thumping against the inside of my ribcage.

  It had started with a tingle, like static in my veins, but now I surged with electricity, pure energy surging through every fibre of my body.

  “Now you’re feeling it!” Rune’s voice, distant and muffled, reached my ears.

  I looked up at the lights, every pulse of light bent and twisted in a sinuous dance above me. Silver serpents that coiled in the air, trails of light following them at every turn as they wove their paths above me.

  The warmth of the people enveloped me like a blanket. Their faces were smooth and featureless, beautiful. Their bodies swaying back and forth in a seductive dance.

  My arms coiled around Rune. I pulled him closer to me, pressing my body against the heat of his. I could feel every centimetre of him, every twitching muscle, every heartbeat pulsing through his veins, every hair on his face.

  Suddenly my jaw muscles cramped and my teeth ground down against each other. The electricity that just moments ago had been surging through me turned to molten lava, scorching my veins from the inside out. Inside my chest, my heart pounded a manic rhythm.

  The people were gone, replaced by monsters, their faces twisting and warping. Where just moments before I’d seen beauty, now there was swirling black mist, shadow and darkness. Their mouths hanging open like black holes filled with sharp, jagged, yellowing teeth. They snapped and gnashed at me. Deep red eyes, eyes like glowing embers instantly ignited, boring into my very being with their stare.

  Silver vipers struck at me from above, their long, sharp fangs flashing in front of my face.

  Something was inside me; they were there, just under my skin. Thousands of tiny insects scurrying, biting at me from within. My nails clawed at them, digging into my own flesh, desperate to get them out.

  “Get them off me.” I tried to scream, but my words were swallowed by the heavy thudding roar of the music.

  “Heidi?” someone called my name. “I think it’s time we got you out of here, Wallflower. My flat’s just across the road.”

  What flat?

  The ground under me suddenly lurched, scraping against my feet. No, the ground was still; it was me that was moving. Being dragged across the room by some force that I couldn’t see.

  My mouth opened to scream, but nothing came except for a hollow gurgle.

  The light came in stuttering bursts, freezing the world around me frame by frame. In one frame I was in the middle of the dance floor, in the next I was being hauled past the bar, finally to be pulled through a black door.

  The cold air struck me instantly, crystallising the lava in my veins.

  “Breathe, Heidi. Just breathe,” the muffled voice beside me said slowly.

  The world around me was a spiralling void of darkness. The blistering heat of bile filled my throat. Doubling over, retching, my stomach cramping until it was empty. The acrid smell of vodka and chemicals rising from the pavement in front of me.

  The streetlights were long, orange smears of light that swirled in front of me against the black sky. My knees buckled, hitting the filth of the concrete. A rough hand grabbed my shoulders in a vice like grip, holding me steady as I was about to topple forward.

  Suddenly I heard another voice, dull and distant as it drifted through the haze of my world. “Heidi!”

  Memories swirled forward from somewhere in the back of my mind. The voice sounded familiar. It was one that I knew from my past, from another life.

  “Heidi, it is you,” the voice said again. “What’s the matter with her? What have you given her? Get away from her!”

  Forcing my head up, I tried to focus on the two fuzzy figures walking towards me. The forms blurred against the swimming glow of the streetlights behind them.

  “The girl’s fine. She just needs a breath of air.” I knew that voice, Rune. “Isn’t that right, Wallflower?”

  “I’m fine.” I tried to speak, my words coming as a strung-out slur.

  “I said, let her go!” said the muffled voice.

  “Back off, pal! I’m only going to ask you once.” Rune’s voice was clear in my ears. “I found this one first. There’s plenty of easy meat in the Plata, if that’s what you and your friend are looking for.”

  Suddenly a third voice cut through the buzzing in my ears and the pounding in my chest. “Asmund! He’s got a knife!”