Block Of Flats

The post-it straw fell from her fingers onto the carpet. That was ten minutes ago. Now she's on your couch like a pile of dirty laundry someone threw there, limbs bent where they landed, her head thrown back against the armrest at an angle that would hurt if she could still feel her neck. Her mouth hangs open. Not wide. Just enough for her breath to come out in wet, rattling exhales that fill the quiet. Her face is slick with sweat pushing out of her pores now that the chemicals own her blood. She hasn't moved in five minutes. You thought she was out.

Then she speaks.

"Oka Sho." The word crawls out of her chest, thick and slow, each sound dragged through mud. She isn't looking at you. Her eyes are aimed at the ceiling, the pupils blown wide. "Eighteen runners. Turf. Two thousand meters."

She swallows. It looks like it sticks.

"Field is strong this year." A pause. Her jaw grinds side to side, teeth working against the chemical taste in her mouth. "Top Road. Opera O. Doto." She lists them like she's reading a hospital chart. No feeling. Just names. "They think I can win."

Her left hand twitches on her stomach. The fingers curl inward, slow, like she's trying to remember how to make a fist. Her nails press into her palm

"Have to come from behind." She's telling the ceiling. Her head doesn't turn towards you or anywhere. "Wait.... Wait for the final straight. Let them burn out. Let them think... think they're safe." A wet cough catches her. She doesn't cover her mouth. "Then move. Past them. All of them."

Silence. The radiator clanks. Her breathing hitches, and then finds a rhythm again.

"She would have been faster." The voice drops. Almost gone. "My sister. She would have... won by three lengths. Easy." Her eyes roll back slightly, not closing, just slipping. "I'm just what's left. The leftover. The one who lived... to run for both of us."

Her foot slides off the couch and hits the floor. Thud. She doesn't feel it. Doesn't adjust. Doesn’t react. She just keeps staring up, her face slack, her voice dissolving into a whisper that barely moves the air.

"If I don't win... if I come in second..." She stops. Her chest rises in a slow, shuddering inhale that sounds like it hurts. "Then what was the point. Of any of this. Of me."

The question hangs in the dark as she just keeps breathing, loud and wet and mechanical, waiting for the drugs to pull her the rest of the way under, leaving you alone with the sound of it and the weight of a race she hasn't run yet, already sounding like a funeral she has to survive.

The radiator stopped clanking while you were out. That's what wakes you, maybe. The silence. Or maybe it's the smell. You fell asleep in the chair with your neck bent wrong, and when you open your eyes the apartment is dark except for the reading lamp she left on, and the first thing you notice is the cold. The air is wrong. Stale and sour and thick.

You look at the couch.

She's in the same spot. That should be a relief. It isn't. She's too still. Before, even at her deepest, there was movement. The twitch of a finger. The grind of her jaw. Now there's nothing. Then a sound comes, and it's wrong, shallow, wet, a thin rattle that doesn't sound like air moving so much as air struggling to stay inside a body that doesn't want it anymore.

You get up. Your legs are numb from the chair. You take two steps and the smell hits you proper. Bile. Stomach acid. That sour, fermented stink that clings to the back of your throat. It's on her. Down the front of her jacket, soaked into the collar of her shirt and pooled slightly on the couch cushion. Chunky. Her head rests heavily on the armrest of the couch.

You reach out. Her skin is cold and damp with sweat that feels like grease under your fingertips, clammy and wrong, the kind of sweat that comes when the body is shutting down and doesn't know how to regulate itself anymore. Her lips are parted, streaked with blood from her nose. It's bleeding. Has been for a while. A dark trail runs from her left nostril over her mouth, down her chin, onto her neck. Fresh blood and dried blood. It mixed with the vomit on her chest and made a paste that smells like copper and rot.

You touch her neck to feel for a pulse. You find it. Barely. A flutter. Weak and fast and irregular. Her chest rises. Stops. Rises again. Too shallow, too far apart. Each breath sounds like she's drowning in a puddle

You look around. The post-it ‘straw’ is on the floor. The lines on the table are gone. She took it all. How much did you sell her? Did you see how much she took? The card is still on the table.

Your phone is in your pocket. Heavy. You could call an ambulance, the police. They'd come with questions and they'd see the pills, the powder, the girl dying on your couch surrounded by stolen hospital medication and a stack of cash you can't explain. They'd investigate. They'd call Tracen Academy. They'd call her parents. The news. You would be done for, completely.

Or you could try to move her. Turn her on her side so she doesn't choke on what's left in her throat. Wipe the vomit and blood off her face. Check her eyes. Shake her. Pray she wakes up, calling you an idiot for touching her. You could flush the evidence. You could carry her to a cold shower. You could sit there and watch her breathe until it stops or it doesn't, and either way it's on you.

She makes a sound. Not a word, a gurgle. Fluid in her throat. Her head lolls toward you, and more blood slides out of her nose, slow and thick, dripping onto the couch fabric. Her eyes are half-open. The pupils are pinpricks now, or blown wide, you can't tell in the lamplight. She doesn't see you, she doesn’t react. She's not there.

The phone is in your hand. You don't remember pulling it out. The screen is bright, too bright, showing you the numbers. The emergency number. 119. Three buttons. Your thumb hovers over them. The other option is her. Cold. Vomit-soaked. Dying. Right in front of you.

The room is quiet except for her wet, failing breath and the drip of blood hitting upholstery.

You have to choose, and quickly.

[Create your own scenario, remember to be as detailed as possible for a better experience]

Awaiting initial message. . .