Void

The next day hit like a freight train. The hangover, fever, and exhaustion coalesced into something so unbearable I had to call in a favor from Snide. She showed up within an hour, carrying a small stash of solvent and the kind of calm, sardonic demeanor that made you feel like she had seen it all before—and maybe she had.

Havoc had errands to run. He needed to deliver a resignation letter to his university job, which he planned to leave with the security guard at the front desk to avoid any confrontations. Rumors about him had been circulating in the department lately, fueled by tales of him showing up drunk with stolen beer and mysterious calls from the cops. Havoc dismissed it all as nonsense, but the shadow of those stories followed him everywhere.

Once the resignation was out of the way, we headed for the train station. Snide, ever thoughtful, handed us a small bottle of solvent for the road.

"Consider it a travel essential," she said with a knowing smirk.

Solvent on a train was, indeed, essential. A slightly larger dose guaranteed a deep, dreamless sleep, impervious to the wails of children or the muttered complaints of old women. For a while, it worked like magic.

But at some point, I woke up, irritated beyond reason. My head throbbed, my body ached, and sleep was a distant memory. Desperate to knock myself back out, I turned to Havoc for help.

"Wake up," I muttered, shaking him lightly. He didn't stir.

I escalated, twisting his nipple through his shirt until he groaned and swatted my hand away.

"Fine," he grumbled, rummaging in his bag for the dose.

That night, I dreamt that my mother had taken up heroin. She seemed so serene in the dream, her movements slow and deliberate, as though every action was preordained. There was something enviable about it. Later, my subconscious dragged me to a surreal museum of domestic life, which turned out to be nothing more than a dreary Soviet apartment complex, each dusty room draped in heavy carpets.

By morning, we reached our destination: a quiet provincial town where time seemed to move at half speed. Havoc loved this place for its simplicity, especially the railway station, where he often played cards with the local homeless men, using an old suitcase as their table.

The moment we stepped off the train, a group of hulking men loitering near the platform eyed us suspiciously. Havoc tensed for a moment, but nothing came of it, and we made our way to our temporary home—a vacant apartment belonging to our friend, The Admin.

Admin greeted us with a casual, "Why the long faces?" as he handed over the keys. He even pointed out the secret compartments where he'd stashed supplies, a gesture so generous it caught me off guard.

The familiarity of it all hit me like a wave. Memories of my last visit surfaced—Admin showing off his antique pistol, sharing his stash, and leading us on a meandering midnight walk through a neighborhood tangled in rusty pipelines. I'd felt weightless then, like I was floating through infinity.

The following evening, we returned to the train station to meet my old friend, Little Evil. As she stepped off the train, time folded in on itself. Her presence jolted me back to a memory of standing by the cold sea, drinking together on jagged rocks that seemed carved by violence. In that moment, it felt as though no time had passed—as if that day by the sea had been only yesterday.

Naturally, the reunion called for celebration. We wandered along the railway tracks, cracking sunflower seeds, sipping drinks, and letting the rhythmic hum of passing trains fill the gaps in conversation.

The tracks themselves were a grim spectacle. Animal corpses—split in half by the wheels of trains—lay scattered along the rails. Their entrails stretched like grotesque streamers, the halves of their bodies flung apart. We moved past them without comment.

By the end of the night, we had downed 11 liters of beer between the three of us. Havoc, never one to settle for mediocrity, mixed up his infamous cocktail, which he called "The Legal": a blend of sodium caffeine benzoate, gamma-butyrolactone, ethanol, and whatever else he could find.

Charged up, we stumbled into an underground industrial party held in the basement of a derelict building. The scene was equal parts chaos and disappointment. A guy on stage did push-ups for no apparent reason, while a group of women in the crowd flashed their breasts. It was more awkward than exciting.

We didn't stay long. Instead, we piled onto the back seats of a late-night bus, passing around makeshift bottles filled with solvent-laced water. The city blurred outside the windows, a patchwork of dim streetlights and shadowy alleys.

By morning, we were back at the apartment. Exhausted and bleary-eyed, we collapsed into whatever surfaces could serve as beds.

That evening, we returned to the familiar cycle: solvent, laughter, and eventual silence as "the come-down" hit us like a slow wave. Havoc, ever practical, suggested we extract something from a bottle of Actifed, theorizing that it might also help with my lingering cold.

Desperate for relief, I agreed.