Chapter 14
It was like suffocation.
It was like…like Darren was fifteen again, and drugged up to the eyeballs in a hospital bed after being stabbed, with the world drunkenly drifting without him and even the slightest movement resulting in a dizzying whirl around his eyes. Like his brain had been scooped out of his head, wrapped in cotton wool, and put back in to ensure that nothing—nothing—would get through. An insulating layer, to keep him in and the universe out.
It was far worse than any of his bad days had ever been, because not only was nothing getting through, Darren felt though he were actively sliding away. He slept purely to avoid the feeling of slipping, the feeling that when he lay in bed, his consciousness was slowly working its way loose of his body. A balloon on a fraying
