The Demon's Breath On The Back Of Your Neck

This story was originally written for a Star Wars fanzine featuring artwork and short form writing around '16/'17. It was defacto cancelled after the editor disappeared and stopped responding to messages.

Troy was just coming out of a showing of Return Of The Jedi, his 4th time seeing it, when the voice called to him. He’d been clean for a few months now, in no small part to the movie. He’d tried rehab, AA, NA, but it was the escape into fantasy that really helped. For two hours he could escape, leave his addiction behind. Star Wars was his new addiction.


“Hey,” the voice called again, this time reaching through the cloud of fantasy his head was lost in. It was a tall man in a long black coat and a ranger hat covering his face, peering out from an alleyway near the theater. Troy stopped.


“C’mere,” the man said. Troy walked a few steps, said “What.”


“I got some stuff.”


Troy licked his lips. He’d been good, real good these past few months. He’d avoided old friends, changed habits, found new hobbies. But that gnawing was always there, right in his guts. Waiting, wanting, hungering.


He turned just in time to see the man’s red eyes peer at him and disappear into the darkened alley with the rest of him. Troy followed.


The man produced a syringe from his coat and stuck it into Troy’s arm. Troy was instantly transported to another world. He was numb and elated. This wasn’t dope, this was something so much more.


He started to panic when he couldn’t figure out what this high was that he was experiencing, but the drug wouldn’t let him. It kept him calm and immobile. So much so that he didn’t see the glint of the knife as the man removed it from his coat, and he barely felt it as the man slid it between his ribs.


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