[ CW ] - `` This is not a normal Bomb . It 's a Soul Bomb . ''

I may have been worthless piece of shit but my body was remarkable. Six weeks of heavy-drinking, meth smoking, and cocaine snorting and my feet were still shuffling along the city streets. Those feet had brought me there, to the darkest corner of the city. If the drugs there did n't kill me, the people would. 
 
 Before long I was in an opium den located in the basement of a brownstone. A dozen or so people lay melted on the furniture. A black man on rollerskates was trying to sell me an assortment of pills, all too pedestrian for my interests. A young Asian woman in a purple robe caught my eye. She beckoned me and disappeared behind a heavy red curtain. 
 
 I excused myself and pursued. Beyond the curtain was a tiny room, hot and damp. The only furniture was a wingback chair, which she sat on, and an ottoman. She pointed to the ottoman and I sat in front of her. 
 
 `` What is it that you seek?'' she asked, staring at my lips 
 
 `` Annihilation'' I said. 
 
 `` You could simply leap from a building to do that.'' 
 
 `` No, that would be too quick.'' 
 
 `` You need to suffer?'' 
 
 `` Yes. I want to obliterate not just my body, but my mind, memories, soul - if there is such a thing. All of it.'' 
 
 `` So something like a metaphysical bomb? ``, she smiled. I had found her quite alluring until that point. But there was something off about her smile. 
 
 `` Y-yes. Something like that.'' 
 
 She reached inside her robes and produced a small wooden box. She leaned forward and motioned me closer. She slowly opened the box. Inside was a slug. Well it looked like a slug, small, black and slimy, but the surface of it whirled like oil on a puddle. Her smile broadened and a crawling feeling traveled up my bowels. `` This is not a normal Bomb'' she said, `` It's a Soul Bomb.'' 
 
 At that moment I wanted to run. I wanted to get the hell out of there and move to the suburbs and get a dog. I saw a vision of myself watching a Little League game and eating sunflower seeds. But that was not this life. Here, I was frozen, slack-jawed with tears beginning to stream down my face. `` You are a worthless piece of shit'', she said putting emphasis on each word. I was n't sure if it was a statement or a question, but all I could do was nod. 
 
 In one motion she picked up the slug-thing with a pair of chopsticks and put it in my mouth. 
 
 And that is when it got weird. 
 
 
 
 
 
 

