I couldn’t help but think they were looking back at me. Amidst the bush or possibly from inside my house, but wherever they managed to manoeuvre to it was right outside of my periphery. Leaving just me and these three equidistantly placed boxes. Matte black they were with an overstated sharpness ominously gazing back at me from the base of my withering porch. Placed by seemingly the ghost of the wind here in the forrest some 40 kilometres from the first sight of existence.

My angst was lucky to have overpowered my deep unsettled worry, so I slowly brought the boxes in knowing I was likely already being spectated from an angle I could not yet crystallise. It was ritualistic the way I stood over them now drowning light from the hardwoods beneath. I couldn’t tell if it was the hum of life or a frequency they were emitting that put me even more on edge, but whatever it was, it fucking pierced me. As If I had already been here. In this position. As If I already knew what was in them.

I opened the first with a heavy breath. The air that was released from the tightly sealed grasp was intoxicating, but what was sat there was nothing more than a drink. A bottle. A black one. It was slender with no words about it. It had a metallic cap and a darkness to the liquid that floated about inside. my eyes shot up. i felt again someone watching, as I knelt there with this distinctive bottle up against my chest. I felt as though someone was right behind me. With an ax or a 9mm. So i tried not to move. I continued on as if it was all routine. Much like the singular word written art the base of the box. A simple directive that only a fantasy of me believed would be relieved of. But I knew I had no bargaining power. And I know my fate was already etched into the book. So with a shakiness that vibrated through my hand I brought the glass bottle to my lips and with the last bit of hopeful reluctances I began to drink the liquid. It was heavy, and deeply rich, but it was almost more flavourless than water. It went down cleanly with almost no aftertaste, but what it did leave behind was an eerie smell. Almost that of a marine.

Surely I had to know it was something of poison. But the threat seemed too bold to be the ultimate goal. I had a feeling I’d collapse and wake up right where they wanted me. A dream I envisaged multiple times over in a myriad of different ways. But today it felt more than real. But my eyes quickly turned to the second box. I wasted no time lifting off the cover as a single polaroid was left there. Its black face turned up. I slowly reached in unearth it, and as I brought it to my face i was met with an incredible amount of confusion that my ageing brain was not ready to deal with.

It was a woman. There she lay on a bed up against the headboard. Her eyes were hidden by the wildness of her hair that was draped in front her face. It was a dirty blonde that was as long as here frail arms. One of which was crossed back behind her leaning body. The other stretched out over a skirt that was hiked up. Exposing her lack of underwear and over grown bush. But what was obvious were the scars. About her wrists. About her chest. Glossed over by the dried blood that littered her protruding nose, her chin, her collar and the white blouse she was wearing. With a rubbered band tied round her arm. A small weathered syringe jutted out from her corpsed bicept.

I stared blankly into the photo. Not being able to make out exactly who it was. But I did notice something that sent a paralysing shock wave up my spine. Right below her knee.

I quickly set the photo down and reached into the final box and it was almost as If surprise could not find me. Because there lay another photo. This one. All the different, but all the same. It was a photo of a little girl. The last photo. A pink jumper with a star on the shoulder. White trainers, and pink short. With her hand held tightly by a woman I had not seen in in 25 years. Her blond hair was tied up into to tails and you could see happiness that I knew Id never forget, but would haunt me for the rest of my life. To everyone else she was lost at the age of 6. And I had to watch on as our friends and family searched the entire city. Spending countless hours. I had to watch on as she killed herself every day wondering when her daughter would come through the door. I had to watch on as day by day a normal woman’s life crumbled. As people turned. As rumours grew. As darkness fell. I had to watch on as if I had no clue. As I if I too was a victim. I had to watch on as if I was paying for a sin from a previous life when in truth, we simply went on a little trip.

When the drugs started I always thought I had them under control. I hid it from my wife and her. From everyone. But they could see it in my eyes. My scars. My disappearing hair. My teeth. They just assumed I had hit life at a different angle. but it was expensive. i gambled to get more gear. I cheated for it. I sold things we needed to get it. But when I met a foreign couple by chance, who wanted to adopt. The worst of me clicked. And so I took her on a little trip. A trip Ive tried to forget ever since. Tears flooded. As the picture began to blur out of vision. Seeing only the R shaped birthmark right beneath her knee. On that final day.

And in that moment. The room began to spin. like a domino outage I could feel my internals shutting down. I could feel strength and breath being drained from me as my body began shutting down. And mere moments later I collapsed to the ground. My head knocked hard on the woods with a thump as I prepared to take my last breaths. There was a good deal of pain. But I was happy. I was happy to pay. To pay it back. And right before my eyes began to give out. I could see her in the distance. Standing in the doorway. With a sharp vengeful look. It told me everything. pain. betrayal. Living death. And in that moment I could only feel a bit of guilt. As I felt I was getting an easy out. a far cry from the the torture I openly waited for for years hear in this cabin, in the middle nowhere.