Addiction was common in the Dorian family. Both sides, if we're being honest about this trip into my genetics. My mother's side of the family has more documented details as her nationality allowed for some semblance of organization of familial records. The United States was far more reliable than the great nation of what are we calling it today, Zimbabwe? My father's family remains "Rhodesian", as my birth certificate also says. The records of any kind of his family or his past were destroyed somewhere along the line in some form of conflict. Then again, maybe my own affinity for chronic issues stemmed from being born in the nothingness of the tribe my father belonged to. Poverty allows all kinds of issues to fester and breed like bacteria; substance abuse replicated itself like a cancer through the poverty that infiltrated both my mother and father's lives even before they crossed paths some fateful mission trip through my mother's college to my father's area. You could expect to find my mother's trials with different substances littered throughout her infantile college career. You could expect to find the lives of my older sisters whose fates were marred with absolute uncertainty and the worst kind of misogyny an individual could expect. And me? I didn't touch any of my preferred vices until there were events horrific enough that I don't quite remember the details. Perhaps that's m brain's form of protection, perhaps it's a kind of childish attempt at keeping any kind of personal blame out of the situations I had found myself in. I wanted to offer both Lilla and Garrison Dorian the blame of my addiction. Addictions. They fostered the void inside me that needed the help of a substance to survive, right? Granted, there were points of lucidity that I offered myself the kindness of accepting my responsibility in whatever myriad of events that created the cocktail that I lost myself in. And, then again...

It was solely my fault that I was suffering through amber waves and drowning in the tide, now.

If only I had some kind of momentary affinity for consciousness that would have allowed me to question Isolt's prowess with the knife that had materialized in her hand; that consciousness didn't exist anywhere in my reach. I had no reason to even attempt to brace for the pain that was surely to come as a consequence of the sharp edge of her scalpel, though Isolt's kind words suggesting that I breathe slowly and deeply reminded me I should be in pain. The sharp twinge of discomfort never came, though I was cognizant of the way the knife slide between layers of my skin, attempting to allow some part of the fowl infection festering inside me to seep from my body. How many times had I been here before? They were too numerous to count. Elenore, Calliope, Nautika... My sisters had helped scourge the wreckage I left in my wake, trying to do what Isolt was currently doing but without her professionalism or her experience. How their lives would have been easier had I accidentally succeeded... The tide of dark thoughts was coming in rather than pulling out back to sea. And instead of allowing myself to wade through the harsh waves, I let the darkness fade over and I kept my eyes shut, delegating myself to trying to feel the pain of her knife in my skin as it encouraged the infection to leave.

No longer was I lost in blood-red dirt laden streets and amber tainted memories; instead I was thrust into what my current scenario was. The gentle touch of the cool cloth on my forehead would see a sigh fall from my lips as I began to acknowledge that I wasn't lost somewhere on a continent thousands of miles away, and it encouraged my eyes to flick open and meet the blue of Isolt's own. In the azure depths, it was no secret that there was a familiarity to this situation. That empathy and understanding alone caused me to try and regain some kind of control over my consciousness and keep my eyes open instead of succumbing into my internal desire to slip into tainted sleep.

If she had desired to keep such a familiarity a secret, there would be clandestine locks on her empathetic eyes when instead, there was only a sort of warmth that, had I not been the recipient, I would have been critical of. Was it her father? A boyfriend? A brother? Feeling less than fantastic but less feverish, I raised my gaze to her's in order to allow Isolt to understand I was prepared to give her answers, even if it was only out of gratitude and not a need to create some kind of intimate bond or friendship.

"I don't want that to happen again..." I offered the tidbit as a way to let Isolt know I was open to her questions and I might actually be amiable enough to give her answers as a sort of retribution for the intrusion. "..And Isolt? I'm sorry I put this on you..."
"