User

It wasn't very long before he started using it himself. Distance, that's what he would say, him, distance. Always keep a good long distance between you and the users. Keep too much, though, you end up alone.

He was without friends, wasn't he? He was the lone wolf, that's how he fancied himself, but it didn't really work. He didn't feel wolf-like, he wasn't vicious and he wasn't proud. He tried to be, he tried to be these things. But a man surrounded by monsters is likely to become monstrous, even in sad small ways.

It would start as a little thing, one here, one there, loosen up, fun night, get talking, start moving, how are you. A drink, another, another, yeah, pretty soon the night is morning and the morning is day and you're hooked. He saw himself not looking at the crowd but in it. Saw himself in sideways faces, saw himself in couch vomit.

Friends came, sure, friends and girls. And that's what he wanted, wasn't it? This is who he was trying to be. He didn't mean for things to go bad. Things just, after a while, go bad. But he was surrounded by other people going bad, too, just like him, just like them, for on and on and on.