Scream Silently

Dalton tired of pacing back and forth in the hospital. The air smelled heavy of anesthetic and the hum of the fluorescent lighting began to make his head ache. Scarlett wasn’t waking up, the doctors weren’t telling him anything, and he left while he still was conscious about losing his mind.
Home felt strange. The empty bottles of pills had previously been thrown away, but their shadows still remained in his head. They watched him, taunting him, just like the slender figure that lingered in the doorway.
Nothing was there. Dalton was alone in his house. His family had gone to church.
Did they know the ambulance came last night? Did they find out he snuck Scarlett in? He was gone when they woke up, but they wouldn’t have known he wasn’t just sleeping in.
They went to church. Today is Sunday. Since when did it become the weekend?
Dalton’s head ached worse. He couldn’t focus on a single thought; his mind shifted with the minute hand of the grandfather clock that he didn’t remember his family even having.
Dalton paced back and forth about the house. He went to eat in the kitchen, and the memory of the pills would make him sick to his stomach. He went to take a nap in his bed and all he could see was Scarlett’s face, tainted by the poison he should have stopped her from taking.
Why didn’t he watch her more closely? It was his fault she overdosed. He could have stopped her. He knew she hid things from him. And then he would tell himself that it’s too late to worry about blame, but there was nothing else he could fix his mind on. His racing thoughts wouldn’t shut up, not on their own…
So that’s when self-medication took Dalton.
The deep red liquid poured into the glass quite nicely, sticking to the sides when swirled around. This was the most expensive bottle in the wine closet, hopefully that parallels to best tasting, not that he planned to remember the taste when he was done.
The bitter alcohol stung his mouth, leaving a foul odor lingering on his tongue. With each glass it got worse, but still he continued.
Two, three, four, five, and the bottle was empty. Dalton giggled, hiccuping slightly while lying on the ground. The room was spinning, but it was the best kind of spinning ever, so he closed his eyes and let the feeling drown out what little amount of thought he had left.