As Dog's Blood

It was supposed to be simple. Or at least kind of simple.
If not simple, then at least fun.
If not fun, then fuck it—at least some experience that would drag me out of my own skull for a while.

Thinking and not thinking, you know, that whole internet-guru-bullshit of “live in the moment” and all the rest of the nonsense.
Except in this case… how the hell was I supposed to think about not thinking while spending three full days cut off from the world without my brain immediately reminding me where I’d thrown away the last 3,653 days?
In other words, the last ten years.

I could already tell: if it was going to be simple, it wasn’t going to be fun. And vice versa.

So one of those internet-famous guys—“influencers,” as they call them these days—was running a contest.
The guy himself couldn’t have mattered less to me. “Mr. Something.” I didn’t even bother catching his name, honestly.
Creature? Thing? Beast? Something along those lines.

Knowing myself, I already knew signing up for anything run by an internet person was a terrible idea—especially when I’d barely skimmed the terms and conditions.
Does anyone actually read that shit? No one. Though they probably should.

From the scraps my brain bothered to hold onto, the event was pitched like one of those survival-challenge blogs, except only three days long and in a “remote but safe” spot.
Yeah, it felt off, but if I had to pick between that or actually going into some woods and pretending I knew how to build a shelter, option one was clearly the winner.

The prize wasn’t life-changing money, which is probably why most people didn’t swarm it. That “prize amount subject to increase without prior notice” line, though… that was weirdly specific.
Even if the money never went up and it was just badly executed bait, it would at least buy me enough breathing room to stop watching bills pile up while I gently concussed myself against the living-room table.
I’d even started seriously pricing out whether selling my ass was cheaper than losing the apartment.

Sign-up was braindead easy: send an email to the inbox, wait a week.
Hand over every personal detail they asked for.
Attach a photo.
Swear on your life you won’t breathe a word about what happened afterward.
That last part made me think this might be skating that thin gray line between legal and ilegal. And, more importantly, it made me think that if I wasn’t happy with the outcome, I could always try to play the blackmail card for a few extra bills.

The end justifies the means.
My end was not ending up on the street. My means were whatever it took.

The days after that dragged on exactly the same: stumble two blocks to the bar, drink as much as I could afford, tell the bartender to add it to the tab, argue about when the hell I was finally going to pay the mountain I’d built.
Before I left I’d always hit the bathroom—sometimes because I’d gone too far and needed to puke for real, other times just to jam fingers down my throat so tomorrow’s hangover wouldn’t split my head in two.

Nine times out of ten some guy would shuffle in right behind me.
I pretended not to notice, of course. I only watched him through the mirror.
Old. Reeking. Sad. Ass sagging. Probably already dying.
He’d wash his face at the sink, then curl up crying under the hand dryer like a kicked dog.
He looked a lot like me, I guess. Somehow not the same, but close enough to sting.
They say you really die the last time someone says your name out loud without a shitty adjective glued to it.
I couldn’t remember the last time anyone bothered to drop off the adjectives.

Thursday night someone left a box outside my door.
Plain, sender scratched out, small, not heavy at all.
Inside: a digital camera from the mid-2000s and a bottle that at first glance looked like some idiot energy-drink ad.
A printed note. Because obviously they weren’t going to hand write one for everyone.

The message was weird, poorly written, and—though it probably shouldn’t matter—set in Papyrus font, which made me think whoever handled this was someone’s nephew who barely knew his way around graphic design.
It said something along the lines of: “Drink this, find a place where no one will show up, film 72 uninterrupted hours, no phone, no ID, just water and food.”
I’m obviously paraphrasing.

I was going to lose the whole damn weekend… but I’d already lost so much for free, so complaining felt pointless. Besides, no one forced me into this.

The whole idea was to lock myself somewhere isolated, chug the stuff, and film whatever effects it had. Weird marketing campaign for an energy drink, vitamin supplement, or who-the-fuck-knows-what.
Even weirder: the note was copy-paste generic except for the last line, which was handwritten.
The location: St. James Hospital, specifically the nursing wing.

I instantly figured this was some classic YouTuber prank bullshit. After all, the hospital had been shut down longer than I could remember, and I’m not exactly plugged into what happens outside. I just knew it cause my mother had worked there for a few years.

I wasn’t planning to dig too deep into it anyway. The whole thing felt like the excuse of someone who didn’t know what to do with their time or how to push a product.

The walk to the hospital wasn’t long—ten, maybe fifteen blocks max. I could’ve taken a bus, but… money…
Maybe the first mistake was being impulsive. Yeah, I probably should’ve waited to drink the weird juice until I was already inside the spot, not before I even left home.

I could hear the streetlights humming. That low buzz of electricity feeding the bulbs… was that actually a sound, or was my head getting hypersensitive to every damn thing?
They looked brighter every minute, like spotlights aimed straight into my corneas no matter how hard I stared at the ground.

Did I pass anyone?
Was the street dirty or clean?
Didn’t care. Honestly. There was this prickling inside my skull, right between the bone and the brain. Uncomfortable. I just wanted to get there fast.

The streets blurred together. Walking wasn’t hard exactly, I could just feel every fiber of muscle contracting with each step.
Not pain, not cramps—just my muscles working, too aware. I kept wanting to scratch through my pants, hoping the itch would go away, but it didn’t help much.

I’d bet people saw me as some high-on-whatever homeless guy.
I could’ve turned back home. But I wanted to reach the place.
I was already in it. If they’d drugged me, fine, I fell for it. If I was losing my mind, about damn time.
If I was dying… well… death, you sure took your sweet time.

The hospital looked almost like I remembered it, just worn down by years. Not crumbling, exactly. I think they moved everything to a more central spot after the city expanded. This part just got… left behind, marginal, whatever you want to call it.

Three floors up to the nursing wing.
Two minutes in an elevator, if there’d been power.
Many minutes on the stairs.

I swear I wanted to pass out. Wasn’t going to, but I wanted to.
Every step made my kneecap feel like it was scraping against my femur. The steel handrail was too cold, like sticking your hand in a freezer for too long.
So cold it burned.

My body was ignoring the whole outside world and zeroing in on itself. That disoriented me.
Side effect? Intended effect? What the fuck had I swallowed?
Maybe it was some hallucinogen and this was all going to give them trippy footage. Probably why the instructions said to drink it after arriving, not before.

Too bad for them: I wasn’t just an idiot. I was impulsive and desperate.
If my body were a temple, I would already have started asking how much I could get for it.

I stumbled the rest of the way up, half-blind, backpack dragging.
Couldn’t lift my head. Even from the third floor the streetlights were still eating my vision, even the reflections off broken glass forced my eyes to slits.

I shoved into the first room where the handle turned, dropped the bag, collapsed on the floor trying to pull myself together.
Inhale two seconds, hold four, exhale slow six.
I only knew that trick from nights when I was too drunk and didn’t want to puke, but weirdly it worked for calming down too.
Heart rate dropped. Normal. Normal and wrong. You’re not supposed to feel every beat like you’re holding your own heart in your palm, but I was doing my best not to pay attention to my body.

“Just… three days…” I said out loud to myself. If no one else is here, talking to yourself isn’t crazy or stupid.

It took a while for my eyes to adjust to the dark.
A couple of barely rusted gurneys, some worthless equipment they hadn’t bothered to haul away, the usual hospital furniture.
I thought about where to put the camera—some corner, some high spot.
If the point was uninterrupted footage, no blind spots. Yeah, I felt like shit, but if I was going through this I was damn well making sure I got paid.

I ended up setting it on one of those cabinets where they keep syringes and supplies. Hit record, sat on the floor in front of it, leaned my back against a gurney frame.
Probably should… what? Wave? Introduce myself? Nothing was specified, but anything that might earn extra points was worth it.

“So… uh… hi to—” Something rose in my throat. Not vomit, didn’t feel like it. I clamped my hand over my mouth, fighting to swallow and keep going. “H-Hi… everyone… my nam—”

Before I could finish, something started coming out of my mouth. Thick, horrible. Not spit. Mucous that didn’t drip or fall on its own.
Panic hit because whatever it was, it was blocking my air. I jammed fingers down my throat and tried to pull it out.
Breathing stuttered, but bit by bit I dragged whatever the hell it was.

The last piece—if you could call it a piece—I couldn’t take it out. Every tug felt like something in my stomach pushed back. Not pain, just… deep wrong discomfort.
Swallowing it again was brutal, and the taste kept me right on the edge of puking up everything I’d eaten in the last week.

Because the taste was citrus.
Almost exactly like the stuff from the bottle.