A drink it is. Probably a good idea, you haven’t seen your friends in years, let alone spoken to some of them, so you could use some social lube for the occasion. You enter the room. It’s hot…and wet. Why is it so wet? Steaming bodies dance, violently you might add, in mass around a makeshift DJ stand, strobe lights and two tall speakers at the end of the room. Everyone is sweating. Even the walls seem to be sweating. You’re not one for dancing, sober that is, and you’ve never felt more sober than you do in this room right now. Grab a drink and get out you say to yourself. There’s a short, but slow, line at the cooler. Everyone in front of you is filling and chugging at least two or three cups at the cooler. Fill, chug, repeat. Finally, you’re up. You grab a plastic cup, reach down and fill it. The drink is clear; vodka soda maybe? Or G&T? You remember years of sugary punches, the kind that split your head the next morning and stained every white shirt you ever made the mistake of wearing out. You take a sip…this is water! Confused, you turn to a student behind you.
“This is wa-,” but before you can finish they’re at the cooler filling two cups with uncontained excitement. They chug the first and pour the second over their head.
“I love water! Water is lyfe, l-y-f-e lyfe” they say through a wide smile to no one in particular. You not even sure they heard you.
This is fucking weird. You want to get out of this room, maybe find your friends, but before you can make it out you’re stopped. A student, sophomore maybe, of an almost astonishingly nondescript appearance grabs your right arm.
“Alumni, huh,” they say. Your not entirely sure if this is a question, but you can tell they have more to say so you just nod your head yes. “For you,” they say as they drop something into the palm of your hand. It’s a pill.
“What is this?” you ask.
“Welcome back! For alum – free,” and with that, they disappear into a well-timed puff from the smoke machine near your feet.
You shout hopelessly into the smoke, “Hey! What is this!?”
You try to see what it is, but under the stobe’s rapid flurry it’s impossible to tell. It’s not like you know anything about pills anyways. You haven’t touched any drug other than melatonin in years. You don’t have time for drugs these days, or if you’re being honest the money. But you’re back at college, you did drugs in college a couple times! Like that one time you did whippets with an empty can of Cheez-whiz. You can practically hear your friends chanting Do it! Do it! Do it! Hell, this is a special occasion right. Besides, it’s probably just Adderall or something similar. So what will it be?
Homecoming of Horrors 