Alive

This is something I wrote after the first time I saw Requiem For a Dream. I wanted to begin at the end and backtrack (sort of like Fight Club - hence the Tyler Durden reference) and I think I've done pretty well with it. Check it out, see what you think.

Alive

It's what Tyler Durden would call a near-life experience. She collapses, the gun dropping to the floor and blood gushing from the stumps of her severed fingers. The bullet has formed a small hole in her side and burst out the other side of her body, forming a bloody wound in her back the size of a child's fist. As her consciousness subsides, she realises that she is, tragically, still alive.

The dream begins simply enough. She is standing on a beach, a white dress hanging off her shoulders, skimming stones which are swallowed by the sea. Her toes dig into the warm sand, an experience she would normally enjoy, but there is something sinister about it here, alone on this beach. Her feet suddenly feel heavy, flesh becomes like concrete, dragging her down into the sand. The pebbles in her hand weigh her down; she struggles to pull her feet out of the sand and shouts out a man's name, hoping he will help her. Then Roger approaches, dressed in a suit and tie, his shoes pristine, sand-free. He watches her struggling, sees her sinking further, keeping her mouth closed and breathing heavily through her nose as the beach engulfs her.
He watches her, smiles and says calmly, "Die."

She wakes. The first things she sees are her left index and middle finger, ripped off and lying side by side in a small pool of blood about two feet away from her. Opening her eyes further, she sees the dead man on the other side of the room, the one who shot her. Strangely, she feels no pain and is calm, remembering how she got here, how it all began.

Jimmy is a pusher and an addict. He loves her as much as a heroin user can love something that doesn't require a syringe and a vein. She is important to him because she can get drugs. Every now and then he looks at her and wonders what would happen if she died. Would he sell himself for drugs like she does? Are his fixes that important? He tries to picture himself getting fucked. He tries to imagine being on his knees while surrounded by men. He thinks of warm sperm hitting his face. He opens his eyes and takes a drag on his cigarette.
"I'm going out," she says, getting up from the worn chair in the corner of the room. "Shouldn't be too long, okay? Do you want me to get you anything?"
He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a slim stack of twenty-pound notes, holds them up to her. "Go and see Roger for me, would you?"
"Jimmy, for fuck's sake." This is the second time this week. She's pissed off, but he knows she'll do it for him. Her addiction is not as strong as his. She's still able to separate the real from the drug-haze, still able to feel things on an emotional level. Jimmy passed that stage weeks, maybe months, ago. Emotions are for wankers. All he needs to feel is that needle pricking his arm and the pure, unadulterated sense of ecstasy that follows to know that he's still alive.
She sighs, takes the money. "I hope you know what you're asking me to do." She kisses his hands. "I'll be two hours, then."

The taste of his cock still lingers on her tongue; the slippery wetness of his come is still sweet on its tip. She rolls over onto her right hip, tenderly fingering the small hole in her left side but afraid to inspect the real damage, the explosion in her lower back. There is blood everywhere, his and hers converging in the middle of the room. She tries to struggle to a sitting position, but it's difficult - she's losing feeling in her legs, though whether this is because the bullet has gone through her spine (she suddenly wonders if it might have done) or because she has lain inert, in an awkward pose for an hour now at least, she doesn't know. Using her elbows and hands to push herself along, she half-crawls towards Roger's dead body. Upon reaching her severed, torn fingers, just two feet away, she breathes in sharply, a gasp, and vomits.

"Roger?"
There's no answer, but that's not unusual. He's sometimes sitting in the living room, quiz shows on television turned up way too loud, but that isn't the case today. Peering through the thin net curtains, shielding her eyes from the glare of the street reflected in the window, she sees that Roger's not even in the room. The television stands black and silent. Making her way round to the back of the house, she calls his name again, then says her own, thinking that this may elicit some response. As she reaches the kitchen, a knuckle taps on the window from inside. Roger stands in there, framed in the glass. He gestures toward the back door, and she waits outside it while he fetches the key. The door opens, and a cold smile slithers across his face.
"Come in."

Finally, an excruciating half hour later, she is just barely able to push herself up onto her knees. She kneels over the body, breathless, her own body sore. Tasting him still in her mouth, she spits violently on his dead face and then uses her sleeve to wipe her lips, to get rid of his stench on her tongue.
Her own gun, still lying in her blood, is empty, and though she knows he is dead, she needs to deliver a parting shot, a final fuck you. Wrestling Roger's cold fingers from his pistol is not easy without two of her own.
She cocks the gun.
"Cunt."
Bang.

This is the degrading part. Roger is old enough to be her father, but it is the only way for her to get the drugs they need. The money alone is not enough and after she gives it to him, he leans forward, his grey lips puckered.
This will only take a minute, perhaps two. She leans forward too, lightly kissing him and closing her eyes. He pulls her into him, and she breathes in his smell, cigar smoke and sweat. He starts to unzip his trousers, and pushes her down to her knees, easing his wrinkled cock out of his underwear. She supposes that it serves her right, really. She's always had a rape fantasy. As she takes him into her mouth, however, she remembers what she is doing, and wishes she were dead.
She feels the butt of her gun, secreted in her knickers for emergencies only. The head of Roger's cock begins to pulsate, to feel bigger, heavier in her mouth and she realises that he is about to come. He grabs her hair, pushes her face into his crotch and cries out. She reaches into her knickers unseen, holds the pistol in her right hand and, just as he comes, brings the gun out of her underwear and presses it into his belly. She fires once, stumbling backward, his sperm still warm in her mouth.
Roger goes to the floor, screaming in pain. The bullet leaves his body somewhere in his upper back, near the shoulder blade. She advances on him and cocks the gun, squeezing the trigger once more. Click.
Nothing.
Click.
Nothing.
New strength allows Roger to kick her in the stomach, sending her sprawling back. He quickly draws his own gun (from where? She is sure he didn't have one before) and fires. Two of her fingers, the index and middle fingers of her left hand, are ripped off and the bullet punctures her left side, careering through flesh and muscle, to exit violently through her lower back. She falls to her knees once more, and Roger dies, screaming in pain.
It's what Tyler Durden would call a near-life experience. As her consciousness subsides, she realises that she is, tragically, still alive.