David never really knew his biological parents, as he was abandoned at birth by both parents. He hopped around family member to family member for the first few weeks of his life until finally his Uncle stepped in and took David into his care. His Uncle, “Dude”, didn’t know too much about caring for a child but he made a promise to David that he wasn’t going to fail him. It was a difficult adjustment and oftentimes his Uncle wondered if he was the right man for this kind of job, but David was growing strong and well and really turning out to be okay, Dude thought. That was a good sign for him.

By the time David was 6, David’s parents had another baby; a little girl this time. Not wanting anything to do with this child either, it was Uncle Dude who showed up first to quickly pick up Sophie and take her into his care. He felt he had done a good job with David and was confident he could care and provide for Sophie as well. While their parents were allowed to visit their two children, they rarely did; most of the time they interacted was during big holiday get-togethers–so maybe twice a year at best? Still, they both had Uncle Dude, and that seemed to be enough for the two Leatherhoff children.

Growing up, David was exposed to drugs fairly early on, even if Dude always found some “wholesome” way to explain it away (usually defaulting to that it was his “health pipe” but it was for adults and didn’t work on kids). David started smoking when he was 15, much to his Uncle’s disapproval despite his own vices. Thus, David started hiding it more and more. When he was 17, he finally got into marijuana. When he was 19, he experimented with smoking meth and taking shrooms. And so on. Eventually, he found he mostly liked to smoke cigarettes and weed overall.

Through most of his life, he was the social kid; always having friends, even if most of them were superficial. He learned how to take things in stride for the most part but deep down he was always afraid of abandonment, afraid of being alone, and afraid of being nothing. That’s why he got high with buddies most of the time. He never went to college after high school but Sophie? Sophie did and he was damn proud of her for doing so. In fact, Sophie is how he met a young man named Simon Henriksson. The kid seemed so lonely so David made sure to extend his hand of kindness and friendship out to Simon, quickly forming a bond with him. Everything seemed good for David thus far.

That was until he started to have terrible nightmares. In hindsight, it could have been the occasional meth use, but David was desperate for relief. He never thought about therapy as his first option as he was giving in to the bias of it being bad. So, instead, he turned to the underbelly of the internet to find something that could help. Some strain of weed, some kind of drug he could take before bed, anything. Finally, he got a hit when somebody said they could get him some pills that could help all his troubles go away. He was ecstatic and when he finally got his hands on these mystery pills, he didn’t think twice before swallowing them down. That was just the beginning of the end…

Since then, David has struggled to keep sober, using drugs more often and not just the mystery pills. Everything came to a head when that day came around. “The Black Day” David has since called it. He was out driving at night, coming home from a smoking session with one of his buddies, when something showed up in his rear view mirror, a terrifying visage of his own self with hollowed out eyes, blood dripping down his lips, and a noose around his neck. Freaked out, David swerved his car out of a reflexive impulse, running into a nearby wall. But that wasn’t all he ran into… When he heard a scream, he got out of his car and saw he had pinned his best friend–Simon–in between the wall and his car. Panicked, he fled the scene, leaving Simon and his car behind.

Though there was a lot of tension, David still made it a point to visit Simon in the hospital with Sophie accompanying him. It was pure anger at first and rightfully so; Simon had become paralyzed in his legs because of David’s accident. Eventually Simon began to ease up and decided against pressing charges, even though he was still slightly resentful of David. From then, David’s guilt ate him alive and he kept abusing drugs just to run away from his feelings of guilt and self loathing. He was falling deeper and deeper into a pit of despair.

Nowadays, David hears Simon is actually regaining control of his legs as it seems the paralysis was only temporary. Sophie is working on her classes. And David? David is struggling between wanting to get clean and not knowing how. He’s leaned on drugs through most of his pain, what would he be without them? What will he be when he has to face all the bad shit he’s done in life and stop running away from it all?