The pain was enough to make tears stream instantly from my eyes. My whole face burned, from my nose all the way back to the centre of my brain, then down my throat as far as the top of my lungs. It was a violent, torturous feeling, as though I was being attacked.
Then the MDMA took effect and my mind seized solid. Time seeming to stop as fireworks went off in my head and the reality around me collapsed. In the first second I knew there was nothing I could do to fix this. It was beyond any sensation I’d ever felt. I’d made the biggest mistake.
I heard talking behind me, a couple of lads carrying cans of beer made their way down towards the party.
“Oi oi raver!” one of them shouted to me.
I dropped to my knees and threw up on the floor, my body doing its best to rid me of the toxins but it was too late. For that to work now I would need to lose blood.
“Are-you-alright-mate?” his words came out in one long unpunctuated slow motion sentence.
I couldn’t answer. My face didn’t work. My whole body was numb. I was dying.
I needed to find my friends, they would be the only people who could help me now. I picked myself up from the floor and managed to run away towards the music, before being hit by an electrocuting paranoia that reduced me to something between a walk and a crawl. It felt like the world had become infinitely bigger and I had become the same multiple smaller. I continued down the worn path in the grass verge, nearly tripping over my own feet as I struggled to focus on the world around me. The world didn’t matter now; the only thing on my mind was Al. He could help me, or one of the others. But it was Al I wanted really. I’d known Al forever. I just needed to spot that bright yellow hat.
I was close enough now to see the people dancing, enjoying themselves, doing what I should have been doing. Then something hit me like a second wave. The aftershock to a narcotic earthquake rocking me on my feet. Flowers started to grow out of the heads of everyone on the dance floor; brightly coloured sunflowers in a constantly changing kaleidoscope of vivid greens, pinks, yellows and reds. I squinted and shook my head until they went away, scanning all around me for faces I knew. There weren’t any. I only had to look at someone for a second and the flowers came, adding about two feet to their height. It was terrible, too much to handle and all the while the bass from the speakers punched me in the guts. I needed calming sounds right now and this music was as calm as breaking glass. I had to get away. I wanted to run but I could barely walk, staggering down the coastal path as fast as I could, occasionally stopping to look back at the party to see if anything had changed.
In the distance the colours of the dance floor erupted into the sky like some hideous volcano. I was pretty sure I was doing the right thing in getting away.
Then I heard Paul shout down the microphone, “I’m an intercontinental ballistic ecstasy missile, on a crash course to tear a fucking hole in your brain gristle!”
Sod that.
The sound was the first thing to fade away; but I kept on going until I couldn’t see the light either, staggering my way down that same path that had filled me with excitement on the way here. When finally it was quiet and dark, and I knew I was alone enough that I could forget about the party, I looked for somewhere to hide. There were a row of beach huts, on short stilts leaving a gap underneath where I wouldn’t be seen. I crawled under one in the middle, lying on my side on the cold concrete, curled up with my arms and legs pulled in close to my body.
Being alone in the dark gave me a chance to reassess how I felt. The numbness had gone, and now I could feel my heart beating at a ridiculous rate. My mouth was desert dry, and my vision still blurred. I even had moments where I could only see in black and white. Any form of light; the stars, the half moon, even a light atop the mast of a boat on the distant horizon shook violently and made my head spin. Not even being here alone with the cool sea breeze on my face and the sound of gentle waves crashing against the shore seemed to help. I cursed the boat for mocking me. Time still had no register, I only knew that I had been like this for minutes that felt like days. There was nothing I could do but wait for the sun to come up. Some sort of primal instinct kicks in when the sun rises, sobering you up almost instantly, if I could survive until then I should be fine. Just lay here for now and try not to be seen. Forget about the terrible mass of people, they can’t get you now. Forget about the flowers, the music and the wasted night. Just keep breathing, everything else is a bonus.