Kids And Drugs

• Katie Marshall, Grade 8
• Short Story
• 2009

That night as I lay in my bed I remembered what happened on that terrible night all those years ago. It changed my life forever and I will never forget it.

*FLASHBACK*

We were 16. My best mate and I, Michael, were out partying at a club on a Friday night. It was just one of those nights where everyone went wild. No one cared what they drank, smoke or took. As long as they were having a good time.

It must have been nearing 3 in the morning when it happened. We’d been taking Ecstasy all night and it had just been normal. All the normal effects but nothing funny. Then a new song came on and we started dancing our hearts out just after a bit of a lull in activity. A new bag of Ecstasy had just come to the dance floor and everyone wanted some. I saw Michael dancing with some girl and I remember thinking how hot she was. I saw her place two E tablets on his tongue. I moved across the dance floor to be closer to her.

That’s when Michael started twitching. I thought it might have been some weird new dance move that he was doing but when he started slumping and falling. That’s when I knew something was wrong. Very wrong. I started yelling. I don’t know what I was yelling but I can remember people looking at me strange as I tried to push my way through an almost solid wall of pulsating flesh. I remember when people realised I wasn’t just shouting for no reason they also went into a frenzy of trying to clear the way. When Michael was finally lying on the floor, in plain sight, twitching and frothing at the mouth. Up until that moment everything seemed surreal. My body was there but my head wasn’t. I was shaking him and praying to God that he would wake up. Tears were streaming down my face and I was screaming at someone to get an ambulance.

I remember by the time the ambulance got there it thought that there was no chance for my best friend of 16 years. I had felt his neck and I could not find a pulse.

His last words to me were “Tell mum I love her”.

*END OF FLASHBACK*

Looking back on it, it really saddens me that young guys have access to drugs like that and that they are able to get into clubs at that age. I'm also aggrieved that I lost such a good life long friend who was there for me through anything and everything, and that he lost his life because he wanted to have a good time. Now, 13 years later, I'm in the state government and working to minimise and, in the end, hopefully completely eradicate these types of deaths.

By Katie Marshall