text: It was every student’s dream. The ability to learn on the job. Studying was a thing of the past. Each morning he would wake up, his coffee already brewed, his toast just pushed down. He'd put on his slippers as the blinds slowly raised, Beethoven’s 9th swirling around his ear. He stretched out his arms and let out a small grunt before standing up and making his way to the bathroom. His half of the bed made itself behind him. He picked up his toothbrush and the screen lit up, ‘3,856,923 CREDITS’, ‘TOOTHPASTE?, 5 CREDITS’, followed by a green tick and red ‘X’, he pressed the tick and held his toothbrush in the small hole in the bottom of the screen, he watched as the number trickled down, ‘3,856,918 CREDITS’. About a second later exactly 0.25g of ‘Toothpaste’ dispensed onto the brush. He took the brush from the hole and brushed his teeth, as he prepared the razor. He felt around his temple to find the patch before raising the razor and shaving the light stubble that had grown over the weekend, excitement filled his veins, he was going back to work. His body filled with bliss every time he walked through the main entrance of the hospital, he shook with adrenaline as he threw on his white coat. Lights flickered, blinds crashed like waves on the windowsill, complete pandemonium. Barely sitting at a table in the cafeteria, squatting over the chair, ready to take off at an instant, tapping the side of his mug, scratching his neck, waiting for his call. “TOM!” he heard being called from the emergency entrance. He took off, busted through the café doors, almost knocking over a nurse as he barged past her, his shoes screeched on the hard, shiny floor around every corner. He didn’t utter a word to the nurse at the patient’s bedside, it was already set up, he tried so hard to hide his grin a tear fell down his cheek. He stuck the node to his temple and put on the hair net. It lit up like a firework display, and he felt it immediately, he knew exactly what it was, he’d felt it a million times before, but he leeched every second he could get. It was a heart attack, the feeling that your entire chest has been squished down into a thimble, it was agony, and he fucking loved it. He felt everything, but it wasn’t enough. He started going in on weekends, just pacing up and down the wards, the hospitals were short of staff, they took all the help they could get. He didn’t even need to wait any more patients asked for him, they came in one after another, Appendicitis, Lung Cancer, Brain Cancer, he found things the doctors weren’t even looking for, he was a lifesaver, a superhero. Over the course of the next few months, he saved hundreds if not, thousands of lives. Medical journals all over the world praised him, one of only 5 in the entire world, he dedicated his life to his craft. He even began taking the hair net home, for ‘experiments’. He’d use it in the bedroom, his wife was fine with it at first, but going from one orgasm at a time to two wasn’t enough, he wanted more, he started hair-pulling, slapping, then punching, grabbing, squeezing. He was a mess, it wasn’t long before she left him, leaving him alone, still craving, shaking, scratching. He began cutting himself, he couldn't go too far, he still had to go to work. But he was a doctor, he knew how far he could go. He wouldn't even remember most nights, he’d just wake up in a bathtub of blood and semen, take a quick shower and get to work as quick as he could. Of course, they noticed the scars, at first, they wouldn’t say anything, but his superiors grew concerned and forced him to leave, it was only temporary, a few months at worst but he knew he couldn’t last that long... Home alone with razors, knives, hooks, screws, he was a kid in a candy shop, and he couldn’t get enough. The more it hurt the more he wanted it, the deeper he went, but there was something missing, it just wasn’t the same. When a 7-year-old child is rushed into hospital screaming in pain, they’re terrified, scared for their life, he knew, he knew that anything he did, would be non-fatal. The pain was a mere side by now, the fear was the main course, and he was starving. He knew that only a few nurses patrolled the wards through the night, he also knew the door that was left unlocked for mere convenience, the paediatrics ward, it was so they could rush in if they heard a scream or if a child had a nightmare, it only opened one way but getting out didn’t even cross his mind. He snuck in through the back entrance, limping through the pain of last night's ordeal. He opened the door, 6 beds, 4 children, only one behind a curtain... he could barely contain himself. He hooked himself up, shaking in excitement, the hair net lit up, he felt nothing. He was furious. He wrapped his hands gently around the child’s neck, hoping to wake her, then he felt it, but it still wasn’t enough. He tightened his grip, she clawed at his hands, she couldn’t even scream. This was it, the high he had been chasing, fear, pain and death all stirred up into the perfect cocktail and he drank it all in one gulp. They found him the next morning, dead, by the child’s bedside, missing both ears, the tip of his nose, long slits down the back of his thighs, everything you can imagine and so much more, yet still, there he lay, the edges of his mouth raised in a sadistic, mocking grin.