It had been two weeks since they since the nightmare that nearly led to me overdosing. Four days of that time had been spent in hospital being slowly and painfully withdrawn from the medication before the Doctor stopped giving it to me altogether.

The rest of the time, I had spent wallowing at home in a whole lot of misery. I'd moved on from the initial overwhelming flood of emotions and now everything felt sort of...unreal. My mind was a fog of confusion filled with hallucinations and fear, the world some strange reflection of reality and my emotions anything from spiralling depression to nothing at all.

The Doctor's said it was normal after withdrawal from benzos but that didn't help my desperation to just feel normal again.

I was out in the forest, laying amongst the leaves on the forest floor, staring up through the branches at the folds of charcoal cloud, rolling across the sky in their thick fleets of grey. The air had turned to a bitter chill and the once gentle breeze had whipped up to the early blows of a gale. Even down on the sheltered ground, loose wisps of my hair danced at the edges of my face.

The crows and ravens had left their roosting perches in the trees to patrol the skies, painting endless feathery circles in the darkest of inks. They croaked and screamed and cried and shrieked, usurping the final signs of peace from the forest.

Soon enough, a single drop of rain fell onto my forehead and dripped down the bridge of my nose. I felt the smoothness of its movement and closed my eyes as another fell onto my cheek and then my hand and then my foot.

"Ella," a voice said from a few metres away.

I reopened my eyes to see Leo stood, his hair blowing in the wind and a soft expression on his lips. It'd been nearly all day since I left the house for what was meant to be a short walk so I had no reason to be surprised that he'd come to find me now.

"There's a storm coming," he told me.

"I know," I sighed.copy right hot novel pub