#ae.edit

ADVERSE EFFECTS – two men recover from a psychosis-inducing drug while being haunted by a ghoulish apparition

Investigative journalist Jackson Seer thinks he can resurrect his failing career is by going head to head with a corrupt pharmaceutical company, and what better way to nose around than to enlist in one of their clinical trials? What he neglects to consider is how much jeopardy this might put him in, and when things fall apart, he's left grappling with the same unintended adverse effects as his fellow participants. His only hope to ever return to his normal life is a court-ordered, six-month inpatient rehabilitation program, even if it means he'll be miles away from all he's ever known. But now he's having flashbacks and seeing things and he's down half a leg, so what choice does he have?

And then, he develops a fascination with one of the other victims - tall, dark, Seif, the only one who's suffering holds a candle to his own, but also the only one who seems to appear when he's at his worst. Now, Jackson questions, will he ever be the same man he was before? Does he even want to be?

ADVERSE EFFECTS is an original work about isolation, mental illness, guilt and desire.

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He gestured and Seif let one of his hands dangle off the couch so Jackson could hold it, squeeze it, rub his thumb over Seif’s tendony knuckles, anchoring him back down to earth. “We’re going to be okay,” Jackson promised him.

If only that was something he could really control.

ADVERSE EFFECTS • read it here

Five days. Five days just gone, lost in a feverish blur of blood draws, pills, subcutaneous injections, shitty hospital food and more fucking vitals.

And the whole damn time, birds twittered in Jackson’s ears and someone whispered about him behind the curtain and the ram-skull apparition sat and watched him from the line of chairs beside his bed.

ADVERSE EFFECTS • read it here

“I understand why you did what you did.”

That wasn’t what Jackson wanted to hear – he hated being the object of pity. But as much as it was his nature to resist help, he was destroyed, devastated in every sense of the word. He wanted anyone – even Farooq – to tell him that what he’d been through was okay, that he didn’t have to hate himself for it.