47- Oxycodone

  I noticed that my hand was trembling. This always happened when I woke up. After so many hours without a pill I got the shakes. Naked, I walked into the bathroom and turned on the light. I reached for the plastic bottle I kept in a pouch. I’d tossed it onto the counter after I’d checked in to the resort. I tapped out a pill into the palm of my hand and popped it into my mouth. Then I turned on the faucet, cupped my hands, and filled them with enough water to chug down the medication.

  My reflection in the mirror stared back at me. I was certainly no longer thirteen years old. I wasn’t sure how old I was, although I was “created” in 1964. That was the downside of being a test-tube baby.

  I snapped the lid back on the pill bottle. There was no label. I’d obtained the oxycodone illegally, so there was no prescription information. Besides, no doctor in his right mind would have prescribed these powerful painkillers for as long as I’d been taking them.

  I supposed people would say I was addicted, but actually I could quit anytime I wanted. I just didn’t want to. I was pretty sure that, because of how I’m wired, the oxycodone didn’t affect me as it would a “normal” person. I started taking the pills after the injury. I really needed painkillers at the time. But even after I’d healed, I found I liked the effects. The pills didn’t dope me up the way they would most people. Instead, they cleared my head and calmed me down.

  Granted, if I didn’t take one after so many hours, I got a headache that was unbearable, I became anxious and jittery, and I had vivid nightmares. I never used to experience anxiety. Never. Now I did if I didn’t take the pill. Did that mean I was addicted? In my own way, perhaps.

- Hitman: Damnation, chapter 1