The TV is the sole light source, preventing my living room from falling into that heavy, pre-paralysis silence. I’m tracing the claw marks on my ribs again. This time, they're exactly parallel, raw to the touch, and reappearing every night despite my nails being bitten to the quick.

The Secretary of HHS returns to primetime television with a silver mane and criminally expensive suit. He’s talking about House Bill 109, the "Spiritual Integrity Act." Behind him, the ticker tape scrolls: PX-77 CLASSIFIED AS SCHEDULE I: U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL CALLS FOR ‘TOTAL PURGE’ OF STREET SUPPLY.

We are not just fighting a drug, he claims from the digital pulpit. That this is a chemical mimicry of the Divine. Their ilk believed PX-77, or "Exorcism Formula," was "perjury of the soul," a counterfeit salvation sold by cartels to the disillusioned. It was false spiritual sanctity altered and perfected in bathtub labs. Small price to pay for mass hypocrisy of the cloth and rapidly declining attendance, in my opinion.

I look down at the vial in my hand. The gold liquid inside looks like a melted shard of Vatican riches. According to the news, I’m not just an addict; I’m a heretic. A "threat to the moral fabric of this country."

The irony is a bitter pill. The Church couldn't fix my sleep paralysis (or was it demonic visitation?), and the State wants me incarcerated for trying to bleach them away myself. They’ve turned Exorcism Formula into another bogeyman; meanwhile, fundamentalist talking heads are calling for mandatory PX-77 'cleansing' in the private prison circuits to 'rehabilitate' the violent, while simultaneously demanding life sentences for anyone caught with a single CC of it on the street. I'm not even going to begin trying to sort that one out in my head.

It’s the perfect loop. The prison-industrial complex is licking its chops.

Meanwhile, I drifted from the church decades ago. I’m done with seeking spiritual counseling from closet pedophiles, the divine right of kings, bullshit "holy wars," and the sermons about demons from grifters who look like they’ve never seen a shadow move in their lives. Yet something is still in the room with me. Something that presses its weight onto my chest almost every night at 3:00 AM until my lungs feel like collapsing bellows. I'm tired of not sleeping.

My heart was about to explode while paranoia twisted my gut. I couldn't tell which to be more afraid of: sleep paralysis demons or the ever expansive federal government. One wants my fear; the other wants my "compliance."

I press the nozzle to my nose, shaking so hard the plastic clicks against my teeth. I inhale.

Lightning strikes between my eyes before scorching my spinal cord. Talking heads smear into a kaleidoscope of predatory blurs. The room tilts at uncomfortable angles, and for a fleeting, chemical second, I feel the "self" begin to evaporate. My vision inverts; shadows glow a sickly neon and white walls become timeless voids.

My back arches as my feet leave the ground. This must be what seizures feel like, only worse, perhaps. It was like a meat hook has snagged my soul, dragging it out through my throat. Through warped static, I see a familiar swarm of apparitions standing outside my window, seeming more frustrated instead of threatening.

Exorcism Formula floods my synapses, bleaching neural pathways. My "self" is being scrubbed away, blemishes and all. The Bishop doesn't matter. Hypocrisy doesn't matter. Disillusion doesn't matter. I’m becoming a vacuum, a space so empty and sterile that nothing can inhabit it. Like my entire spiritual self is being oppressively cleansed with lye.

I watch the shadows outside dissolve, unable to cling to a mind that is no longer "home."

Hours later, the ceiling fan is just a blurry propeller in the dark. Waking up on the floor, my limbs felt like lead pipes, containing a cold, clinical silence. The scratches on my ribs are now scars. I check the time. It's 3:00 AM.