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Chapter One 3/4

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"Thirteen bottles of beer on the wall"

"Are you sure you want me to come?" Barry sounded confused, yet somewhat hopeful. "Why not Jordan?"

Stepping through the doorway and back into the cold of night, Adam turned to look over his shoulder at Barry. "Jordan wants to wait behind, but you have to come - You're plan B." Adam turned right towards the square and picked up the pace. "Have you got your phone?"

"Of course." Barry's attempt to mask his reluctance was poor.

"Wait a minute.." Johnny interrupted. "What am I doing here then?"

Adam looked at the 6' 7'' tall - and very burly - lad to his left. "You're plan C." He revealed.

Johnny smiled in response and withdrew a joint from his jacket pocket. "Works for me," he replied cheerily, whilst lighting up the joint in his mouth.

"I don't know how you guys do it," Adam added.

Johnny looked at Adam with a mouthful of smoke and raised eyebrows. "What do you mean?" He asked with a low voice while exhaling.

"When I get stoned I don't want to do anything. I don't even want to move, and more often than not I get paranoid over the most inconsequential shit." Looking back at Johnny, Adam added, "But people like you.."

Johnny laughed. "Yes. I've known a ton of people like that. But for me, I just get energy and a good fucking mood." Taking another puff, he added, "I don't even get the munchies like most."

"I was too shy to talk to anyone - even my own family." Barry added. "Until I started smoking weed."

"Yes, I have known quite a few like that," Adam admitted. "But, the only time I've ever felt shy is when I've been on weed."

Barry looked confused. "Didn't you say that you smoked weed most of your life?"

"I did." Adam responded. "It may have made me shy. But it also made me forget."

"Forget about what?" Barry pried.

"I don't recall." Lied Adam, amidst a chuckle. "But I remember that within a couple of days of getting off the shit, I felt invincible. Like I could just walk out into the world and take from it whatever I wanted."

"That's how I feel when I am high." Johnny added, still puffing away on his joint.

Barry shook his head. "That's dangerous, man." He warned. "Because we're not invincible, and thinking we are will surely get us killed quickly."

Adam shook his head in return. "No. That's not what I mean. I knew I could die. But, I felt as though there was nothing that anyone could do to stop me from achieving what I wanted to achieve. I, for what seemed like the first time in my life, recognized the simple truth that I could accomplish whatever I wanted, as long as I didn't give up - as long as I persevered"

"I believe it." Barry agreed.

"But when I was on weed," Adam continued. "I would never feel like that. All I could focus on were the obstacles in my path, and the excuses why I wouldn't be able to do this or that. I was really starting to believe that the only reason it was made illegal was so that the most rebellious of us would say fuck you and smoke it - only to become pacified by it."

"That's actually an interesting theory," Barry said, an excited expression covering his face. "The word marijuana is said to be derived from an old Spanish word for prisoner., so that kinda makes sense."

Adam's ears perked up with interest. "Are you sure about that?" Prisoner seemed like the perfect word for how he had felt on the drug.

"No. Not really." Barry sounded apologetic. "The dude who first said that shit was government as fuck, so it's hard to trust the info."

"Probably full of shit then," Johnny guessed, offering the joint to Barry.

Adam nodded in agreement as Barry accepted the joint and began to smoke it. "I still don't think we should be fucking with any of these plants." He confessed, before coughing up some smoke. "We don't know what the fuck is in them anymore."

"That's bullshit, Barry." Johnny objected. "Think about shit like Ayahuasca. Everyone who does psychotropics like that says it's the best decision they ever made."

"I did ayahuasca once and all I did was vomit a few times then fall asleep," Adam added. "I didn't even have a dream."

Barry ran in front of the two and turned around to face them while walking backwards. "It's not bullshit," he said, looking at Johnny, "and Adam, you are lucky then."

"Here we go," Johnny laughed.

"I'm serious. Why do you think that so many alternative media channels were pushing ayahuasca before the fall?" Barry looked at the other two but didn't offer time for a response. "They will tell you straight up that this shit will send you through portals, or give you an out-of-body experience in a different realm."

Johnny nodded. "Not exactly, but yeah."

"Well CERN have been trying to open a gate to fuck-knows-where for ages now. When they get that shit open, who knows what is going to come through it?"

"So?" Johnny looked at Barry and then Adam in confusion.

"He's saying that they want us on drugs that make our consciousness leave our bodies.." Adam explained, "So that when they open the vale, the spirits that come through can inhabit our bodies as vessels."

"You're fucking nuts, mate." Johnny started to laugh in disbelief. "But what can we expect from a Flat Earther?"

Barry turned around and dropped back in line with the other two. "I don't know how you lot can still say that after Trump's last tweet revealed the Earth is flat."

"It didn't reveal the Earth is flat." Johnny insisted, his voice growing louder. "Whichever hacker took down the internet, obviously got into Trump's twitter before they did it and left that message."

"Lads." Adam interrupted, while spreading his arms, bringing all three to a halt. "We're here."

Adam glanced around at the surrounding square and the buildings populating the area, before turning back to his friends. "I hope you're ready."

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This is a first draft that I'm writing daily, so the story will be subject to some minor revisions. If there are any errors, don't be shy to point them out.

Thanks for reading. The next part will be posted very soon.

@writeous