In the third year that I've been diagnosed with late-stage bone cancer, Xenia Jensen, the ex-girlfriend whom I have "abandoned" back then, barges into my rented apartment with the rest of her team that she leads as a police captain.

Every day, I have to rely on large amounts of morphine just so I can force myself to stand like a regular human being.

I can only twitch violently as I try to grab a pill bottle on the table, my skin completely riddled with needle marks. Xenia chuckles icily as she savors how pathetic I look.

"Oh? It's been seven years since we last met, and yet I never thought you'd stoop so low as to become a drug addict.

"Where did your gusto to get a better, richer girlfriend go? I can't believe you're willing to humiliate yourself just for some so-called medicine!"

As soon as Xenia's words fall, I point at the pill bottle with a trembling finger.

"Please, officer… Can you please give me my medicine?"

Xenia chortles in response. She picks up the bottle before walking toward the bathroom, soon flushing it down the toilet.

"You want your medicine? Go ask the peeps at the rehab for it! It seems both your heart and your body are rotten to the core after you left me for another woman!"

I'm in so much pain that I'm convulsing violently right now.

"Oh… Then… Am I going to die?"

I curl up on the floor, hoping to tide over the latest wave of pain by using the method my doctor has taught me.

But Xenia merely gazes at me coldly from the side. In fact, she starts recording me, saying that she wants to make me a living negative example.

"Set up the cameras," Xenia Jensen ordered. "Keep them on him. Don't miss a single detail. This will be the most vivid lesson in our anti-drug campaign."

The lights flared on. Camera lenses locked onto my sweat-soaked face.

The pain in my bones felt like thousands of ants gnawing at my marrow. The itch was unbearable.

I couldn't stop myself from trying to scratch myself, but all I could manage was to scrape against the cold floor.

Xenia crouched down and lifted my chin with her black baton.

"Look at you. Even a stray dog has more dignity than this."

My vision blurred from the pain. All I could see was the sharp line of her jaw.

"Drugs," I choked with everything I had before reaching weakly for the hem of her pant leg.

Just then, someone in a white coat walked in.

It was Aaron Jilbert. He was the team's doctor, Xenia's right-hand man, and once—my best friend.

He glanced at me. His gaze paused on the marks left by years of implanted IV ports on my hand. "Ms. Jensen, look at his arm."

His voice carried exaggerated surprise.

"These are classic needle marks from long-term intravenous drug use. His veins are hardened. Just how bad does one's addiction have to be to get like this?"

I opened my mouth to protest. Those weren't needle marks, but ports from chemotherapy. But my throat was too dry to form words. All that came out was a broken rasp.

The last trace of hesitation in Xenia's eyes disappeared when she heard Aaron's expert conclusion. They were replaced with disgust.

She kicked my hand away from her leg. "Don't touch me!"

The force sent me rolling across the floor until I slammed into the wall. I hit the concrete with a dull thud.

Another wave of pain crashed over me.

"Make the announcement. Suspect Caleb Lawson will undergo a 24-hour compulsory detox live-stream," Xenia said, her voice echoing through the room. "The world needs to see how drugs can turn a once-glamorous man into something less than human."

"Ms. Jensen, that's against protocol!" a young officer reminded her.

Xenia turned to him. Her eyes were bloodshot as she tried to restrain her fury. "When you're dealing with a repeat offender who treats human life like nothing, you use whatever methods it takes.

"I want anyone who ever thinks of taking drugs to see that this is what awaits them! If anything goes wrong, I'll take the fall alone!"

By the time the pain nearly knocked me unconscious, Xenia kept searching the room.

She was thorough and relentless. She won't leave a single corner untouched. She was determined to dig up every piece of evidence against me.

Finally, she kicked the bed aside and reached for a dusty metal box.

My heart seized.

No.

What was inside that box mattered more than my life.

"Don't touch that!"

I didn't know where the strength came from, but I crawled toward her.

My sudden desperation shocked Xenia into a pause. Then, the mockery in her eyes deepened. She kicked me aside with ease and flipped open the latch.

Inside the box was a word journal and a police badge carefully wrapped in red cloth.

She picked up the journal and flipped through it casually.

Every page recorded the pain and medication dosages during my chemotherapy.

"March 7th, clear. 80 milligrams of OxyContin. It hurts.

"March 9th, cloudy. Morphine injection. It hurt so much I wanted to die. I thought I saw Xenia on the street today. She's still just as beautiful as the first time I saw her.

"March 15th, rain. Increased dosage. It feels like my bones are going to break."

She let out a cold laugh and held the journal up to the camera.

"Look at what we have here. It's a junkie's diary."

She read the line about me seeing her. Her voice was dripping with ridicule. "Were you having hallucinations from being high? Why were you still thinking about me? You're disgusting, Caleb."

She tossed the journal straight into the trash can in the corner of the room.

Then, she picked up the badge wrapped in cloth.

It was my dad's. He had been her mentor.

The moment she saw it, her expression turned ice-cold.

"You don't deserve to keep this," she said, walking toward me. "You're the son of a fallen officer, yet you've turned into a parasite on society. What would your dad think?"

I shook my head desperately, tears mixing with sweat. "No… You're wrong…"

She didn't listen to me at all and pulled a lighter from her pocket.

A blue flame flickered to life.

She set the journal on fire right in front of me.

I lunged for it, but she stomped down on my hand and ground it into the floor.

Sounds of bone shattering filled the air as I let out a scream of agony.

"Watch," she ordered.

She forced me to look at the pages curled and blackened. "What's the point of keeping this journal? So people know what a piece of trash you were after you die? Or maybe you wanted everyone to know that I once dated a drug-addicted criminal?"

The flames devoured the paper. It felt like they were burning straight through my bones.

Aaron spoke up. "Ms. Jensen's right. That journal's just trash. Burning it is the right thing to do."

I lay on the ground with my hand pinned beneath her foot.

I stopped struggling and screaming.

I just stared at the fire until the last page of the book turned to ash.

That journal was the last thing I had left to prove I was innocent.

Now, it was gone.

…

At dawn the next day, two officers dragged me out of the apartment.

24 hours of forced withdrawal had left me too weak to even stand.

The pain from bone cancer and the morphine withdrawal burned through what little sanity I had left.

A dense crowd had gathered outside my apartment. Cameras with long lenses packed the narrow hallway until it was completely blocked.

"That's him! The drug addict!"

"He looks normal enough. How can he be so rotten inside?"

Xenia stood at the front of the crowd in her crisp police uniform. Her expression was cold as she faced the cameras. "Everyone, this is Caleb, the drug user we arrested yesterday. He's a textbook case of someone who fell into ruin because of vanity and greed."

The moment she finished speaking, someone in the crowd hurled a rotten vegetable straight at my face.

Then, more followed. Some hurled rotten vegetables, some threw eggs, and someone even spat on me.

In the chaos, the wig I wore to cover my chemo-bald head was yanked off. My bare scalp was exposed.

"Freak! He's bald!"

The crowd's laughter and insults crashed over me like waves.

I stood there numbly, letting the filth drip from my head, down my neck, and into my clothes.

Then, an old, furious voice broke through the noise. "What are you doing? Stop! Leave him alone!"

It was Frank Stewart, my landlord.

He pushed through the crowd with a broom in hand and threw himself in front of me.

"Caleb isn't a bad person! He's sick, you monsters!"

He blocked a wave of garbage meant for me with his frail body.

I stared at him as his graying hair was now smeared with egg and rotting vegetables. My heart tightened so hard I could barely breathe. "Mr. Stewart…"

"Get that old man out of here," Xenia ordered with a frown.

Several officers immediately stepped forward and dragged him away.

Aaron seized the moment and turned to the cameras with a practiced tone of concern. "Don't be fooled, everyone. Many addicts are good at gaining sympathy from kindhearted elderly people. We're doing this for the old man's safety."

The crowd stirred again, their anger reignited.

"That old fool got tricked by a junkie!"

"He's probably in on it! Birds of a feather!"

The crowd shoved Frank. He stumbled and hit his forehead on the ground. There was blood.

"Mr. Stewart!" I screamed.

Xenia stepped close to me. Her voice was low enough that only I could hear her. "See that, Caleb? If you don't want that old man dragged into this mess for harboring a drug dealer, you'd better behave."

My body went stiff.

She was using the only person who still cared about me as leverage.

What else could I do?

I lowered my head and stopped resisting. I let the filth cover me.

I stood shaking in front of countless cameras like a condemned prisoner.

…

I was taken to the city square.

A massive, fully transparent glass enclosure had been built there overnight.

It was like a cage meant to display a monster.

I was the monster.

I was shoved into the enclosure. Blinding lights snapped on from all directions, forcing my eyes shut.

A sea of people gathered outside the glass. Their faces were filled with curiosity, disgust, and excitement.

Countless phones and cameras were pointed at me. They livestreamed everything, 24 hours a day.