Always the same Three Things, every time the narcan was administered. No matter who they were, where they were found, or what cocktail of opiates coursed silently through their veins — always, inevitably, the same Three Things.

First is waking. Sudden and violent beyond imagination. Less like stirring from sleep, more akin to being dragged upward through murky water beneath ice, breaking through in a startled frenzy. Eyes wide, wild, pupils impossibly constricted — emotions churning behind them in rapid succession, terror merging into confusion and anger, as though subconsciousness itself couldn’t decide what to hold onto.

Second comes the vomiting. Painful, whole-body retching; an animal reflex, a sudden purging as the opioids are stripped from the receptors and swiftly replaced by naloxone. Mystery and medicine expelled simultaneously, leaving a hollowness behind.

Third is the emotional collapse. Sometimes it emerges aggressively, a furious indignation at losing the highest high. Other times, gentle yet profound sorrow surfaces in shuddering sobs, regret flowing from somewhere deeper than the body itself. Rarely graceful, but always distinctly touching.

Always the same Three Things — a raw choreography repeated in that narrow space between being and not-being. Brutal, relentless, yet touched by an otherworldly clarity. A fleeting glimpse of something tender, something innately human revealed only through the unique chaos, before it is drowned out by the flashing red and blue lights and blaring sirens, until the next time.