I awoke to what I had believed to be the next morning. I had an excruciating headache, and admittedly, that had been my own fault. Not only had I been greeted with that pain, I had also found myself covered in a layer of white snow, causing a slight numbness in my legs. However, neither of those were as terrible as what had come next. 

Looking up and around, I found myself surrounded by a group of several people, not including the two police officers standing in the front. Chuckling as though it were the most normal thing in the world, I pulled out and lit up a cigarette - right in front of the officers. I felt the ends of my lips curl as I gave a mocking smile to the tall, bald officer and his female partner. 

"Pigs on the bus go oink, oink, oink ~ oink, oink, oink ~ oink, oink, oink ~ Pigs on the bus go oink, oink, oink ~ All day long!" I sang a parodied version of the nursery rhyme I had learned at some point as a kid. I took in another drag, throwing all caution to the wind as I stared down the female officer. "God, officer, I'm famished! You think you could spare some coffee and a donut?" 

She shook her head and carefully took a step forward. "Hey, Joe. I'm pretty sure this is the missing kid in that report."

"Oh?" I let out exasperated, sarcastic gasp. "Now, just who gave that much of a shit about me? I'd just love to know."

Even through a slight wobble, I was able to push myself up from the ground. Twirling the cigarette in between my index and middle finger, I took yet another drag as I began to think about who could have filed a report with enough accurate information about me. While my first thought was Ava, the chances of that had been quite low - only because she had barely known me. 

With Ava out, that left either the girls I slept with on a consistent basis, or my mother. It was an easy answer for me, however, as I had known that none of the girls I slept with would have given enough of a shit to do something like that. The only thing those girls had cared about were money and drugs, and of which, I had a lot of the latter. 

Thus, it had to have been my mother. 

"How typical." I stepped towards the cop, the cigarette stuck in between my lips. "How's this go? You going to take me in or something?" 

"Drop the cigarette."

"Or what?" I gave a crooked smile. "Come on, sugar tits. Give me a fucking answer." 

"I said, drop the cigarette." she repeated. 

She had clearly been a rookie, no more experience than riding in a car all day long while drinking coffee and eating a donut. I knew very well how cops had worked in this God forsaken place. Unless violence was inflicted on them, the most they would have done was throw me against a car. Even then, there had been witnesses. 

"...and I said, or what?" I replied, mocking her near whiney tone. "I couldn't give a fuck about you and your dyke partner over there even if I tried. However, you two are the ones harassing me. You two are the ones who are bent on their power, thinking you can do whatever you want and get away with it."

She pulled out her gun, pointing it at me with two shaky hands. "Stop! I will shoot if you come any closer."

I sneered, staring right down the barrel of her gun. "Denigration is a clear abuse of power. You're judging by appearance, disregarding the fact that I have yet to move my arms into any threatening form. Go ahead, though. Lambaste me, rebuke me for something I haven't done."

Even through my hungover mind, the officer had been clearly rattled by the use of only a few large, lengthy words. It was only a mind game, the use of words to shake someone up. It was simply a mental game of war that I had won, so to speak. My fun, however, soon ended as the large cop stepped in front of her, forcing some distance to come between us. 

In its simplest form, psychological warfare refers to the art of toying with one's personal values, religious beliefs, and motives to evoke a planned, and usually predicted, outcome. Much like chess, I had cornered the poor officer by tearing down every last one of her pawns. 

"Do something, or let me go." I raised my hand and pointed it at him in the shape of a gun. "Bam! Bam!" 

I so truthfully believed that I had no reason to care about anything. I felt as though if nobody cared about me, then I wouldn't have had any reason to care for anyone else. It was easier for me to just go off of the deep end, hoping that a bullet would pass through me like butter. 

"It's easy, officers. You can take me in, or I can go to the media and tell them all about how you pointed your guns at an innocent student who accidentally fell asleep in a graveyard." I continued to push my luck. "I'm sure that's the last thing your department wants, more scrutiny."

It had only been months ago that an officer shot an innocent student while chasing a armed thief. While that had been a case of racial profiling, it still very well had applied to my situation. Even if I had clearly been drinking, I was easily able to use that against them. They had two simple options; take me in or needlessly use violence against a unarmed teenager in front of what was many witnesses. 

"Turn around and put your hands behind your back." the large, male officer spoke. "You are under arrest for trespassing."

I dropped the cigarette that rested in between my lips and turned, putting my hands behind my back. It only took moments before the three of us had entered the car and were driving away from the graveyard. Smiling as though I had just won the lottery, I kicked the passenger seat of the car - the same seat that the female officer sat in  

"Hey--"

"Listen up, Jacobson." the male officer caught my eyes in the rear-view mirror. "We could charge you with trespassing and a number of other misdemeanors, but we won't do that. However, we have to contact your mother and bring her in to fill out the paperwork for the missing person report."

"Awesome, awesome." I had practically ignored him and moved on to his partner. "Now, as I was going to ask before I was so rudely interrupted, what's your name, sweetheart?" 

"Sandra." the rookie replied. 

"Sandra, huh?" I feigned interest, leaning back onto the seat. "So, Sandra, why are you a cop? I mean, you could have had a great career in porn, so why have a job that's so dangerous?" 

Sighing, she turned her head to look at me. With long blonde hair, blue eyes, and only being in what I had assumed were her early twenties, she was truly quite stunning. Physically, she had been every woman's role model. Her appearance, however, had been a whole different animal. Her body, her proportions, everything had been all mixed together to create a masterful specimen. 

"I became a cop to help keep people like you out of trouble." she replied, an abundance of sarcasm added on for good measure. "I won't give you my life story, but I was just like you. I was partying every night, doing drug, and all kinds of other things. I had lost myself at some point, and when I came to that realization, I found that I had nowhere left to go - that everyone I had thought of as friends were gone."

"Hmm. Really?" I boredly tugged on my earlobe. 

"Yeah. I worked hard to get my life back on track, and finally, I found myself here. I decided that I didn't want to see anyone else fall into that same hole of darkness that I had fell into."

I scoffed, for multiple reasons. She had been clueless about me, barring my name. This rookie cop had no idea who I was, nor did she have any clue as to what I had been through. The only darkness this woman had ever known was aimless partying, and then not knowing what to do with herself as soon as everyone left her. She knew nothing, yet she had thrown out a baseless comparison. 

It was so very clear to me that she was so stuck on her own philanthropic self-righteous bullshit that she had completely disregarded the fact that maybe, just maybe, someone else may have been through something entirely different than that of her own experience. 

"What the fuck would you know about darkness?"