The place where I was staying could only barely be called a rehabilitation center.
Technically it was one, but it was a very special kind of rehab.
This wasn't the kind of place where addicts were rounded up and thrown together like prisoners in some remote government camp. Those places existed somewhere deep in the mountains—where people spent their days digging soil and planting cassava under the burning sun.
No.
This center was for people whose families still cared enough—and had enough money—to send them somewhere better.
You could tell immediately by the price.
The fees were outrageous.
But in exchange, the place felt less like a rehab center and more like a cheap resort.
Meals were served four times a day.
Families could send money for personal expenses.
The rooms had air conditioning, televisions, game consoles, even DVD players and speakers.
In short, among addicts there was another name for places like this.
A retirement home.
To be honest, I was a little disappointed that I didn't get to experience the legendary "hell on earth" my old friends used to talk about.
But deep inside, I was also ridiculously relieved.
Whatever this place was, it was still better than being sent into the jungle to farm cassava like those TV documentaries always showed.
Still, my first experience inside the center—this supposedly comfortable rehabilitation facility—was anything but pleasant.
They called it detox.
All newcomers were placed in a separate area for the first few days.
A closed ward.
A place meant to handle the worst stage of withdrawal.
The people inside looked like ghosts.
Weak.
Sweaty.
Collapsed on their beds like abandoned corpses.
Their eyes were hollow and pale, their bodies shaking with exhaustion.
They looked like starving spirits who had lost their last supply of drugs.
When I walked in carrying my pillow, no one even bothered to look at me.
They were too busy struggling just to breathe.
I quietly found an empty bed, dropped the pillow on it, and lay down with one arm over my forehead.
A strange mixture of helplessness and frustration filled my chest.
Even in my wildest imagination, I had never thought there would be a day when I'd be lying in a room surrounded by a bunch of addicts like this.
My eyes were just beginning to sting when a hoarse voice whispered beside me.
"Hey… kid. Get me some water."
I swallowed the tears immediately and turned toward the voice, irritation boiling inside me.
My mood was already terrible.
The man speaking was nothing but a skeleton wrapped in skin, though he was still large and heavily tattooed. His eyes narrowed as he stared at me.
In a room full of half-dead addicts, was this really the moment someone decided to play the old inmate bullying the newcomer?
I sneezed.
"You want water? What about piss? If that works, open your mouth."
The big skeleton coughed violently.
For a moment I thought he would jump up and attack me.
Instead he rasped,
"You're… tough, huh? Wait until I get my strength back… then you'll understand."
Wait until he recovered before fighting me?
Why didn't he just wait until I grew old too while he was at it?
Actually, judging from his face, he already looked older than me. If we waited until I got old, he might already be six feet under.
And honestly, with the mood I was in, having someone to punch sounded pretty appealing.
I had just started stepping toward him when the blanket on the neighboring bed suddenly shifted.
Another man lifted his head and spoke gently.
"Let it go, kid. They're delirious from withdrawal. Save your strength—you'll feel worse later."
I wasn't someone who liked unnecessary trouble.
And looking at the skeletal state of the tattooed guy, beating him up wouldn't exactly be a glorious victory anyway.
So I sat back down on my bed.
The man who had spoken looked at me with a quiet smile.
His face was calm and scholarly, the kind of face you would expect to see in a university lecture hall rather than inside a detox ward.
He slowly pulled the blanket down and sat up with some effort.
"My name is Antonio Cruz," he said.
"What's yours? First time here?"
His politeness immediately made me like him.
I answered casually and took the opportunity to ask him about the place.
After all, I had just stepped into this strange world. It wouldn't hurt to gather some information before I wandered around blindly.
Antonio Cruz answered patiently, though his voice was weak.
After a few minutes he seemed tired and leaned back slightly.
Before lying down again, he glanced at me with a faint smile.
"With your looks," he said, "once you move out of detox, the girls in this center are probably going to fight over you."
That caught me off guard.
Girls?
I hadn't even considered the possibility that there were women inside this rehab center.
But why not?
If men could become addicts, there was no reason women couldn't.
Still, the idea didn't excite me in the slightest.
I had never lacked female company in my life.
Why would I come all the way to a rehabilitation center just to flirt with girls who did drugs?
***
The seven days of detox passed with unbearable boredom.
Imagine being perfectly healthy—strong as an ox—yet forced to spend an entire week locked inside a room with people who could barely lift their heads from their pillows.
By the end of it, I felt like I might actually get sick from sheer frustration.
Fortunately, one morning a doctor finally walked in.
He glanced at me—probably noticing that I looked far healthier than anyone else in the room—and asked,
"Feeling better?"
I sighed.
"I've never felt bad since the day I came in."
One of the detox patients nearby suddenly raised his head and croaked,
"That guy's not using drugs, Doc. He's on gunpowder or something. Been here a week and never had withdrawal once."
The doctor didn't seem surprised.
Apparently cases like mine weren't exactly rare.
Sometimes people tried drugs only once and were immediately caught and sent here.
He flipped through a notebook, then looked back at me.
"You've been here a week," he said.
"Do you want to move out?"
Did I want to?
I had been praying for that moment every single day.
I packed my belongings at lightning speed and followed him outside.
The moment I stepped out of that suffocating ward and saw the open sky again, I took a deep breath.
The air felt unbelievably fresh.
It felt as if I had just crossed into a new life.
The doctor led me to a small desk and pointed to a form.
"You'll need to sign a health waiver first," he said.
"Later if something happens, I can't be responsible."
I nearly challenged him to an arm-wrestling match right there to prove how healthy I was.
Instead I grabbed the pen and signed the paper.
He nodded and called a security guard.
The guard looked at me with a cold expression and led me to another room.
He pointed to an empty bed.
"Behave yourself in here," he said.
"If you cause trouble, you won't like the consequences."
I felt a sudden chill.
My family had paid money to send me here.
Had they accidentally dropped me into a prison instead?
The word behave sounded exactly like the kind of thing prison guards said in movies.
I tossed my belongings onto the bed without caring who was watching.
Then I walked outside to explore the place.
If I was going to survive five months in this strange rehabilitation center…
I might as well see what kind of world it really was.