Ecstasy

Chapter 1

Hey y'all, I just started working on this story and thought posting it might help keep me more motivated to write it. I've been crazy busy lately so I'm not sure how often I'll be updating it, it will also be 100% unedited so feel free to point out any errors and I'll do my best to get around to fixing them. Here we go!

I once heard about a drug called ecstasy. People used to take it in order to get high, now we just take the real thing. If emotions were drugs, then we would all be junkies. And I guess in a way they have become exactly that.

Pulling the needle from my arm, I sank into the red cushions that seemed to cradle my limp body. Air whistled past my lips as I tipped my head back and allowed the numbness to consume me. My mind went blank; all of my previous annoyance was gone. Nothing was left but a sort of cool indifference. Opening my eyes, I was unphased by the sights and sounds around me. The smoke was difficult to see through and the purple curtains that partially hide many other small alcoves like mine further hindered my view. None of this bothered me anymore though. The gaudy colors that I had found so previously jarring I now gave hardly a second thought. The dim lighting wasn't a nuisance and I had no concern for tripping on the way out.

I took another minute waiting for my tab and observed the woman across from me. She hadn't bothered to close her curtains either, trusting the smoke and dim lights to contribute to her anonymity. She was perched on a couch that seemed almost identical to the one I sat on and her head was tipped back much in the same way mine had been a moment ago. An IV line ran from a bag into her arm, the liquid a slow drip into her veins. Despite how similar the scene appeared to be it was easy to tell that the two emotions we received were very different. From the smile that split her face in two, I could guess her poison of choice: happiness. A costly choice nonetheless but I could not be sure whether she was receiving the high-end ecstasy or the lower-grade delight. I had only tried bliss once in my life so I couldn't be sure if the quality truly differed but it didn't really seem to matter either way happiness was happiness. A basic choice but an understandable one. Everyone needed a pick-me-up every once in a while and from the lines that had been previously etched in her face she needed a healthy dose.

I sat still in my seat, waiting for the young man with the sunken eyes to bring me my check. I had been waiting for a while but it didn't bother me, nothing bothered me but even if it had it's not like there's anywhere I needed to be anyway. The transfusion had taken a much shorter time to start working than I had anticipated. It seemed like I was needing less and less each time to get the effect I was looking for. The woman across from me let out a sigh and I looked up. She had been attached to the line for quite some time now and I couldn't help but imagine the dollars adding up in my mind. Oh well. Her problem. The amount she took was no one's problem but her own. She wouldn't be the only one maxing out their account today anyway. Some people just couldn't help themselves.

A pair of deeply sunken eyes appeared before me, a scanner in hand. Definitely sorrow then. Not as common as happiness but sorrow was another of the more common and expensive emotions that the general population favored. I could never figure out why someone would choose to use sorrow as an escape but who was I to judge. Working at a place like this it seemed unlikely that he would be able to make enough to afford the drug but then again maybe he simply finished off the last of whatever the customer he was helping had used. Then again, I didn't really care.

He handed me a grease smeared sheet of paper with a few barely legible numbers on it. If I had been able to feel anything I'm sure I would have been surprised by just how low the number was today but I couldn't so I simply accepted it. Rolling up my right sleeve, I exposed the tattoos on my forearm. A set of barcodes ran from my wrist up to my elbow. I pointed to the third one from my wrist and held it out for him to scan. The nonessentials barcode always seemed to scan with a disappointed bloop and the noise confirmed that he had scanned the right one.