Looking back on it, this probably wasn't my best idea.
Actually, scratch that; this really wasn't my best idea. Some could even say that it was pretty high on the list of my worst ideas ever. A seventeen year old girl, walking alone through the back alleys of one of the worst parts of the city...at midnight. Gee, what could go wrong there?
Add in the fact that I was clutching my bag to me as tightly as possible, the thick roll of cash and the computer I was carrying in it, and the fact that I looked like I could barely snap a toothpick, and you've got a recipe for disaster right there. I guess common sense just didn't run in the family.
Brains, though... that may have been another thing. But brains and general intelligence were the reason I was in this mess in the first place. After work, I'd searched for a place to study so that I could actually get some peace for once. Even if there had been enough room at the group home for my books to be spread out, it wasn't nearly quiet enough and I wasn't about to risk ruining the laptop I'd worked for so diligently with sticky orange juice or crumbly snacks. So same as usual, I'd chosen the library as my haven from the storm that was an overcrowded house stuffed with juvenile offenders.
That hadn't saved me from the storm that was raging outside, though. Normally, I heard when it began and planned accordingly, but I'd been so caught up in my research that by the time I walked outside, the raindrops hitting the pavement were almost deafening. Waiting for the bus was out of the question; this late at night, the drivers would sometimes blow right by me. I knew that one of the girls who occasionally gave me rides after school lived only a few minutes away. If I took back alleys, is only be a few blocks of uncovered street. I took these alleys all the time during the day. What harm could there be?
Good news for me, the rain stopped completely a few minutes later. Bad news, now that it wasn't absolutely pouring, I didn't feel comfortable marching up to an acquaintance's door and asking for a ride home so late at night when I could so easily finish the walk home myself. Cold, a little wet, and determined to make it home by my curfew, my best course of action was just to keep going. So I hiked up my hoodie, tightened the strap on my bag so that I was nearly suffocating myself, and ducked my head so I received as little attention as possible.
My half-assed disguise didn't do that much for me, though. At night, those alleys I trusted in the sunlight apparently became a welcoming home for junkies and drunks. As the only sober one of the bunch, I stuck out like a sore thumb and I couldn't help but attract a lot of attention.
"Hey, girly!"
Right on cue. Just ahead of me, a man who clearly wasn't on his first beer or the night pushed away from the wall he was leaning against. He wobbled precariously, reaching his free hand out to the shoulder of another person for balance. He gestured to me with his drink as a giddy grin leaked across his reddened face. "You should come and party with us? I'm sure we've got something around here that'll make you feel real nice."
I pulled my hood closer around my face, cutting off any possible eye contact with them. At least I had enough sense to know that engagement was not the thing to do here. I sped up, walking quickly until I was fully past the group. "Aw, come on, baby. Don't be like that, gorgeous," the drunkard called after me.
"Dude, fuck this bitch, alright?" said the man being used as a support, pulling the man back to the group at the wall. "She's a stuck-up whore; doesn't deserve your time. Why're you asking like you got a Love stuck on you?"
As their laughs faded into the distance, I shuddered at the mention of Links. Despite the fact that some of them were legalized, they were still drugs and the absolute worst. The company that created them-- Feel Inc-- was the only brand allowed on the market. Their six variations of patches caused the wearer to experience certain emotions when adhered to skin. Scientists called them breakthroughs. Psychiatrists called them life-changers.
I called them bullshit. I didn't buy into that crap. Feeling an emotion just because you wanted to... that want how the world was supposed to work. True, I didn't have any personal experience with Links; their age limit was eighteen years old and they were so strictly related that I, having just barely turned seventeen, had never had the chance to. Still, it's not like I was eager to pump myself full of fake emotions.
The legal Links were nothing compared to their counterfeit counterparts, though. These were sold on street corners, under tables, in alleys just like these. The illegal companies and gangs that created these Links all had some draw to their drugs: they had more emotional options than Feel Inc provided, they were overall cheaper than Feel Inc's official line, they came in an injection form for a more direct delivery system, and they weren't regulated the same way that Feel Inc was regulated by the government meaning people could use as many Links as they wanted, as often as they wanted.
They could go off and kill themselves on emotional overload, if they wanted.
It wasn't impossible. I'd heard horror tales during the drug unit in health class. I'd also seen it around the home in the few months I'd lived there; kids leaving suddenly, people walking up to find others collapsed in the bathroom, and an ever present rumor that someone had injected a food item with a Rage or Depression Link. The food rumors were never true, but still, it was enough to make you want to live off of fast food rather than eat the meals they provided.
So after all of that, trying Links was not high on my bucket list. I didn't want my life destroyed like that. I had too much work to do and too much to accomplish in my life to chance getting so sidetracked.
Speaking of sidetracked... I might have been lost. During the day, I knew these alleys like the back of my hand. Now, though, I was so lost. Directions had never really been my strong point.
As I reached a crossroads and failed to figure out my route home in my head, a woman lurched around the corner. A little earlier, she might have looked quite nice. Her blonde hair had the remnants of pin curls cascading down but other sections were heavily matted down with dirt and dust. Her makeup complimented her pale skin and dark eyes color-wise, but the long tear tracks that stained her cheeks and the smeared lipstick that seemed to be everywhere but her lips contrasted the tastefulness of it all. Her clothes were the kind you'd see on a drunk girl at a club; too short, inappropriate for the weather, and enough sequins that she could be hung from the ceiling like a disco ball. Her arms were decorated with black market Links and in between all of the interestingly shaped stickers, black track marks crept down through her veins and slithered through the bright patches.
Still, the scariest part of it all was her smile. Wide and toothy, it was a smile of giddiness, of glee...the kind of smile one could see on the faces of children on Christmas morning. But if you looked close enough, you could see it: the desperation, fear, and sadness behind it all. Her mouth was stretched too far and showed far too many teeth, as if she had been forced into smiling and she really didn't want to be doing it anymore. The corners of her smile wobbled as her muscles weakened, but the false happiness seemed to strain against her cheeks, threatening to split open if she didn't stop smiling. Her eyes matched her smile, wide and frantic. It was terrifying, disgusting, and macabre, all at the same time.
And the worst part about it all was that she'd done this to herself.
"Hey! Hey, you!" she shrieked at me, coming closer as I backed away slightly. "You looking for a party? You should try a Contentment! I've been on it for days and I'm having the time of my life!"
A life that wouldn't be going on for much longer at the rate she seemed to be going. Her hand soared through the air to grab onto me and stop me from moving. I cringed away from her grime-coated grasp in revulsion, yanking my arm away so that she ended up catching onto nothing. Eyes wide with shock and happiness, she tumbled to the ground, scraping her chin against the pavement and bumping her head against a brick wall. The skin of her face scratched open in a few places, a few delicate drops of blood welling top the surface and spilling out onto the pavement. She didn't move again.
I didn't think she hit her head that hard, but I was about the furthest thing from a doctor. I nudged her with the toe of my sneaker, and her mouth opened with a gentle sigh of happiness.
Oh, good. She wasn't dead at least. That made a whole less trouble for me.
I stepped over her gingerly, careful to avoid her hair and dress. My bag was clutched tightly to my chest, my constant fear of its theft further heightened by the scene is just witnessed. As soon as I passed over her, I shuddered and let it hang at my side once more. I was majorly on edge now and I still had quite a distance before I reached the home. "Goddamn junkie," I muttered to myself before continuing on my way.
That's when I felt the cold hand clasp around my ankle. It clamped around me tightly, squeezing me into entrapment, and I couldn't break free from it. "What the fuck?" I gasped, looking down to see the junkie on the other end of the hand that was wrapped around my leg. Her terrifying smile had morphed into a taunting grin; my stomach dropped as I realized what I should have recognized earlier. This woman was no common junkie.
She was a Billboard. A Link addict paid by gangs and companies to create new junkies and foster their addictions.
And she had me.
"Sorry for the mix-up, honey, but I believe that now you're the goddamn junkie," she said, holding up a needle filled with a bright yellow liquid. Someone had scrawled the word 'Cheerfulness' on some medical tape and wrapped it around the vial haphazardly. She jabbed the needle into my calf and depressed the plunger, ignoring my pleads for her to stop arms my desperate scream as the liquid rushed into my body. The next thing she said was the last thing I remember from that night.
"Have fun, junkie. Welcome to the club."