Junkie

Chicago, IL, United States of America November 17th, 2031

Tremors. Tremors. Always the damn tremors. The woman sailed across the room in her rolling chair to the kitchen counter, fumbling in the computer-lit darkness for her fix. Pounding her fist on the plastic surface, she stood violently, sending her chair flying into a metal cabinet. She ran her fingers through her sweat dampened hair, rubbing the shaved sides of her head vigorously. She sighed heavily. It's been weeks, weeks, since she bought a shit load of dindophine from her dealer. He said it would last her six months, even for someone who jacks as frequently as she does. She dropped to her hands and knees, sliding her hands along the gritty filthy tiles of the studio apartment. Her fingers brushed dust balls, crumbs, small shards of glass, and....aha!

She plucked up the syringe from the floor, dusting it off and holding it gingerly as if it were a glass figurine. She sighed again, but this time with content. "Just like ma and pops said it would be," she said to her empty dark studio, "A junkie with nothing to lose and a bad, bad habit to break." Before she could even uncap the needle, her computer chimed softly, alerting her of an incoming call. She grunted, irritated. She approached the console and hit Enter.

"What?" She snapped bitterly, crossing her arms across her thin chest. "Uh...." A deep voice muttered on the other end. "I just thought you should know that Eren is back in town and you should avoid downtown as much as possible."

"Jack ass, I LIVE downtown!"

"What? Since when? I thought you were-"

"I moved downtown two months ago, I told you!"

The face on the screen, a dark dreaded man with multiple piercings, scrunched up.

"When did you-?"

"At Derek's party."

"Oh, shit, I was hella tripped out that whole gig," he laughed heartily. The woman rolled her eyes in disdain. His face ducked down below his desk and the sound of a can cracking open was faintly heard. He returned sipping a PBR. The woman continued to look irritated, causing the man to furrow his brow in concern. "You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm just...."

"Xienna."

The woman named Xienna turned away from the screen, watching the units in the metal cabinets against the wall blink in a rhythmic pattern. She was silent for a moment.

"So she's really back, huh?"

"Yeah, for a while too."

"How long?"

"Six months to a year. She's decided not to visit the family back home for the holidays this year."

Eren was Xienna's ex-girlfriend from high school. It wasn't until they had a run in in an alleyway next to the coffee shop where Eren worked that the feelings Xienna used to have for her returned. She moved to Chicago aware that Eren, too, lived there, but wasn't sure which part. It didn't bother her much...at the time. Now it was all she could think about. The man she spoke to, Jerman, was Erens landlord-slash-Xienna's drug dealer. He, unlike most of her drug dealers in the past, had her best interest at heart and was very considerate of how she felt, knowing that, like his own sister, she suffered from Borderline Personality Disorder. Xienna sighed. "Well I guess I will have to deal with it eventually."

"What will you do?"

"I don't know Jerman, what the fuck should I do? Avoid her for the rest of my life while living in the same district as her? I'll have to face her sometime, maybe even be her friend."

"That's not a bad-"

"That's a horrible idea, don't even say it."

He frowned, rubbing the scruff on his chin while Xienna clutched her head with her back turned to the curved screen.

"I'm sorry Xi."

"I need to go. I'll call you tomorrow."

"Okay."

Before he could say anything else, she disconnected the call. "God fucking damn it!" She exclaimed, punching the metal cabinet. Someone beyond the wall behind it, presumably her neighbor, demanded that she shut the fuck up.

"Fuck you, Ryan! I'll come in there and cut you and your wife to pieces!"

Silence.

She huffed. Glancing at the counter where she left the syringe, the contents a neon green. She snatched it up and uncapped it, rolled up her sleeve, found the external port in the bend of her elbow, and jacked in. The liquid filled her veins was like a heroin that gave birth to a problem child of acid. She shuddered as she injected the fluid into the port.

More.

She injected more of the chemicals into her veins, past the recommended dose.

More!

The itch under her skin seared like a fire and the voice in her head screamed for more with each mark of the vial she passed. Her eyes began to roll in their sockets as she shuddered harder than before. Her hand clutched the syringe until it emptied into her veins, slipping from her palm. It stuck out of the port lazily as Xienna, now seeing things beyond the usual patterns and colors, tipped back wards and collapsed to the floor in a tight ball, whimpering and silently whispering to herself. It was several hours before she eventually passed out, and drifted down the rabbit hole.