My insecurities were quickly fading, and the defined lines between fact and fiction were rapidly becoming no longer so noticeably apparent. Typically I was capable of holding out for a good five days or so before the cravings would wait no more to be fed, but since Miwa's passing perhaps a month earlier I found myself indulging as often as every second day so long as I was able to find a source so frequently.

I supposed a lot of things had changed during that presumably short lapse of time. It seemed I also needed higher dosages these days. One line used to be enough for my buzz to last a solid hour; now I was lucky if it lasted for half that amount of time. In order to reach my goal, I had to double or sometimes even triple my ordinary intake, not that it bothered me apart from the increase of things I had to do in order to obtain it. I crashed harder, too; experiencing an agonizing sum of misery to drown me in the murky cesspool that was my day to day life before sleep thankfully smothered me.

What day was it exactly? I did not know anymore and it hardly occurred to me to wonder beyond the occasional passing of the thought. I did not think to count hours or days in particular, just the stretch of time approximately since Miwa had died. To be honest I could have been entirely wrong as far as measuring that went too without a way to keep reasonable track of it…

No one would believe that maybe a mere three years ago I was living in NGL with my family, going about my daily chores and engaged to one day be married to a neighbor boy of my age who was living in the same village. Yorkshin was a far cry from my upbringing and certainly would have my family outraged if they could see where its influence had landed me now. Then again, they had actively taken part ensuring that I was forbidden from ever returning home, so perhaps they simply would not care and had only expected as much from me.

The music was blaring, and before my inhibitions had seeped away in a flash of white it had seemed both intimidating and deafening. As my confidence increased and my energy finally picked up, I inwardly gave thanks for running across these yuppies. Perhaps it was a man's world but being a woman, I'd learned, had its advantages. No one here would care that I was currently homeless and at a point that I required nothing more than simply this rush of excitement and self assurance that I could never claim in any other way.

As usual, I was approached quite hastily by a young man with wildly scattered hair and a severely loosened tie. He was older than I was by probably a good ten years (and obviously far more buzzed), but that was to be expected. After all, I had only just turned eighteen this year. It was this year I had turned eighteen, wasn't it? I assumed so, anyway.

He led me to a dark room that smelled of sweat and other even less modest bodily fluids and functions. The first time I had been appalled, but now this was nothing more than routine. I was here without any form of payment, and so this was my fate. I used to need them to strip me before lying down, but now I could do it myself.

I was grateful for the excess of energy, as I was more likely to be invited to stick around for longer if I was enthusiastic during the act. It appeared that they usually liked loud girls, too, and so that was also working in my favor.

That's not to say that I was upset for having to sleep with them. After all, it was especially exciting while I was already feeling beyond elated. The problem would come after I crashed…


I woke up unsure of where I was. That was not an uncommon occurrence for me however, so I almost never panicked anymore. My fluid-covered body ached terribly and my inner thighs stung. There was a burning between my legs that was nearly unbearable, but not unforeseen. This was merely a part of the cross that was assigned to me when I left my old life behind me in the dust. There was a man above me; a different man than before (or so said the notable contrast in scents from the last), and he was inside me and moving.

These scenarios had frightened me initially; made me feel unutterably vulnerable, but now I hardly even distinguished it as rape anymore. I was thankful to have been asleep for the greater portion of it, and of course this stranger was likely not the first this evening to have indulged while I was passed out. I held still the way I had learned to do, not wanting to feel his wrath in case his fetish was for this situation in particular. It was best to simply let him do what he wanted. He would leave afterwards.

Above the repetitive loop of chords blasting from the main room, I could suddenly hear screaming. I would have ignored it had it come from only one person, but it appeared to have actually initialized from multiple sources. Mad thumping and stomping sounds successfully distracted me from my present state.

The door flung open, pouring too much light into the blackened room all at once. The man atop me gasped- an ugly, catching noise- and then collapsed onto me, the stench of blood radiating from his open mouth and presumably the liquid itself flooding over my exposed chest.

'He's…dead…'

My limbs were weighted and tainted with exhaustion, but even so I managed to push him off me and grasp the already soiled sheets to desperately clean the fluid from my breasts. As I glanced down at the motionless body I noticed an array of objects protruding from the back of his skull. The blinding light reflected back in shining white bursts over the decorative knobs of several needles.

'Murder…'

Adrenaline fueled me now and I scrambled to put distance between myself and the body, tripping over the trailing sheet as I attempted to land my feet upon the floor. I fell hard, knocking my forehead against the hardwood with enough force that a crackle of light flashed before my eyes and the ground began to tilt and sway slowly from beneath me. It was only then that I finally noticed that the alleged assailant was still poised with pins at the ready in the doorway.

His black eyes inspected me as he looked at and through me while I twitched and fumbled upon the ground. Even while facing the darkness, his flesh was pale enough that it appeared inhumanly illuminated. His shoulders were broad and his hair below his waist and free-flowing. For a moment my mind wandered, considering my own neglected and once wavy, filthy ash blonde locks that hung in greasy strings midway down my back.

I could hear my heart pounding in my ears, telling me something I had not known until now; I did not want to die here.

It was not that I had wanted to nobly take my own life in an admirable streak of crimson, but more so that particularly since Miwa's overdose I had wanted to follow after her. I had lived as one who wanted death but was too afraid to deal it.

Yet now, in front of this murderer, I knew I did not want to die. I also knew that I did not want to live in death's shadow any longer.

'I want to live,' my mind whispered softly. A single tear slipped silently down my cheek.

If he sensed my reaction, his expression did not show it. Instead, he simply pocketed his weapons and turned on his heel, disappearing from sight through a chorus of whimpers and shrieking. Was he not going to kill all the witnesses?

'I'm alive…'

My body relaxed, the tears coming full force now. Nothing else mattered now except for the fact that he, my savior the executioner, had spared me and allowed me to live…

…And I would be sure to make the most of this opportunity, and of course make it my mission to thank him for the ultimate gift which he had granted me.