It was hard to believe that, this far down, there was still a place where rain could reach.
Evaa watched the drips of acidic precipitation - probably more rusted flecks of durasteel and emitted fuel particles and who knows what else than actual H2O - slowly fall in even, long intervals from above her in the alleyway to land in a small puddle at her outstretched feet as the last bout of euphoria slowly drained from her. The water must have carved its way over millennia to reach this far. Down the gutters on the surface level where the nobles' and politicians' sleek modernist penthouses reached into the hazy Coruscant sky, into the storm drains on the streets of the mid levels where civilians walked or drove, into the sewers, finding its way through a rusted socket in a pipe perhaps and slowly eroding a path through the already-weak structures of the lower levels, and finally flowing down here, into the undercity, where it would likely find its way through rats' digestive systems, exposing them to the runoff's toxic buildup of chemicals that were to blame for the underlife's poor health and propensity to mutate. And then, who knows, maybe down to the planet's true surface - though it was strange to believe that it even existed.
Through metal just as earth; just as natural processes had carved out the shape of billions of planets in the Galaxy, so too the cycle continued here on Coruscant. The rain didn't care - and neither did the trillion people living miles above, most of whom had long since forgotten about the layers of ages-old structures that their planet-spanning city had been built on top of.
The empty syringe was still clutched in her hand tightly. Evaa let out a long breath, relaxing the muscles that had been clenched in pleasure throughout the effects of the initial high of the death stick. That had been the largest dose she had ever tried. And she was alive. Not that she felt joy or even relief at that prospect; alive had just become a state between highs, where she toiled every hour, sleepless, to work up enough credits to buy the next hit, which had been going up in size along with her tolerance to the toxic-but-euphoric chemicals and the prices of them thereof. She didn't know how much longer she could possibly keep this up. At this point she had to make a week's worth of rent per day to feed the addiction. Not that she had any actual rent to pay, so there was that.
She slowly stood up, careful not to allow any muscles to cramp. The more noticeable after-effects of the high would continue to last for ten hours – probably more now due to the size of the dose. Even now she still felt the liquid gold of the chemicals still coursing through her veins, the delicious warmth and comfort and tingling sensation along her skin still making the corners of her lips twitch slightly in a semblance of a smile. She didn't want to think about what would happen after the grace period of the after-effects, when she would be naked again, alone with the pain of… existing, really. If she went more than a day without injecting more, she would get terribly sick with the effects of withdrawal. She had experienced that before, on a day when credits had been particularly hard to come by, and the absolute torture had had her begging on her knees to Dint for a hit, anything, a tenth gram. He'd yielded, giving her a small dose on the provision that she'd pay it back later. No doubt he knew that keeping her hooked, not letting her fully withdraw, was far more profitable than the alternative. Evaa spat out sour saliva, holding the sore, bruise-pocked arm she had injected into, face contorting into disgust at the thought of that horned devil. Even though she knew she'd be crawling back to him again before tomorrow.
She'd better get moving. The underlife had a nasty tendency to increase their boldness and likelihood to descend on prey the longer that a potential quarry stayed put, and in their hiding places in the veritable maze of tunneling roads and jagged, rusty durasteel edges that was their territory and home, they certainly held a home-field advantage against her. Especially since she had sold her blaster for drug money and was now essentially defenseless. While the Undercity was a fantastic place to duck into to escape authorities - who these days rarely ventured down farther than the upper low levels, leaving everything below for crime and destitution to fester in - it was dangerous to stay long without a holdout. As much as she enjoyed being one of the rats for a few hours. They never had to worry about policemen or gangs or money, just the instinctual urge to survive and reproduce. Such a lifestyle, while tough, almost seemed liberating to her right now.
She stepped over the puddle of water to stand in the middle of the alleyway, looking up. It was dark, of course. While the alley went up far without obstruction, eventually the open air gave way to cover from another building built over the top of the narrow gap. She was thousands of levels below the surface. The building above was probably rusted out and abandoned, perhaps minus rats and squatters, much as all the buildings on this level.
She stood there for many minutes more, staring up, watching the drip fall down intermittently. Ten, twenty, forty drips into the pool beside her as she counted absentmindedly. Then, she turned and walked out towards the empty and dark main thoroughfare of the ancient level towards her next hit.
