I do not own FFXIII nor am I making a profit from this story. Let me know what you think. Honestly, I'm mildly repulsed by it, but I had to get it out of my head.
Chapter 1: We're all Alone in the City
A pink-haired woman crossed the empty street in the pouring rain, close to tears beneath her stoic expression. The memories were too close tonight, it was too much. She had to get out, to get away. She threw open the door to her apartment building and took the stairs two at a time to the third floor. Her door stood at the end of the hall like a golden bastion of safety. Thirteen steps brought her to it, her key in hand. A quick thrust and a turn and it was open, and she darted into the shithole apartment, slamming the door behind her.
A sob escaped her as she thumbed the deadbolt, and safety closed around her. Safety from the world, anyway… Her memories were still there, creeping. Taunting, waiting to lunge upon her, to shred her with claws, to tear her apart with gnashing teeth… She pressed her hands to her temples and crouched down, breathing unsteadily. Eventually her breathing settled, and she rose on shaky legs. She then moved to the kitchenette in the drafty studio apartment.
'I'm free. I made it.' Lightning reminded herself, on the edge of panic. Pulling a baggie from her pocket and tossing it onto the counter, she moved to her bathroom and took a piss, not daring to close the door. Then she nearly ran to her room and returned to the kitchen, syringe and spoon in hand. She took up the baggie in shaking hands and began to cook her score and load the syringe.
She stood, unnerved, feeling the edges of her sanity fraying as she remembered. Lightning remembered viridian eyes in a tanned female face peering out at her between the bars of a cage, and another, younger face, this one a male with silver hair. She could remember his screams, his sobs, and then the broken stare he had emitted after he had been broken… She shuddered, and then set down the needle. She went back to the bathroom and puked, then flushed the vomit. After rinsing her mouth, she peered into the mirror.
Her pale eyes stared back at her, lifeless, haunted. Her once beautiful pink hair hung in unclean clumps framing her face. Her body was thin, worn ragged. Drug addict thin, wasn't that what they said about the rockstars and junkies? But, she was no rockstar, just a junkie running from her past. From what had been done to her, from what she had done. She sighed, then went to the kitchen, collected her 'medicine,' and headed to her bedroom. She tightened the length of rubber tubing over her arm and pressed the needle to her skin, aiming for the well-tracked vein.
She sighed and thought, 'I could get high or get by with fifty, yeah… And I, I, I, don't feel pretty… Today.' She pushed the heroin into her vein.