Quarter Mile High

By Tempest'nCheergirl

Prolog - We all Fall Down

By TempestRaces

A small pinch was all it took to send her spinning off into a world where her parents didn't hate her guts and her grades didn't suck. One little jab and she was the queen of the world. Just one little prick and a second later it was like her blood was on fire.

Just like Magic.

It was so easy.

What was that little sting compared to the pain of the rest of her life? It wasn't even a blip on the radar of her agony. That little pain that led to so much pleasure. She was always so careful, always sticking it between her fingers or toes. She hid the marks from the world, but she couldn't hide the vacant look in her eyes or hide the way her clothes hung off her frame. She couldn't hide her dying spirit. She knew people talked about her, knew they thought she was anorexic. She didn't care as long as she had the next syringe loaded up ready to go. Let them talk. What did they know? They knew nothing of her, of her life.

She couldn't hide the way nothing mattered any more. Nothing but the next hit, the next high. It was all she lived for. She lived in a bottomless pit of despair from one peak to the next. Living only for those scant few minutes when nothing mattered and nothing hurt. But when you fell from an artificial high, you hit bottom twice as hard and it hurt twice as much as falling from normal highs. So as she rose and fell in a vicious cycle she got even more bruised and battered each time she landed. And land she did, time and time again. Nothing could keep her up for long.

Then the day came when she ran out of money. She was frantic for an escape, for a way to rise up again, no matter how she knew she'd crash. She needed her next hit. She had no way to get the money she needed to buy herself a few minutes of peace in liquid form. Seeing her step-mother's open purse she looked around secretively to ensure she was alone and then reached inside. Fuck her step mom. The bitch never did anything for her, let her dad do what he wanted to her and never said a thing. Had driven her beloved older brother to run away from home. Maybe if she hadn't lost her brother from her life she wouldn't have ended up the way she had. Maybe if her real mom hadn't run off, taking her twin sister with her but leaving her behind she'd be a normal kid.

She was just putting the raided wallet back when her father came into the kitchen, catching her with her mouth open in surprise and a guilty look in her lack luster eyes. When he was done with her she thought her falls from the highs of drugs looked like falls onto fluffy clouds. She had to get away, had to for the sake of her life, or what was left of it. She dragged her bruised and bloody body to her room where she cleaned up as best she could and packed a small bag of her meager possessions to take with her. Looking like the victim of a train wreck she left the house quietly, wondering to herself how long it would take her father to realize she'd finally come to her senses and ran away from him, just like her mother had a few years before.

She, with the help of some people she knew, made a break for it. She had no money, no place to stay, and no hope left in her young heart. She headed to California, the last known home of her older brother. She had to do unspeakable things for traveling money and drug money on her journey and they killed her a little more inside each time. It was like she sold a little piece of her soul each time she sold her body for drugs or cash. Her need for her high was stronger then any moral fiber she had left in her. It was an all consuming, screaming voice that would not be denied. She did what she had to, to feed it, to sate it quiet even if only for a while. It always got hungry again, but she never did. The only thing that kept her going was a small picture she kept next to her heart of her, her sister and her brother together. If she could only find her brother...

She arrived in the correct neighborhood a few weeks later and found the correct house. Only time could tell if she'd found her brother, if she'd found a home. She raised her hand and knocked timidly on the door...