What do you do when you have everything taken from you? This was the question Vivian was forced to ask herself as she continued to survive. Her days had become nothing more than taking from others and being taken from – a listless repetition that served no other purpose than to fill her time.

Ever since Ophilia was pulled from her life, Vivian moved, ate, slept, and breathed, but she hadn't really lived. A vital part of her had been wrenched from her chest cruelly and suddenly and she had no idea what to do.

School had lost its luster. After recovering from her initial shock, Vivian began ignoring her studies and missing school days, all in the name of trying to find her lost love. Of course, with her limited resources and little to no understanding about what had happened, she got no results. Like everything else, her efforts just turned to ash and dust in her mouth.

Two weeks after Ophilia's kidnapping, an anonymous tip came into the local police station. Two days later, Vivian was contacted with details by an officer she'd bribed to bring her any news. Twenty men, members of the Bianchi crime family, were all found dead in an auto-garage on the north side of the city limits. Several of these murdered mobsters had been key suspects in Ophilia's kidnapping, previously missing and at large. And they'd found blood.

Ophilia's blood...

And still, Vivian refused to believe it. She ignored all the words of consolation. She laughed off conversations about what she'd lost. She made herself not feel, because she couldn't bear living with the alternative. But it wasn't like flipping a switch in her head. She had been forced to sever a part of herself, compelled to further mutilate her already crippled mind.

Ophilia had to be alive. Any other possibility would spell the end for her happy world. Vivian was certain that if Ophilia was gone, she'd know somehow.

So, she existed; a ghost inside her own body. She floated through her sham of a life, wishing for time to both stand still and speed up. She spent every day waiting for the phone to ring – for Ophilia to be found; for her to finally come home.

But now, she stared at the floor, lost. It had been a year – down to the very day – since the incident. Life was looking no better. If anything, it was gradually getting worse.

She was alone now, with no one she could really trust. Ophilia had been the first and only person she'd ever been truly comfortable around. She'd clung to her like a safety blanket. Other people – other humans – they made her sick. They were little more than selfish, despicable, apathetic masses. They hated for the sake of hating, judged on stupid, arbitrary things, and couldn't be trusted with anything more than their own ability to breathe.

Sometimes, even that proves challenging.

She laughed at the joke in her mind, trying to dispel the harsh reality, but it was always there, waiting for her to notice it. Only Ophilia had proven to be consistently different from the howling many. And now she was gone.

Head in her hands, Vivian stared down at the object on the rug at her feet, imagining it was a coiled snake, whispering lies into her ears. She shut her eyes tightly, wishing it hadn't come to this.

An old acquaintance – a bubbly party-animal everyone referred to as 'Vanilla' – had been by earlier that day, hoping to keep Vivian's neck out of a noose. She wasn't the bad sort, but she was an unabashed follower, the kind of individual who would wave the flag of anarchy just because it was something everyone else was doing; just because it was 'cool'. She had no real convictions and that irked Vivian to no end sometimes.

For what felt like the hundredth time, Vivian replayed their meeting behind her closed eyes, wondering if she'd done the right thing.

"Look," Vanilla had said, eyes registering something akin to concern. "It's been a whole year, Vivian. Ya gotta move on."

Vivian hadn't wanted to hear it. Overflowing with fresh misery, she had cried, raged, thrown a few things, and worn herself ragged, all while Vanilla bore it all with an emotionless stoicism, as if she had no idea how to comfort a suffering friend. Once Vivian had burned out her emotions, Vanilla offered her a blunt and the two sat back together and smoked, trying to get their minds off their troubles.

Vivian had first taken to bud like a dehydrated man takes to a river; first she sipped, then gulped, drinking herself sick. At first, it had been helpful, covering her in a pall of good feelings. It seemed to make the whole world a little more bearable. However, now its effects weren't nearly enough. She felt the cloud of euphoria being torn away by the slavering beast of reality.

She played the happy card, promising Vanilla that she was okay, even as the smoke and ashes filled her lungs. Vanilla, thinking herself a dutiful friend, smiled back and said all kinds of flowery platitudes about acceptance and recovery. But Vivian knew for a fact that Vanilla hadn't ever lost anyone as close to her as Vivian had been to Ophilia.

Still, Vivian nodded back to her words, if only to make her go away.

It wasn't that she wasn't thankful – on the contrary, Vanilla was the closest thing to a friend she had these days – but she was just so tired of listening to the endless reassurances; people telling her to 'get over it,' as if this was nothing more than influenza or a hole in the ground. How could someone get over something that was already inside their head? How could anyone just wait out something that's crawling through their veins, like some terminal disease?

And so, Vivian convinced Vanilla to leave, but not before she left Vivian a small wad of cash. She had her promise to use it to buy more bud; she was going away for a while and wanted to make sure Vivian was well stocked.

Vivian had nodded to her, ignoring the money. After all, while Vanilla knew nothing about her family life, Vivian's parents were still sending her regular stipends of money; she'd been able to keep the apartment because of them, as well as the understanding of her landlord.

However, once she was alone, Vivian began to roll the cash back and fourth between her hands, imagining spending another day like this, smoking weed in a futile attempt to dull her pain, only to have it grow stronger and bolder in her chest.

She wasn't really alive anymore. But she was still living, right?

She shook her head and closed her eyes, sighing in perfect imitation of Ophilia. She found that doing that made her feel a little better, if only for a moment or two. She couldn't do this any longer. She was too weak.

She spent all the cash in one sitting. She didn't buy weed. Instead, she bought true release.

Now it sat there, mocking her weakness. She had bought it, but was she too afraid to take the next step? What if Ophilia really was gone? Would she accept that? Could she? Could she accept that Ophilia was really...

She felt vomit and misery race to breach her throat, but the two blocked her windpipe and Vivian just choked with a kind of half-sob instead. Was she seriously about to do this? Was this the only road open to her now? No, there were others, of course. She often thought of death sometimes, staring at her wrists with the full knowledge of how easy it would be to end everything. But what if Ophilia did come back? Then she'd be all alone, and it would be Vivian's fault. She couldn't die, not yet. But this?

Yes, she told herself. This.

She would do this. She was sick and tired of all this pain. Her breathing grew labored as she reached down and closed her hand around the small cylinder. She leaned back into the couch, not staring directly at the tool of her freedom. Her heart raced and, strangely enough, she felt alive for the first time in ages.

She reached over to her side blindly, patting the couch until she found the rubber strap from its place by her side. She tied it to her upper arm, using her teeth to tug it tight. She flicked her forearm to raise her veins, like she'd seen people do in so many movies. Weakness became resolve. Fear became motivation. She drew in a long, deep breath and sighed it out.

The vein seemed to welcome the point of the syringe and the plunger was so very easy to press. Slide it back out. Draw up her arm to close the hole. Remember to breathe. Then before she had time to reconsider or call someone for help, she pulled the tie off her arm and threw it to the floor, letting the dope flood into her body.

The effect was almost completely instantaneous. A strange sensation seemed to spread out from her arm as the opioid rushed through her system. Within a minute, Vivian's breathing had grown shallow as her heart rate dropped. She felt a wave of pleasure shoot through her and she gasped, eyes going wide before half-closing. Her pupils widened as a lethargic drowsiness washed over her, coupled with sparks of random pleasure. Negativity fled her body and for the first time since she'd stood on that curb, waiting for a car that would never come, Vivian felt very nearly at peace. It was almost as if all the past year's misery had fallen away into nothingness.

Her thoughts were slow, as if a great blanket had been drawn over her mind, convincing it that it was time to rest. She smiled and laughed and moaned and hardly knew why. Her eyes roamed lazily to the clock and, after several brief eternities, Vivian realized that she'd been sitting in that same position for over two hours.

She started to move, but only then realized her position. At some point she'd shifted, her left hand vanishing down the front of her pants. She felt stickiness on her fingers, but also noticed that her right hand had rested itself on her arm and had scratched it raw. She laughed at this, not really comprehending what was happening, and moved to rise with a small grunt.

The nausea hit her like a sledgehammer to the gut. She lurched forward, vomiting violently onto the carpet. She coughed, went to spit, and vomited again. Once she was done, Vivian chuckled dryly and moved to clean up the mess. It was time to finally get something done.

With the single-mindedness of someone fried out of their skull, Vivian began cleaning the entire apartment from top to bottom, sparing not an inch of space. The euphoria didn't last forever, of course. In fact, the dose Vivian had bought lasted about another two hours. The descent from her cloud was gradual, but debilitating none the less. Bleak depression crawled it's way back into it's den in her chest, more powerful than before, sinking it's crooked teeth deep into her heart. While her motor skills regained their delicate touch, her desire to put them to use fled.

Vivian only considered the situation for a few minutes before she dialed Vanilla. As the phone rang, she chewed on her lip, suddenly very anxious. It was taking everything she had to not burst into tears, for some reason.

"Y'ello?" Vanilla answered, sounding faintly stoned, as always.

"I need more," Vivian said hastily, not thinking to explain further.

"Wha— Vivian? What are you talking about?" Vanilla paused to re-position her phone, then continued. "I gave you enough green to keep you baked all week. What'd you spend it all on?"

"Don't worry about it." Vivian's voice cracked at her own rudeness, but she was barely thinking before she spoke. She really didn't care if she was being rude right now. She needed more. "I just need more cash. I won't get me 'allowance' for another three days. You know I'm good for a loan." She chewed her lip some more, her nervousness getting the better of her. "I need more, Vanilla. Please."

There was a long, shocked pause. "You... Shit, Vivian, you picked up something harder, didn't you? Dammit, I didn't give you that cash so you could—"

Vivian mashed the 'END' key so hard her thumb hurt and quickly swept through her phone's contacts. Vanilla tried calling her back twice; Vivian ignored the calls and the voicemails entirely.

She let out a shuddering sigh when she found the number she was looking for. His name was William and he sold Vivian her weed. He was friendly, but not really a friend, if that made any sense. Vivian had always thought he was too shifty, but she also knew that he was good for a loan. She'd pay him back in three days, no problems.

Within an hour, she was on the bus to meet him, her mind racing. Vanilla had stopped calling after seven more tries. Vivian would need to apologize to her later; after all, she owed Vanilla so much.

William was in the meeting spot before Vivian, standing comfortably in his leather jacket. She'd never seen him without the stupid thing. His cap was pulled low to keep the sun out of his eyes and a hand-rolled cigarette burned on his lips. Just to be sure, Vivian sniffed. It was just a cigarette, and the harsh scent of nicotine made her cough. She hated that damn stuff.

"Ey, Vivian. What's all this about a loan?" He met her halfway, trying on a small, disarming smile. His eyes roamed over her briefly, before lingering on hers. Vivian had some suspicions about his flirtatious ways, but she hadn't really considered it much. Ophilia was the only one who could fill that void in her heart.

She gave a small, brainless chuckle, acting like the blonde that her blue dye concealed. "Well, I'm a little behind on my rent. Don't worry, I'll pay you back in a few days, I promise."

William shrugged and reached into his pocket, pulling out his wallet, and counting off several hundreds. "Here, that enough?"

Vivian stared at the money, doing a few mental calculations. "Yeah, it's plenty." She stepped up, hugging him tightly. "Thanks Will. You're a life-saver."

Under an hour later she was on her way home again, carrying something very different from money in her bag. Giving her lip another anxious nibble, she peered into the bag for her salvation, wondering if she could even manage to wait till she got home.

Vivian snapped awake, feeling the jolting pain in her palm. She'd dug through the skin with her nails. Again. She looked at the barely-dried blood on her sheets with some distaste. She didn't have enough money to waste on something as frivolous as sheets these days. Ruefully, she looked at the other splotches and stains, only most of them a dried red. It'd been a long time since she'd been able to remedy this situation.

She rolled from the bed, scratching her arm and head as she crossed into the living room. This new apartment was much smaller than the one she'd shared with Ophilia two years ago, but she'd needed to scale down to keep up on the rent, as well as keep everything else well stocked. She tossed herself onto the couch, still naked, and dug her morning fix from its hiding place between the couch's cushions.

Vivian had learned tons of very interesting and sometimes agitating facts within the past year. Primarily though, she'd learned that pure, uncut heroin was expensive as all high hell. She'd been forced to do countless small odd-jobs to feed her habit, but no formal employer cared much for a high-school dropout like her. And that wasn't even considering the drug tests... Besides, those small, little jobs were already becoming more and more agitating to do; how was she supposed to hold down a real job on top of those?

To top it all off, her parents had learned that she'd dropped out and were sending increasingly scanty envelopes, packed with less and less cash and more letter urging her to go back to school, come home, or both. Pretty soon, she wouldn't even be able to afford what little dope she needed to keep herself sane. So, with extreme reluctance, Vivian had settled last night on a new plan for getting her fix.

As it turned out, she'd been right about William's attraction to her, even if it was purely physical, and it'd been three years since Ophilia had vanished. She would understand, wouldn't she?

The needle in her vein felt like an old friend, the faint pain almost euphoric now as anticipation pooled up inside her. Vanilla had stopped talking to her entirely, saying she felt guilty for what had happened. Vivian really couldn't understand why; she'd never felt more alive than when dope pumped through her heart.

With a long, casual sigh, Vivian pressed the plunger and braced herself to meet the day. Only after the familiar rush did she feel ready enough to get up and get dressed.

Vivian was numb, both mentally and physically, as her body rocked back and fourth. It was a trick she'd learned two years ago, when Will had peeled her clothes off for the first time. He was gone now – Vivian didn't know where to – but she still needed her fix. Not long after, she'd needed a place to stay, too. Her parent's checks had stopped coming entirely. So every now and then, she found a new place, a new source.

His hand grabbed her hair – bright blonde; she hadn't been able to afford dye for months – but she hardly felt the painful tug. She took no pleasure in the act, even if she pretended that she did. This was all merely a means to an end. She had learned that pretending – making these men and women think that they mattered to her – was essential. She just simply went through the motions until they were spent.

The man trembled on top of her as he reached his end and Vivian felt him leave her. She shuddered and gasped, but didn't let him know that it was disgust that brought on those noises. Disgust in him and what he was doing. Disgust in herself.

Holding the needle, her reward, was as relaxing as always. She still paid sometimes, whenever she could, but this was necessary. As she searched for an un-blackened vein, she at least felt a small surge of pride – she wasn't so desperate that she'd let the men go unprotected. It was a small victory, but one she cherished.

The tears surprised her. She felt them on her cheeks, warm streaks over cold skin. Her breathing hitched and she rushed to find a vein. She couldn't let herself think. She couldn't let herself feel. How could she, after all she'd done?

With a tangible sense of relief, she plunged into a vein. She felt a sharp, intense pain – she'd pushed in too hard – but pushed the plunger anyway, eager to get the drug into her system. As she laid back on the couch, where her most recent of experiences had left her, the dope filled her body and mind with passiveness and relief.

As she closed her eyes, for just a moment, she saw Ophilia; smiling, laughing, alive.

What, she wondered, would she saw if she saw me now? That thought was almost too much, even for the drugs. She forced it away, pushing the smiling face and sparkling eyes off into the clouded mass of her mind. She sighed and sank into the couch, letting the dope carry her away from her troubles.

Her latest Roomie kicked her out the next morning.

As that same year drove to a close, Vivian found herself at a new, more dangerous crossroads. She needed another fix, but had no cash. There was no one else to go to. Her latest source was tired of her, and she'd exhausted all her other resources. Finding someone new would take time – too much time. She had an idea of what she had to do, but the thought of it frightened her.

She needed to take someone else's money. She'd need to rob someone. She didn't consider a mugging – she was fairly certain that she didn't have the heart for that – but breaking into someone's house was easy enough.

Already her wretched melancholia was returning.

Without much preparation, Vivian set off into the night, more desperate than she'd ever been. She'd walked these streets over and over all of her life, but never like this before. Now she saw every house as an opportunity and scanned them with a critical eye, trying to see from the outside how easily she could break in and if there was anything of value inside. Finally, after about two hours of skulking in the dark, Vivian spotted her window of opportunity and smashed it with a rock.

It wasn't the quietest of methods, but Vivian was growing more and more desperate as time passed. Her self-loathing and depression was crawling back like a starving beast, ready to eat her alive. If it caught hold of her, she was certain that it'd kill her.

She reached through the shattered glass, unlocked the frame, and pulled it open. In the silence of the sleeping home, Vivian began to pillage. The objects she found, however, were either too large, such as a very nice television, or were mostly worthless. She'd misjudged this house from the outside. She needed something light, but valuable; gold, jewelry, that kind of thing. Quietly, she began to search for the bedroom, where such things were most likely kept. She didn't quite make it.

The man had probably purchased the pistol with the expectation that he's never need to use it. He probably told himself it was little more than a precaution and would never leave it's drawer. His hands were trembling with uncertainty and fear as he raised the gun towards Vivian from down the hall.

"Don't move!" The man said loudly, his voice quivering. Vivian saw a curious little face behind him; a boy, no older than six, watching from a doorway with big eyes. "O-Or I'll shoot," the man finished lamely, after a few tense moments.

Slowly, very slowly, Vivian raised her hands up, palms open. She didn't speak; she doubted it would matter. She had a knife in her pocket, but drawing it was never even an idea in her mind. She'd bought it for self defense against the men and women who took her in, not to kill some poor man who was just trying to protect his home.

Minutes ticked away. In her scrambled state, Vivian wondered why the man was just standing there. Her arms were getting tired and he hadn't spoken again, after his questionable threat. Just when she was about to speak up – to ask him what came next – she got her answer.

Sirens. The police.

Vivian's heart jumped into her throat. Animal instincts took over; she was prey, and like a hunted animal, she turned and ran.

A gunshot split the night and Vivian felt – rather than heard – the bullet pass by her head, hitting the wall in front of her. Her ears rang as she darted into the first doorway she saw and found exactly what she'd been looking for: a window.

She didn't stop – she didn't even slow down – as she dove through the glass. She landed with a pained grunt, but thanked whatever stars shone down on her that she hadn't gotten stuck in the frame or impaled herself on a large piece of glass. Her body was lacerated from the glass shards, but she was well enough to keep running.

Sirens, all around her. She could even see the lights; red, blue, then red again.

And Vivian ran. She ran, knowing it was probably an exercise in futility. The man had gotten a good, long look at her face. Even if she got away, she'd probably need to leave town. She tossed her knife away, wanting to be rid of any weapons before she was caught. The ringing had faded, but now she could hear the blood pounding in her ears as she scanned for someplace to hide.

Finally, she settled on a spot. She pushed herself under a car that was parked on the side of the street, squeezed her eyes shut, pressed her face into the cold, wet asphalt, and prayed softly under her breath.

The sirens grew louder, the patrol car drawing closer, but with a loud whine of the siren, the car passed her by, followed quickly by one other. Eyes still tightly closed, Vivian waited. In time, the sirens grew more and more distant, until they vanished entirely.

It was over twenty minutes after that when Vivian crawled – dirty, miserable, crying, and free – out from underneath the car. She had no idea how long she'd hidden under there, but she knew she needed to move quickly. She was certain the police would be looking for her. Maybe, just maybe, there was a chance that she could get out of the city, run, hide, vanish.

However, an almost painful lethargy had flowed over her. Her damned melancholy had come back in full, spitting in her eye and telling her that she'd be better off dead. She spat back, fueled by adrenaline, and went in search of her discarded knife.

It was well past midnight by now and blacker than the inside of her eyelids. Vivian had to resort to crawling around on her hands and knees, struggling to find the last real possession she owned, aside from the clothes she was wearing and an immense tower of regrets.

She was certain she'd recognized the area she'd thrown the knife – a smattering of trees and brush that some moron probably considered a park. At first, her head snapped up whenever a car approached, but this was a part of the city that never really slept. Soon, all of her attention was focused on finding her last line of defense.

Somewhere to her left, a light wavered over the grass. Another car, she decided, and ignored it. Only when it was too late did she realize that the road was to her right, not her left.

"Freeze! Police!" It was a male voice, loud and commanding. His flashlight suddenly dug into Vivian's eyes, blinding her for a second. She couldn't see if he had his gun drawn or not, but she found that she really didn't care. Maybe if he did, he'd shoot her and put her out of this misery. She turned, rubbing the spots from her eyes as she dashed for the scant safety the trees offered.

"Over here!" Vivian heard the officer shout behind her. She cursed, wondering if these men had been left to search the area for her, or if she'd just had the miserable luck to run into some random patrol. But it was too late for it to matter now.

She ran, but she wasn't very fast. Her prior burst of adrenaline had fled, leaving her with a bone-deep weariness. The wounds over her arms and legs, still bleeding from her hasty exit through the window, were finally starting to burn with a feverish intensity.

The flashlight pursued her, finding her whenever she started to slow. Time and time again, the telltale flash of light sent her running until she was completely out of breath. Overcome with desperation, she began to climb the nearest tree, hoping she would be out of sight and her pursuers would ignorantly pass her by.

She screamed as a hand suddenly clamped onto her ankle, pulling her violently from the tree's branch. Her breath slammed from her lungs as she collided with the ground, leaving her lips in a sudden woosh of air. Before she had a chance to recover, a knee slammed down on her spine and hands grabbed onto both her arms, wrenching them behind her back. With a series of clicks, the handcuffs snapped into place.

Panic made her beg, but the cops ignored her. The officer on her back shouted for her to be quit, lifting his knee and dropping it onto her spine a second time, making it crack. A nearby officer began reading her Miranda Rights as the one on her back leaned off her, then hauled her to her feet. This all seemed impossible. It had to be a nightmare. She chuckled to herself and looked over to the officer as he pulled her towards the road.

"C-can you pinch me? I t-think I'm dreaming." The officer gave her a harsh look, but she just gave back a silly smile. This wasn't how her life was supposed to go. It wasn't until the door to the squad car closed and she stared at the grate between her and the driver that reality began to assert itself. She felt all the pain flowing through her body, all the despair creeping into her mind – she felt every ounce of it as the last three years settled into her brain in perfect clarity.

The beast of her melancholy laughed from it's perch on her heart, telling her that she should've just cut her wrists when she had the chance. All at once, the fight drained from Vivian and she simply collapsed onto the seat of the car and wept.

Author's Note

Is this the resolution to the cliffhanger you were all waiting for? Or was it the other half of the story? Stick around; all will be revealed in due time.

Oh and for those who are curious; I actually knew someone who was an ex-heroin addict upon writing this story. After asking him if it was okay, I got him to help me make sure the description was an accurate representation.

And a small side note; this chapter is as sexual as this series is ever going to get. There will be sex, implied or otherwise, but it will never be explicitly described. Sorry clop-fans, but you'll need to go elsewhere for your fix.