Feeling

Prologue

Looking back on it, this probably wasn't my best idea.

Actually, scratch that; this really wasn't my best idea. Some could even say that it was pretty high on the list of my worst ideas ever. A seventeen year old girl, walking alone through the back alleys of one of the worst parts of the city...at midnight. Gee, what could go wrong there?

Add in the fact that I was clutching my bag to me as tightly as possible, the thick roll of cash and the computer I was carrying in it, and the fact that I looked like I could barely snap a toothpick, and you've got a recipe for disaster right there. I guess common sense just didn't run in the family.

Brains, though... that may have been another thing. But brains and general intelligence were the reason I was in this mess in the first place. After work, I'd searched for a place to study so that I could actually get some peace for once. Even if there had been enough room at the group home for my books to be spread out, it wasn't nearly quiet enough and I wasn't about to risk ruining the laptop I'd worked for so diligently with sticky orange juice or crumbly snacks. So same as usual, I'd chosen the library as my haven from the storm that was an overcrowded house stuffed with juvenile offenders.

That hadn't saved me from the storm that was raging outside, though. Normally, I heard when it began and planned accordingly, but I'd been so caught up in my research that by the time I walked outside, the raindrops hitting the pavement were almost deafening. Waiting for the bus was out of the question; this late at night, the drivers would sometimes blow right by me. I knew that one of the girls who occasionally gave me rides after school lived only a few minutes away. If I took back alleys, is only be a few blocks of uncovered street. I took these alleys all the time during the day. What harm could there be?

Good news for me, the rain stopped completely a few minutes later. Bad news, now that it wasn't absolutely pouring, I didn't feel comfortable marching up to an acquaintance's door and asking for a ride home so late at night when I could so easily finish the walk home myself. Cold, a little wet, and determined to make it home by my curfew, my best course of action was just to keep going. So I hiked up my hoodie, tightened the strap on my bag so that I was nearly suffocating myself, and ducked my head so I received as little attention as possible.

My half-assed disguise didn't do that much for me, though. At night, those alleys I trusted in the sunlight apparently became a welcoming home for junkies and drunks. As the only sober one of the bunch, I stuck out like a sore thumb and I couldn't help but attract a lot of attention.

"Hey, girly!"

Right on cue. Just ahead of me, a man who clearly wasn't on his first beer or the night pushed away from the wall he was leaning against. He wobbled precariously, reaching his free hand out to the shoulder of another person for balance. He gestured to me with his drink as a giddy grin leaked across his reddened face. "You should come and party with us? I'm sure we've got something around here that'll make you feel real nice."

I pulled my hood closer around my face, cutting off any possible eye contact with them. At least I had enough sense to know that engagement was not the thing to do here. I sped up, walking quickly until I was fully past the group. "Aw, come on, baby. Don't be like that, gorgeous," the drunkard called after me.

"Dude, fuck this bitch, alright?" said the man being used as a support, pulling the man back to the group at the wall. "She's a stuck-up whore; doesn't deserve your time. Why're you asking like you got a Love stuck on you?"

As their laughs faded into the distance, I shuddered at the mention of Links. Despite the fact that some of them were legalized, they were still drugs and the absolute worst. The company that created them-- Feel Inc-- was the only brand allowed on the market. Their six variations of patches caused the wearer to experience certain emotions when adhered to skin. Scientists called them breakthroughs. Psychiatrists called them life-changers.