She looks down at the needle sticking out of her arm, watching it fall to the dirty carpet before her eyes roll back in her head. The world goes dark for a moment, but then colors bloom behind her lids in a kaleidoscopic burst of wonder. Those colors take her back to better days, to a better life.

She can almost feel the floral dress, soft against her skin, can almost touch the loving kicks pressing against her pregnant belly. In her mind, she is still aware enough to know that it is the heat from the fluorescent lights that warm her skin, but she imagines the sun instead. She can taste the sandwiches made for the picnic spread by her husband, whose name somehow escapes her.

There is the slightest click inside her mind, the sound making the colors flee. They are replaced by threads of red unspooling in her mind’s eye, floating into the ether like veins searching for a body to inhabit. The red turns to black as poison floods in. Through it all, she can still feel the kick inside, but not for long. That life blinks out, replaced by a need to strong to ignore.

Her eyes flutter open, enough for her to survey the room in which she sits, slumped against the wall in the throes of the drug of the day. The home once echoed with laughter and declarations of love. Those are all now buried beneath the detritus of used needles and fast-food containers. The only signs of life are the roaches that slip in and out of the pile, feasting on grease and vomit and whatever other fluids may have slipped out in her hazy existence.

The fix takes full hold, and everything swims out of focus. These are moments she craves. It is her chance to escape back to that better life, a place she promises she will return to one day. She knows it is a lie, though, as the need will lead her to the poison again and again, taking until she has nothing left to give.