A life spent in the dark underbelly of society, where the worst of criminal minds and intentions alike swarmed and thrived, had chewed up Shaya and spat her out in distaste. No mercy was shown to those with cracks in their armours; those weaknesses were exploited, shattered by anvils of cruelty. Not many survived to improve their life, but Shaya had managed. She’d had enough practice, after all.
Now, in France, she was trying to forget it all. Forget, and move on… but that was easier said than done. She still suffered the scars earned from her significant history with the Triad and its leader, and it was all she could do to succumb to the gift her former lover had left her with.
A gift of poison.
It was difficult. Sometimes, Shaya would stand in the shower, under a heavy torrent of hot water, and stare at her razor blade...touch it to her wrist...and trace a thin line over the pulsing vein, imagining the river of red blood that would gush out. Only the fain echoes of her former self, a coward that was afraid of the pain she would feel while dying, stopped her from ending it right there. She would clench her fist and force herself to finish shaving her legs, acting as if everything was okay again, as if her heart wasn’t drowning in anguish.
Fighting this addiction had consumed her life for the better part of three years. It was an old story: she would establish some semblance of a life, live idealistically for a few weeks, and then start feeling the restlessness that precluded a torrent of familiar withdrawal symptoms. Before she knew it, Shaya would find herself in a damp and dark alley somewhere, eyes blurry in a haze of opium induced high, surrounded by strangers that encouraged her to keep going, everything was okay, she was safe... Cradled in the familiar taste and smell that had become a lullaby, Shaya would spend weeks without knowing where she was and what she was doing.
And then, one day, when her supply ran out and the strangers had exhausted both her body and money, reality would come crashing down and she would be horrified at what she’d done. In an effort to escape her reality, she would move once again to a new location, far away from temptation, a place where she knew no one and no one knew her, somewhere she could start over.
However, a river always returns to its original course no matter what, and for Shaya, history would repeat itself as well. If it wasn’t an alley then it was someone’s dark apartment, or under a bridge, or in a tunnel or abandoned warehouse. She’d moved from city to city, and then from country to country, and now, finally to a different continent altogether, desperate to escape the clutches of temptation, as if distance was her remedy. But not anymore.
In one of her periods of clarity and lucidity, Shaya had regained enough presence of mind to realize that something aside from merely her location had to change if she really wanted to be free. From Paris to Nice and now finally at Marseilles, she had checked herself into a world renowned rehab center the day she’d felt her withdrawal symptoms stirring again.
She had been here for about four months and completed the first stage of the program, and had two months before the second stage began. In these two months, Shaya was supposed to live a regular life in the city and apply the program's teachings to fight her addiction and see how well she could do in the real world. Then there would be another four months of rehab, followed by another two months of regular life, repeating the same cycle over and over until she was a fully functioning, sober person again.
Living somewhere for two months was not enough of a commitment to fully rent a place, so Shaya had decided to stay at a hotel for a few nights until she could find an apartment to sublet or even a motel, if need be. Due to necessity, she had only a few items in her luggage which consisted of only two suitcases and one bag; that was her entire life, packed up neatly and ready to be transported anywhere at a moments’ notice. Right now a porter was carrying her stuff upstairs to her room while she stayed in the hotel lobby, signing some paperwork and talking to the receptionist in soft, halting French. She’d learned the basics in America when she’d been a child, and it was slowly coming back to her.
“And there you go, Miss,” the man said charmingly, sweeping away the paperwork and replacing it with a set of keys and breakfast vouchers. She would have to find lunch and dinner on her own.
“Merci, monsieur,” Shaya said politely, pocketing the item and turning away. She’d only been released this morning, armed with whatever the rehab program could teach her in sixteen short weeks. Could she survive eight weeks here, by herself?
She’d find out.
