The vapors’ hazy tendrils curled around Lo’s face as if caressing her soft cheeks, pale brown eyes hidden under heavy lashes. It comforted her and loved her like no other. Lately, she had been smoking to forget her time in that dark room, but after her eighteen hour binge on Opium, Lo knew not to get sucked too deeply into the sweet smelling stupor. Another inhale led to another peak. Eyes flashed, irises expanded and pupils constricted as her breath was taken and everything slowed - her breathing… her heart rate... her world. All moved at a snail’s pace, while looking up at the water and mold stained ceiling of her motel room. Ceiling? Yes, now she was flat on her back in nothing, but her cherry printed panties and bra. Sharp nails trailing her skin up and down, up and down, until she shivered uncontrollably. The pleasures her vice brought her were undeniable, the places it brought her were simply on a different plane. The rough carpet at her back made her flesh crawl, but not with disgust like when she was sober. Every fiber pressed into her skin like tiny needles feeding her drunken state of euphoria. Her body continually was flooded, those pleasure receptors continually being told by the Opium to keep on going. More. More. More. No such thing as too much, right? Lo’s nails rose higher to trace along the valley of her perky breasts, outlining the ink that would stain her skin until she died. Impossible to resist a touch. A thumb grazed a taut nipple, bringing it to new peaks as she sighed in pleasure, the sound a distant echo in her ears. Slipping down ever so slowly, her other hand drifted across her toned tummy and traced the waistband of her panties, drawing from her pouty lips another throaty moan. Too easy. Lashes fluttering shut, her hand lowered again, fingertips just barely circling around the aching and swollen bud and she knew she wouldn’t have to do much to bring herself over and over. She could tease herself mercilessly, but tonight she was greedy. Tonight Lo hungered for that ultimate mindlessness, where memories and time were utterly obsolete. Flicking a rose-colored nail across her clit, her hips almost bucked forward. Was it possible to feel too much? With that same finger simply pressing down on her clit, the mesh material that made a barrier between the two body parts dampened and Lo’s back arched to what should have been a painful degree… but it wasn’t. Opium would give her up to pain. One slow circle and she was gone, swallowed by the tidal wave of pleasure that wracked her petite and delicate looking form, cumming so hard that her world went iridescent. Yes, it was that easy and she was wild and insatiable when her body ached like this. But she could feel herself being pulled by dark memories, her physical pleasure was turning into her mental torture. She had smoked too much... Again… and she could feel herself falling…

Falling...Fallling ...into a not so distant memory…

Lo’s eyes snapped open, the heavy darkness of the empty room pressing in on her, choking her. Her first thought was that being saved was just a dream and a sob escaped her lips, feeling that this was it, she will break - he will have won. The echo of her anguish bounced off the tall walls and her breath caught for it wasn't the same echo she had listened to for God knew how long. Softness at her back and warmth at her left. She was in a bed...his bed. It wasn't a dream. How had she missed the muscled arm that was draped low across her flared hips? Her savior… her Hathian Sparrow. He’d protect her from now on with or without his gang.

Lo recalled the memory as if it were happening at the very moment …the deal, his words ... his feel. She tried to center her mind on that and not on what Cyrus had done and said to her, but he couldn't push it away. Couldn't think of one and not the other.

“How many times have you used that tight body to sell your opium.. To hook them to it? Now its mine to use… you’re going to make me a lot of money”

At some point he had said this to her, the hit he had delivered to her head had made it hard to recall the order of events. Shackled, nude and starved… cheek rubbed raw from being scraped and pressed into the hard floor while he used her and threatened to break her body if he couldn’t break her mind. Her will. She didn’t care about her body, it was just something material… she could escape... Escape in her mind. Curled in the room and her head tucked beneath her own arms, blood caking the side of her head and face while bruises slowly blossomed across her tender skin. A deep thud of heavy footfalls and an unfamiliar whistle drew her out of her reverie. Lo was too weak to scream out or crawl forward, but her pathetic cry was enough. Loud bangs and then light. Her Sparrow had arrived to fly her away to safety.

Police sirens outside the motel brought her back and heavy lids struggled to open. Lo moaned, squinting as her lethargic form rolled to the side, then to her stomach. The flashing cell phone glared at her, but it was ignored. All she wanted to do was get away from the memories that were trying to break through the locked vault she had in the back of her warped mind. She buried her face in the crook of her delicate elbow and breathed in deep, letting the numbness find her and carry her to a safer place, but the stars were frowning on her tonight. The past would not be denied so as she slipped into Morpheus’ arms, she whimpered when his words reverberated in her head.

“Pangako ko na ang iyong sakit ay hindi katapusan”

The words slapped her and chilled her sweating body, “I promise that your pain will never end” His breath was hot in her grime and sweat covered face as he spoke the words in her native tongue, his breath reminiscent of rancid meat. Or maybe that was the rotting corpse of the child they had used to lure her into their trap that now laid at her feet for a week now. Lo stared at them through the eyes of a sixteen year old and though she had hardened, when she stared back at the face that she had encountered at age fourteen, age twelve and age eight, her mouth went dry and she could feel the bile already rising. She knew he could make good on his promise, knew he could break her until all she begged for was a death that wouldn’t come… she had gone through it before….yet she gagged and the sour acid erupted from her cracked lips and onto her own lap.

She was useless, too weak to hold what they had built. Father spoke these sentiments to his own ama, his tone littered with frustration and shame, but even the elder and former head of their empire shook his head, knowing the plans would be a mistake. The old ways were what her father wanted to turn to. Ways to test if the mind and body were strong enough, where Opium would cloud her world, releasing her imagination and in that dark room reality was anything, but tangible. A conscience was not an option in their world, but even the arthritic ridden old man held up his hand as if to halt it all, knowing that Lo was already troubled enough. He warned her father that he would create something that not even he could keep, but it wasn’t heeded. The things he saw Lo do while drugged and in a reality they had created for her made even him flinch and her father turned away, “sagipin kung ano ang maaari at ipadala sa kanya malayo.” His orders were given. To save what was left of her mind and send her away. They buried what they had twisted deep in the dark recesses of her mind and made sure it stood there with a prescription and family heirloom, her pipe. To this day, the week she had spent in hell were secret from her - all the blame cast upon her former captors. Lo could never imagine that it was her father that had damaged her so thoroughly. That while he tried to create something his pride could love, he had created a part of her he feared.

Falling…

Was it possible to fall up? Those were her only thoughts as dizzily, she rose like a zombie from it grave. Shoulders rounded and drooped, Lo shifted her weight to apply most of it on her right hip and swinging her arm around to hug herself. Nails grazing the cool metal of her pipe stopped her though,and she stared hard at it - wanting to blame it for the stains that trailed down her cheeks and for the hoarseness of her voice from calling out while she was trapped in her own darkness. Soft fingertips caressed its side, her small face tilting then leaning over to place a kiss against the smoothed surface. After all, the nightmares hadn’t even been graphic this time, “You‘d never hurt me” she whispered and as a sorry for ever thinking such a thought, Lo lit it up once more. Fumes lifted in a pungently sweet greeting as she inhaled deep, having full faith that her vice would deliver her peace and once again she was falling, but this time she was caught by her one true safety net. A bed of poppies.