*Due to even more technical errors with my original posts it has been reposted. The original date of posting was 8/10/08

The cold night air seemed to heighten my senses, a newfound sense of awareness was around me. I leaned against the side of the building, the plaza was empty - things seem to have stayed the same. I open up my jacket, and take out the small bottle of pills. I pull down my bandana and pop several, and wash it down with the remnant sake I had in the bottle I was carrying. When I put the bottle of pills back in my jacket, the highly anticipated haze runs over the projection of my body. It's all in my mind, I tell myself. I think that's what I like about it.

I throw the empty booze bottle and hear it smash, part of my mind lingers on how some would say that didn't really happen... but it did. I saw it. I heard it. I remember it. If you were to tell me this place was not so different from The Real a couple months ago, only part of me would have wanted to believe it. But now I fully believe it. I perceive things the same in both places... I no longer see real or unreal - it's all happening.

The mind can only afford to wander so far before my thoughts are cut short by the alarm on my cell phone. It's silent, but I feel the vibration. It stimulates me; a subtle foreplay for what is about to come. I stand up straight, pull up my collar and make sure my mask is on right - anyone who knew me knows my appearance is nearly all I've got. I walk towards the door, the awareness from the cold air has been subdued by my self-medication. I feel as if I can feel the code running down, and through my body... It's just the pills... The mind has so much power...

I open the door, and walk through the lobby. I reach the elevator and I impatiently wait for it to arrive. After what seems to be a lifetime of waiting, the elevator finally reaches the ground floor. No one was on it, that means she's already up there. A smile forms under my mask, and my head is still hung low. I enter the elevator and press the button marked "5," what used to be my favorite number.

I try to tell myself to stop thinking, and to stop talking to myself, but then I feel all hypocritical and won't shut up. After listening to myself gab for the duration of the elevator ride, I am now feeling pretty tense. What an emotional roller coaster. The door opens and the hall light barely does it's job. I walk down the hall until I reach the door labeled "543," chronology always turned me on.

I knock on the door, and keep my head low. When the door opens I barely look up, and the first thing I see is black leather boots - a female's boots. My eyes scroll upwards and over her black leather zippered suit. Her eyes are shielded by black sunglasses that reflect my shameful image. Her hair is black, and styled in a sense of Matrix typicality - the kind I like. Her gloved hand welcomes me in, I eagerly enter.

The door shuts behind me, and I can hear it being locked and dead bolted several times. I sense we are the only two people in the apartment, but that could just be the pills... or the sake. I take off my glasses, and turn around and stare at her. She takes her glasses off and for the first time in weeks I see the eyes I missed so much. Like a transition from code green to Slumberil blue. It was beautiful. My eyes must have emitted what my mind was thinking, because she let out a small, "Hm."

She's the only one I've stayed in contact with, the only one that knows I'm still alive; the only one who knows what happened, didn't really happen. Her hand goes to her neck and unzips her suit somewhat, but I see nothing interesting. "Shickle," she says with a very dramatic pause, "It has been... quite some time since my colleagues even mentioned your name."

"How'd you know a diminished ego gets me in the mood?"

A short chuckle escapes as a small smile forms on her face, "EPN spends enough time around Tabor West to know your... ‘ego.'"

I quickly reply, "But have you spent enough time around me, is the question you should be asking yourself." Part of me hoped she caught what I really meant. "You know I carry a shield."

"Was that your attempt at a metaphor?" She shook her head, my vision was starting to blur, her face made what seemed to be a quicksilver-like trail. The world was slowing down. I tilt my head in question, and she comes up to me. I wrap one arm around her hips and bring her in close, her lips are telling me she wants it as much as I do. I could be wrong, I tell myself, I've been wrong before. My thoughts are quickly eased as my mask is pulled down and she brings her face closer to mine. I can feel her breath and I try to breathe out my nose. She catches me off guard as she places her soft lips on mine. The taste of dry pills and alcohol is quickly overwritten with this kind of... apathetic taste. There is nothing, yet there is something. From many ‘somethings,' there is one; that's what I love about EPN, the way they taste.

Just as my eyes close, in a sensational bliss, I feel a warm glove on my face. I can only imagine the palms beneath are sweating. I feel a shiver run down my spine as her face sneaks within my collar and plants a kiss on the left side of my neck. It throws off my needed symmetry in a nice way. My "body" shakes and I look into her eyes, the green and blue are now swirling about. I took to much, I told myself, this place...

Once again my thoughts are cut short. My EPN vixen draws back, and says only this, "I bet you wish you had that shield now, Shickle." Almost instantly I hear the hammers on multiple guns being pulled back, my infamous luck seems to have crawled back to me. I close my eyes and think to myself, you stupid son of a- I can't even curse at myself before I am once again interrupted, by a sudden sharp pain in my neck - right where I once felt the soft lips of an angel, I now feel the pain of a sedative.

My fingers slowly go to my neck and I feel a large dart. I pull it out, feeling no pain, and stare at it. "Some sort of... laughing gas... thing... derivative?" I ask with a smile as I stare at the seductress. My question is answered with a nod. "Awe-" I struggle to speak, "Awe... awethome," falls out of my mouth as I drop the floor. My eyes once again see those black leather boots, and wander upward to that black leather zippered suit. As my consciousness fades away, all I feel is my face stretching with that familiar "ChaosTide" smile, and my heart aching with the ever familiar pain of foolishness.

I wake up next to a dumpster, nothing new. My mattress, the concrete, and my pillow, a broken garbage bag, allow me to wake up a filthy mess. I open my coat and reach for my friendly pill bottle, but it seems to have run away. In it's place lies a note, signed with one of those clichéd lipstick signatures.

"Welcome back, and try to have some fun," is all it reads. I'm angry, but Mara is a small neighborhood; walk down the right street and you can find whatever you need.

Megacity.

As much as I hate to admit it, I missed ya'.