Lura slipped into her house quietly. She didn't expect anyone to be home, but things had been a bit unpredictable lately. The house was empty and dark, the only sound the quiet creak of the door as she shut it behind her. The lights flickered on as she entered, casting warm white light on hardwood floors, gray walls, a glass end table.

A picture frame with shattered glass. A blue porcelain bird hastily glued back together, the crack still visible down its back.

She walked through the room carefully, listening for sound but hearing none. It was more habit that anything else. She knew there were lots of reasons she should be on edge- today more than usual- but none really had much of an impact on her. The officer must have given her something strong.

The living room, always too rustic for her mother's taste, gave way to a more modern looking kitchen. This was one thing Lura actually agreed with her father on; the kitchen felt cold. It felt like blood could be spilled onto the marble counters and just be wiped away and sanitized, with no one ever really caring.

She shuddered.

The console was on its own table by the wall. Its screen was taken up by a multicolored prism, slowly rotating. The image cleared as she approached, replaced by large text and a series of oversized smiley faces.

Hi, Lura! How are you feeling?

Lura tapped the one with a small smile. It was the one she usually picked.

It was the one everyone usually picked.

The face grew until it occupied the screen, and then faded away to white. The prism reappeared, and started to rotate, and Lura took a step back.

She returned to the stairs near the front of the house and walked up. The third step creaked, but she didn't really notice. Once again, her mind was preoccupied. It was important to focus on the console, because otherwise her parents might ask questions, and today she couldn't afford that. The console could tell when you were distracted, but the bands didn't have that ability. And neither could see what you were thinking, because not even the peace officers had tools to read your mind.

Not yet, at least.

Lura reached her room and shut the door. Her fingers traced the hole in the knob where there had once been a locking mechanism. The bag she'd been carrying was hung on the edge of a chair, her shoes were kicked into a corner, and then finally, finally, she could turn her full attention to the little thing in her pocket. She sat on the floor in a little section that was out of direct view of a window or the door and pulled out the small, foil-wrapped rectangle.

A boy had given it to her in the last period of class. She didn't know him by name, but he was familiar in appearance: red hair that reached past his ears, a nose just a bit too large for his face. They'd never spoken.

He'd walked past her desk without looking at her, dragging his hand across every surface that he passed with an obnoxious sliding sound. It was unnoticeable- he never faltered or slowed. But once he'd passed, the object been sitting there. Instinct had led her to grab it before she was even sure she wanted it.

Now she pulled at the corner of the silver foil until it came loose. The wrapping peeled away easily to reveal a single square of chocolate.

Lura held the chocolate close to her eyes. It was a darker color than the kind her family got occasionally, when they had some extra money and neither parent had some new obsession to spend everything on.

Logically, she knew that eating a mysterious piece of candy some kid had given her was a bad idea. They had been taught as children, quite literally, to not take candy from strangers (or anything else that might hold treatments).
But her brain was still locked in calm, and she felt only a quiet serenity as she looked at the chocolate. So she took a small, careful bite.

It was so much more than what she'd tasted in the past.

The chocolate you could buy in the markets was a treat, but it was always grainy and lacking any strong flavor, with a faded color and a hint of bitterness. This was smooth and rich and delicious. She closed her eyes as she chewed, savoring it. A rush of joy filled her.

Lura stopped chewing. She examined the half of the chocolate that was still in her hand. Squinting a bit, she could just make out the faint appearance of a few blue specks.

They were the exact shade of the "happiness" pills she'd taken before.

For a long moment, she hesitated. But the chocolate still in her mouth was melting into her tongue, and besides it was surely a coincidence anyway. The rest of the chocolate was just as delicious as the first bite.

The feeling of ecstasy started to fade as soon as the chocolate was gone. It weakened into a slight hint of joy and energy at the back of her mind, leaving only that unrelenting calm. The memory made her crave that same feeling, and she picked up the foil again, searching it for any bits of chocolate that may have stuck to the inside.

She found none, but she did find writing. In small, neat letters done in pen, the inside of the wrapper said simply:

Want some more?
427 892

The numbers meant nothing to her, but the words held her gaze.

Want some more?

Yeah. She kind of did.