text: The door opened and behind it a short young lady peered through the darkness, and beckoned him inside. Pointing towards a room off the hallway he walked through with the short young lady in tow. Few words were exchanged before clothes were taken off, he with confidence undressed and she shyly took off her t shirt and jeans and exposed her naked body. 5 notes were placed on the bed and she picked and counted them as he lay on the bed, the ordeal was over with in minutes, he left but she stayed. In the dark 4 by 4 room. She came from a small village in Taiwan and had been in London for just a few months, at first trying to get a job as a nurse, before turning to prostitution for quick cash. The man who had helped her get into it had made it now so she couldn’t leave. She had been sold a dream which instead was being given as a nightmare to her. For every 5 notes she received she kept one, the rest going to the cost of the room and the pimps customer base. Confined to a room. In the centre of one of the worlds most wealthy cities but only staying in a small room. A dark room, with a red curtain. A suitcase on the floor, sleeping on the bed where she services the men she sees. Outside the apartment door next to the elevator going down is a dead mouse. she sees it as a grim reminder of the dirty world she now is living in. once life was more simple for her, she went to school and did well. She was reasonably popular and remembers nights by the river in her hometown having fun. She remembers innocence. But now she is trying to forget. She is trying to forget where she came from, what she is doing now, and really who she is. The drugs are affecting her looks, her arm is scabbed up from missing veins, her face is gaunt and grey. She is trapped in a scenario she couldn’t have ever imagined. Now just another prostitute in Soho. But in reality she is more than that. She is so much more, every working girl in the city is. But whether she ever realises it or not is the question, if she will be able to break free. Break free from her captor. The capture of drugs, the control of her pimp, the allure of money. The river still flows in her hometown, her old friends still laugh and think about her. Her family is still there, but she isn’t. She has left this world, and is escaping into her own filled with dopamine induced dreams and sleeps. The man didn’t see her again, nor did she see the man, but she saw others. And now the sun has gone down and the needle is filled again, she can escape to a different place.