By Stephen Stirling

With reporting from Andre Malok and Ashley Peskoe. Illustrations by Anna Vignet.

What would happen if you took everyone who is addicted to heroin in New Jersey and sent them to live in one place?

It would be the state's fourth largest city, boasting a population of at least 128,000.

Its residents are diverse enough that the town would be self-sufficient -- with lawyers, politicians, construction workers, teachers and scientists walking the streets.

And you will know one of them.

In fact, social network analysis suggests you likely will know several city residents, whether they toil at a desk behind you or sleep in a bed down the hall.

This city exists all across New Jersey, where heroin and opioid addiction have exploded in the past 10 years, killing more than 5,000 people and enslaving hundreds of thousands more. It's not a new story, but one whose tendrils reach far deeper into the Garden State than most know.

Over the past year, NJ Advance Media has collected hundreds of stories from people touched by this epidemic - addicts, recovering users, mothers, fathers, friends and family - to detail the struggle with addiction.

ABOUT THIS PROJECT

Learn more about how we developed our estimates and reported on New Jersey's heroin crisis.

Last year, we put out a blind call to readership: Tell us your heroin story. It was an experiment -- give people an anonymous form and a blank canvas -- and see what happens.

The results were remarkable. We received more than 500 responses from 215 towns in New Jersey. The men and women spanned ages 17 to 79. Some responses ran more than 2,000 words.

Since then, 12 months of reporting has taken us into suburban homes and city apartments, and from needle exchanges and rehabilitation centers to jails and cemeteries.

The stories were told in the words of the people who lived them. They detailed joy and heartbreak, anger and frustration.

So imagine, if you will, a town populated by these individuals - the fastest growing municipality in New Jersey. By far.

Our town is fictional, but the voices are real. Heroin users move through addiction along strikingly similar paths. They enter this world and are sucked deep into a community that seems to collapse around them.

Death lurks and any hope of escape seems miles away.

I: Our city

Herointown is a city in a bubble, its residents unknowingly bound in their own isolation, drifting farther away from the lives they once knew.

From the border, Herointown looks inviting. The view is not unlike staring at the heart of Jersey City or Morristown -- streets alive and bustling, hallmarks of a vibrant and growing community.

There's a diversity of housing, from mansions to apartment complexes and single detached homes.

Like the rest of New Jersey, Herointown's residents are diverse, but that's changing. It's whiter and younger today, with most arriving in their 20s and early 30s, while the average age across New Jersey climbs.

While things appear normal, a closer look reveals cracks and deformities -- like the slowly crumbling facade of a building. On many homes, the paint is chipping, the sidewalks cracking. Lawns have been allowed to grow a little too long.

Look closer still.

In many cases, the buildings are just skeletal husks, a curtain hiding decrepit living conditions.

Herointown is a carefully crafted mirage. And it isn't until you're deep inside its borders that you realize something is terribly wrong.

The death rate here is nearly twice that of the state, and the rate of communicable disease, unemployment and homelessness far outpaces any level New Jersey has seen in decades.

The road into the city is the same as the road out -- there's only one -- and the deeper you wind through the streets here, the harder it is to get back to the main boulevard.

From the inside, Herointown's booming population makes sense to the residents. The same thing that brought them here keeps them here.

II: In a snap of the finger

Every day, Earl Amin Jr. watches people head into Herointown, his former home. It stirs conflicting emotions about his past and their likely future. He has empathy, but only shakes his head.

"I understand that life," the 62-year-old said, sitting in a chair at his sparsely furnished Newark apartment. "I know where they're going, and it's nowhere good."

Amin was released from prison in 2012 after serving 30-years for armed robbery, which he said he committed to support his heroin habit. Heroin took half of his life.

When released, Amin said he was immediately struck by the ubiquity of heroin.

"I just don't think the average person understands and knows exactly what heroin can do. Heroin won't just destroy your life, it will destroy your community. One drug dealer can destroy an entire community like that," he said, snapping his fingers.

Earl Amin Jr., 62, spent 30 years in prison for armed robbery, which he says he committed to support his heroin habit. (Stephen Stirling | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com)

Jonathan Fedorchak, a 22-year-old from Bernards, remembers being enamored when he arrived in Herointown more than five years ago.

"It was fun. I can't lie and say it wasn't," he said. "Life just seemed like a big party."

When he arrived, there was a sense of inclusion and comfort Fedorchak long had craved.

It was the same for Jennifer Cassa.

It was the early 2000s and she recently had graduated high school, where she was a cheerleader and a soccer player. She spent some time at college but left because it wasn't for her.

She began dating a recovering heroin addict who used methadone to stifle his cravings. She knew nothing of the drug, or its pull on users.

"I was so naive, I had no idea what heroin even was," she said. "It was never even around me. The most I ever did in high school was either drink or smoke weed and that was very rare.

"Then one day I guess he stopped going to the methadone program and he relapsed. He just ended up doing it in front of me."

It would prove to be a life-altering moment.

Addicts often describe using heroin or opioids for the first time as transcendent. For many, like Cassa, it is born out of youthful curiosity. For others, it begins with necessity - a car accident or injury soothed by powerful painkillers.

Dave Greenwald, a boat mechanic from Brick, was prescribed Percocet and Oxycontin after suffering a back injury.

"I got addicted," he said. "It was awesome, that's the problem."

After initially visiting Herointown, most want to return, addiction experts say. It seems welcoming and comfortable, shiny and new. When the high wears off and reality comes crashing back, the desire to come back is only reinforced.

Prescription pills are readily available, albeit expensive, which isn't often a problem at first. They're legally prescribed, so it seems safe.

But the prescriptions run out and pills can cost $30 each on the street, according to law enforcement officials. At $5 a bag - less than a McDonald's Extra Value Meal -- heroin is an economically sound alternative.

Recovering heroin addict David Greenwald of Brick, N.J., lost his mother to a suicide when he was 5 years old. (Andre Malok | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com)

"You can literally go down the street in some places and have people fighting over (your business)," said Patricia, a recovering addict from Westfield.

Many of the new users are running from something, addicts and addiction experts say. Abuse, neglect and depression are common among addicts, and heroin or opioids dulls the sharp edges of such plights for a time.

This was Cassa's experience. It was the same for Fedorchak, Greenwald and Kelly Rainier of Clayton.

"There was a lot of stuff going on in my family. My mom left. My sister was young and I was raising her. And I was overwhelmed with that, with school, with work," Rainier said. "Instead of actually dealing with the feelings of all of that, I could use. It just, it made me not feel.

"Pretty quickly I realized I didn't like the way I felt without it."

III: 'They just don't seem to care'

Hepatitis-C spreads uninhibited in Herointown. According to the state Department of Health, cases of the potentially deadly disease have tripled since 2002.

Bob Baxter, who ran a needle exchange program in Newark up until earlier this year, says at least a quarter of the clients under 25 test positive for the disease.

"They just don't seem to care," Baxter said. "I've been at this a long time and there's a comfort level about using and sharing needles I've never seen. It doesn't seem to faze them."

People who live here say their lives become a means to an end -- get high and get more. Nothing else. It doesn't take long - some say a month, for others just a week, even though many people here have jobs, families and active social lives.

But behind the curtain, heroin drives every action.

Matt is in his 20s and grew up in Essex County. Outwardly, he's doing well, working as a full-time chemist. He found a job right out of college after maintaining high marks. He's paid well.

And he uses heroin every day.

"My parents sound so proud when friends ask what I've done since college," he said. "I know that behind my mom's smile is a dark family secret that tears my parents apart, and the worst part is that no matter what they do to help, the heroin always seems to win. None of my coworkers know my demons, even though I'm high at work almost every day."

In time, people inevitably start to catch on. Then the questions begin. Why don't you just stop? Can't you see what is happening? How did you let it get this bad?

The answers, unequivocally, are as uniform as the questions: I can't. No. I don't know, respectively.

In answering these questions, Fedorchak explained how he sacrificed a little bit more of his old life each day.

It started with pills at parties. He liked them, and the pills became a habit. He was in college, after all, he reasoned.

Then he started to get sick when he wasn't taking them. And they were expensive for a college student with no income, so he started selling drugs and his possessions. Eventually, he was stealing.

Little by little, he said, the unthinkable became part of his day-to-day just so he could get high. It's a common refrain among addicts.

"A lot of people that haven't been through it don't understand how much it affects you as a person ... how powerful it is over you," he said. "If you're in active addiction, the addiction always wins. It'll make you do whatever you have to to get one more."

Cassa said she and her boyfriend once carjacked a taxi. David, a 47-year-old from Boonton, said he lost his pizzeria after he began stealing from his partner of more than 20 years. Charles, a 27-year-old from Roxbury, said he used with his friends for years, a decision that cost him his career in the military and landed him in jail.

It can go on like this for years.

Many users maintain jobs and relationships, sometimes only by a thread, but enough to give the appearance of normalcy - a lie as important to themselves as anyone else.

"My son flat-lined like four times. And I'd say to him, 'Marc, you flat-lined,'' said Rosetto, a Realtor from Toms River, who, along with Willis, now runs outreach for parents through Hope Sheds Light. "And he would just smirk and say 'Dad, it's bullshit. I didn't flatline.'

"You just can't get through to them when they're on the drug ... Their brains are not normal."

Marc died in November of 2012 from a heroin overdose, after more than a decade of struggles.

He was 32 and is one of 90 from Toms River since 2004 buried here. He rests alongside at least 53 others from Williamstown in Gloucester County, with 305 from Newark, 51 from Woodbridge, 39 from Cherry Hill and 27 from Pemberton.

There are at least 591 buried here from Camden County, 302 from Bergen County and 389 from Middlesex County.

Kim, a registered nurse from Mercerville, lost her longtime partner Larry to heroin addiction in 2013. For years she worked at a dual-diagnosis facility, treating substance abusers who also have other mental health issues. She knows addiction well.

She still cries when she visits the cemetery. She gets angry -- not that Larry put her through years of turmoil -- but that he didn't fight.

"I watched him kill himself. It was the slowest suicide you could ever possibly see. I did everything right and everything wrong to save him," she said. "I never gave up hope on him, but I felt like I was doing all the fighting for him. I just wanted him to get up and fight for his own life."

Patty DiRenzo says the summer of 2010 was the last time she felt whole.

Her son, Sal Marchese, was in recovery. He appeared happy and grateful and had become part of the family again.

"They were the best days," DiRenzo said. "We'd spend afternoons outside, me, him and his sister, and he'd talk about all the hope he had and how sorry he was for all the pain he caused, how crazy he'd been."

At 26, Sal had been addicted to heroin for years.

He had tried and failed to quit several times. His family was never able to afford more than 14 days of treatment and Sal had applied to complete a full long-term treatment program, but his insurance denied him.

Still, this time it felt different, DiRenzo said. It felt real.

Sal Marchese struggled with heroin addiction for years. (Andre Malok | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com)

"I was driving him everywhere for a while. He was going to an (intensive outpatient program). Every couple of weeks, I'd check up on him with the staff," DiRenzo said. "They'd say 'he participates. He tests clean every week. He's my best person here.'"

So, DiRenzo decided he needed to be his own person and let him start using her car.

September 22 five years ago was a big day. Sal had 90 days sober, a significant achievement.

He was going to pick up his 90-day key-ring from his NA group. There would be cheers; celebration meetings are often raucous affairs.

"We talked a little bit -- me, him and his sister," she said. "He kissed her goodbye, kissed myself goodbye, said 'I love you. I'll see ya later.'"

He left the house at 5:40 p.m. for his 6 o'clock meeting, "And that was it, we never saw him again," DiRenzo said.

Shortly after he walked out the door, Sal was dead of a heroin overdose. Police found him in his car, alone, parked at the center of Herointown. He was 26.

Stephen Stirling may be reached at sstirling@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @sstirling. Find him on Facebook.

The Dead