City Of Black Magic

Enter The Gates

Natalie Romano was not one to be seen at an edgy dance-club. She, an animator at a new entertainment company, was too sweet for her own good. She wore strawberry lip gloss, drank Vanilla Cokes and always craved lemon Starbursts. She wore sweaters too big for her own good, and had a chipped tooth because she was clumsy enough to have rammed her face into a pole.

The people who went to The Gates of Hell were the complete opposite of Natalie. No, the people who went to that club were punk, alternative, tough and scary bad boys and girls. The people that went to the Gates were the people your parents warned you about.

Trent Viriale, one of Natalie's best friends, was the only reason she was going. She realized this now, as she walked down the nicely cleaned stone path that led to the club that was practically bursting with strobe lights and music. She could feel her heart beating just a little quicker, glancing around a bit frantically. Before her was Trent, and she almost whined at how damn amazing he looked-- it really wasn't fair, the fact that Trent could look so attractive while Natalie was behind him, sweating like a convicted criminal.

"Hey, uh," She found herself stuttering, and bit a lip gloss coated lip as her friend turned his head, pausing his stride. "Trent, why are we. . .?"

"What?" Trent asked, raising a dark eyebrow. A strand of long black hair fell from the bun Trent had it in, falling into grey eyes. "If you're going to complain about the choice of hangouts this time, just remember that you said we could go anywhere, Nat."

Natalie huffed, rolling her eyes. "Yeah, I know," She replied, a hand coming up to readjust her glasses. "But, um, this isn't exactly what I was expecting. You know, because normally you just, like, pick the movies. Not a, er. . ."

The response was a teasing groan and a wide grin. "We got to try other things, don't we?" Trent stated gleefully, to which Natalie frowned at. "Plus, i'd like to see you meeting new people! You can't work at a company and have anti-social issues, now can you? And-- and! We're adults! We have to get in some party time before we head off to college!"

This was something Natalie paused to consider. Just recently, an entertainment company, Grinners, had hired the two young adults, as well as another one of their friends. Natalie was ecstatic about the job-- how often can you say that you've been picked up as an animator without having to put yourself out there much?-- but she knew very well about how she could have to alter her personality. Normally she was quiet and timid, and she doubted that a business like that would happily have someone as introverted as her.

About the partying thing, that was just something Trent insisted on.

But. . . It couldn't be too bad, could it? If people liked The Gates of Hell so much, then maybe Natalie would too.

Another moment passed before Natalie was looking up at Trent, sighing and shrugging with a half-hearted "what the hell?" . The male flashed another grin at her before grabbing her hand, pulling her towards the entrance. Now that, that gave her butterflies. It wasn't helpful at all-- now, or in any situation, really-- that Natalie had the biggest crush on her friend. She knew he wouldn't ever return those stupid little feelings, though.

And why would he? She thought to herself, breath hitching slightly as she was pulled into the club.

Immediately she was greeted with flashing lights of all colors, intense and, at the same time, quite electrifying music and its pounding vibrations. There were men in white suits-- For aesthetic, I'm sure-- that nodded to them and motioned for them to go in further, into the crowd of sweaty, dancing and fucking alive young adults.

As they moved forward, Trent tightened his grip on her hand, most likely to make sure he didn't lose Natalie. He lead her forward, and Natalie was finding that this environment was almost hypnotizing. The way people were swaying their hips and arms, their heads rising and falling with the music; the way people laughed and grinned to each other or themselves; the way the music seemed to entangle itself in Natalie's heartbeat-- it was just so alien, and so odd, and so--