Prince of The Misfits

January 1st

Rick Pryce slowly opened his eyes, the light caused by the burning biker clubhouse blinding him. Hot flame was engulfing the bar, and he felt every degree of it. He heard parts of the building lose their support - the clubhouse was, after all, a glorified wooden shed. He turned to face the clock that hung above the bar. "Twelve AM," he croaked, the taste of smokey fumes entering his mouth. "Happy new year."

He looked to the door; it was blocked by fire, and the windows were too. He had no way out.

The sixteen year old rose to his legs, and slumped himself over to the other side of the bar. His side stung, where the stab wound was. He picked up a glass, and worked a tap, spilling beer into it. He drank it. He spilled more beer from the tap into the glass, and drank more of it. He was going to do it until the tap ran dry. Fire was flanking him to the left and the right, and charging toward him from his front. He heard the sirens of fire trucks outside, but they were too late to save him or the building. As the glass touched his lips, he thought back to the fight.

Rick didn't remember much of the fight with Ravi. He tussled with him in the corridor. Ravi had stabbed him in the side, and the two had fell down the stairs, to the surprise of the bikers celebrating their New Year's. They were too inebriated to do anything; except the Bear, who had ran towards Rick and picked him up, and pinned him to the wall by the neck. Rick had grabbed Ravi's knife, and he'd drove it right into the Bear's heart.

He had suspected that the Bikers might turn on him then, but Ravi had took himself behind the bar and created a Molotov, and threw it at Rick just as soon as the Bear had slumped to the ground. It missed, setting the clubhouse on fire. The bikers had fled, and Ravi tried to go with them, but he had broken something in the fall down the stairs and had struggled to get back over the bar, and Rick had dived at him and knocked him to the ground. After a struggle, Rick had choked Ravi to the point of knockout, and had proceeded to stab him right between the eyes with the knife. Then, he'd passed out, and woke up here.

The fire was close now; the heat almost unbearable. Rick filled another cup, and drank it all. 

He thought back to his first date with Anna; how nervous he'd been, how he'd almost given up on her and walked away when she came crashing through the door after dropping off her little brother at her grandparent's house. He wondered why he'd never got to meet them, and why her brother lived at her grandparent's house. He wondered where she was - did she get out, or is she still upstairs, about to burn alive too? Guess I'll never know, he thought.

He thought back to when he and James were little kids: how they'd grown up together due to their parents being friends, how even after James's dad had died and his mum had fallen out with his own parents, they continued to be friends. How they'd been inseparable throughout their entire school lives; when James got bullied, Rick did too; and when Rick went somewhere, James did too. And when James died, Rick did too, Rick thought to himself. He laughed.

He thought of his grandmas, Thomas and Emilia, his dad, and his mother. I don't want to leave them, he knew. He felt his stomach churn, and his thoughts were back to reality; the fire was close. So close his skin was unbearably hot. All he could see was orange flame, and the bar tap. I have to try, right? He knew he wouldn't be able to run through the fire. Fuck.

His thoughts were back to Anna. Her soft brown hair, her pale and sparkling blue eyes, her heart-shaped lips, her Greek nose. Fuck.

And then, Rick Pryce felt incredible pain. Worse than the ice pond, and the exact opposite of that, and worse than the stab wound - all across his body. He began to scream, and Rick Pryce burned.