Raoul walked down the cracked, uneven tarmac carefully. Abandoned buildings rose either side of her as she made her way home and the yellowing moon was hidden behind a thick cloud, coloured maroon with pollution. They say home is where the heart is but she didn't love where she lived. The Valley of Death (or Death Valley as everyone called it for short) had became increasingly ran down as the years crept past, the only people that stayed in this dumping ground were the outcasts - society's afterthoughts. Holy Wood was where those who had made it lived, those who could afford to risk everything for a richer life. To Raoul though, these were just dreams - simple positive thoughts to help carry people to their graves.
The sound of something falling to the floor with a dull thud in a nearby alley alerted her that she wasn't alone. Pausing and turning to the source of the noise, she saw a short teenage girl with messy blonde hair picking herself off the ground, muttering profanities at the trash can she had tripped over.
"Derrick what the fuck are you doing" Raoul said to the accident prone girl with a hint of boredom in her voice.
Raoul and Derrick had known each other since they had been trapped in a detention together after fighting each other. It wasn't until the detention was over and Derrick had gone to pick up her bag and her iPod blasting Marilyn Manson had fallen out of the front pocket, that they realised they actually had something in common. They were both passionate about music. Ever since then they had been close friends.
Derrick looked up at her friend with a pretend innocent look in her eyes.
"I was trying to run and jump onto the trash can but it didn't work..." She said sheepishly.
"Okay then...." Raoul said, wondering whether or not Derrick was born with common sense, or if she had just been unfortunate.
They walked back towards their apartment block across town. In any other town or city their apartment block would be declared unsafe to be lived in, and they would simply have been moved somewhere safer. This however was Death Valley, and with apartments this was as good as it was going to get.
As they turned a corner to the apartment block, a faint sound of a fight could be heard. They sloped past the broken elevator and up the stairs, slippery with grease. They eventually reached the top floor to be greeted with three thug-looking guys running away and an unconscious teenage boy - probably around their ages - lying blood stained against Derrick's front door.
The front of his thick black hair was glistening with blood and covering most of his face, only showing his burst lip with a little silver lip ring on the right side. His tattered clothes consisted of what probably used to be a tight black button up shirt, but one of the sleeves had been ripped off entirely and the other had been partially ripped, exposing his heavily tattooed shoulder. He was also missing some of the buttons on the front of his shirt - which were scattered around his unconscious body - showing some of his pale chest. He was wearing tight leather pants that had blood running down them. On his feet was only one black buckled platform boot, the other had been pulled off of his foot and thrown down to the next floor, whereas the remaining boot had its heel snapped clean off and one of the chains that he was wearing lay in separate links scattered around him.
Raoul's first instinct was to chase the dicks that did this to him but she restrained herself, instead she motioned for Derrick to check the boy for broken bones and breathing issues. He seemed okay so Raoul and Derrick supported his weight between them and carried the unconscious boy through to the couch in Raoul's living room.
While Derrick ran in a way not dissimilar to someone being chased by a swarm of wasps to her apartment to find her first aid kit, Raoul gently brushed the boy's hair off of his face. He had a silver ring pierced in his eyebrow and a small scar under his left eye, how could he have gotten that?
Her train of thought was suddenly derailed by Derrick bursting in through the front door with the biggest first aid kit you could possibly imagine. Derrick was trained in first aid by her mother who was a paramedic, who therefore wasn't around a lot when she was growing up, as she had to treat people. Derrick had passed on a fair bit of this knowledge to Raoul, just in case.
They began disinfecting the painful cuts and bruises on his face. Derrick turned to face Raoul, absent-mindedly playing with a pair of tweezers as she spoke.
"Raoul I think he's got cuts to his chest, you know what that means..."
"Yep"
"We need to take his shirt off" they said in unison.
Raoul undid the remaining buttons on his shirt and passed it to Derrick, who folded it carefully. Raoul found herself blushing slightly at him - much to Derrick's amusement.
"C'mon Raoul, stop blushing" she smirked at her best friend.
"I am not blushing!"
"You so are, I don't see why cus if what I remember you telling me is true, then this isn't the first time you've seen a guy shirtless - or wearing le-"
"I'm not listening lalalalalalaa!"
Derrick smirked even more.
After bandaging and disinfecting his injuries, Raoul said goodbye to Derrick and she walked across the hallway to her home. Passing a glancing look at the young male unconscious on her couch, she paced away to her own room and fell asleep as soon as her head hit the faded pillow.
