The Wild Ones - 1 - The Start

1.

Max woke up. His shirt was clinging to his body through the sheer amount of sweat he had apparently been shedding, and his fringe clung to his forehead. He panted, his head spinning, and attempted to slow his breathing. Pushing his hair back with his hand, he sat up and looked across to his side. Scrawled over his once white bedroom wall in uneven, black writing were the words:

SAVE THE WORLD

On the other side of town, in a bedroom above a party, Becky found herself waking up at the foot of a bed. Her fuzzy vision cleared enough for her to see a guy leaving the room. Which, to be fair, wasn't a particularly notable occurrence. She tried to place herself. She was at some girl's party, and had come upstairs to...do something. Her head pulsated from the inside.

"What a surprise that I should find Becky Turner in a state in someone else's bedroom," a voice came from the doorway. Becky looked up and sighed.

"Now's not a great time Abs," Becky replied, pulling herself up and thankfully finding her bag on the bed. She opened it and took out a stick of gum and a compact. Her shoulder-length, dark hair was entirely fluffy, and her once perfect make up had been smudged into an unsightly mix. She audibly sighed.

"Don't worry, I won't be long. I just thought you should know that I totally know about you and Joe," Abby stood with her arms crossed against her chest, her sparkling dress catching what little light there was from the hallway.

"Yeah, sorry about that," Becky replied offhandedly, whilst reapplying her lipstick.

"You think apologising makes it OK?" Abby melodramatically replied, apparently ignoring, or perhaps not noticing, the sarcasm at hand.

Becky looked at her, slightly confused, before closing her compact, picking up her bag, and heading for the door.

"There's a party going on. Go enjoy it."

"I'm not going to forget this," Abby snarled.

Becky rolled her eyes, took out her now chewed gum, and patted it into Abby's hair.

"Good for you!"

Becky couldn't help but smirk as she saw Abby screaming her way towards the bathroom as Becky descended down the stairs.

Becky was too distracted still trying to figure out what had happened in the last half hour to notice the girl passed out on the sofa in the living room as she walked through the hallway. She did, however, spot something on her left hand. A three-word phrase, written in what appeared to be lipstick. She stared at it for a while, before exiting the house.

The girl passed out on the sofa in the living room was Lily April Wight. Unlike Becky, however, finding oneself waking up in a strange place was extremely unlike her. She wasn't even meant to be here. It was a friend of a friend's party that she got dragged into. And now, here she was, on a foreign sofa, being ogled over by half the populous of the school.

"Lily, are you OK?"

"Are you alright?"

"Should I call someone?"

Lily didn't realise she was so loved. She slightly milked it, giving a timid nod and a slight wince as she picked herself up.

"What happened?" she asked.

"You just fainted, so I carried you over and then you woke up," an unrecognisable guy remarked. One of his mates elbowed him degradingly.

Guys were naturally drawn to Lily. She was, for all intents, the personification of innocence. Big brown eyes, chestnut skin and gloriously frizzy hair. She was sweet and calm and popular. But she kind of hated it.

"Do you want me to get you some water?" another unfamiliar face chirped up.

"No, no I just need some air," she replied, weakly smiling, before brushing past the infatuated crowd and figuring her way out of the room.

"Lily."

"What?" Lily nearly lost her cool, before seeing it was Sarah, someone she actually liked. And most importantly knew. "Sorry."

"You dropped your phone," Sarah threw it down the hallway to her. "I'll drive you back in a sec if you want."

"Cheers."

Lily finally made it outside and sat on the cold patio. She calmly exhaled, partly to compose herself, partly to see her own breath dissipate into the night air. She unlocked her phone and found that she'd apparently started sending a text. It wasn't addressed to anyone. In fact, the only notable thing about it was its contents. Just three words.