Mark cursed as he cut his hand on the rusty old hanger currently wrestling for control of the brown jacket with him. He inspected the wound briefly, then yanked his coat out of the small closet of the cluttered loft and slid it on, his camera tucked under one arm. He wiped the few drops of blood on his pants. "See you later, Roger."
"Where are you going?" his roommate asked without turning around, playing a few chords on his guitar while relaxing on their battered, duct taped old sofa.
"Joanne did something to the mic, so I got tech duty again," Mark said, rolling his eyes. He couldn't believe he was helping Maureen again, but somehow, even if he and Maureen were "friends" now, even if the long kisses and romantic dinners and giggling dances were gone, when she called him up, her voice panicked, when he could imagine her frazzled hair flying as she wrung her hands and curled the cord around her wrists, when she called him "Pookie", he could never quite tell her no.
"Have fun," Roger replied. "I've got a Life Support meeting in a few hours, so if I'm not here when you get back, you know where to go." He winced as he struck a wrong note, and it reverberated throughout the loft. Mark couldn't help but smile at the confused face of his roommate.
"Gotcha. Don't hurt your brain trying to come up with your newest song," Mark teased, poking fun at Roger's uncanny ability to nitpick at everything from a sharp note to a word that didn't quite fit the meter, making his songs few and far between.
"Ha ha," Roger said sarcastically. "Very funny." He strummed a few chords, then sang. "I wish Mark would move his fat pumpkin head, we're out of milk and we're out of bread..."
"Maybe we'd have some money and some class, if Roger would move his lazy ass!"
"Hey!" Mark chuckled quietly as he walked out the door. Living with Roger may not always be luxurious, but it was far more enjoyable to be with their ragtag group of friends than in college studying to be a doctor or a lawyer, or worse, at home with his parents.
He jogged down the last couple of steps, then made for the exit to the foyer when something, most likely a baseball bat, slammed into his head. His glasses clattered to the ground, but he instinctively curled around the camera to cushion it from the blows now raining down on him. He gasped as a foot landed in his stomach, knocking the breath out of him. Another foot slammed into his head, and as his vision started to go black, he heard someone say "Grab his stuff." The last thing he felt was a pair of strong arms lifting him, and then finally, darkness.