Chapter 10

Sophia POV

~About 5 years ago~

I ran out of my house as fast as I could. I had no idea where I was going and it was raining, but all I knew was that I had to get as far from my house as I could, who knows what would happen if I stayed. Sobs and gasps tore from my throat as I finally slowed my trek. I looked around and saw I was in a pretty empty street; it wasn't residential, but there weren't many shops around either, just a flower shop and a liquor store. Farther away I could see some sort of park that had a gate around it. I sat down on the sidewalk curb and buried my face in my knees as I continued sobbing, trying and failing to control my breathing. Blood dripped into my eye and down my face, some even going into my mouth, making me spit it out disgustedly.

Sure, in the past mom had hit me before. I wasn't a stranger to a swat on the seat of my pants or the occasional smack to the face. Once, mom even grabbed my face and shoved me into the wall, but she had been really drunk that time and didn't acknowledge the bruise on my face the next day. I'm sure I'm not the only kid who's gotten hit by their parents at some point or another.

All those times were nothing compared to what she did today. I guess the stress of moving and what happened in the grocery store caught up to her. The tips of my fingers gently touched the wound that went through my eyebrow, I flinched as I did and immediately pulled my hand back. Just as I thought I was getting my breathing under control, the implications of what would have happened if she had aimed just a tiny bit lower made my sobs come back full force with a vengeance.

At this point, the rain completely soaked through my clothes and hair, leaving me shivering on the sidewalk. Suddenly, I could hear footsteps grow nearer, momentarily snapping me out of my panic and into a brand new one; I'm a little girl, alone on the street, late at night, in an unfamiliar place. I hugged my knees closer to my chest, making myself as small as possible, and hoped that whoever was walking by would ignore me. Whoever it was, stopped right next to me and my fists clenched until my knuckles turned white.

'Please go away, please go away, please go away, please go-'

"Why are you sitting in the rain, this isn't some conformist boyband music video." Well, judging by the voice alone, I could cross out the danger of it being some gross old guy. I peeked my good eye up at him.

"Oh, I saw you in the liquor store." I said softly, immediately recognizing the curly hair and sharp features. He raised an eyebrow and leaned a bit more of his body weight onto a cane made of dark wood.

"You didn't answer my question." He stated dryly and there was suddenly a lump in my throat.

"I can't go home." My face hid itself in my knees again as the panic of potential kidnapping went away.

"Why not?" His voice didn't sound as bored as before, it lost most of its dry quality and could even pass for curious if it wasn't for how monotone it was. The hitch in my chest was the only warning I got before my shoulders began shaking with the effort to repress my sobs. It took a few moments for me to respond without my voice shaking.

"My mom isn't herself right now." I slowly looked up at him.

"What do you..." His voice died off and his eyes widened as the street light illuminated my face. I could still feel blood dripping from my eyebrow down my face in a small, warm river. "No way." He scrunched his eyebrows together and I flinched as cold rain water splattered on the cut over my eye. I whimpered softly and kept my left eye closed. He seemed to be thinking pretty hard about something as he visibly swallowed the lump in his throat and tapped his cane on the sidewalk. "So, uh, seems like your life fucking sucks right now, doesn't it?"

"K-kind of, I'm sure there are others who have it worse." His question caught me off guard and I wiped my nose on the back of my sleeve, sniffing a few times. I'm already soaked to the bone, I'm sure a bit of snot isn't going to kill me.

"Well, our lives suck too, you should join us. You definitely have the backstory for it." He shrugged and offered me a hand.

"Join you?" My eyebrows scrunched up and he nodded.

"We're goths who hate all things conformist, shitting on society's rules and dry-fucking the status quo in the ass." I stared at the hand he held out to me, slowly reaching up and grasping it.

"How do I become a nonconformist like you guys?" He hauled me up surprisingly easy, shrugging as he reached unto his coat.

"You just have to dress like us and do what we do." A cigarette appeared from one pocket and a cheap lighter from the other. I tiled my head a bit as he lit his cigarette.

"Okay, uh, sounds easy enough." I reached my hand up to brush away some wet hairs sticking to my face.

"Good, let's go." He turned around and began walking where he came from.

"Where are we going?" I hesitated but eventually followed, trailing behind him ever so slightly. My head started pounding a rhythm that was in sync with my footsteps, somehow also feeling incredibly heavy and light at the same time.

"I'm taking you to a friend's house to fix your eye." He said nonchalantly with an air of boredom that I was quickly piecing together was usual for him.

"Sounds good." I said softly and my words came out slightly slurred, I began to nod my head when the oddest feeling of gravity being pitched sideways suddenly hit me and my footsteps faltered.

"Yeah, it's not very far, just a few streets away, but she knows a thing or two about-" His voice sounded incredibly far away as the floor slammed into me, very rudely might I add. "What the hell?" Even if it was raining and I could feel the cold sidewalk pressed up against my right side, I can't remember a time where I felt more comfortable than this. "Hey, what's wrong with you?" His curly hair dripped water onto my face as he leaned over me.

"I'm just gonna... rest my eyes... for a bit..." Why wasn't my mouth pronouncing the words right?

"Ah fuck, you're passing out." I could barely make out the scowl on his lips as my eyes slowly closed.

"My baaad..." I slurred one last time before completely blacking out.

3rd POV

"Son of a bitch." Michael scowled as he stared at the unconscious girl. He looked around but there wasn't anything he could use to carry her in, not even an old skateboard or shopping cart. He huffed out a breath before snuffing out his half finished cigarette and saving it in the box for later. Reaching down, he grabbed the pale girl's arm and grunted as he pulled her up. Granted, she didn't weight a lot to begin with, but his lithe form wasn't doing him any favors.

As Michael started his journey, he began asking himself why he bothered? Sure, stopping next to her on his way home from the cemetery didn't cost him anything, if anything, it satisfied a rare trickle of curiosity that started once he saw her curled in on herself on a dirty, wet sidewalk. He right away recognized her from the liquor store as the girl with the alcoholic mom; just a tad too polite but judging by the way she carried herself or the way she spoke, he didn't deem her as a conformist, Brittany wannabe. She seemed more of a shy, girl-next-door type from one of those vomit inducing romcoms his mom liked watching. He couldn't bring himself to regret not giving her more than a passing thought though, he would probably have had to scrap those ideas too.

Was this dark haired girl worth dragging all the way to Henrietta's? Probably not. But she already agreed to be a goth, so it wasn't like he could just leave her on the sidewalk to bleed out by herself in the rain. Sure, it'd probably make a pretty good visual, and could probably be used well as the main element in a poem, but she already agreed to be goth; and goths stick together.

As conformist as that may sound.

Michael cursed as he realized just how far he would have to drag her.

Sophia POV

I softly groaned as I regained consciousness. Now that my senses seemed to be coming back, I could tell I was laying down on something plush, though not necessarily comfortable. I slowly blinked my eyes open, or at least I tried to, and was glad to see that the room was dim with only a few flickering candles. My left eye wouldn't open and when I reached up, all I could feel was gauze and medical tape.

"Oh, I guess she isn't dead, bummer." A girl's voice said from somewhere above me.

"You mean I won't get to perform an autopsy?" A more childish voice asked almost dissapointedly.

"You could, but it's not really an autopsy unless she's dead." A different voice scoffed. How many people were there?

"What else would it be then?" The same kid's voice from before said, sounding almost indignant.

"A serial murder?" The voice that scoffed guessed.

"I wouldn't kill her, I'd just poke around a bit."

"I can hear you, you know." My voice was raspy and I sounded incredibly sleepy.

"Sorry to interrupt your beauty sleep." The voice arguing with the kid from before's said really sarcastically. I didn't respond as I slowly rolled over to get my arms under me and push myself to a sitting position.

"Where am I?" I squinting as I looked around the dark room. Not only was it dim, the colors weren't exactly cheerful, it was draped in blacks and dark reds.

"I told you before, we went to a friend's house to fix your eye." I turned toward the voice and saw the same boy from before. He didn't have his coat on and his hair was still pretty wet as he smoked a cigarette, occasionally extending an arm to flick the ashes into a glass ashtray.

"Am I your friend Michael? That's sickeningly sweet." The girl said sarcastically but the boy only rolled his eyes. I lifted my hand and gently prodded my left eye. I could feel the lid strain to open so I kept it closed under the bandages.

"You fixed my eye?" I asked softly and the girl wearing a black dress nodded.

"I put a few stitches where it cut through your forehead and eyebrow, then just pushed the rest of the skin together with medical tape." She shrugged nonchalantly and I bit my lip.

"Is that safe?" One of my eyebrows -the left one- pushed towards my forehead worriedly.

"As long as you keep it clean." I nodded and swallowed the lump in my throat as I looked around. The room was covered in candles and soft places to sit, making me realize that the plush thing I'd be laying on was a mountain of neatly folded towels over a soft looking quilt.

"So, you wanna be goth?" The boy with red bangs flicked them out of his face.

"Uh, yeah, I guess so." I said softly.

"What's your deal?"

"What do you mean?"

"Like, why is your life miserable?" Bang flick.

"My life is miserable?" I frowned and looked at each of their faces, all of them looking bored with similar faces of disbelief.

"You have an alcoholic mom who beats you and slices your face open." The tall one who brought me here deadpanned. I couldn't help but shift uncomfortably.

"I'm sure there are people who have it worse." I muttered as shifted my eyes.

"That's no excuse," bang flick. "Of course there are people who have it worse, haven't you seen how many conformists there are, strutting around like drag queens with mops for wigs?"

"We each have our own issues." The girl spoke up as she lit a cigarette. "My parents are annoying, conformist, wannabes that want me to be a stupid little princess in a fantasy world full of frogs shitting rainbows or something. My stupid mom still won't get it into that cow shit she calls a brain that I don't do that sort of thing; you'd think she'd catch on after so many years, but i suppose common sense isn't as common as you'd think."

"I live in a shitty trailer with my conformist parents." Bang flick. "They're never around and I don't think they've even properly looked at me since I started elementary school." Bang flick. "Not that I'd want them to, if it was up to them, I'd be quitting school and getting a useless day-labor job, as if I'd do something as conformist as that. If I do quit school it'll be because I'm finally leaving that shit hole." Bang flick.

"My parents are just a pair of failures trying to deal with each other." The kid who wanted to perform on autopsy on me spoke up from where he was sitting in the corner with his knees tucked into his chest. "The only reason they're together is because my mother waited too long to abort me and my father decided he'd stick around. I ruined her body and ruined his career so now they look constipated all the time and are bitter assholes. Father doesn't even try to hide the fact that he's cheating on mother, and mother likes to pretend she's younger than she actually is. They're both idiots if you ask me."

"My parents had a lot of issues so my old man left when I was younger. He left behind a phone number and an address in case I ever needed anything, yeah right." He scoffed bitterly. "They were both dead ends and my mom ended up remarrying some asshole who thinks he can tell me what to do, she changed a lot for him and it makes me sick to even look at her."

I swallowed the lump in my throat as I listened to their stories. One by one they each lit up their own cigarettes and stared at nothing as they spoke. It was quiet for a few minutes before I pitched in.

"My mom got pregnant when she was in high school and her parents kicked her out as soon as she graduated. My dad left before I was even born, but my mom gets really mad whenever I ask about him so I don't know what happened. We've had to move around a lot and have had to live in some really shady places just because we can't afford anything better. I think my mom blames me for how crappy our situation is. She gets drunk really often and most of the time she'll just yell a lot, but sometimes she hits me. It rarely ever gets as bad as tonight thought." I added on quickly at the end. With the perfect timing that can only come from hanging out together for a long time, they each exhaled a mouthful of smoke and nodded pensively.

"Yeah." They all sighed out. We sat in a comfortable silence for a few minutes.

"My name is Sophia, by the way." I smiled softly at them.

"Name's Henrietta." The chubby girl wiggled her fingers at me sardonically.

"I'm Pete." He flicked his red bangs out of his face.

"Firkle." He stretched his legs out as he idly played with a switch blade I'm pretty sure he's too young to have.

"I'm Michael." He nodded his head of curly hair at me and his earring dangled around with the action, catching and reflecting the light off the nearby candles.

"So, uh, what do I have to do to be goth?" I sat up a little straighter and laid my hands in my lap. Henrietta smiled as she leaned over and offered me a cigarette which I hesitantly took.

"I'm so glad you asked."

A/N: I took a bit of creative liberty with their backstories, hope you guys don't mind!

By the way, if there are any suggestions for stuff you want the characters to be seen doing, feel free to leave a suggestion!