Some ugly guy is yelling incoherent words into the microphone on stage. The amps distort the sound past recognition. Some other guys, probably stoned or drunk, play various instruments behind him. The combination is no true form of music; just background noise for the lilting half conversations that hang in the air. Some half dressed teenagers twist their bodies like water snakes on the dance floor, somehow both graceful and disturbing. Black dominates, though there are occasionally flashes of red or purple or green. There's a drunk girl at the bar that's laughing too loud at a stupid joke, and the sound floats through the moaning from the amps.

This place throbs with life.

Off somewhere in the corner nearest the door is an empty table save for one. The person blends in with the shadows. Just another cynical goth, most likely. A bulky black hoodie, with equally bulky and black pants, and some worn black tennis shoes. This person has their hood up and their face buried in the crook of their arm, which is folded over the tabletop, so that their head isn't even remotely visible.

Dacia doesn't like black.

Friday night. She had walked home from school, and found a note left by her father on the counter. Be home late. Dinner's in the fridge. Love you. Great. He wouldn't be home by midnight, if that. That's how it was when you had a work-a-holic for a father. So she'd left. Wandered the streets, read in the book store, went window shopping without buying anything, went people watching without talking to anyone. Wasted time until dark. Home again, the house was empty, silent. Dead. She couldn't imagine even sleeping in the heavy loneliness the house portrayed. After changing to all black (in order to blend in, she isn't in a 'look at me' mood), she went out again, and found herself here.

The girl is tired, and a migraine is daring to form at the corners of her skull and she is having menstrual cramps and is hungry and in a generally not-good mood.

Her sweater is warm and her mind is fogged with the tiredness. The noise is becoming distant and far away, as she begins to slip into unconscienceness. But she doesn't want to sleep, not here, so she lifts her head. Other than the red mark on her face where she was resting her head, her face is made white by the light filtering through smoky air. She leans back and blinks blearily at the room around her.

Why does one torture oneself by coming to these places?

Extacy looked at the sign outside. It was cold. She needed a drink. Why not here? she thought, and calmly pushed the door open, knowing what to expect. Music to blast one's eardrums out, and not even good music, at that. Sex-crazed teenagers performing a ritualistic 'dance' that was really nothing of the sort. They wiggled about like so many worms. Ugh, the idea of dancing that way did not appeal to the brunette at all.

"What'll it be?" a nondescript bartender hollered over the noise.

"Surprise me. Nothing to strong, mind!" Extacy yelled back.

He passed over the mystery drink. Wine, as Extacy had expected. Why, at this place, they would serve wine of all classy drinks, was beyond her. Extacy raised a deep red-gloved hand to her drink and lifted it to her lips. Not bad wine, for a place such as this.

Taking another sip, she quietly observed the other patrons of this club. Black, black and black. Wait, purple! Oh the variety, she thought with an ironic amusement. She wasn't much different from the rest of them, dressed mainly in a shade of royal blue. Nothing too interesting, much like the rest of the people here. Oh well, that was the way Extacy wanted it -- conformity was best for now. She wasn't as blend-inny as she thought, however, and was probably about to find that out for herself soon.

Someone entered, and with them came a draft of cold air from the winter outside. The cold hit the girl's warm face, and she shivered. She blinked a few times, as her tired eyes tried to follow the club's new patron. She catches just a bit of dark blue before the person is lost in the crowd. After a moment, the crowds part briefly, and the girl spies the woman again.

A particularly loud scream pierces through the amplifier system and rattles about the girl's brain. The slight throb intensifies. She groans quietly and rubs the area just over her eyebrows. Too loud to stay here, too tired to get up, too lonely to go home. She crosses her arms over her chest and leans back against the wall, surveying the room.

Blech. What kind of music did these people think they were making? What kind of point were they trying to prove? 'Oh hey! LOOK AT ME! I AM THE GREATEST! NO ONE LOVES ME! BUT I DON'T CARE!' ? That was the impression being made upon Extacy, anyways.

She had just drifted off into her thoughts when she caught a motion out of the corner of her eye. Years of training and self-defence courses threw her immediately on guard. Why this particular movement had thrown her into 'red alert' state, she did not know, but decided to go and investigate anyways. Hey, she has a right to be paranoid, or so she'd like to think, anyways.

Extacy came upon a young woman leaning against a wall, looking obviously ill. Perhaps it was just the symptoms of overdrinking, but Extacy was less inclined to that regard. "Are you feeling alright?" she asked. Loudly.

The eyes had closed again, in an attempt to block out the pain. It didn't work, but it did bring her very close to sleep again. Her mind started to drift away, the noise fading, growing distant, drifting away... A part of her mind was telling her that this wouldn't be the best place to fall asleep, but the rest of her mind was saying 'Just five more minutes...'

She was half asleep when a voice suddenly ripped through her fog. It asked a question that she vaguely understood. Someone was talking to her. Part of her was irritated at the interuption, and another part was glad for an excuse to pull itself back to awakeness. As she dragged herself back into the present, her hands lifted to rub her cheeks and brow. The girl blinked up at the woman.

"Hullo...." She thought about what the woman had asked, trying to give the words back their meaning. "Yeah, I'm alright.... Just tired... got a headache..." The words became more mumbled as she went on, untill she knew that that last comment could not have reach the other's ears. She didn't care.

Extacy felt rather sorry for the poor girl. She looked rather young, 17 at most. She did have the most astonishing set of eyes Extacy had ever seen. Green and blue, they were quite pretty, but hazed over by pain. "You don't look so good, hon," she said, more quietly this time. The girl looked like she had a migrane. She'd probably be puking any second now.

"Here," she said after a few seconds of rummaging through her purse. "Take these, they're only extra-stength pain killers. Do you want me to phone your parents?" she offered, waving her cell phone around in her left hand and pressing the Advil into the girl's hand with her right.

Shit, she's going to pass out on me in a sec.

Thin fingers curl around the pills, but she doesn't take them immediately. Don't know who you can trust in a place like this. She gestures with her free hand at the vacant seat next to her. Sit.

"Nah, don't call. Dad won't be home yet." What time was it, anyway? "Thanks for the painkillers."

"Yeah, no problem," Extacy replied, forgetting her distaste of this club and it's awful music for a moment, feeling almost responsable for the girl. Not that she didn't blame her for not taking the pills immediately, she probably wouldn't were Extacy in her place. God knows who one can trust in a place like this... especially if you're so young. Almost too young, she thought, but quickly dismissed the thought.

"Just take it easy for a few moments, okay?" she asked, rather concerned for the younger woman's condition. Maybe she shouldn't have been, but that didn't matter. She was, right?

"Yeah... yeah." She'd take it easy, that's what she came here for.

"So... what brings you to a place like this?" She asks, just loudly enough to be heard over the cacophony that rattled through her brain. Her head throbbed in beat with the noise as she peered closely at the pills in her hand. The girl apperantly recognized them, because a moment later she swallowed them down, dry.

Extacy nodded approvingly as the girl swalowed the headache pills. "You'll feel a little bit better soon, I hope," she said, just loudly enough to be heard.

What brought her to a place like this? "The cold brought me here. That and my extreme wish to surround myself in a culture other than that that I am usually around. And the want of alcohol," she admitted, still speaking in the same, not-too-loud tone. "And you?" she asked.

She shrugs. "House's empty." She replied. That wasn't much of an explanation, but she really wasn't in the mood. The girl shifted, folding her legs beneath her.

Suddenly, she nods toward the other's drink. "What's that?" She asks. The teen doesn't really care, but figures that conversation might keep her awake.

Extacy decided to ignore the part about the house being empty. If the girl din't want to talk about it, she really didn't have to. Not that Extacy cared much, anyways.

"You know," Extacy said, swirling her drink around and staring into it's depths with interest. "I don't really know. Probably just the house's wine. Not bad. Want some?" she asked, then seemed to think better of her question. "No, no you probably shouldn't, not with that headache. Are you sure you don't want me to call someone for you?" she asked, her monologue low and steady.