Starting From Scratch (First Draft)

    The dull hum of a guitar string spread around your apartment. Each time you plucked that open E string the sound would rattle out that out of tune note for a while. Just before it decided to rest you plucked it again as you looked longingly at your favorite acoustic. Part of you wanted to play it, to go down your list of songs and fill your tiny studio apartment with music, but you're way too exhausted for that right now. Instead you just sit on your dusty old couch, plucking the string as the guitar sits in its stand. A harsh thumping reverberates through the thin walls of your room as well, coming from what you can only imagine is somebody having sex or something stolen getting carried up the stairs. You try to time the plucks to that beat but it's too inconsistent to really bother with.

    Aside from the thumping, the flat note was enough to drown out the barking dogs and sirens playing outside of your door at least. This was unusually quiet, all things considered, but you expected the screaming couples or the late night music to start soon enough. Maybe tonight you could actually get a couple of hours of sleep around all that, but something told you that probably isn't going to be the case.

    You let out a long sigh, figuring you might as well collapse onto your mattress set haphazardly in the corner. It's not like you really have anything else to do.

    Just as you get up though, you can hear a feminine voice outside your door mumbling "son of a bitch" around the bumps. Usually you'd pay it no mind, but this time the voice actually isn't marred with the usually gravelly tone caused by years of smoking and drug abuse. You walk outside to see a surprisingly hot girl trying her best to drag one of those big gear cases you'd see a roadie wheelinginto a rock show that's almost as big as she is up the stairs and failing. Every step she took up with it the weight would fight her back down to the bottom, causing her to let out another frustrated grunt paired with a few expletives.

    You had to blink a few times to make sure your eyes were working right. The girl's electric blue hair was surprisingly well-kept, even if it was spiking off of her head in a few different directions. The color wasn't dull or running like you might see around here, and her pale arms flowing out of her tank top surprisingly showed no signs of bruises of track marks, just a few neon bracelets adorning her wrists. You carefully peek out of either side of your doorway, making sure nobody was waiting in the wings for an easy mugging, then finally take a step out.

    "Need some help?" you ask her. She jumps at your voice, falling backwards onto her ass and letting her massive case flop down onto the floor with a resounding crack on the concrete.

    "Jesus, dude. Don't sneak up on me like that," she says, rubbing her lower back where she slammed into a concrete step. "But yeah, I kinda could use the help."

    You move to grab the bottom of the case while she drags the top up. With a few more grunts and another couple of expletives for good measure, the two of you set the giant case down in the upstairs apartment. You stand up straight, wincing as your lower back cries out at you for adding more strain on yourself after a long day of work. You look around the room to see quite a few similar boxes and speakers scattered around, and not a single piece of furniture to be found except a stained old couch in the corner. The blue-haired girl groans and throws herself across the ratty old couch in the corner, letting out a long sigh of relief.

    "Couldn't afford a storage building?" you ask her.

    "Huh?" she shoots back, perking up slightly from her laid back position.

    "Doesn't look like this place is really set up to live in."

    "Oh, yeah. Kinda don't have any furniture except this old thing right now. Once I get some cash though I'm gonna be out of here, so no big of a deal."

    You've heard that one before. You look at her face and envy her, really. You can tell she's still got drive in her; the dark circles of an overworked body are absent and her eyes look at you without that distant, depressed glare you see in everyone else around her. She really doesn't know what this place is. You don't want to be the one to tell her either, at least not as a first impression.

    She raises an eyebrow at you and sits up on the couch. "So, you're not gonna rape or murder me or anything right?"

    You blink a few times when you realize you were staring at her. "Oh, nah... I just torture girls by taking them out on really awkward first dates."

    That gets a quick smile and a laugh out of her. "Are you really hitting on me already?"

    You shoot her a grin back and shrug your shoulders.

    "I'm Vinyl, by the way," she says as she gets up off the couch. You give her your name as well.

    "Well thanks for the help. Want a beer?" she asks you.

    "Oh, sure."

This is the original first draft and has since been changed. Look further up in my pastes for the full, completed story.