Pain. She woke up to pain and her first thought was 'It feels like someone kicked me in the spine. A lot.' Her next thought was remembering that someone had.
Nyx tried to make herself breathe slowly. First question, where I am now? The answer was comfortingly apparent once she noticed the IV in one wrist and the ID bracelet on the other. Hospital. Okay, no immediate danger.
Danger. How had such a normal night gotten brutally complicated so damn fast?
She was taking care of business in the back of the bar. Just a typical Saturday night in Harrisburg. It was a seller's market; it's not like there was ever a cop anywhere downtown after 10 PM. Nyx was just taking advantage of the socio-economic climate. The people who were too scared to do that were sheep.
Sheep. The hospital sheets were white and soft like sheep in a mattress commercial. She wanted to go to sleep, but she needed to remember what happened.
One of the flock stomped back the hall near the bathrooms towards her. To use the colloquialism, the girl was a hot damn mess. She walked like it was her first time wearing platforms, even though she probably had a closet full of them. Nyx had been successfully avoiding her for weeks. Customers like her brought more trouble than they were worth. Hot Mess was yelling something about "Dis-respect!" when Nyx felt leaves and ice cubes from a mojito hit her in the face. Hot Mess took a wide swing and Nyx narrowly dodged the forearm that was adorned with a thick, cheap-looking gold cuff.
Cuff. Nyx looked down at her wrist again. It was hand-cuffed to the bed rail. Shit.
After ducking, Nyx scrambled for the emergency exit at the end of the hall. As her hands reached the bar to press, she was shoved hard from behind. She fell rather than stepped through the door. As Nyx tried to get her balance back to run, Hot Mess grabbed her by the hair and threw her against the dumpster. She landed on the ground. Glancing up, she saw that several others had come out into the alley. Now she was the sheep, and the wolves were circling. Nyx curled into a ball and covered her head. She felt boots and high heels kicking her back and legs with vicious force.
With the edges of her vision darkening, Nyx knew she had to do something. Maybe if she hurt one of them badly enough, the rest would leave her bleeding on the ground rather than bothering to finish her off. She let the blows shift her so they wouldn't notice her going for the knife in her boot. With all the strength she had left, she struck out and brought the 4 inch blade straight down through someone's Louboutin knock-offs. A chorus of screams bounced off the walls of the alley. The crowd began to back off. Rough hands emptied Nyx's pockets of product and cash, and then she was alone.
Alone. No one was going to come to see her here. She wasn't even sure what hospital she was in. No one even knew where she was. In pain and alone. Nyx rubbed her middle finger and thumb together in a silent gesture, disgusted by her self-pitying thoughts.
She was completely shocked to hear his voice say, "Is that the world's tiniest violin playing your song?"
*End Scene*
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