A clearing of the throat was heard in the small room, lost amidst the deafening silence.

A young woman restlessly changed her sitting position on the uncomfortable filthy brown couch, the same couch that seemed to devour her into its endlessly misshapen mass. It was an old couch, probably worn down by the sitting of countless souls, waiting. Waiting…like her. Endlessly waiting.

She uncrossed her legs and crossed them again. She never was able to keep still. Perhaps she had ADD or perhaps the thing that was going to change her life forever was pressing on her mind, making her unable to sit still.

The slippery texture of the infuriating couch caused her to suddenly slip. No matter how she tried to sit back up, she always ended up sliding down the seat, ending up in a position that bothered her back.

\D*mn it, they should really buy a new couch\

The woman scoffed and shook her head, brushing away dark red strands of hair from her eyes. Or rather from her black sunglasses.

The dimly lighted room made it clear that she was only trying to hide her identity and not her eyes from the nonexistent harsh light.

\I cannot believe I'm worrying about the stupid couch when I've got bigger fish to fry. Elle Chen, you're an idiot\

Her concealed eyes scanned the room, resting subtly on each person, wondering why they came and if maybe they came for the same reason she did.

But their faces remained blurs to her. Elle didn't mean a damn to them and vice versa. They could be fixtures in the stupid room for all that it mattered to her.

Why else would they come to this godforsaken place? Elle scowled inwardly and picked up a faded magazine, its pages ripped and folded. She could barely discern the words from each other. All she could distinguish was the fact that it was ten years old. But it was all they had.

And it would keep her from thinking of the horrible crime that she was going to commit. Anything that kept her from that scenario was good enough in her book.

Elle quickly flipped through the magazine, trying to focus her attention on the discolored pictures and the blurry words, but failed.

Exasperated, she closed the magazine and returned it to its rickety orange rack.

\Whoever did the decorating in this room should be dragged into the streets and shot\

The dingy yellow walls, originally a cheery bright yellow, clashed horribly with the soiled lime green carpet.

The two other couches in the small room were both orange, supposedly to match the magazine rack and the wobbly table in the center of the room. It was a citrus color nightmare. The brown couch was probably picked off the streets somewhere.

Elle smiled grimly; she was sitting on some couch retrieved from some dump. She wondered if perhaps there might be some creepie-crawlies hidden underneath the cushions, some residents that got transported along with the couch from the dump. Perhaps they were creeping around under her; perhaps she had squished them when she sat down.

Fighting off an incredible urge to find out, she dug her nails into the soft cushion, puncturing the slippery cover easily.

Frowning, she looked down and perceived the numerous cigarette burns. Even now, a faint cigarette smell lingered in the air surrounding the couch.

Elle closed her eyes, savoring the smell. God, she needed a cigarette. Her fingers wrapped around an imaginary cigarette, her right thumb unconsciously pushing up and down, as if she had a lighter in her hands…she needed one so badly right now…

"Miss Yang?" Elle's head snapped up, as did the other three members in the room. Finally, there was a name placed to a face, no matter how unwilling the face may be.

Elle's eyes bored into the small girl, her eyes frightened as she slowly stood up. Trembling, she clutched onto the sleeve of the man next to her, her soft lips opening and closing in silent pleading, her eyes mourning already.

"It'll be fine, Raina, just get it over with," replied the man, running a careless hand through blond streaked locks.

He emanated recklessness, someone who was careless and left messes behind without claiming responsibility. Probably the reason why the girl ended up here in the first place. Another mess of his.

"But Mike, I'm so afraid," whispered Raina, her large eyes sparkling with tears as she tried to hide herself in his arms. He roughly pushed her away and then scowled.

"Damn it, Raina, I told you, there's nothing to it," he hissed and becoming exasperated, he stood up and forcefully dragged her to the receptionist's desk.

Raina began to wail as his hold created bruises on her slender arm. No matter how she twisted and turned, she could not escape from his grip. Not one person in the room moved to help the girl, not even Elle. All they could do was watch in bored fascination.

"Room 435," replied the aged woman in an uninterested tone, yawning as Raina screamed and Mike slapped her across the face.

The receptionist grinned, revealing her yellowed teeth, trying to flirt with Mike. "These young girls nowadays. Too much trouble for their worth. You should get a REAL woman."

Of course, she meant the "real" woman herself.

Her frizzy permed hair surrounded her face, making her look very like an irritated old lion rather than the sleek, seductive lioness look that she was trying to pass off. Neither did the caked makeup hide her wrinkles, the old age spots showing through the powder and blush.

She wanted to pass off as being in her late 20's. She failed. Miserably.

"Thanks babe," replied Mike, unable to resist any chance of flirting with the opposite sex, even though the target was someone who could be his grandmother, dressed up as a slut.

Raina had reverted back to whimpering since she realized that her cries were not succeeding in halting Mike. In fact, the futile cries only made him more determined to drag her into that condemned Room 435.

"Please, Mike. Not today. Let's just come back some other time," murmured Raina, trying to speak in a hushed tone so that everybody else would not know of their dirty business.

\Hmph, a little too late for that, honey\

"No, Raina. You keep saying that. If we don't do it today, we might as well not do it at all," scoffed Mike, releasing his bruising hold on Raina's arm.

A glimmer of hope entered Raina's eyes as she hugged herself to brace herself for his response.

"Really, Mike, really?" asked Raina, her eyes shimmering due to the miniscule prospect that perhaps she did not need to go through this after all.

She loved him, she truly did. Anybody who had half a wit could see that. In her eyes, he was God. He was the one she was planning on wasting her most vibrant years with. She worshipped the ground he walked on. And would do anything he told her to do.

Even if he did whack her around a bit and called her a few not-too-respectful names...he was her Mike. She would do everything for him…except, perhaps this…

"Raina, if you truly want to be with me, then you'll have to do this," replied Mike coldly, dashing away all of Raina's hopes for avoiding this ordeal.

He was a rascal, a gangster, a triad boy of the streets. He couldn't deal with the possibilities of tenderness, affection, least of all the pains and sacrifices of love.

Raina was hot. She was a girl from the streets with the same background as him.

He had thought that she would understand the "easy come, easy go" of the streets that they were brought up on. The whole "survival of the fittest" and "love is for fools" philosophy.

He understood and stood by this belief; she should have never stepped out of her position and tried to challenge the rules of street life.

Raina was the kind of girl that was never serious, always fooling around, the perfect street girl. He thought he could keep her around for a while.

He had even considered making her his 'girl' when he finally hit it big with the street gangs. The position of a "big brother's girl" was something that every street girl wanted, or so he thought.

She could have been his everything.

Instead, she became a mistake.

She remained silent and Mike finally decided to seal their fate for her. "I'm leaving." And he turned away, as if he really was going to walk right out of the place and leave her all alone in the cruel world.

"NO, Mike! Please, no," sobbed Raina, clutching onto his sleeve. "You told me you'd never leave me. You told me that you would help me get through this, get through this together. Don't leave…"

"Sorry Raina, I can't take any of this sh*t anymore. Besides, you knew that it was all just a game, a game that you lost, a game that you got burned," said Mike, shrugging. "I thought we could go back to the mindless ecstasy we had before, where the entire world was in the palm of our hands to play around with. But you took it too seriously. It was all just a game…"

The words 'all just a game' brought Elle to another dimension where all her most painful memories and piercing qualms roamed at will.

She remembered the same words coming from HIS mouth, the same offhanded manner he spoke them, the same way he shrugged…