Chapter 1
Pain. Anything to ease the pain. The physical pain had come and gone hours ago, but the emotional pain was there all along. The red-haired teen sat alone, in what he called his home.
Lithium. He didn't think he needed it, everyone else did. He took it anyway, more than enough… it made the pain go away. Bliss.
He should have felt the pain in his body, but he didn't. He was used to it by now, and none of the injuries he had bothered him. He ran his fingers down the sides of his face, briefly wondering why the guy in the tattoo shop hadn't asked him where his other injuries came from. He guessed that was just the kind of world he lived in; nobody looked out for each other anymore.
"Well, Reno? How are them tattoos treatin' ya?" came a voice from his doorway. The red-haired teen looked up to see a boy, slightly older than him, with short black hair.
"Leave me alone." Reno replied quietly.
"That's no way to talk to someone that's saving your life."
"You ain't savin' me, you're killin' me!" Reno shouted, his anger getting the better of him. A smack in the face is what he got in return.
"Never…" The black haired boy hissed, grabbing Reno by the collar, "…raise your voice at me again."
Reno scowled at him, despite the tight hold he had on his collar, making him choke slightly. The black haired teen let him choke a moment longer before pushing him back forcedly, making his head slam into the wall behind him.
As his head collided with the wall, he shut his eyes in an attempt to rid the new wave of pain that had just washed over him. When he opened them again, despite his vision being blurry, he could see the black-haired youth had gone left.
Damien, his name was. Very fitting, Reno always thought. He was like the devil's spawn, but no one dared stand up to him, or they got… well Reno had just experienced what happens if he were to just so much as raise his voice to him.
Reno had thought befriending Damien was a good idea, but it didn't take him long to realise just how wrong he was. But once you were involved with Damien, there was no turning back, never. It was strange how in the whole of the Sector 7 slums, there was no force more powerful than an 18-year old. Just showed what the world was coming to.
He rubbed the back of his head and looked at his hand. Well, at least it wasn't bleeding. He sighed and leaned back against the dirty wall. So this was his life… living alone in one single rented room. The guy he rented it from knew Reno paid his rent with stolen money, but he didn't much care. He was a crook himself , selling Reno various new drugs from time to time. That was where the lithium had come from. He had been subscribed it when he was 11 for bipolar disorder, and he had become hooked on the tranquil feeling it gave him…
He bit his lip at the sudden sharp pain that ran through his left leg. The pain from the injuries Damien and his friends had caused him earlier was fast returning to him. He couldn't help but ask himself why? Out of a group of at least twenty teenager, why was Reno the one singled out? That was why Damien had forced him to get the tattoos… to single him out even more. Two bright red lines across his cheekbones. From a distance, they would probably be thought of as scars, but it made no difference to Reno; they were there, and they would probably be there forever.
His eyes began to water as the increasing pain that wracked through his whole body now. He looked around him briefly, his eyes resting on the bottle of painkillers that lay on the floor next to him. He picked it up and tipped some in his hand, not bothering to check how many, and swallowed them in one.
Of course he couldn't feel the effects straight away, so until they worked he desperately needed something to take his mind off the pain. He threw the bottle of painkillers back on the floor and his eye was caught by a small black book near to where they landed. The only thing he owned that was precious to him, if he lost that he didn't know what he would do. He smiled as he looked inside, there were two photographs inside. The one on the left was a smiling woman with long red hair and sparkling aquamarine eyes, leaning on a slightly taller man; he looked very similar to Reno, except his hair was blond and his eyes were deep brown. His mother and father. He felt the tears burning his eyes, but he didn't attempt to stop them; there was no one here that he had to hide weakness from. The one of the left was of Reno himself, with his arm around a much smaller girl with unruly red hair and emerald green eyes. His sister; Rihanna. They never had much, but they had each other. They were a family and Reno had never been happier. But now, that had all been taken away from him. Sometimes, he re-remembered that he would never see any of them again, and it made him upset. He was still young – only 15 and a life without a family was a hard one at best. Normally he would keep it to himself, but times like this he would let it all out. Despite all the things he's done to himself over the past few years, one thing he new was bad was to keep emotions to himself. He wiped his eyes and closed the book, stowing it under his pillow. He could feel the painkillers kicking in now, and he was starting to feel drowsy. Perhaps he had taken too many… well; it wouldn't be the first time.
As his eyes began to drop shut, he lay down on his mattress and drifted into a half sleeping, half unconscious state. The best way to be; sweet, sweet bliss.
A/N: Okay, so here's the explanation:
1. I chose Lithium because not only is it a drug that cure bipolar disorder, it is also put in fireworks to color them red.
2. Bipolar disorder is a complicated disease that makes some depressed and manic at the same time. Basically, really upset, but really hyper.
3. I still used the name Rihanna for his sister, like my other stories, but I don't think some of this will fit in with those stories.
I think thats all, please review !!!