To know you is to hate you.

We stood listening to the stream of profanities and the sound of smashing objects in the safety of the hallway. Tre wrung his tie in his fingers while I kept running my hands through my hair.

“We have to go in.” He said.

I nodded, “You first man.”

Tre closed his eyes tight and forced out a deep sigh. Opening them again, he took hold of the door handle and pushed open the wood. Apart from the crash of the door as it hit the wall, silence engulfed the room. I followed after him and stood still as he shut the door tight.

The room had been turned to shit. Glass and shards of past instruments littered the floor. The couch was ripped open on one side and the stuffing was pulled from its depths. Spots of blood trailed from one end of the room to the other and then again in small little drips. For such a small man, he could reek some havoc when in a unconscious rage.

Said man was standing over the sink, a pair of scissors in one hand and a switchblade in the other. He glared at himself in the mirror, his nose screwed up and his teeth clenched as he cut at the hair on his scalp. He sawed at some matted strands with the switchblade and cut large clumps in an uneven mess. His fingers and the palms of his hands were the source of the bleeding and that, accompanied by the mass of hair in the sink, made a gruesome mixture.

I jolted forward and took hold of the singer’s wrist. His head snapped round; his eyes were fixed on mine. I’ll never forget the hatred and pure maniacal look that they possessed. I would even go as far to say that he was ugly.

He tore his wrist from me and took a step back.

“Who the fuck do you think you are faggot!?” He snapped in a deep, hoarse voice very unlike his own.

“Put the sharp things away BJ.” I replied.

He looked from one instrument to the other and then grinned at me. A twinge of fear gripped my throat.

“What?” He whispered, “These?”

He shot forward and wedged the switchblade in to my left bicep. I fell back in utter agony, a flash of white hot pain shooting through, not just my arm, but my entire body. Tre stepped over me to push the smaller man away, he had his hands gripped down in front of him and the scissors were thrown into the sink. The knife, I assumed, was still in my arm. I gazed at the source of pain and sure enough the handle of the blade was protruding from my muscle.

Above me, Tre had Billie Joe wrestled to the couch. I heard Billie Joe’s fist connect with Tre’s face and before I knew it the drummer had him knocked out cold.

“Fucking cunt socked me!” He wailed as he held the fabric of his tie to his nose, “I’m going to get the paramedics. Are you okay to lay there til I come back?”

I nodded a little too forcefully. Typical Tre. Not at all panicked about the knife producing from one of his best friend’s arms or by the questions that this whole mess would raise.

I let my head rest back on the floor. I wasn’t feeling the full extent of the injury, the pain was nothing but a dull throb and I was unaffected by the amount blood I was seeing. The shock had full control over my body and it seemed to switch my pain threshold onto high.

Billie, I now saw, had his head hanging over the edge of the couches side, his arm also hung down and there was blood oozing from a few cuts in his forehead and on his hands. I was more concerned with his blood loss than my own. His face was softer than the snarling beast we had arrived to but it still worried me to think that he still was in there somewhere.

I was thrown off my train of thought by the vibration of footsteps on the wood below me. Tre, accompanied by a first aid team, flocked into the room and I found myself being fussed over by two young paramedics.

“Sir can you sit up?”

“Sir can you hear me?”

Sir, sir , sir ; It was all I heard . The rest of their conversations was jumbled and faded by the sudden ringing in my ears. My vision was blurring and the two kids were becoming more distant.

“He’s lost a lot of blood…”

“Just get him onto the stretcher…”

“Sir, sir; stay with us…”

I wanted to talk back to them, I wanted to tell them I was fine and ask them how Billie Joe was but no matter how much I willed myself to do so; I failed. I concentrated on the small blots of lights that were twinkling behind my eyelids. I listened to the buzzing and thumping; all the while watching the swirling and dancing lights. They moved like fairies; so graceful and elegant.

“Is he still breathing?”

“This amount of shock…”

“The other ones in a bad way…”

Billie Joe! I tried to call his name but I couldn’t.

“Get them both to ambulance now!”

I hadn’t any time to think about what trouble we were both in. I felt myself slipping further and further from reality. Until I finally gave in; I followed the fairies into the darkness.