Status: New story idea, it probably sucks.

This Is Bat Country.

Meet Avenged Sevenfold.

Loud jeers and roars of laughter re-sounded between the four, cement walls. A beat-up old box television was perched on a splintered crate in the middle of the room. Two frayed and torn couches were placed nearby, two men sprawled out on the stained upholstery. The smaller of the two had a head full of jet black, spiked hair, the dark color blending in with the dull decor of the surrounding atmosphere. He was wearing a plain, white wife beater and a pair of faded, black sweatpants. A half empty beer bottle was clutched in one hand which was hanging lazily off the couch, the tips of his cracked knuckles barely brushing the worn carpet.

The other was laughing at the T.V program their eyes were so fixated upon. Images of speeding cars, drunken bafoons and sounds of slurred profanities jumped out from the T.V set, followed by a sly remark shot out by a cheesy comedian ever so often. His hair was much shorter and was the same dark color as the other's. A few, random strands were hanging in front of his face, which he carelessly brushed aside, only to have them fall into their place once again. Occasionally, he raised the dark brown butt of an old cigarette to his lips, taking a long draw before blowing the smoke out into the dim room, gray and white curls dancing through the air before fading into nothingness.

Suddenly the door flew open, sending a few, stray beer bottles careening across the floor. Both men shot off the couches, one giving a startled yelp as he tripped over his own two feet.

"Dammit, Alaura! I thought I told you to stop doing that." The spike haired one cursed, grumbling under his breath.

"Don't get your panties in a wind, Gates. Stop being such a pussy."

She flipped her red hair behind her shoulders, and tied it up into a loose, low bun. Kicking her beat up boots off into the corner, she grabbed a beer off a nearby crate and flopped over onto one of the rank sofas.

"Someone needs to call Shadows." She shot out casually after staring blankly at the plethora of drab commercials that played one after the other.

Both men appeared as if they had seen a ghost. The one called Gates slowly rose up from his sprawled out position, and laid his beer on the floor.

"You know what happened to the money?"

Scoffing, she continued, "If I had the money, do you think we'd be here?"

"I thought you went to go find that alcoholic bastard. Whatever happened to that?" He shot out, obviously frustrated.

"I shot him." She replied smugly, throwing the empty, brown bottle to the ground and reaching for a cigarette.

"WHAT?!" The two hollered in unison, the shorter of the two spat his beer out in a violent, spewing spray. They stared back at her with wide eyes and jaws that had nearly fallen to the floor. Their eyes locked upon her actions as she calmly grabbed the T.V remote and began to casually click through the channels, hovering on a select few before again quickly changing the channel.

"Is he dead..?" Gates queried cautiously.

"Yeah, pretty dead if you ask me. I mean, I'm no doctor but I think a bullet in between the eyes drops a person pretty quickly."

"Okay, now he's dead. Shadows isn't going to be pissed now. Nope! Not at all." He threw his arms up in frustration and aimed a kick at the nearest object and the dark green glass of a beer bottle went skittering across the floor, clattering and clanging about until it came to a stop.

"Say, what do we have to eat? I'm starving, killing someone takes a lot out of ya." She retorted with a devilish grin, twirling the cracked plastic of the TV remote in and out of her slender fingers.

"Oh yeah, we have a nice creme brulee that I managed to whip up a few minutes ago. Would Your Highness like some?" He clasped his hands in front of him and bent over in a bow of mockery.

"Thanks Gates! I should ask you to cook for me more often." She grinned again and gave him a wink before stretching out on the sofa and kicking her boots off into a corner.

He huffed gruffly in her general direction before continuing, "Alaura, do you think you can just go around killing people? Especially when those people have money that belongs to Shadows? Now how do you expect we are going to find it? Shadows is going to be pissed and not just at you; all of us."

"I never said I wasn't going to find the money." She replied, still focused on changing the channel and finding something decent to watch on the gray box that illuminated her face with an eerie, blue glow, "Oh, and I'm still hungry. Where's that creme brulee I was promised, huh?"

"How in the world are you going to just find the money? Do you think it's laying around in someone's wallet?"

She snapped her fingers at him, hiding her grin with a mischievous smirk, "Creme brulee."

"You're the woman." He grumbled under his breath and fell over onto one of the spare sofas while mumbling under his breath and sending visual daggers in Alaura's direction.

"Alaura, Shadows will be pissed when he finds out what you did. He's no one to trifle with.." The other questioned, running one hand through his short hair; causing bits of it to stand straight up on end, pointing straight up to the dark ceiling.

A dark cloud crossed her expression and her mischievous grin disappeared. Her focus seemed to drift somewhere far away from that small room; away from the beer bottles, cigarette smoke and the blue glow of the TV set. A sorrowful glaze of tears slowly crept over her jade-colored eyes and her gaze shifted to the floor beneath her.

"He can't do to me what anyone else hasn't.." She whispered quietly as memories of a darker time rushed into her thoughts, making her surroundings melt away; replaced by horrors that she had been trying to push out of her conscious thought for years..

"What?"

"Fuck off, I'm going for a smoke.." She grumbled, shoving her hands into her pockets and stomping out of the room; not even bothering to put her boots back on.

The two men glanced at each other confusedly, as if to silently ask the same question; "What the fuck just happened?"