“I missed this.” I whispered into her ear, resting my head on her shoulder for a moment. “I missed you.” She pulled me into another deep kiss, and then took my hand, leading me towards the Planet.

“Come on,” She said grinning. “We’re already-” She stopped in mid sentence, staring at something in an ally, and her smile faded quickly.

            “What is it?” I asked, stepping forward for a better look. She dropped my hand and ran forward into the ally, me right behind her. “Oh my God!” I knelt over the two bodies lying on the cold ground, feeling for pulses, relieved when I found them, though they weren’t very strong. “Carmen? Come on, wake up!” I moved her head around, hoping to see her eyes flutter open any second, but they didn’t. I heard Bette calling Mark’s name to my left, and saw her whip out her cell phone; I was grateful that she’d remembered to bring it this time. I heard her speaking quickly into the phone, and snap it shut, handing it to me.

            “Call Kit, tell her what’s happening and to meet us at the hospital.” She said to me. I stared at her for a second, panicked, and then dialed the number.

            “Kit? No, it’s Tina. No, listen, something’s happened to Carmen and Mark, can you- what? No, just- just meet us at the hospital, okay?” I shut the phone and gripped it tightly with white knuckles.

            “It’s going to be okay.” Bette said, pulling me into a hug. I stared at the two motionless bodies over her shoulder and waited for the ambulance to come.

Still Tina:

            I sat up, rubbing the sleep from my eyes, and quietly stared at the faded blue checkered carpet in the waiting room, like I’d been doing for the past 2 hours before I fell asleep. I couldn’t bare to look at my friends’ faces. As long as I kept my eyes on the carpet, it wasn’t real. I wouldn’t have to face the fact that two of my friends were in emergency care after being attacked on their way to have a night of fun with some friends. That’s all the doctors had told us. They’d said that there had been lots of cases like this, with people being attacked around the area. Two words came to everyone’s mind: Gay bashers. It wasn’t hard to figure out.