They had planned the escapade for over two weeks. Gwen was the usual raver, she had done this many times before, but Samantha was apprehensive about the adventure. She had never attended a rave, but she had heard the stories. Those maddening stories of lust-driven teens riding high on waves of ecstasy. The clumps and heaps of sweaty bodies rolling over one another. The thing that frightened Samantha the most were the ever rising numbers of drug-related deaths that occurred in the bowels of these abandoned warehouses.

     Samantha regretfully lied to her mother of her whereabouts, but, her mother, being the overprotective, worrisome figure that she is, required Samantha to check in hourly. This task would be difficult enough to complete from L.A., much more on a poorly serviced cell phone in the middle of barricading music. But Samantha made her hourly checks and signed off for the evening, ‘sleeping at Gwen‘s’ before entering the club .

        Arriving outside the Orion in the middle of dreg-ridden Los Angeles, Gwen and Samantha stood for over two hours in the cold dark alley. Surrounded by the misfits of the twenty first century, most already digesting the mind altering little white pill that cost them a month’s wages for a night’s high, Samantha shivered with anticipation.

        The doors were opened and the music poured into the alley. Girls were separated from boys and searched by gender-corresponding guards. As they entered the rave, Samantha was consumed by the lights, the smoke, the confined area in which so many people were supposed to fit. She immediately noticed the Asian boys that had taken their places in the back of the club, preparing for the night’s sales. The cheap clumps of white powder rattled in their pockets as they set out to sell for high quality love.

         Slowly but surely the crowd filtered into the small room and began dancing to the trance music bumping off the walls. Samantha tried to get into the swing of things, dancing wildly amongst her faded peers, but her two left feet buckled beneath her, and she sat the next round out. Gwen persuaded her to continue, but Samantha maintained her stance before claiming she needed fresh air. They walked into the closed off alley between the club and the joining building. A breath of fresh air blasted Samantha’s face and dried the beads of sweat that had formed above her brow. They sat for awhile then rejoined the party.

         In the few minutes that the two rested in the cold night’s air, the club had doubled in the amount of its previous capacity. Half-dressed, half-crazed teens and young adults flared across the designated dance floor, glow sticks in hand, just a blur as they streaked. The two flustered girls tried to make their way through the hoards of bodies to find enough room to dance, but there was none to be found. The room filled with smoke, reeking of illegal substance, making Samantha nauseous and light-headed. After sticking it out a few more minutes, Samantha motioned to Gwen that she was ready to go. Regretfully Gwen followed.

      As the two headed for the door, a young Asian girl flung herself against Samantha, startling her and knocking her out of breath. The semi-slim girl turned her head towards Samantha’s widened eyes, revealing two pure white globes beneath her long fluttering

lashes. Her arms swayed off beat to the music that rang through the warehouse, grabbing and pulling at the slack of Samantha’s clothes. Her friend appeared beside her, a concerned look smeared across her flushed face and dazed eyes.

    “Help my friend!” she pleaded.

    Gwen and Samantha dragged the sluggish girl to a corner of the dark room and forced her to the floor. She swayed to the left, she swerved to the right, so Samantha sat on one side of her, Gwen took her place on the other. The girl took her place to the front. After dragging out the general information from the delusional child, she passed out. Gwen glanced at Samantha.

     “If we don’t keep her awake, she’ll never wake up again.”

     At this point, a doctor couldn’t have saved young Priscilla’s life, after a dangerous dose of ecstasy, (three times the safe amount, to be exact) laced with Crystal Meth. But lo and behold, a fucked up Asian with little light blinking gadgets came along and flashed them in front of her white orbs. A miracle? No. Her pupils took their designated place for a brief two seconds, then rolled back again. Beads of perspiration formed on her forehead as her temperature rose. She began falling into cardiac arrest. Gwen insisted against calling the authorities; it was not in correspondence with the “raver’s code of conduct”. Keeping her awake became harder and harder to do. Gwen and Samantha force fed her water and Coke, kept a damp cloth on her forehead, and slapped her to alertness. After sitting with her for over an hour,  the girls had to leave. It was a decision Samantha would regret for the rest of her life. They left Priscilla in the arms of her friend, and drove home, reeking of pot and sweat, exhausted.

    Later that night, a young girl was discovered outside of her home in Pasadena, lying face down in the dewy grass, raped, a deadly poison streaking through her veins.