(In the car, with Cheryl, on the Way to Wake n Bake 2000, bumpin' "Soldier's Story" as windshield wipers deal with a rainy night in So Cal)

"Hey Cher, you gonna roll tonight?"

"Maybe. What about you?"

"I … am gonna find the most fucked up Kande Kid I can, drag her into the Jungle room and right when Diesel Boy starts his first mix, I'm gonna sink my teeth into her and drink as much blood as I can. Then, I'm gonna roll."

"Does that work?"

"Yeah."

"How do you know?"

"A few weeks ago I bit a girl at Technical, and I started rolling."

"You didn't eat any pills?"

"No. I was broke, as usual."

Ultraviolet lights lit the entrance to the venue, a huge parking lot in the middle of Los Angeles. Cheryl and I both knew that this was one of those times that we were going to have to pay the price for being ravers. Oh, sorry Cheryl says she's not a raver- she is a Junglist…

Anyway, there was a big fat rave on the other side of that light, and we already bought our tickets for this party, so what was the point? It would burn a little, but we wouldn't have to stand under the UV lights for long, just long enough to show the UV stamp on the tickets.

"I'm scared, is this gonna hurt?" asked Cheryl.

"Yeah, but so what? It's not like we're gonna miss the party."

"Ooh, Okay, but you go first," Cheryl squeaks.

I have to admit I was feeling a bit anxious; after all, you never know what you're gonna get with these UV lights. Sometimes they just barely tickle and sometimes they feel like straight sunlight. The people before us flash their tickets and get in. The light's blue tint sends shivers down my spine, my body clenches like a fist, and my forehead feels like a bar of moist soap on my fingers; but none of this is from the light, it's from anticipation. Taking one last look at Cheryl, trying to seem brave, I ready my ticket for Security. As I present my ticket and step into the UV light I know I'm off the hook, the light feels like an uncomfortably hot shower but is not truly painful. Cheryl smiles with relief, until the guard informs us that her ticket is fake. Sure enough, I look at her ticket and there is no UV seal, instead the glare burns my eyes. Cheryl is getting toasty, and there is no time to argue, instead I stand quietly and watch three pairs of eyes. When Cheryl starts to faint, I swipe a VIP pass from the security table and slip it into my hoodie, then I start to shout "What the FUCK you freaks, get the FUCK off of her, what the FUCK is your fucking problem?" as I get between Cheryl and the security guard. "What the fuck did you do to her?" I ask with furious conviction. I turn to Cheryl and slip the VIP pass into her pocket. The light makes her look coked out -a little too coked out… "Damn girl, you gotta lay of the Yeah! Cheryl, where's the VIP pass Meelo gave you?" "Whuh?" Cheryl mutters. I check all of her pockets, and when I get back to the first one I pull out the pass. "Fuck, I can't take you anywhere."

I pull a pack of cigarettes from the elastic band on my boxers and light two of them, just waiting for the guard to realize that he no longer has his VIP pass, but he never does. "Cheryl… Cher-bear? Are you okay? Cheryl!"

"What the hell?" says Cheryl.

"Cher, you were under that black light for a minute! I thought you were gonna pass out! C'mon, I'll buy you a water."

"How did we get in?"

"I stole the security guards VIP pass, it was great, trust me."

"Wow, fuck. I guess I owe you one."

"Don't worry about it, I wanna roll! Let's go find some Kande Kids!"

By the time we got to the water booth Cheryl had already found her snack, but he wasn't a Kande Kid. Instead Cheryl had picked up a skinny white boy that looked like he should have been at a Hip Hop show. Just her type, I thought to myself. By the look in her eye I could tell that Cheryl had once again found love at first sight so this would be the last I would see of her tonight. The rain was really starting to come down, so I made my way into one of the huge tents. The Jungle tent was nice and loud so I went to the big tent in search of my first friend for the night. Conveniently, the tents were connected so I did not have to get any more wet than I already was. All around me there were hundreds of people rolling their faces off and I couldn't wait to join them. "Hey what's your name?" said a girl in a brightly colored orange top and baggy black pants. This was going to be easy.

"I'm Mark, who are you?"

"I'm Pand-E!" she said excitedly as she pointed to the anime style cartoon panda on her chest. Pand-E was just my type. She was cute, sexy, and had a hot little body with short black hair offset by brilliant, sparkling, green eyes. I would guess that she was nineteen, adding a year to account for the mischievous smile on her lips that told me she knew what was up.

"How's your evening so far?" I shouted over the relentless beats of the Tech House set.

"Great, I've been here since nine, so I got to watch the place get packed. What time is it anyways?"

"About midnight."

At this point everything was going exactly as planned. Tonight's girl was cuter than expected, dosed out of her mind judging by her pupils, and we were going to the Jungle room together to catch Diesel Boy's set. To avoid the crowded tents, we walked outside in what was now a downpour. By the time we got to the Jungle tent we were both dripping wet, which seemed to turn Pand-E on. I prefer to be dry, but it was worth being wet just to see Pand-E's orange t-shirt cling to her delicate curves. I held her hand and looked deep into her eyes in order to make her think that I was interested in her beyond tonight, even though nothing could be further from the truth. In the Jungle room, bass boomed and colored lights hid the true identity of everything, creating the surreal landscape every raver is familiar with. For a split second I wondered what Pand-E's real name could be and what her life was like on weekdays, but such thoughts are counterproductive for a vampire. Instead, I wrapped my hands around her waist and pulled her towards me. Pand-E bit her bottom lip, giving one last thought to how far she wanted things to go between us before placing her hands on my chest. I leaned back a bit to make her feel more comfortable, so that she would be the one to kiss me - I knew that's how she wanted it to go. Kissing Pand-E felt great, like kissing someone I loved. We had only met a few minutes ago, so to me she was still flawless. I rubbed the small of her back as our kisses became more intense. My fingers moved to her nipples (girls like this don't wear a bra) and she arched her back a bit more, it didn't matter to us that we were surrounded by strangers.

By now I was probably more turned on that she was, so I couldn't help but to sink my teeth into her long, soft, salty, wet neck. Both of her hands were on my head and she pulled me in closer (this meant that I was doing it right.) The beautiful sounds she made between her heavy breaths made this worth it, even if I wasn't a vampire. Before drinking too much I pulled my teeth out, and then the Drugs hit me.

Unlike when eating a pill, the anxious feeling of waiting for the E to hit lasts only seconds, instead of minutes or hours. "You make me feel so good," she said as blood ran down her neck and into her wet orange t-shirt. Slightly embarrassed by my sloppy technique I licked the blood from her neck, but just as I did she kissed me again. We stopped to look at each other and I noticed the blood all over her lips and chin. Fortunately it was dark and the crowd was not paying attention to us but instead to Diesel Boy, who had started his set. Pandy was in a blissful state heightened by the lightheadedness that comes from combining MDMA, making out, and losing so much blood. She could barely stand up, so I set her down between two other girls that also had a bit too much, but to a lesser extent, tonight. My jaw clenched tightly, motivated by the speedy broken beats Diesel Boy was slingin' and the E in my system. I needed another girl right now. I wiped the corners of my mouth and just as she was about to walk by I said, "What's your name?"

"I'm Lisa." Lisa was a tall young brunette with an innocent look about her that piqued my interest.

"Have you been partying long, Lisa?"

"Uhm, well, no. This is my third party."

"Are you rolling?"

"No, I don't do E anymore. My boyfriend bought me some Acid, but now I can't find him. This party is just too big."

"Oh, that's okay. Just wait here and I'm sure he will turn up sooner or later," I said. Doing my best to not seem anxious, all I could think about was how I was going to suck blood out of her neck. "Hey, do you wanna go to the VIP room? They have free candy in there!"

"Uhm, okay," she said. Where would this fictional VIP room be, I wondered as we started to walk towards the back of the tent. I led Lisa through an opening, and we ended up near the generators that powered the party, which was great because the noise from the generators would cover the sound of her screams. The E in my system let me feel completely selfish, even more than I always am, and nothing was going to stand between me and the LSD in Lisa's blood. "This isn't the VIP room, is it?" said Lisa, in a last minute realization that she was in a bad situation.

"No, no it isn't Lisa," I replied, squeezing her wrists tightly, waiting for the inevitable scream, but the scream never came.

Lisa just looked away expecting the worst, which was exactly what she was going to get. The vein in her neck seemed huge and was staring right at me so I wasted no time in sinking my teeth into it. What a great night I was having, I thought. If only all girls were this complacent, life would be great. The Acid first started to hit me while my teeth were still in Lisa's neck. I started to trip on what I was doing to her, but what other use did she have to the world? It's not like she had anything else going for her. Why else would a girl her age be here at this hour anyway? Lisa's wrists slowly became free from my grasp and all the sounds of Wake n Bake seemed to have their own separate channel going directly to my brain. I could hear every single thing every single person said. On closer observation, I really couldn't.

Just as I hoped the fun had begun, I came to another realization, but this one was really a real realization: Lisa was still standing right in front of me as if nothing had happened. Wow, I know how to pick the freaks. Did she not realize that I had just sucked blood out of her neck through my fangs? I flashed her a look like "Run away!" but nothing came of it. In fact, the next thing she did was lean forward to try and kiss me! I turned my head and pushed her away, but her image echoed through my mind a million times anyway. Being in the presence of the only person at this event more disturbed than myself was a chilling thought. Unable to help myself, I glanced in her direction, and sure enough she had this dopey look on her face as if she had just found Mr. Right. "Wrong!" blurted out of my mouth without any conscious effort. I wanted to say something else, but nothing would come out, God Damn it. I wanted to crack her in the jaw, but I couldn't bring myself to do that either. She stood there looking like I had just hurt her feelings, when in fact I had done no such thing. My intent was to get free drugs; all of this other stuff was going on in her mind. Where was her boyfriend, anyway? "You have the wrong idea Lisa, whatever idea it is that you may have. You need to go back to your boyfriend and forget about all of this. You need to stay away from me." Now she seemed even more hurt than before which caused bizarre and confusing emotions to swell up from within me. I gathered myself up and stared deep into her soul, mustering up the evil within me as I told her once again that I wanted nothing at all to do with her, but she just wouldn't get the point, so I pushed her to the ground. A little too hard I guess, since her head bounced off the asphalt in an unnatural way. Now she really was hurt. Fuck, why can't I just go to one party without any drama? But the drama had just begun… As I walked back to the tent there was blood everywhere, all over everything, covering everyone. Not fresh red blood, but dark blood instead. This wasn't real, it was just an effect of the Acid combined with the bullshit that had come up, but it was revolting anyway. Just as I walked into the Jungle room I felt a tap on my shoulder, who was this? It was some guy who saw what just happened, no it was Lisa again, back from her near death experience, no, in reality, in the real reality that we all share, it was some girl I had met months ago. She acted as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. (Little did she know.) She appeared to talk, but no words came out, so I nodded my head and played along until she gave me a hug. When her skin touched mine, I felt as if ice water was dumped down my back. I ignored it for a few long seconds, but then my whole body twitched as if I had just touched a power socket. "…" She raised her hand to her lip and blood ran between her fingers right away, of course this would have to be the worst split lip in rave history. She didn't seem too upset, which also made no sense. Talking would complicate things even more and time was at a complete standstill, by my math this party would last forever.

Dark eastern music filled my imagination. Before my eyes people morphed into shadows then into black light then into unholy apparitions of individuals from my past. Tic. The moment I closed my eyes to escape the horror, wire frame representations of the same characters came towards me from every direction. Toc. This wasn't going to work out, there was just no way I could survive the next five hours like this, Tic, I needed to get away, Toc, I needed to escape, Tic, I needed to be alone, Toc, but every time I tried to go anywhere some girl that I met at some party at some point, Tic, in the last two years, Toc, would pop up out of nowhere to haunt me. Some off these girls were real, I was convinced, but some of them couldn't be here. They were dead. I know this as I killed them myself. The entire world became pitch black and my eyes felt as if they were doused in icy slush. I shook my head violently and when I regained my sight a girl was laughing at me. Her laughter came to a sudden stop, possibly because of a possessed look I shot in her direction. I turned around and made my way to the nearest exit where rain flowed off of the tent and onto my head. The rain must have been cold, but did not feel that way upon my skin, so I walked further and further away from the crowd until I reached the fence that went around the outside perimeter of the venue. Exhausted, I clutched a few links of the fence and took a deep breath. My knees felt weak and I needed to sit down right away, so I did, in a deep puddle. I was soaking wet at this point, so it made little difference. The intense feelings caused by the drugs I took and seeing so many girls from my past reminded me of many stillborn relationships. Tonight was turning out to be an unpleasant look at where my life was headed. I closed my eyes and thought about this hundreds of times until the music stopped and Cheryl, still in perfect shape makeup and all, came to pick me up and take me home. Ink from the fliers on the ground had turned into a kaleidoscope of colors and stains on my clothes, parallel to the stains I carry within me, all of which are seemingly avoidable and yet inescapable at the same time, all of which make up my history and determine my future. Only time will tell how I go about dealing with who I am, for now I just manage to make it from one weekend to the next.