Your eyes fluttered open at the sound of heavy rain hitting the roof of the car, goosebumps forming upon your arms and legs as the weather began to hit you. Outside the window was a barely visible neighborhood, fogged up and being heavily rained down upon, this was your first glance upon the town you would call home from now on. Rain was never an inconvenience to you, it hardly ever rained in your old Californian city, so seeing your new town in this state made you incredibly grateful to be soaking up all the gloomy beauty.

"Mom, are you seeing this? I wish I had my Polaroid right now." Your mother chuckled to herself, taking her eyes off the road for a brief second to glance over towards your excited expression. "I know, isn't this such a big change to what we're used to? I'm glad you're already taking a liking to this place, Y/N. Might want to put your hoodie on now, we're already here." Watching the rain made you forget your surroundings temporarily, so you were quite surprised to find yourself already pulling up to your new apartment building. The car now parked, you and your mother moved as fast as possible in order to get a couple boxes out of the car and into the building, not wanting the cardboard to get soaked. Clumsily, you opened the buildings rusted doors with your foot, holding it open for your mother to get inside.

"Maybe we should save the unpacking for tomorrow," your mother remarked, looking down upon the damp boxes you both held in your arms, "just to save ourselves the trouble of not having everything we own get water damaged." This made you laugh, nodding in response as you turned towards the elevator. "Fourth floor, mom?" you asked, your mother nodding in response, allowing you to enter the elevator and push the floor button of your new residence.

Once the old elevator doors opened for you to exit, a chill ran down your spine, the box slipping out of your grasp momentarily. "Careful, honey.", your mother warned as she walked into the hallway, placing the box she held besides the door marked 403. Following after her, your eyes wandered around the hall as your mother fumbled with the apartment keys. This place was pretty worn down, but you didn't really care, if anything it just added character to the old building. Successfully unlocking the door, both of you walked inside your new home, and there it was again, the same cold chill you had felt in the elevator made it's way down your spine once again. "Jesus, what's with me today?", you thought to yourself, making your way towards one of the rooms in the apartment.

Opening the door, you loudly announced, "I'll take this room, mom!", wasting no time in putting the box down and plopping yourself down on the floor of your newly claimed bedroom. "Alright hon, make sure to take your stuff out of the box and make sure  it isn't wet. I'm going to call the movers and ask if they can come tomorrow instead, we won't be able to move our stuff in this weather today. We can get the rest of our boxes we took in the car later."

Without responding, you leaned against the wall and sighed heavily, glad to be out of the car but disappointed to not have all your stuff yet, at least you had some of your things. Reaching to open the box you carried inside, you carefully took out some of your most treasured items, checking to make sure they were dry. "CDs of your favorite bands, check. VHS tapes of your favorite horror movies, check. Your CD player, check. Doc Martens, check. Polaroid...oh shit, your Polaroid! The car!", without hesitating you ran out of your room and over to the room your mother was in, "Mom, I'm gonna run down to the car real quick, my Polaroids in a different box!"

Your mother knew how much you loved that camera, so she didn't bother telling you to wait until later. "Go quickly sweetheart, I don't want you catching a cold now." Without thinking you flew out the apartment door and into the hall, and BAM! You had just ran into someone head on, the collision forceful enough to send you both onto the floor, and onto your asses. It took a moment for you to process what the hell just happened, but once it hit you, apologies poured out of your mouth towards the person you had just collided with.

"Holy shit, I am SO sorry! I-I was in a hurry, I didn't even see you! I...I..." once you regained your composure and eyesight adjusted, the figure sitting on the floor besides you became clear. Short stature, dark clothing, blue hair in....pigtails? That wasn't what made you pause in between your words though, it was the mask. Pale, besides the pink it had on one cracked corner, expressionless, the eye holes darkened due to the person having their eyes shut behind the mask. A...a prosthetic? It had to be, this wasn't some sort of Halloween or costume mask, it had to be a prosthetic.

They must've heard your voice trail off, knowing that most likely you were taking in the sight of them. Slowly, the person stood up, adjusting their mask ever so slightly, turning towards you to extend a pale hand, offering to help you up. "I-it's cool, I'm not hurt or anything. How about you?", a somewhat deep, slightly raspy voice asked you, a teenage boys voice. The eye holes of the mask became less dark, now a set of piercing blue eyes were visible behind them.

Awkwardly, you extended your hand out to them, not realizing you were still staring at them quite intently. "N-no, I'm okay, I'm okay..." you replied softly, now standing. Awkward silence fell upon the both of you as you continued to gaze upon the boy in front of you. The silence was broken as he cleared his throat, making you snap out of your trance. "A-ah, fuck! Sorry, I didn't mean to stare, it's just that, I've never seen a prosthetic like that before, it's uh, it's really cool!", you paused once more, "...sorry, I didn't mean to assume anything but, it is a prosthetic, r-right?"

The eyes behind the mask blinked in surprise, he placed his hand on his neck, looking downwards at the floor, "Y-yeah, it is. You've got a good eye." Feeling like you were being a bit too invasive, you laughed awkwardly and attempted to lighten the conversation up a bit. "Again, I'm really sorry about bumping into you like that, I was just in such a huge rush I wasn't paying attention. I hope I didn't startle you too bad. So much for a first impression, right?", you joked with a smile forming on your face, moving a strand of hair out of your eyesight, "I'm Y/N by the way, you?"

After he finished cleaning some floor dust off himself, he made eye contact with you and introduced himself, "My names Sal, but people call me Sallyface, I'm sure you can tell why.", he replied. This made you raise an eyebrow, a bit confused, that didn't sound like a very friendly nickname. "Uh, who exactly calls you that?" you asked, Sal promptly replying, "Well, yknow, assholes came up with the nickname and I just claimed it. Cant be used against me if I own it, right? I don't really mind it anymore, my friends now even use it so it doesn't bother me at all."

Understanding, you smiled a bit, still uncomfortable using a nickname that had been coined out of malice, but if he assured you it was okay then, who were you to say no? "Sallyface, aye. Well, It's nice to meet you, Sallyface. Sorry again for crashing into you like that, I just really need to go get something from my car.", you told him, it was obvious that whatever you were going to go get was of importance. "I was actually going to go down in the elevator myself too, before you know, you bumped into me. Want to go together? Looks like we're going to be neighbors, so, might as well show you around right? If you want, I mean."

This offer was just the kind of confidence boost you needed, "Yes! Maybe now you won't be such a loner after all. Not that you care but...having a friend is always nice. Especially such an interesting one." Running a hand through your soft H/C colored hair, you nodded eagerly at his question, stepping towards Sal, "That'd be really nice, thanks Sal. I appreciate it a lot." The blue haired boy smiled slightly underneath his mask, not that you could see it anyway, and began to make his way towards the elevator, pushing the desired button.

Once the doors opened and the descent to the first floor was made, you stepped out of the elevator and into the main entrance. Still pouring outside, and you didn't have an umbrella. You weren't really dressed for this kind of weather at all actually, since you were in the car for 8 hours before all this. Sure you had a hoodie on, but besides that you wore a pair of blue denim ripped shorts with knee high socks, and your old worn converse. "Damn my lack of preparation....", you thought to yourself as you looked out the doors, turning towards Sal. "Uh, if you want you can wait for me in here. I don't want you to get soaked from the rain and all-", he cut you off, going over to the corner of the buildings entrance, where an umbrella rack stood, picking one at random and holding it up to show you. "I'm sure nobody will mind if we borrow this, now we won't get wet. Let's go.", he said as he walked to open the door, holding it open for you.

"Heh, thanks Sallyface. You're a huge help.", you stated as you walked out the door, and off the two of you went towards your car. Once you made it you swung the door open, Sal waiting besides the vehicle for you to find whatever you were looking for. Rummaging through your things, you quickly found exactly what you were looking for, your prized Polaroid. You exited the car and slammed the door, an excited smile plastered across your face as you held the camera against your body.

"Oh, a Polaroid camera, that's really cool. You take pictures often?", he asked you, a bit hard to hear over the heavy patter of raindrops hitting the umbrella and ground. "Yeah, I like taking photos of stuff, I'm not some cheesy photography nerd though. If I see something I like, I just take a picture. Huge amateur. As a matter of fact....", you raised the camera to meet your eye and pointed it towards the building, taking a picture of it in all its dilapidated glory. A few moments later the picture came out, you waving it around in your hand  as the both of you returned inside. As the door shut behind the both of you and Sal had returned the umbrella to its original place, the photo was now visible. "This one's going in my scrapbook," you stated as you both looked down upon the photograph. The building you both called home, Addison Apartments, in picture form.

Sal smiled, glad that he had helped you retrieve your camera. Watching you admire the photograph you had taken made him feel happy, and without realizing he found himself admiring the soft features of your face, glad to see you smile. "Feels good to make a new friend, especially such a pretty one.", he thought to himself, "Wait, what? Pretty....pretty cool. That's what I meant." His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of you saying his name. "Sal? Sallyface? Thank you again for coming with me, I really appreciate you. Anyways, what did you come down here for?" He paused for a second, forgetting briefly what he was going down in the elevator for before he remembered, "Oh, right! I was going to visit my friend Larry, he lives in the basement of this place. Y-you should come, he's a great friend. I'm sure you'll get along."

Gently placing the photograph in your back pocket, you agreed once again to accompany Sal, wanting to befriend this Larry person as well. Sal was already such a nice guy, making common friends couldn't hurt. Back inside the elevator, he pushed the button for the basement and off you two went, this time now standing a bit closer to one another inside the rickety elevator.