23-Zach
Watching them live is nothing like the recordings.
Judas isn’t just performing; he commands the entire room, pulling thousands of people into his orbit. The rail digs into my ribs every time the crowd surges, the floor shaking with the bass. I’m behind the barricade, trying to get a front-and-center shot while avoiding fan’s line of sight.
I make a mental note to find Jimmy. The lighting is unreal, especially the way he compensates for the nosebleeds. Some of my best shots came from up top, where the arena looked like a galaxy. Beams and lasers swirled, glittering the crowd like stardust.
Judas walks toward a single stool on the center platform. The stage stretches wide around him, framed by blank screens and pillars of fog. A tech hands him a cherry red acoustic guitar with black-lined cracks.
“Some days, it can be hard to look in the mirror and accept what stares back,” a woman’s gentle, distorted accent comes through the speakers as Judas grabs the guitar.
The crowd quiets instantly. “I do not believe in coincidence. All of us were brought together because at some point our suffering resonated on the same frequency.”
This should be False Fables; I checked the set list.
I go still as he plays the notes of a song I first heard in a hospital—one that cracked me open at my lowest point. Judas belts about surviving pain; clawing your way back and choosing to stay.
With the voice that held me together when everything else was falling apart, he sings, “Don’t hurt yourself anymore…”
I stabilize my camera, blinking hard. They’ve never played it live.
Ever.
This moment is massive, and the weight of it hits mercilessly. A sob tears through me as his voice cracks on the final lines, raw and unguarded.
The last chords fade, and silence drops for half a blink before the arena erupts. I wipe my face and refocus, capturing the crowd of streaked makeup, red eyes, and open mouths—all of us undone in the same way. The floor shakes as the barricade rattles.
The love is profuse; pain and comfort tangled into raw emotion.
Judas bows, hands clasped, head low through my lens. His shoulders tremble, the mask slipping in a way I’ve never seen. Then he collapses to his knees in a prayer-like bow, shoulders shaking as sobs rake through him. This isn’t a performance.
He’s breaking open, mercilessly fighting the same ghosts as me.
And for the first time since meeting him, I remember why he has my admiration.
The arena is like a giant exhale, an emptiness that leaves my skin buzzing.
Cooper and I gather the final footage before dismounting the drone from its rig. The clasps are still warm, the rotors ticking as they cool. My fingers are stiff from hours of filming, but my mind races.
Somnium made history tonight.
Videos of that last performance are already going viral, with fans speculating, dissecting, and theorizing the big question: Why now?
I’m not vain, but I’m not na?ve enough to ignore the timing. I could ask him, possibly thank him. But the thought of facing him hollows my insides. If I do, I’ll lose it.
That song saved me more times than I can count, especially when I was trying to rebuild myself after my attempt. I want to hate the quiet, pretentious asshole, but I can’t. Because he saved me.
He keeps saving me.
“That was,” Cooper says, taking in a deep breath, “something else.”
“You are now a part of the Somnium devout.” I sling the drone case shut. “We gather whenever and wherever we can.”
“How awesome it must be for you,” Cooper says, taking the plastic handle as I lift it, “considering you were in their point zero-one percent of top listeners last year.”
I laugh, then frown, thinking of how Judas yanked me away from his piano.
I shouldn’t have touched it, let alone played it.
But he reacted like the sight of me touching his things repulsed him.
Maybe it’s my ego, but it hurt. Something in his impenetrable composure cracked, but I was too stunned to name it.
“I don’t know.” I rub my wrist for the thousandth time tonight. “I think it would be better if they actually wanted us here.”
“Well, I think most of them do,” Cooper says, voice as soft as his assuring smile.
“Yeah,” I admit, thinking of how inviting the rest of the band has been. I sigh. “But not the one who has to be filmed the most. He still hasn’t given me a time for the introductory interview, and this is the basic one.”
Everyone else agreed to get mic’d up and take the ten-minute interview. But Judas? He hasn’t looked at me without a mask, literal or emotional, let alone spoken to me. In fact, we haven’t talked since I dropped him off six months ago.
“I don’t know,” I say, staring through the slits in the catwalk as we head down. “I really don’t want this documentary to be three months of Judas staring daggers into my lens through huffy-puffy puffs.”
“Yeah, well, I said what I said,” Cooper replies, tucking a loc behind his ear as he peers back at me. “This is a win for you. Lord knows you needed one.”
His face puckers with sorrow as I stop mid-step. He was there when I got in the car accident and held me while I pieced my life and body back together after. I don’t know if I would’ve kept my job or survived without him.
But the comfort doesn’t stick; it never does.
“I need to smoke.” I wiggle my camera free from around my neck and hand it to him as we reach the ground. “Can you bring this back to the van?”
“You got it.”
I pull a cigarette from the pack and tuck it between my lips, digging my lighter out of my pocket as I push open the back door.
A masked Judas sits on a wooden crate flipped upside down, with something between his lips that’s a lot stronger than tobacco.
The eggshell paper is smeared with red paint, and though most of it’s been wiped away, bits cling to the creases of his knuckles, the curve of his collarbone, and the edges of his jaw.
He’s the last person I want to see right now. I don’t know if the need for nicotine is enough to keep me facing the beast. Lighting my smoke, I take a drag and steel my nerves.
“Must be a bitch,” I say, and he jerks up, the hood of his cloak falling half down his head. I gesture at him, head to toe. “Getting all that off every night.”
He looks down at his tinted stomach, taking another drag from the joint. The ember glows orange against the dark, illuminating the faint red flecks still stuck to his neck; remnants of the persona he sheds like skin.
I stare down at my scuffed leather boots as I pocket my lighter. The pavement’s cracked and uneven, like me. He tosses the roach to the ground and stands, walking past me. His hand hovers over the handle as he hesitates at the door, our shoulders inches from each other.
“Thank you,” I say, blowing out a drag. “That song saved my life.”
As if he’s about to speak, his lips part. But Judas snaps his teeth together and opens the door instead. It slams behind him with a clank, leaving me deflated and defeated.
One of the people I admire most absolutely hates me, and I don’t understand why. I need to get close to him, but he keeps me beyond arm’s length.
What a stupid cat-and-mouse game this has turned into.
“Ughh,” I groan, sucking in another drag.
This man is a conundrum I’m not smart enough to figure out. But I have to. And if he’s not willing to get close to me—
I’ll make him. Even if it breaks me.