57-Zach
Five days after the supply closet disaster, we’re in Lincoln, Nebraska.
The mid-October air is nippy with an early winter bite that stings when I breathe too deep. The band’s headlining a rock festival, with pyrotechnics, beer tents, and a crowd that I’ve filmed tailgating since noon.
“Here, let me get that.” Cooper reaches for my equipment bag.
“It’s thirty pounds,” I say, rolling my eyes. “I’ve been carrying it around for years.”
Cooper’s been different since Milwaukee. Hovering. He’s always been that kind of protective little brother, but now he watches me as if I’m made of glass. Like if he blinks too hard, I’ll shatter.
He knew about Carter, but only in the vague, my ex was awful. Now that he knows the truth, he can’t quite look at me the same. It irks me. Pity is like a bruise someone keeps pressing.
I shove the feeling down; there’s no room for it today.
Coop takes the bag, anyway, adjusting the strap over his shoulder. I remind myself that this is love. This is care. People aren’t malicious.
Sure, there are Carters, but most people are good. People like Cooper prove it. People like Kit. Therapy I’d been forced into after my attempt taught me that. It saved my life, but I resented every second of it.
Some days, like today, the old seams stretch.
The rest of the crew doesn’t know the details, but they know something’s wrong. My demeanor has shifted. Old wounds have ripped open, and I’m stitching myself together on the go, with no time to process.
“I’m gonna go get some B-roll of the stage from the audience before the pit fills up.”
“Yeah, sounds good,” Cooper murmurs, fumbling with his drone case as he balances my bag. “I’ll bring this out back.”
This is a multimillion-dollar production. Contracts are signed, deadlines set. I owe it to Neil, the company, the band, lighting crew, merch team, the riggers, drivers, and stagehands—every single person who put their life on pause to make this tour happen.
I swallow the ache and keep moving, making my way around the stage and up to one of the security guards. “They start letting people in yet?”
“No,” he says, adjusting his earpiece. “But if you’re going to get in, do it now. I don’t think you should be in that crowd once we open the gates.”
The crowd’s already a low, deafening roar of thousands pressed against the outer barricades, chanting, stomping, and singing. It vibrates through my ribs. A thrill and a warning pulse through me in equal measure.
“We’re gonna be at capacity,” another guard, Sean, mutters. “Crowd’s already getting rowdy.”
“How long do I have?”
He pulls his phone from his utility vest. “Ten minutes. But make it eight. They’re going to rush the pit.”
“Thanks, Sean.”
I slip past him and onto the empty field; the calm before the storm.
The stage looms, massive and skeletal, lights still warming up, the giant curtain already drawn.
Crew members scurry around making last-minute adjustments.
I snap clips of the empty barricades, spotlights, and haze machines testing their output.
Walking along the inside of the barricade, I peek out. The crowd’s a sea of bodies pressed shoulder to shoulder, faces flushed with excitement, hands gripping the railings. I want crowd shots from inside the pit, but seeing this, maybe security’s right.
I study the skeletal architecture rising around the stage like a steel forest. The rigging hangs from a wooden post just behind the stand.
Heavy black cables snake upward, disappearing into the grid of trusses overhead.
The scaffolding crisscrosses in tight X braces, diagonal supports, and horizontal bars bolted together.
It’s a maze of metal and engineering, a temporary cathedral built out of bolts and sweat that’ll be gone by morning.
Every pole, truss, and cable is packed into trucks then driven to the next city, only to be rebuilt from scratch.
These people assemble a small universe every night, tearing it down before sunrise.
There’s no time to waste, so I sling my camera over my shoulder.
“Absolutely not.”
Trayvon, the tour manager, cuts in before I finish explaining.
“The festival’s at capacity. This is why we have drones.
The only reason Cooper has a job is so that you don’t have to go where you shouldn’t.
And I see that look—don’t even think about it.
Even getting into the pit at this point would be impossible. Stay up front by the guards.”
“Fine,” I mutter, biting the inside of my cheek.
“Fine as in you’re not going to do it?” His lids narrow at me over the top of his clipboard.
“Fine as in fine.”
I can’t let this shot slip away.
“Zach,” he sighs, rubbing his freckled forehead, “I’ve got too much shit going on to babysit you.”
He walks away, giving me one last glare over his shoulder. The opening chords of the first song hit, followed by a ground-shaking cheer. I grip my handheld camera, heart pounding.
Of course he’s right. But the sun is going to set in twenty minutes. This is my only chance to get daylight shots of Somnium on this tour. If I don’t capture this, the whole documentary has a hole in it.
I slip around the stage, guilt written all over my face, but screw it. The crowd on the far side is friendlier, less dense. Squeezing through bodies, I murmur apologies as I shoulder my way to the center.
“Hey,” I shout to the tall, brawny blond guy next to me, “do you mind if I squeeze in?” I point to the camera and backstage pass around my neck. “I’m with the show.”
“Sure,” he says, gesturing as he pushes a few grunting people back.
The crowd is electric but manageable. They sway in rhythm, hands lifted, faces lit in pulses of blue and gold as the spotlights sweep across them. Hot breath and sweaty skin hang thick in the air, expanding and contracting with every beat.
The fourth song ends, and the lights dim to a deep red wash, shadows stretching long across the stage. Anticipation oozes from the roaring crowd, rolling through them like a wave crashing ashore.
A mosh song starts, and the transformation is instant, bass dropping like a stomp to the sternum.
Guitars snarl as strobing whites and violent reds explode.
The crowd surges forward, bodies colliding and elbows flying.
A pit forms in the center, opening like a mouth ready to swallow anything that falls into it.
Duae’s drums blare like thunder cracking the sky open, the low-end vibrating through the scaffolding. It’s deafening. The stage lights flare off the metal trusses overhead, turning the rig into a lattice of gleaming steel.
The energy spikes, and everything that was fine a moment ago teeters on the edge of something hazardous.
Bodies slam into each other as the pit shrinks to a pinpoint, the ripple effect pushing toward the side of the stage.
The rhythm turns jagged, the crowd’s mood shifting. I’m being tossed around like a doll.
“Hey!” I shout to the guy as his elbow slams into my spine, but I barely hear myself. “Shit.”
Bodies press into me like an overpacked can of sardines.
There’s no room for the expansion of my lungs.
I try to lower my arms in an attempt to secure my ribs, but we’re jammed so tight they’re frozen stiff.
Judas steps to the edge of the stage, and I yell, but it vanishes into the roar of the crowd.
Impossibly though, he looks down, and from twenty feet away, mask on, lights blinding him, he spots me.
I don’t need to see his face to know; I feel it.
My chest tightens, a tether pulling taut between us. His attention snaps to the swarm, and even from this distance I sense his confusion, panic not far behind.
Whatever scolding lecture of “What in the bloody fucking hell were you thinking” comes later, I’ll gladly take. I’m just so stupidly relieved to be found in this chaos, his eyes on me, knowing I’m not invisible in the crush of bodies and noise.
Like a tsunami of figurines, the crowd lurches. My stomach drops, and I’m pitched sideways. My camera swings hard against my hip. The music cuts out violently, Judas’s screech slicing off mid-air like someone yanked the cord from the wall.
“Zach!” Kit’s panic blasts through the speakers.
A collective gasp, like a giant’s inhale, drifts from head-to-head as the lights seem to freeze mid-sway. The edges of the stage ripple, bending like heat haze. Violet mist shimmers through the air like dust caught in a sunbeam. The crowd topples, taking me with it.
Everything goes black.