21-Zach
I crouch at the edge of the stage, balancing my storyboard on my knee.
The strip sketch is rough, but the sequence plays clear in my mind: an empty stage, the slow bloom of lights, then a swarm of bodies building the crowd one seat at a time.
It’ll be a time-lapse of opening night from setup to teardown, hours of work condensed into less than three minutes.
Now that the stage is set, we’re taking a break so that Somnium can do soundcheck, since the assholes made it against my contract to film. I pull out my phone and dial Cooper.
“Cooper, go.” He picks up instantly, his jazzy voice clipped, focused, and all business.
I shade my eyes, peering up into the catwalk. He’s barely visible, a tiny silhouette perched on the gridded footpath, his big silver drone case propped beside him like a futuristic toolbox.
“How are we looking up there?”
“Good. I’m locking the anchors now. For the final shot, I’m thinking hybrid sequence, slow-mo at 120fps for the crowd swell, then ramp into a hyperlapse for teardown. You’ll need a clean plate from the floor before doors open if you’re wanting a shot from the pit.”
“Copy,” I respond, already adjusting my mental checklist. “I’ll get it after soundcheck.”
I hang up and slip my phone into my back pocket, the fabric warm from the scorching stage lights.
The subwoofers are already powering up, sending low pulses through the floor.
Ollie, one of the stagehands, strides in from the left, a guitar in each hand, the straps dangling like tails.
Behind him, two crew members wheel in an upright piano.
The body is sleek; custom wrapped in the newest album’s design.
Black glass shatters outward, jagged cracks spidering across the surface.
Glossy red paint bleeds through the fractures.
On the back panel, a molded acrylic sheet forms the shape of a bloodied hand reaching through broken glass, holding the band’s sigil.
Drawn in like gravity has redirected its focal point, I set down my sketchpad and step closer. Flakes of red paint cling between the keys’ crevices like old wounds that never fully healed. Foggy light reflects off the glossy surface, casting fractured patterns across my hands.
I press a C sharp.
The note rings out, pure and crystalline, slicing through the cavernous space.
It blooms outward, filling every corner of the arena with perfect acoustics.
Vibrations travel up my arm and into my chest before settling behind my ribs.
The arena swallows it, and the silence that follows is reverent. For a moment, everything pauses.
“Do you play?” Ollie asks, stepping up beside me, his British accent warm and rounded at the edges.
“No,” I say quickly, shaking my head. I jerk my hand back from the keys. “I mean, I used to. A bit.”
Memories hit fast, like a slap from a loved one that you don’t imagine coming.
The cheap keyboard with rainbow stickers on the keys. I taught myself the basic My Heart Will Go On melody by ear. My dad, when sober, was proud to hear me play. One drunken night, he smashed it because I was making a ‘damned racket.’
I swallow hard, pushing the memory down.
“That’d be great.” Ollie’s already plugging in cables, humming under his breath. “We need a quick test, and I dunno where Judas has wandered off to.”
“Oh,” I protest, shaking my hands like they’re on fire, “I don’t think—”
“Just play whatever comes to mind,” he says, hopping off the stage before he jogs toward the booth.
This spot is like the center of the world.
The seats rise steeply before disappearing into the shadows near the rafters, but even then, I make out the farthest section, distant and tiny, but visible.
Like muscle memory, I close my eyes, letting my fingertips tickle the keys.
The opening notes of my favorite Somnium song flow out of me.
It’s about healing. About seeing your past with gentler eyes, realizing that life rarely gives you what you want.
Yet, somehow, through the suffering and setbacks, you find that you were exactly where you needed to be in order to get to where you are now.
So, forgive yourself, keep going, and don’t hurt yourself anymore.
The arena blurs, the lights smearing into streaks of white and red.
A prepubescent Nicole sits beside me at her mom’s old piano, pressed shoulder-to-shoulder, her laugh bright and warm as I fumble through the chords.
Grief rises, swift and cruel, wringing my throat.
I blink hard, forcing myself to keep playing.
Finishing the chords of the first chorus, I let the final note linger in the air before it dissolves into silence.
I straighten, suddenly aware of the stillness.
A prickle crawls up my spine. The crew resumes their work, but the aura thickens. A single tear glistens along the keys, bleeding into the dried red flakes. Before I can wipe the smudge, red-painted fingers clamp around my wrist. Judas looms over me, half in shadow.
The grip is firm, almost bruising, as it yanks my hand from the piano. His mask covers the upper half of his face, but his gaze, intense and sweltering, locks onto mine.
We stand in the eye of a storm no one else can see.
Sweat and cigarettes waft between us. My wrist throbs under his grip. His chin flicks down to the tear-soaked key, and he steps back, the thick cloak sashaying around his ankles.
“Hey.” I dig my jagged nails into his forearm, trying to pry myself loose as he drags me away from the piano.
But he doesn’t budge. He just stares at me through two dark voids that reveal nothing and somehow everything. Up close, the mask is even more intimidating.
The horns curl back from his temples, lacquered in a deep crimson that catches the stage lights like wet blood. Sculpted cheekbones give him a gaunt, predatory appearance. He truly looks like the devil; the fanged masterpiece taken straight from Hades’s realm.
His long fingers trace the ink of my exposed forearm, following the twenty-nine tiny butterflies, then the thirteen serpents, skimming the various lyrics along their spines.
A rough thumb stops on the raised skin beneath a particular cursive script: Any second could be our last, so let’s live like we have all the time in the world.
Judas wrote those.
His grip tightens for a second, then falls away. Nerves buzzing, I roll my knit sleeve over the tattoo and smeared paint. My vision fogs as tears form against my will.
Trying to swallow my embarrassment, I turn away. I’m scraped clean, like I couldn’t breathe if I wanted to. But I don’t want to; not with him suffocating me. His touch remains like a brand, searing and unwanted.
I run from the stage and make my way out back, bursting through the door into the alley.
With shaking hands, I dig through my pockets, finding my crushed cigarette pack and the tiny lighter I keep tucked in my bomber jacket.
The flame flares, and I take a drag. Harsh tartness steadies me, enough to keep me upright.
I’m not ashamed; not anymore. I earned these scars. Survived a life where grief hollowed me out before I rebuilt myself from the inside.
I’m proud of the tattoo, my own design, and the hours I spent in the chair reclaiming my skin. I turned something painful into something beautiful. It was the last time I let sharp metal touch me.
The balmy summer air clings to me like damp clothing.
I take another puff of tobacco. The alley smells like hot asphalt, stale beer, and wet dirt, a universal scent cities like Vegas share.
I press my back against the brick wall and close my eyes, the rough texture scraping across my shoulder blades.
“Look at where you are,” I whisper to myself. “You are backstage at a legendary arena, about to film a soon-to-be legendary band. You are living the life you always wanted.”
The words echo. But it isn’t my voice saying them.
It’s his.
My sorrow curves into anger so fast my head spins. It curdles in my gut and sours into something sharper. I wipe my cheeks with the heel of my hand, smearing the last of the tears away.
Forget Judas, I need to remember who is pulling the strings, whispering in my dreams.
A cold, heavy certainty settles in me as I toss my butt to the ground. I want to confront the god once and for all.
But I think I’m going to need Judas’s help.