She was an anonymous part of the crowd that night, jammed into a small concert venue, emergency exit wide open to ensure no one choked. Her name was May Schroder, but tonight that didn’t matter. Tonight the music buried itself in her brain and her limbs, and small as she was she headbanged as violently as the men on stage. She didn’t have to think. She didn’t have to care about anything. There was only the repetitive rhythm of the music – loud, throat-tearing black metal, music that only meant pain and yet soothed everything. She moved her body in synchrony with the crowd, seeming not to notice her exhaustion.

All she saw was the light show on the back of her eyelids, all she felt the rush of the music. The rhythm forced her body to move, same as everyone around her. They banged their heads and torsos, ever deeper, responding seamlessly to every change in rhythm or riff. The air sparked with the electric energy of the sky before a thunderstorm, and May let it burn her. Even the band was as good as anonymous, just another small town group of men that’d never make it off the island. It didn’t matter; they held an understanding that nothing mattered except the music. It meant May hardly looked at the vocalist before he collapsed and the music halted.

Soft whispers erupted around her almost immediately. The vocalist – not old, not young, hip-length tangled hair, torn stage clothes - laid on stage, sideways, breathing hard with old wounds on his upper arms. His eyes stared into nothing, but his panting slowed down and the bassist came to help him up. Exhaustion, May thought – an act, the crowd around her whispered.

There was a stillness in the air that had not been there moments before. It was composed of silence, and countless microscopic beads of sweat, and the electricity which still clung to the atmosphere. May was breathing hard, her heartbeat echoing in her throat. She felt her neck ache, in a reminder of the rhythm that had kept her safe seconds earlier. She tied her hair back, in an effort to keep the sweat out of her face, and considered getting a beer. Yet post-concert, the line was longer than ever – and it got expensive, this far up north.

She looked around. She hadn’t been on Threoo long enough to make close friends, and on an island this isolated, friendships were established young. Although people at the venue, Dyst, had always been welcoming, she didn’t really feel like joining into a conversation full of inside jokes she didn’t understand. May went for the fire escape instead. Air would be almost as good as a drink, and a scarce necessity on concert nights. She’d gathered so much warmth inside of her that she didn’t shiver when she set foot in the alley behind Dyst. The air, almost as cold as snow on the edge of melting, was a stark reminder that winter would not be kind this year. Worldly problems like climate change didn’t seem to affect the archipelago.

May froze. She wasn’t alone back here. The vocalist – now very much a human being instead of a nameless performer – sat on the drenched cobbles, smiling at her. He was smoking, the lit end of his cigarette reflecting in his gray eyes. The green light of the EXIT sign made his scars glow green.

‘Hey,’ he said, holding out a mistreated packet of cigarettes. ‘Want one?’

May shook her head. ‘I don’t smoke.’ She nearly told him that’s bad for you. The man put the package back into his pocket.

‘Suit yourself,’ he said, and May figured he very well knew what she’d been going to say. She sat down, against the wall, and immediately regretted it. The moisture in the damp bricks easily crept through her t-shirt. May shivered. The man hungrily inhaled the smoke, and tilted his head backwards to blow it back out. The cold didn’t seem to bother him; there were no goose bumps on his skin. Just old scars. May tried to stare at the street light in the distance instead, but couldn’t stop herself observing the man from the corner of her eyes. He looked tired, hair tangled and knotted around his face. He was smoking as though it’d save his life.

‘There’s supposed to be a full moon tonight,’ he said, suddenly. May held her breath for a moment.

‘Is there?’

‘Yeah. Haven’t been able to see it, though.’ He motioned up. May looked. Thick clouds coated the sky, allowing no light through. May looked at the streetlight again. It stood quietly at the end of the alley, light distorted and moving with fog passing by.

‘You haven’t been around here long, have you?’ the man asked. The girl shook her head.

‘No. I’m from Havn.’

‘Havn?’

‘It’s a small island further south. We have sheep. And bare rocks.’

‘Like the rest of Threoo,’ the vocalist laughed, breaking into a cough.

May tried not raise her eyebrows at the cigarette the man was still holding.

‘Like the rest of Threoo,’ she agreed. ‘Except smaller, with even less to do.’

‘Well, welcome to the cultural peak that is Dyst,’ he said, only half joking. ‘What’s your name?’

‘May,’ she said, distracted by the way the fog was making the light dance. No, not the light, she saw now – the shadows. ‘Yours?’

‘Thorn,’ he said. An uncomfortable silence fell over them. May realised she should try and ask him something. Hell, he’d made an effort for small talk. Ask about his real name, she thought, or where he’s from or why he collapsed on stage.

‘Are you okay?’ she said instead.

The man tilted his head back again, blowing out a soft stream of cigarette smoke.

‘I guess so,’ he said slowly. ‘I’m sorry for the melodrama. It’s been a weird night.’

‘That’s alright,’ May said.

She clutched her knees to her chest, and shivered. The cold of early September was getting to her. Maybe she should go back inside. She watched the vocalist. He wasn’t looking at her, staring away into the distance instead. She could see the blue bruises forming on his knees, through the holes in his jeans. Had he fallen that hard? She’d been right, then. It hadn’t been an act.

‘Look,’ he said, suddenly. ‘The moon.’

She looked up, and as promised, the moon shone through a hole in the clouds. It was full and white, lighting up the ring of clouds around it, giving it a hint of holiness. May looked back at the vocalist. He was looking at the back of his hand, moving his tendons to toy with the shadows running across them.

‘Why’d you fall, just then?’ she said.

‘Exhaustion, I suppose. Song took too much breath, I misjudged, it happens.’

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May shrugged. ‘They’re saying it’s an act.’

‘Who is?’

‘Most of the audience.’

‘That’s alright,’ he said, taking a last drag of his cigarette, before getting up and stomping it out beneath his boots. ‘I should go find my bandmates.’

With that, he went back inside, leaving May with an unease in the back of her throat that tasted ever so slightly of iron. She didn’t look back at the dance of the fog’s dance beneath the streetlight. She got up, cursed the wetness that’d seeped through her clothes, and shivered. She didn’t consider staying for the last band, not anymore. She was tired, her muscles already sore enough. She wasn’t big into thrash metal anyway. Some extra sleep would do her good, too. She went to pick up her coat from the big pile beside the stage, then walked through the bar towards the exit.

‘Leaving already, May?’ Oskar, the bartender, asked between orders. She’d gotten to know him well enough during his near-empty day hours, when she’d leave the house to find somewhere quiet to focus on her books.

‘Yeah,’ she shrugged. ‘I’m tired, and honestly the other band isn’t really my genre.’

‘Not extreme enough for you?’ From anyone else it would’ve nearly been an insult, but May knew Oskar had the exact same preferences.

‘Not tonight, Oskar,’ she said, zipping up her coat.

As she walked towards the door, she spotted Thorn sitting at a corner table, together with his light-haired bassist and a group of tourists. None of them seemed put off by his scars or tendency to collapse at a moment’s notice. One of the tourists, a twenty-something girl in an oversized shirt with a burning church on the front, threw her head back and laughed hard enough for May to hear in the chaos of Dyst. She pulled the door open and stomped into the fog, combat boots connecting with the brick road, coat zipped up to her throat. The quiet outside felt like sacrilege after the concert, and the ringing in May’s ears guided her home.

When she woke up, it was still dark outside. May’s curtains were wide open and yet her room was as dark as if they had been shut. Outside, there was only the forest. Come winter, May knew it would be full of snow, reflecting every speck of light and coating even the darkest night with a hint of twilight. This time of year, there was just darkness. Just shadows, darker yet than the night sky, and May flicked on the light to banish them. She was as awake as if she’d been dunked into a bath of ice water, but she had no clue as to why. Her alarm clock read 5:57 in bright red letters. It hadn’t gone off – it was Saturday, after all. All was quiet. Had she heard something, some sudden noise? Had she had a nightmare she could not recall? She got up, hesitant to give up the warmth of her bed. Then she grabbed yesterday’s hoodie of the floor, slipped it over her body, and headed for the bathroom. May blinked, her eyes undeniably still tired. How much sleep had she had – five hours? Four? Not enough, that was for sure. She opened her bedroom door.

The door to the bathroom was closed, but light came from the slit between the door and the tiles. She frowned. From inside came the undeniable, clear sound of someone sobbing. Asrun, maybe? May remembered being fourteen, and she’d had plenty of reasons to sneak away to cry. Just usually not at six in the morning. She knocked on the bathroom door, opening it slightly, blinking against the white light.

‘Asrun?’ she asked, but as the word left her mouth, she realized it wasn’t the younger girl. Huddled on the floor against the radiator sat Erika – her foster mother. Asrun’s mother. She didn’t know what to say. Erika stared up at her, wide-eyed, dark circles beneath them. May could tell she’d been in here for a while. She knelt down.

‘Are you alright?’ she whispered. Erika shook her head. She looked so much younger than she was, wearing a white nightgown, like a child from some long-gone era.

‘I’m fine, May,’ she said. ‘I’m fine. I- I just had a nightmare, is all.’

‘Are you sure?’ May answered. She felt stupid, and young, unable to comfort the other woman. The hellish white light of the LEDs in the ceiling made her eyes hurt.

‘I’m sure,’ Erika said, getting up. May wasn’t sure if she believed the woman, but she also didn’t know what she should be doing. She was still too much of a child to help a woman twenty five years her senior. She got up too.

‘Go take a shower,’ she said. ‘I’ll make breakfast?’

‘That would be good,’ Erika said. ‘Thank you, May.’

She felt dismissed, in a way, and she went back to her room to put some more clothes on. She tied her hair back, not bothering to brush it, and went downstairs. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t the natural order of things, the way Erika was breaking down. She’d hardly kept it a secret, the dark that was eating at her, but something childish in May wished she had. She opened the fridge, heated oil in a frying pan until it was hot enough to make the eggs sizzle. She spooned coffee into a filter. Upstairs, the shower was still running. There was an unfamiliar tingling in her blood, an itch that couldn’t be scratched, ants marching about her bones. Was that what’d woken her up? It was so subtle, but it made her fingers twitchy and her thoughts restless.

‘May? Why’re you up so early?’ Asrun said, yawning. May jumped - she hadn’t heard the girl enter the kitchen.

‘Why are you up so early?’ May said. ‘Want some eggs?’

‘If they’ll be done soon,’ the girl answered. ‘I have work.’

There was an unmistakable sense of pride in those last words. May smiled.

‘Yeah? Worth getting up this early on a saturday?’

‘I’m not so sure,’ Asrun admitted, staring longingly at the dripping coffee. ‘But work ethic and all.’

May laughed. ‘There’ll be plenty of time for you to have a work ethic.’

Asrun shrugged, and May slipped some eggs onto a plate.

‘Do you drink coffee yet?’ she asked, grabbing mugs.

‘Of course! I’m fourteen, not eleven,’ she said.

‘I bet your mom doesn’t want you to,’ May said, but she took an extra mug from the cupboard.

‘Mom doesn’t have to know. She’s in the shower. She way past knowing everything about me.’

‘I bet.’

The girls sipped their coffee in silence, May staring out the window, watching the forest slowly awaken. Through the trees, she could see a blood-coloured sky, the morning tearing itself loose from the night. The itch she’d called subtle moments earlier had become a pull at her gut.

‘You know, I started smoking,’ Asrùn whispered, excited. ‘Don’t tell mum. Anyway, I’ve got to go!’

May was glad the younger girl was out the door before she had a chance to reply. She was pretty sure she couldn’t have been the co-conspirator the girl had hoped for. When she was Asrun’s age, she’d had a boyfriend that’d always stank of cigarettes, and still couldn’t stand the scent. She wondered if the younger girl had taken the job only to support habits that her parents couldn’t know of.

Erika’s eggs had begun browning on the edges. May took them out of the pan. She scratched at her arms, hard enough to leave angry red marks, but it didn’t even take the edge off that itch.