“Hey!” I said waving to the lead singer of our band Josh. “I have a new song I was wanting to try out today if that’s ok?” I questioned him. Josh looked thoughtful for a second before responding.
“We still need to practice the full set, so if we have time after then definitely! You have the music?” He asked me, and I immediately ran over to my guitar case throwing it open and rifling through the myriad sheets of paper until I found the stack of four stapled sheets of music, one for every part in our band. We were your basic four-man group, a guitarist which was me, bassist Tina, her twin brother as the drummer Tony, and Josh our frontman. I passed out the music to the rest of the group and they each put it in their binders with the rest of our music.
We had all finished setting up our equipment, and making sure that our instruments were in tune when Susan our self-proclaimed manager walked into our garage/studio.
“Hey everyone!” she said in her chipper sunshiny voice. “How are we all doing today?” She asked but didn’t wait for a response. “I have some wonderful news! You know how Three Nights Impediment is supposed to be playing at the agricultural center this weekend?” I took a breath in to respond but again she couldn’t wait. “Well, their opening act unfortunately tested positive for COVID, boooo.” She said with a frown I wasn’t sure was real especially when it bounced back into a smile within the next second. “Anyway, TNI is holding auditions tomorrow for a new opener and I was able to get Underdawn a slot! Isn’t that exciting?”
We all looked at her dumbstruck, not just because she was waiting for us to respond but also because we couldn’t believe that she’d been able to pull this off. We all loved the hyper, chipper blond whirl of energy, but she wasn’t exactly known for being the most reliable manager in the history of the world.
“That’s amazing!” Tina exclaimed, ripping her bass off and setting it to the side so that she could run up to Susan and wrap her arms around her. Susan giggled as Tina twirled her around and placed a big kiss right on her lips. I looked between Josh and Tony excitedly as the girlfriends were celebrating.
“We’ve gotta get ready! What songs are we gonna play?” I asked the two.
“I VOTE FOR BRICKED UP!” Tony exclaimed and we both rolled our eyes at him. Bricked up was just a joke song that we wrote with a bunch of double entendres to describe boners. We’d written it back in 9th grade when the band was just getting started. I thought we’d matured a little past that but Tony hadn’t gotten the memo. Josh and I both rolled our eyes at him and the two girls stopped their celebrating the shoot him dirty looks.
“I don’t think so.” Said josh after a second’s pause. “Shouldn’t it be a song that we’re popular for?” He asked the group.
“We’re popular for something?” I questioned jokingly and Josh picked up a guitar pick close by and flicked it at my head. I dodged it and laughed. The mood in the room was a buzz of happiness and excitement, all of us chattering away and lightly debating which song we should play for the audition. That was when I saw something odd. My vision flashed blue and went back to normal. It was so fast that I thought I must have imagined it.
I didn’t notice the puzzled look on the other faces, and we didn’t mention it as we were still so excited. The band calmed down after a few minutes and we took a vote on a couple of our favorite songs. Once we’d decided it was time to get started with practice. I slung my guitar over my shoulder and strummed the first few chords of Fungus Rabbit, the song we’d chosen. It was an upbeat tune with a feeling of excitement to it. I’d written it with Josh after we’d done shrooms in the 8th grade.
Well Josh had, he didn’t know that I chickened out and pocketed the fungus. We’d just started hanging out at the time and I wanted him to think I was cool, I guess. I could have told him at any point since then, I don’t know why I hadn’t. As the song progressed, we were reaching a crescendo, the apex of the emotion it was supposed to express.
We were all in sync, the bass and drums driving us forward, my guitar raw and clear, and Josh belting out the lyrics in his tenor voice. Suddenly we came to a screeching halt. The blue light flickered again twice this time.
“What the hell?” I whispered before turning towards my bandmates. “Did you..” I started to ask them if they had seen it but by the look on their faces it was clear that they had. A few seconds later it happened again, this time the light stayed on slightly longer. It flickered on and off like that until it started to create a shape, a blue translucent box. After a few more seconds some words started to appear.
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“System initialization loading: 62%” The percentage kept ticking up a little bit at a time while we, unfortunately, were freaking out.
“EVERYONE GET OUT OF THE GARAGE!” I yelled. The others looked at me puzzled but I insisted with a panicked look in my eyes. They must have recognized the urgency in my voice because we all rushed outside as quickly as we could.
“Why did you rush us out of there?” Susan asked.
“I thought there must be a gas leak or something that’s making us bug out!” I explained quickly. “I think we should call the fire department right now.” I whipped out my phone to make the call but when I tried to open the screen my phone shocked me and I dropped it. At the same time, the others phones shorted out in their pants making each of them squeak in surprise and rush to take them out of their pockets. The lights in the garage, the house, and every car parked outside exploded, and the car alarms all went off for a few seconds before dying quickly.
“What the fuck is happening man? I’m freaking out!” You could see the fear on Tony’s face, and Tina came over and grabbed his hand.
“Hey, we’re going to be ok.” She said soothingly. “Nathan’s right it was probably just some kind of gas leak we’ll be fine now that we’re outside.” She gestured to me and I nodded fervently.
“I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but nothing in my house runs on gas.” Josh said.
“Well, then it’s a natural pocket or something!” Tina snapped back.
“Everyone calm down we’re outside now so we’ll be ok.” I looked back at the blue screen and read the updated message.
“System Initialization Loading: 87%”
“This has gotta be one of those mass hallucination things I’ve read about or a gas leak. The others can see it so I know I’m not crazy.”
“What if someone slipped something into the water supply?” Susan asked. I thought it was just as plausible as any of the other ideas we’d come up with.
“Sorry babe but no. You know I only drink soda.” Tina responded which made Susan roll her eyes.
“Gosh you’re right, and you know how much I hate that! When you get old your skin gonna be all leathery and I’m gonna look like I’m in my 20s still.” Susan gave a flirty smirk which made all the rest of us groan in embarrassment.
“Seriously? You guys want to do this right now?” Tony reprimanded, and the two girls looked properly embarrassed. I gave another look at the screen.
“System Initialization Loading: 99%”
“Well, I think something is about to happen.” Said josh who was also looking at his screen. Just as he finished saying that the loading hit 100%
“System Initialization Installed. Beginning aptitude measurement. Please stand by while your aptitude is being measured. Caution world mana distribution is beginning. Recommended to take shelter while world mana distribution is in process.” We read over all the new messages and as we finished them the sky started to darken into a sickly green color the same color we see when there’s a tornado in the area. After the green color new colors mixed into the clouds, reds, yellows, purples, and any color you can imagine.
“Get inside.” Josh said quietly. When no one started moving and we continued to look at the ever-changing sky he decided to yell. “GET INSIDE NOW!” All of us were startled at the forcefulness in his voice but we all started moving back towards the garage. We were right to start moving because that was when the lightning struck just a couple of yards from where I had been standing. The ground exploded from the point of impact spreading sharp crystal branches outward faster than I could have dodged.
I stood there stunned, not hearing the others yelling at me to move until I felt Josh grab me by the elbow and start dragging me toward the garage. Snapped out of my shock I ran with him and shot into the building. Almost in sync we grabbed the garage door and slammed it down. The others had already begun pushing furniture towards the door to block off any debris and Josh pulled me back further.
“Come on let's help em.” He told me and I nodded following him over to the large shelving unit we kept sheet music and recording equipment on. With a large shove, we kept pushing it until it was flat against the door. Once we’d barricaded ourselves well enough we went to the farthest wall and sat down.
“What the fuck was that?” Tina asked.
“Language please baby!” Susan protested.
“Seriously? You’re fucking worried about cussing right now? The world is going batshit outside and that’s what you want to focus on?” Tina responded sharply, but then she stopped when she noticed the tears streaming down her girlfriends’ face. The bassist quickly apologized and cupped Susan’s face trying to calm her. I looked back at the screen which I just noticed disappeared when I wasn’t thinking directly about it.
“Mana Distribution: 2% Estimated Time to Completion Four Hours. Aptitude Measurement: 56%”
It was clear that we’d be stuck here for a bit so I rested my back against the wall and closed my eyes. Only a few seconds later I felt a poke in my ribs. I opened my eyes to see Josh looking at me.
“You alright man?” He half whispered to me. I didn’t know what to say to that. At one moment we were all celebrating an audition that could have been huge for us the next moment a bunch of crazy and dangerous stuff starts happening.
“I don’t know, I…” I trailed off before looking over at my acoustic guitar. I got up quickly startling Josh a little and grabbed it. I sat back down and put the instrument in my lap. I started picking a slower version of a tune I always liked when I was a kid, “Masquerade from Phantom of the Opera.” After a couple of bars, Tina got up and grabbed her acoustic bass she picked up a steady thrumming tune that added more richness to my light picking.
Tony jumped to his feet and grabbed a tambourine. Instead of sitting down with the rest of us though he started doing a little dance and shaking his instrument in rhythm with our little melody. Susan laughed as we picked up the tempo a little Josh joined in with the lyrics and joined Tony in his dance, he linked arms with Tony and they started to go around in circles. Before we knew it we were all laughing and smiling at the antics of the two men we all joined in for a big “MASQUERADE!” When a huge thunderclap boomed out startling all of us back into silence.
I was the first one to break the silence with a nervous chuckle, and the rest of the band smiled at me the tension leaving their bodies again. Tony and Josh sat back down but we didn’t feel as nervous as we did before. I checked the screen again really only wanting to see the aptitude percentage since it was close to finishing.
“Aptitude Measurement Complete. Would you like to see your results? Y/N”