Blood pattered in the puddles like raindrops under his ambling steps, the brick wall cold on his palm that held him steady. He held onto his mask inside his hoodie as if it were the only thing tethering him to the ground. The plastic dug into his palm. Faces and voices blurred together in his mind. Fragments of past failures mingled with the night's wounds. They swarmed him, a whirlwind of noise he couldn't escape.
What is the point? Why do you keep doing this? What's it going to take, Hollis?
He gritted his teeth, tasting a mixture of salt and blood that had run down his cheek and onto his lips. The truth was—he didn't know. He had no answer for them, and as he clutched his mask—his persona, his safety—the dark alley to his right seemed like more of a quiet haven than what awaited him back at the venue.
He stumbled forward, hands brushing against the rough brick walls as he navigated the narrow alley. The anger that had propelled him into the fight was a dying ember now, replaced by a creeping numbness that spread through him like the rain-soaked chill.
"Frauds."
The word clung to him like oil, slick and suffocating, a dark mirror to everything he'd always feared. He paused, leaning against the brick. The world spun around him as he discarded the mask on the soaked ground. He sank down and his back scraped against the rough wall until he was sitting on damp pallets, legs stretched out and vision blurring at the edges.
He leaned back on the brick, staring at the cloudy city night. Memories swarmed like angry hornets, stinging in places the alcohol hadn't reached. The fight at the bar, the taunts and insults. Faces loomed behind his eyelids: Darian's, the bandmates he'd left behind, the people he'd hurt and been hurt by. They were all there, a gallery of ghosts that refused to let him be.
The rain intensified, cold needles on his skin, seeping through layers of fabric to find the man beneath the mask, the mask that lay forgotten at his side, half-drowned in a growing puddle. He knew, even as the darkness claimed him, that there was no running from the ghosts. They lived in him, were him, and no amount of distance or empty bottles would ever change that.
Finally, he surrendered to it, a white flag in the form of closed eyes and heavy limbs. The rain was a lullaby now, its rhythm steady and indifferent, carrying him away from the fight and the fear.
Carrying him past the point of feeling anything at all.
***
Lorelei shifted her weight from one foot to the other, feeling the slow creep of cold through her boots. Her jacket did little to ward off the night's chill. "I should have brought a blanket," she murmured, rubbing her arms. She stamped her feet against the pavement, a futile attempt at warmth. The couple hours had drawn on without a sign of any band members, and Lacey's voice had grown softer, then went quiet. Other fans had already given up and trickled away, their silhouettes absorbed by the darkness.
Lacey was unfazed by the thinning crowd, leaning forward whenever a door opened. "Here we go," she hissed, only to slump back when it was a crew member, a techie, then a cleaner.
After another photographer left, hauling all his things like a pack mule, Lorelei sighed, her patience fraying. She watched Lacey, marveling at her persistence, a lighthouse in the fog of fading hope.
"Lacey," Lorelei began.
Lacey turned, her eyes a mix of surprise and stubborn optimism. "They'll be out soon," she insisted, though the chill had settled even into her voice.
Lorelei shook her head, a small, weary smile. "I can't wait any longer." There was no anger, just the quiet assurance of a decision made, and she felt lighter for it.
"You'll miss it," Lacey protested, a final attempt to pull Lorelei back to the promise, but Lorelei's mind was firm, a resolve that mirrored Lacey's own, only in a different direction.
"I'll be fine walking home. It's not far," Lorelei assured, already stepping away, feeling the freedom in each movement. Lacey didn't protest, each of them promising to text the other when they'd made it home safe. Soon, Lorelei's footfalls and breaths were steady. The venue had faded into the distance, the chatter of lingering fans a dim echo that quickly vanished. Lorelei's world shrank to herself and the city of Atlanta at night.
The streets were surprisingly empty, Lorelei's path lit by the glowing eyes of streetlamps. They cast long shadows that moved with her and her mind wandered, filling the quiet with thoughts of the concert.
The images in her mind were bright, the music a memory that vibrated through her like a second heartbeat. The performance played back like a film reel, scenes spliced together with her own internal soundtrack. The enigma of the singer pulled at her and she thought of Lacey's theories, of the stories spun to pass the time.
But drops of blood on the pavement made her stop in her tracks.
She furrowed her brow at the crimson dots scattered across the sidewalk. They led into an alley, disappearing into the darkness, where the entrance was marked by a broken streetlight that flickered occasionally.
The surroundings suddenly closed in, brick walls rising like forgotten sentinels. Posters hung in tattered shreds like a street art installation gone awry. Overflowing dumpsters released an acrid smell that mingled with the metallic tang of wet concrete. The recent rain left glistening trails that caught the dim light. She started to keep moving, horror stories of their city at night popping into her mind, but that's when she heard the sobs.
"Hello?" she called, but the sobs didn't stop to respond, and there was something familiar about the air that pulled her toward it all.
She scanned the alley, the distant hum of traffic comforting in its normalcy. She moved forward, her steps tentative and her eyes locked on a shadow of a person leaning against the brick. Her imagination ran wild, suddenly envisioning the worst, but her concern won out, and she took a breath and pushed the thoughts aside.
She took a step closer, then paused, the silence around her amplifying her heart pounding. The figure was motionless, his head hanging at an angle that seemed unsettling. She swallowed hard, torn between the need to help and the fear of what she might find. But, closer now, she could see more—clothing that suggested something other than the usual alleyway denizen.
Her pulse quickened with fear and curiosity as she noticed something lying in a puddle, black and blue hues catching the street lamps' light.
She knelt before drawing back again—it was a mask—the mask. A pattern she knew too well now. Her eyes shifted to the person slumped against the wall—a half-conscious young man. He didn't seem to notice she was even there, caught somewhere between reality and a world blurred by pain and the scent of alcohol.
"Hey," she said. "Are you alright?"
Silence. Her heart pounded as she watched his chest rise and fall, fragile and tentative. He sat limp against the bricks. Wet streaks made trails through the blood on his cheeks. It dripped and disappeared into his clothes while her eyes flicked back and forth between the mask in the puddle and back to him, unable to understand. Was this a fan of Willow? A cosplayer? And the mask, perhaps a simple replica. Maybe—but his clothes, they were the same as Echo's.
No. There was no way.
She reached out, her hand trembling slightly, her mind a jumble of what-ifs and maybes. The hesitation clung to her before she swallowed it down and leaned in. She was close enough to see the shallow rise and fall of breath, propelling her to do something, anything, to help. Her fingers hovered above his skin, hesitating, before he looked up at her.
One of his eyes was black and swollen. She held her breath as he locked eyes with her for a long time. But it seemed as though he were looking past her, into her. Finally, he shook his head.
"I'm so sorry," he whispered, but it was the way the words fell from his lips that made her understand—they were words not meant for her.
His eyes closed slowly, but she couldn't look away, and the longer she looked, the more the details of his appearance seared themselves into her mind. The bruises bloomed darkly against his skin, telling stories she could only guess at. Blood traced paths along his cheek, a macabre reminder of how fragile fame and flesh can be.
Her hands shook as she pulled out her phone, the glow from the screen harsh against the darkness. He stirred, a low and anguished sound escaping him as she dialed with trembling fingers. Her voice was steady in the quiet night, betraying nothing of the confusing storm inside her.
"Yeah, hi," her voice shook as the operator answered. "I'm beside 23 Ansley Street. There's someone here who needs an ambulance."
She provided the information they asked for and ended the call, sinking to the ground beside him. She noticed things she hadn't before—a tattoo, barely visible beneath the sleeve of his torn shirt. The calluses on his fingers were undeniable proof of artistry, something she knew from her brother's hands all too well. The vulnerability of his unconscious form was so stark that it almost made her look away. But she didn't. She absorbed every detail, the photographer in her unable to stop seeing, recording, and capturing. It was the only way she knew how to understand, to process, to make sense of the world when things seemed to be falling apart.
She sat beside him until the distant wail of an ambulance siren began to thread its way through the night. Suddenly, she realized—the mask.
She looked at it again, still lying in the puddle, its glint in the streetlights. She scooped it up, as if cradling something fragile and infinitely valuable. If this were truly him, then she would protect his secret. So she tucked it carefully into the pocket of her hoodie.
Red and blue strobed the alley, pushing back the shadows and painting their world in urgent color. Lorelei rose from the ground and waved them down, and within minutes, paramedics came forward, stretching the moment into something surreal and urgent. They moved efficiently, their hands practiced and sure as they assessed his injuries. Lorelei watched, feeling both relief and anxiety knotting tightly in her chest. They spoke in clipped, professional tones, their words a blur of medical jargon until they loaded him into the ambulance. One of them turned to her.
"Do you know what happened to him?"
"I'm not sure," Lorelei said. "I... heard him from the street and found him here."
"Do you know who he is?"
She hesitated, clutching the infamous mask inside her bag. Handing it over wouldn't provide them with his name, nor would telling them that he was possibly the lead singer of an anonymous band provide them with anything other than the truth to a secret he likely wanted kept. So she shook her head, her grip tightening around her strap.
"No," she said. "I don't know."
Eventually, the ambulance lights flashed away from the alley's entrance, and she stood alone, her mind already reeling with how to get the mask back to him, suddenly wondering if it was all a mistake. Wondering if it even was—truly—him.
It all felt like the most impossible things in the world, and she was sure, for reasons that she couldn't understand, that the world itself was ending and beginning all at once.
***
It was well after five-thirty in the morning by the time Lorelei crept to her door. In the chaos of the night, she'd forgotten all about the text Lucas had sent earlier. But it was too late now, and the lock jammed in the doorknob like it was fighting to keep her out.
Her fingers fumbled with the keys, and for a moment, she thought about just lying down in the hallway and letting the universe win. But the lock gave way and she lifted the broken knob, turning it slowly.
The door squeaked open to reveal Lucas passed out on their worn-out couch. The TV cast a blue glow over his chest, rising and falling in a slow rhythm, like the rest of the world couldn't have possibly needed him right now. His clothes were rumpled and creased, the last vestiges of a long day and an even longer night.
The door closed behind Lorelei with the whisper of wood meeting wood, barely disturbing Lucas's stupor. He shifted in his sleep as she took a deep breath, and the smell of cheap whiskey punched her square in the senses. She kicked a pair of his discarded shoes out of her path and made her way toward the TV, the tinny murmur of a reporter slicing through the stale air. A picture of an all too familiar masked group of men was splayed up on the screen—"Rising Rock Group Willow's Sold Out Performance At Local Venue Ansley Street" headlined the photo. But Lorelei ignored the screen and stepped lightly over empty bottles, using the TV's glow to catch the glint in shattered glass that she knew littered the floor.
She bent over enough to pull the covers up over Lucas. She took the remote from his open hand and pointed it at the TV, stopping short of pressing the power button when a clip from Willow's most recent music video played on the screen.
A prism of light moved around Echo as he moved in time with the music. The rest of the band members in their own lights behind him. The video moved from them to a man and woman who seemed to be fighting. Fitting, Lorelei thought, for their hit song "Mercy." She'd never seen the video, but it was the only song of theirs she'd ever heard—one about secrets and betrayals in relationships, portrayed by the clips of the arguing couple in the video.
Her mind raced, jumping back to the concert, to the alley, and now here. All of it looped around the same points, but none offered any clarity. She found herself watching the entire thing with tired eyes until it was over and the news had moved on to the breaking stories of the early morning hours.
The first light of dawn spilled into the room, pooling around Lorelei in soft, golden waves. The night refused to let her go, anchoring her to its mysteries.
She reached into her hoodie, where the mask was hidden, and stared at it for a long while. Somehow, it was the heaviest thing she'd ever held.
The curiosity weighed down until a different kind of exhaustion settled over her. Lucas gave a long, unbothered sigh and rolled to his other side, his hair flopping across his forehead with perfect disinterest in his surroundings.
Her grip tightened on the mask, then the remote. She sighed, and with a small click of the button, the apartment plunged into silence.