Beyond the Realms of Song

A rock band of 5 find themselves transported to a strange, red world as they try to return home.

The 5 piece band was about to hit the final notes. They had felt confident with these new instruments with their glowing colors. No one knew where they came from, but they all loved the look of them with their skull etchings and snake designs. A stirring drum fill by Roxy, throbbing bass from Grave, chaotic guitar shredding from DD, howling screams from Vic, and bombastic keyboards from Rob.

The strange instruments glowed with blood red light around them that grew as they played on, instantly forming cheers from the adolescent audience. But with each minute, the aura around them brightened and had a slight static shock. Completely different from usual feedback, it was ignored by the adrenaline-induced band.

They readied themselves for the big sendoff as each instrument and voice rose to a climax. The beaming red was glowing stronger until it almost blinded the crowd. With the last cymbal crash and guitar chord, an explosion erupted on stage to the audience's screaming delight. The whooping and hollering continued as they loved the spectacle. But seconds passed as they sobered up to realize the light show might not have been planned. The band was nowhere to be seen even as the fans searched the stage for trapdoors.

They had vanished, but no one knew where.

__

The band’s instruments were gone, but more importantly they were marooned in a strange land. Adding to the oddity, they were all transformed into creatures with only semblances of real-life wildlife.

Vic, as the steel-headed, blue werewolf, lept on top of a hill and howled out to the maroon horizon and its black rivers yet received no feedback. He ran down to shake his head to the others.

Unable to get a better look of this wasteland, the band plotted what to do next.

Rob, now a merman with purple and orange scales from the waist down, eyed the black river. His now-white locks flowed down his back and covered his chest, and he thought it was an acceptable if painful sacrifice. His webbed hand grabbed a strand of his hair and his shark-like teeth ripped it with ease. He lowered the hair into the river, and within seconds had dissolved completely.

“It’s our only path,” the red and black draconic DD stressed. “Just because we can’t drink it doesn’t mean we should get away from it.”

She swayed her hand, and a sonic sound emitted from it. Out of confusion, she flapped her hand around only to repeat the sound but in different pitches. She looked at the river and pondered. She quickly made a sweeping motion at the river, causing it to boil and pop hot tar onto the coast.

The band yelled and jumped back, but some landed on Grave’s arm. One of many as it turned out, as their form was that of a dark brown spider humanoid with green stripes across their body. Normally quiet, Grave’s reaction was muted though in obvious pain from a strained face covered by a natural mask showing a green skull.

The band rushed to Grave to see the wound, but the clawed hand on top of the wound revealed a bruised but sterile veneer. Grave looked at their fingertips, showing blue residue dripping. Their thought was something akin to silk that could heal and repair wounds.

“All right,” Roxanne chirped out as a yellow harpy with a pink mohawk streaked down her spine. “We got our abilities out of the way, so let me look around for something striking.”

She swept herself off the ground and had an almost literal bird’s eye view of the terrain. Amidst the black rivers, she leaned her head forward and saw nothing. She turned around to see where the branched “waters” led to. The dismal, Martian land plummeted her gut as traces of earth were long gone. But her keen eye saw something.

“I see something gold over there! We can follow the river up until there.”

“Good find, Roxy,” DD resounded. The glee washed away as the harpy drummer was still flapping in the air. “What’s wrong?”

Roxanne looked at the others with a stony face, “I don’t know how to land…”

They all groaned and tried to think of a way to bring her down.

“Try letting your wings go slower,” Grave suggested. “It’s like arm movement. I think.”

Roxanne followed their advice and tried to flap slowly but her balance was thrown off, causing her to glide sideways down onto her knees. The bruised caps made the others reel back.

“I’m good…” Roxanne lied. “Gimme some of that juice tho, will ya Grave?”

Grave applied their healing silk on her wound, steadily coloring her reddened feathers back to a "normal" yellow. Following DD's lead, they edged the black, bubbling stream as a path out of the wastes. The arid climate wore down the band, Rob in particular was struggling to cool down with his amphibious form. As he slowed down, Roxanne fanned him with her wings and Vic supported him.

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DD's agitation from the heat grew as she grit her fangs, tired from the heat and walking. Her frustration drained as she saw a structure in the distance. A stone of some kind? She alerted the rest about it as they marched on, quickening their pace as it grew closer. It appeared to be a temple.

The band approaches the chipping church’s facade, its highest point bared a skull with sickly yellow lights emanating from its sockets. A black haired woman sat on the stoop, grasping her head in sluggish repose.

“Hey, ma’am!” Vic shouted out. She stood in her place.

DD and Vic went on ahead to try and talk to her but Grave pointed to the left of the temple. Out of the darkness emerged a chrome humanoid without eyes or clothes. Its every step made a metallic reverberation, entrancing the two from moving any further.

They tried to budge, but the sonic sound stopped them as their ears rang out from the pitch. Idle eyes watched the metal figure walk closer to the woman in a plodding movement. It touched her hair and her body changed from head to toe into a sulfur-like object like the fake church’s veneer.

Vic growled a canine sound as his teeth bared at the figure. It stood still until its head slowly turned to Vic, its body following suit in a jittery, stalled manner. Vic faltered but became more aggressive and pursued the being. Yet it stood still, staring at him with unseen eyes.

It only moved to walk away toward the church. Vic's confusion slowed him, finally stopping as the figure was absorbed into the building. The band ranged from Vic and Roxanne's befuddlement, DD and Rob's irritation, and Grave's shrugging.

"I am not going in there," DD said. She then chided Vic saying, "Why did you have to get involved? You could have been killed!"

Vic's raised back fur lowered as his breathing calmed. "I can't explain. Something in me said I had to scare it away. Or it would do something to us."

Rob went between the two, still woozy from the desert climate. "Vic could have stopped us from something bad... Or he put us on that thing's hit list.... Either way, I need some shade or I won't be a millstone. You all don't have to follow, but I need to be under the skull at least."

DD reluctantly nodded and let him rest under the church's morbid design, letting the group gather around the stoop to rest. Roxanne kept fanning Rob albeit with less urgency. DD stood up to survey the outside as Grave made more silk. Vic distanced himself to look inside for anything unusual.