Chapter One

Music became illegal on July 22, 2024. The war ended that day �" we lost �" and they took things from us. Our Prime Minister Henry Faulkin claimed that they were taken away for our own protection, that they were the things that cause wars but it seemed to be more of a punishment. In reality, the only thing that causes wars is angry people with bad ideas not music or books or religion or land. It’s always people.

I haven’t read a book since I was nine years old. Except for school textbooks which don’t really count because who cares about the downfall of the British economy? I haven’t drawn or painted or made art since long before that either.

About three years ago was the last time I watched a film. There’d been a group of us �" ten, maybe more �" all huddled round the tiniest screen in someone’s basement intensely watching some romance film. It was an awful movie. And I remember a lot of eye rolling and sighing coming from me but everyone kept their eyes glued to the screen, unblinking because it was the first film they’d ever watched. Unlike the rest of them, I had seen a film before. I’d seen a few actually as well as TV programmes too. But I hadn’t seen any since before my Mum and Dad left. We had a portable DVD player that we hid in our attic along with most of our favourite things. It was tiny but bigger than the screen in the basement and there was a crack that ran along the corner of it. I’d seen the same films countless times, watching them over and over again until I could recite every line and knew what scene was coming up next but I never complained about it because there weren’t many we films we could get our hands on.

My friend John always told me I was lucky. I got to grow up with all the hidden wonders that we weren’t allowed anymore whereas he had to wait until he was thirteen to even hear music for the first time. We were both luckier than most; there are a lot of people out there, older than us, that still haven’t had the fortune of listening to music. I hope that changes soon but I doubt it will, there’s no way the government will revoke the laws on creative outlets because all they do is hold rallies now and give speeches about ‘what a better place this country has become without them’ and how ‘hopefully, the rest of the world will soon see the light’. It’s a load of crap if you ask me.

Technically, I shouldn’t have even heard music once. I shouldn’t have listened to music or read a book or watched a film crammed in someone’s basement but my parents raised me on all of them. Music was always my Dad’s things. He loved it and worshipped it. He never went a day without belting out the lyrics to a song. He loved it so much that when the war ended and the laws came crashing down on us, he refused to let go of it. My Mum did the same but her thing was art. She collected old paintings that her friends sold at the dead of night, whilst the city slept, in abandoned alleyways. It was the type of place you’d expect to see a drug exchange but instead my Mum handed over the money and she got a painting which she’d carry home and hide in the attic. The same exchange happened with my Dad and anything he could get his hands on: books, DVD’s or music. He had more CD’s than I could even fathom. All of them were stashed under the attic floorboards, hoping that they’d never be found.  

But even the best criminals get caught eventually and that’s what happened to my Mum and Dad and with their capture, their hidden gems also got discovered and then I got dumped into a new family, miles away from home. It was like a bad nightmare that was only worse when I was awake. Imagine on your ninth birthday, waking up and your parents being missing and then you’re shipped off to live with two strangers who live on a smelly old farm with doors that creak as you sleep and chickens that wake you up at the crack of dawn. I went from music and television shows and parents that love me to strangers and cleaning out pig s**t overnight. It would be a bit of an understatement to say that I hated it. I still hate now, and it all happened on my birthday which I also hate. But I hated my birthday long before I was sent to live with Jane and Chris Malcolm in their farm house that gets so cold during the winter I can see my breath floating above my head.

You see, I was born on the anniversary of the end of the war. I was born July 22 2033, nine years after the war ended. It was Great Britain vs. the government and we lost so I was born on the most miserable day of the year where nine years prior we lost music and television and books and art. Because of this, each year, I had the worst birthday ever; I threw parties, I invited my friends and no one ever showed up. Not one year did someone show up to my party. It was just me, my Mum and my Dad. And then when they left it became just me �" until I was fourteen.

Three weeks before I was due to turn fourteen and spend another awful birthday, moping around my bedroom, during my lunch break at school, whilst my friends talked about girls in our class that they thought they  had a chance in, I zoned out of the conversation and tuned into one behind me. A table of people from two years above me were talking about a party they’d attended.

“Dude, you should have been there. The band were incredible!” one had exclaimed. It was the word ‘band’ that had sparked my attention. After spending my whole life worshipping bands that had long broken up before I was even born as their career was becoming a death wish, any mention of music would instantly make my ears flicker to listen closely. It was like I had a programming signal in my head, searching for the words ‘music’ or ‘band’ or anything similar in other peoples conversations, more eager to listen to them than add to the ones I was involved in. The conversation confused me; I had never even considered that musicians were still around after the war. All the ones I listened to on my hidden music player, late at night whilst my adopted family slept, were all broken up and I just assumed that that was the end of it, no music was created after the war.

“I wish I could have but my Mum stayed up really late. I think she might be catching onto me so I think I’m not going to go for a while until she’s off my back.” A boy replied.

“What about the big event? You have to go to that; it’s tradition for everyone to.” A third voice chipped in.

The second boy sighed before speaking again, “I wish I could go but I might have to skip this one. If my Mum keeps staying up as late as she does, then by the time I can sneak out, there’ll be no point in even going.”

“Come on, man. You just have to risk it. You can’t miss it; we’ve all gone together for the last three years. It’s July 22, your Mum will probably be too busy sulking around to even notice you’re missing.” There was a long silence that dawdled between the group but I stayed fully tuned in, still ignoring my friends who were now silently chewing down their food, hoping that the conversation would pick up again. It did.

“Where’s it being held again this year?” someone else asked.

“The house in the woods off rose avenue. The whole street beside it is abandoned so there’s no chance of it getting busted this year.” 

I listened to the rest of their conversation about bands that played live music in abandoned buildings until the bell rang. My Dad’s love for music had been passed down onto me so when I overheard the conversation about the ‘big event’ that happened in abandoned buildings where bands played �" actual live bands that still existed despite the fact that they could get thrown in prison or killed if they police found out about their hobby �" on my birthday, I could resist checking it out.

When my fourteenth birthday occurred and Jane and Chris were asleep, I hopped out of the window and rode my bike down to the woods. Once I’d reached the woods, the house wasn’t hard to find. Under the twilight sky, on the edge of the woods, I could feel the music beneath my feet, shaking my body and beckoning me inside. The sound of the music guided me to the house I’d heard the group talk about. I was surprised when I arrived to find that it was a little more than a group of people. I don’t know what I’d expected to find but probably something around twenty to fifty people I assumed would be here but around a thousand people were crammed into a worn down building with no roof, hidden between the trees, miles away from civilisation. That night, on my fourteenth birthday, was the first night I heard live music and it was everything my Dad had described it to be. I weaved between people until I reached the room where the band was playing. It consisted of four people who were not much older than me and I watched them for hours until they were sweating and choking for air and could no longer play another song. I was mesmerised. Within a matter of months, events like that became my favourite thing; it was all I looked forward too. The best and most anticipated one of them all was the one that happened on my birthday and although I refused to consider July 22 as my birthday anymore and just treated it the way everyone else did, the events on that night were just like the parties I had always wanted.

The location of the big July 22 event changed every year to prevent us from getting caught because music, being in an abandoned building and a lot of underage drinking just spelt out a lifelong prison sentence for anyone caught. Tonight is my eighteenth birthday, and after continuous debating on where would be best and safest, it was decided that we would host it at easily the best possible place: Grayson’s.

Grayson’s is a small abandoned venue that they have yet to destroy. I go to Grayson’s quite a lot and it is probably the most popular place for things like this to be held because it’s designed for live music and it is the only one close to home that hadn’t been knocked or even burnt down and I, and most of the people who attend these events, have never been to a music venue when it was legal so sneaking around in the dead of night, watching and dancing to banned music and bands is the only time we get to put the venue to use.

Everything about Grayson’s is ten times better than the other places we have these events. It has the big stage, enough space to keep equipment, a bar, a big enough floor to hold at least five thousand people, maybe even more at a push, and best of all it’s far enough away from town that it’s safe for us to use more frequently than other buildings.

It’s just after ten ‘o’ clock when I sneak out through my bedroom window. Luckily the farm house that I live in is a bungalow and I don’t share a room with anyone here as I am the only child so it’s just a quick hop out the window and off down the road I go. I choose all back clothing, helping me blend into the night sky as I creep down the street, making my way to Grayson’s.

I’ve walked the route there a hundred times and I could have easily done this blind folded. Every street I walk down I know which side is best to walk on, I know exactly where the closest dustbin to hide behind is in case an officer decides to go for a late night stroll appears so I don’t get followed and I know all of the short cuts there are like the little gap in the wire fence just off Mallory Lane which I slip through silently, and it places me perfectly on the deserted, dust covered, back road no less than ten minutes away from Grayson’s. Tonight’s journey is swift and undisturbed just as I thought it’d be considering most people are home, whining about this god forsaken day, just like I would have been, and I’m glad they are because it made my journey a hell of a lot easier.

The area surrounding Grayson’s is completely desolate, there are very few houses surrounding it and all of their owners had long moved out. Actually, they were forced out by the police years ago because they were worried that the people surrounding the venue might have tried to use it illegally. They didn’t of course, a bunch of misfit teenagers took care of that job for them. Other than that, there’s nothing but trees that sway casually under the nights breeze. That’s probably one of the best things about Grayson’s; there’s nothing but open space for a good mile so no one can hear the deafening sounds of the bands putting everything they have into playing their performance or the approving screams of people dancing and jumping along to the addictive beat of their catchy yet adept songs. Some of the artists I have seen preform are ingenious, they were beyond incredible. They put their heart and soul into what they did no matter the implications what would follow if they ever got caught.

When I reach the old, run down, abandoned venue I can already hear the music pumping through the speakers and mentally thank no one in particular that it’s so far away from town because with music this loud, it’s basically just a siren that would attract all officers. As usual Dean, one of the three ‘security’ guards (also known as our lookouts), is stood outside checking who goes in and to warn us if any officers are making their way towards the building. Thankfully, he doesn’t have to alert us often. He recognises me instantly and smiles and I know what he’s about to say.

“Happy birthday, Owen.” He says knowing how much I hate being reminded of my birthday. I groan at the first ‘happy birthday’ I’ve received tonight and Dean laughs, pushing the door open for me and causing me to be instantly hit by a wave of noise that consists of both the music and hundreds of people singing or shouting over the music to talk to each other. I could feel the ground vibrating beneath my feet and I smile as I walk inside. By the time I’m twenty I’m probably going to be partially deaf but I suppose it’s all worth it, there isn’t a single better feeling than the base line of a song ripping through you, making your insides turn to mush. Not that I can think of anyway.

I walk through the once painted red hallway that’s now chipped and covered in green plants that have somehow managed to wriggle their way through cracks in the ground or walls, making it their home. It’s pitch black in this part of the building, no matter how many times they tried to fix it they just couldn’t seem to the get the electricity in this part to work so I walk slow, trying not to trip over anything on the ground. The stars are the only source of light in this part and usually they would help me to see where I was going but tonight the sky is overcast with clouds. No one lingers around here so when I push the big double doors at the end of the corridor open, I receive a mental smack in the face as I’m exposed to thousands bodies swarming around, jumping, laughing and singing along with their friends. As aforementioned, Grayson’s was a small venue and somewhere, nailed into a wall, scratched and abused , is a sign that reads ‘Capacity: five thousand’, but as I glance around the room, there must only been a handful of people off that number.

I’ve arrived a little later than usual because my parents stayed up longer than I had expected them to and I had to listen out for complete silence before I deemed it safe to sneak out, although every time the word music was mentioned they shot looks my way so I was certain that they know what I am doing at night. Because of my late appearance, the night is already in the midst of celebration. The stage area is swamped; at least twenty tightly compact lines are pushing and shoving towards the front of the stage. Not a single gap can be seen between their bodies. They are all pressed up against each other, sweat dripping from their faces. The band jump freely around the stage, encouraging them to do the same. The stage is their home; they can do whatever they please. They can do the expected and play songs or they can talk and interact with the crowd, play games with them or joke around. Whatever they want to do they can. As they jump, playing their instruments, the crowd all jump in sync to the music, creating a tsunami of bodies. More rows of people lazily stand behind, simply nodding their head to the beat, drink in hand. Whether they were jumping crazily around or tapping their feet, everyone around the stage was enjoying themselves as much as the band was.

Whilst most people are dancing or jumping around relentlessly, tonight, I don’t feel like getting in amongst the crowd. As I always am on July 22, I feel moody and unwilling to enjoy myself and I opt to just sit at the bar and watch. Actually, I sit on the bar as all the seats have already been taken by people who got here before I did. The bar has been out of use for decades now. A lot of the equipment had been looted during or just after the war, leaving it stripped down bare but every time an event is hosted here, a bunch of people brought enough drinks to last the whole night and have some left over for the next one. I pour myself something that looks like Coca-Cola but when the brown liquid hits my lips I realise that is anything but that. I grimace at the strong taste but continue to drink it regardless because I’m thirsty and I have nothing better to do and also, the buzz of the drink might help me forget that today’s my birthday. Small, infrequent sips are the way through it as I have learnt from making the same mistake every time I come. No one seemed to think to bring anything non-alcoholic even though more than half of the people here are underage. There are some drinks that I didn’t mind, and then there were the unknown drinks like the one in my hand, that tastes like someone has poured acid in a cup and as it falls down my throat, it burns everything it touched.

“Hey, Owen!” I hear a voice shout over the music. My friend, John, is weaving his way through the crowd towards me, lightly pushing dancing bodies out of his way as he squeezes through the gaps between friends, earning himself looks of annoyance.

“Hey, man.” I shout back as he finally reaches me lifting himself onto the bar, using his hands and then plonking himself down beside me on the bar with a thud, although there’s hardly any room for him.

“Todays the big day.” He grins as he grabs a red cup from his left and takes a long swig from it. Unlike me, he doesn’t squirm under the strong taste; he just carries on drinking it as if it is water.

“What big day?” I ask him, taking a small sip from my cup. Someone in the crowd shouts something that I can’t quite catch and John waves at the dancing man who passes through the crowd and then John looks back at me.

“Your eighteenth, Owen!” he says and I sigh at the mention of my birthday once again. Of course, it was expected to be mentioned from John. He is after all my best friend, so obviously there’s no escaping his comments. “Happy birthday, man.”

“Ugh,” I grumble, “as always, it’s anything but happy, so let’s just pretend today is not my birthday.”

He chuckles slightly before taking another sip of his drink, “but it is a happy day. You’ve got free booze, some pretty awesome band and, of course, you’ve got me. What more could you want?”

I roll my eyes at his poor joke, “humour me some more.”

John sighs at my lack of enthusiasm, taking a long sip from his cup. “It’s your eighteenth, I don’t care how much you might despise your birthday, but I’m not letting you waste this one. Remember my eighteenth? You sure as hell made sure I had fun and being the good friend I am, I’m going to do the same for you.”

I shrug at him, not wanting to celebrate my birthday and just wishing that he’d give up but I know he won’t. I’m happy just sitting here for most of the night. I have never really understood why becoming eighteen is so different to turning any other age. It feels no different to being seventeen or sixteen or fifteen apart from the fact that it was no longer illegal for me to be holding this brown substance in my hands. “It’s no big deal John. I couldn’t care less that it’s my birthday or that it’s my eighteenth.”

“But I care about these things. It’s my best friend’s birthday; I’m not going to let you mope around all night. I would have planned some big party for you or something but I know you would have hated me for that.”

“Well I’m thrilled that you didn’t.” I tell him, taking another sip from my cup. There wasn’t another response from John but as I sat, staring on at the band in front of me, I can feel his eyes burning into the side of my head and I know that if I turn to look at him, there would be that evil smirk that he always wore.

I eventually give into the pressure of knowing that I have to look at him at some point and turn my head, accompanying the action with a sigh, I look at him to find him exactly as I thought he would be. Every time John wears that look I knew he was conjuring something up disastrous like the previous Halloween where he looked at me like that before miraculously convincing me that breaking into one of the old police warehouses that they kept illegal items like music players or paintings, would be ‘no big deal’ and unsurprisingly the night ended up with five of us running away from an angry pack of officers with guns, screaming that they knew what we looked like. Another example of this was when a group of us were out in the woods, drinking for someone else’s birthday when John shot us the look and suggested that we climbed trees. The result of that was a trip to the hospital as our friend ended up with a dislocated knee. I know John too well to know that that look will result to nothing but bad news. “Before you even suggest something dumb, the answer is no.”

“Don’t be such a killjoy Owen! It’s nothing bad, I promise, just a little fun for your birthday, that’s all.”

“John. Please don’t bother.” I plead although there’s no winning against John, when he has his mind set on something, he will get it.

“You better drink up because I’m not letting you waste your eighteenth birthday.” He orders.

For some reason, I obey his commands and down the still unknown drink. It tastes vile and I pull a face, sticking my tongue out, regretting drinking. I have to take deep breaths for a minute because I can feel it crawling its way back up my throat. Luckily, it stays down but if John plans to make me drink anything else tonight then I can’t guarantee the rest of it will. John is a year older than me and we’d met here in fact almost three years ago. He was one of the first friends I made in the scene and arguably the best one too. He took me under his wing and taught me the dos and don’ts of becoming a ‘reputable criminal’ as he liked to call it. If I’m honest, I was kind of shocked when he became my friend, he was well known around here, I knew of him before I even met him, and because I hung around with him a lot I also became well known and went from being an almost friendless kid around here to socialite, making friends only because I’m friends with John.

I follow him as he pushes his way through the crowed venue, making a clear path for us, occasionally he shouts a ‘hello’ at someone or quickly hugs a friend of ours, usually female. For most of us, this was the only time we see our friends from here. It’s usually too risky to associate with one another outside of here because there’s always the anxiety of being monitored and arrested or putting others at risk and having a whole club shut down. A lot of people don’t even share personal information with their friends: last names, addresses, phone numbers were all something that people liked to keep to themselves. Earning it is a type of initiation, you know that your friend trusts you if they share that with you. Recently, a lot of people had been on edge, worrying more than they usually did. More and more places are being shut down and destroyed, arrests are happening almost daily for activities like this.

He makes his way to a door at the far end of the room, to the right of the stage, with a cracked and semi-destroyed sign hanging onto it for dear life that reads ‘staff only, no entry’. I stop a couple feet away from him, wondering what he could be doing that’s behind that door. He pushes it open, having to give it a little shove with his shoulder because of its lack of use over the years. John ushers me to follow him and I do, without question, although I know I was going to regret it.

“Where are we going?” I ask him as we walk in unison. We’re beside the stage now and I can see the guitarist of the band, whom I’d never heard of, doing a guitar solo, thrashing away at his instrument whilst the crowd screams and cheers him on. The four members have been playing for over an hour nonstop and perspiration covers their foreheads, dripping down their reddened faces and their clothes stick to their bodies becoming patchy from their own bodily fluid but they still seem to be putting all of their energy into this show as if they have an unlimited supply of it. I don’t know how they do it; I don’t think I could even go twenty minutes jumping around that stage whilst managing to play an instrument before being so tired that I would need a week to recover.

“Just wait.” He tells me coming to an abrupt halt and watching the band preform from side stage. I’m confused to say the least, why are we watching the band from the side stage when we had a better view from where we were sat on the bar?

We silently watch the band finish the song and once they had and were in the middle of drinking bottles of water before breaking into their next song, John makes his way onto the stage, whispering something into the singers ear who he seems to be pretty friendly with just like everyone else in this club and walking over to the microphone. Oh god, what is he doing?

“Joh-” I begin to shout but I’m cut off by him talking into the microphone which overpowers my feeble call.

“Hey guys,” he says and the crowd give an unsure scream in response. Confusion spread across their faces probably wondering why he was stood there but others look excited: John is known by the majority of the people in the room and a lot of them have probably witnessed his drunken escapades where he climbs onto stages and sings right in the middle of a bands performance. It was annoying for the band who was working hard to preform but it was also hilarious to watch him in a ridiculous state, trying to muster out some lyrics to a song he was making up on the spot. Perhaps a few of them were waiting for him to break into a song but he wasn’t going to do that. Instead, John decides to take to publicly humiliating me.

“I don’t know if any of you are aware but my friend Owen is eighteen today.” He tells them and the crowd of tightly packed bodies erupted into raucous cheer along with the claps and whistles of people stood loitering around further back in the room. I doubt even a quarter of the people who cheered know me. I have never realised how much louder things seem to be on stage compared to being at the back of the room or even in the crowd. John motions for me to come on stage with him. I’m hesitant; there are too many people and today was a day where I wanted to do anything other than associate with people. When I came here, I had planned on anticipating nothing more than a night filled with quiet conversation (although most things were shouted) with a few people, whilst sat, drinking acid in a cup. I would have refused John’s offer if it wasn’t for the overwhelming feeling of people waiting for me as their eyes stuck to me like gum to the bottom of someone’s shoe. It’s torturous feeling that you are obliged to do something that you have to interest in. But I somehow force my feet to take slow steps forward whilst my legs wobble to the point where I was certain they are going to collapse. I am not a people person and I don’t like having lots of people all focusing on me so it was safe to say that this is my worst nightmare and not the way I wanted to spend my birthday at all. Why did I even bother coming?

Once I have almost reached John, he grabs my arm and pulls my closer to him because I can see in his eyes that he was getting restless at the speed I was walking at. Before I can remove my arm from his grip, he pulls me into a hug and does the overly annoying hair ruffle that your aunt constantly does every time she sees you before going, ‘wow, look how you’ve grown!’

“Alright ladies and gentleman, it is your mission tonight to make sure that Owen here has the great night okay, he’s being miserable as usual and I’m leaving it up to you to show him how he should properly enjoy his birthday, alright?”

The crowd cheer again as John says, “You guys better catch him.” Catch me? I furrow my brows at John and he just laughs, throwing his head back in a menacing way, without answering my question. I do not like where this was going.

The thing is I’m a skinny guy; I am above average height but I have barely any muscle on my body despite working on a farm and John being six foot five, towered above me. Sure, I do have a little strength in me considering I have to heave around heavy items on a farm all day but compared to him I’m basically a child so all it took was one big push and I’m  flailing and flying straight into the crowd of people with their hands in the air ready to catch me. As my body impacts with their hands my first thought is, f**k that hurt, followed by that’s probably going to bruise by morning followed by hey, this is actually kind of fun. Their smothering hands carry me safely to the shore, placing me on the ground. A group people that I’d hung around with in the past along with an abundance of new faces meet me at the other end of the crowd, engulfing me in their circle, placing drinks in my hands along with a chorus of happy birthdays. I look at the drinks I’ve been handed for a moment, unsure if I want to drink them. After just drinking the liquid fire at the bar, I don’t know how much more my body can take. I’m not big on drinking let alone excessive drinking and I really don't want to wake up to the after effects tomorrow morning but I was legally allowed to drink it now so I thought, why not, and pour the liquid down my throat earning me an enthusiastic cheer. John was right; I should enjoy my birthday for once.

 

I don’t know what drink I’m on. Twelve? Maybe Thirteen? It’s unusual for me to drink this much because I never really drink with the intention of getting drunk, I see no point in it, it never ends well it just leaves me with gaps in my memory.

“So Owen,” a short guy with hair longer than most girls is taking on John’s words of making sure I had a good night and suffocating me with drinks and stupid questions and stupid stories that he finds hilarious and has to stop halfway through them to control his laughing and gasp for air. I’m kind of hoping that he can’t find the air and collapses so he’ll stop pestering me. That’s a little harsh but I’m trying to enjoy my birthday for the first time in my life and every time I start a conversation with someone he just interrupts, loaded with another story to shoot at us. “We were camping out in this barn overnight; it’s completing abandoned and we’re freezing our tits off, right, and then all of a sudden there’s this thumping on the doors and we all freak out. We’re like ‘this is the end’ and this girl I’m with starts crying because she thinks she’s going to die and someone else is shouting at her telling her if she doesn’t shut up, she’ll get us all killed but that just makes her cry more.” I sigh, take a long swig of my drink and try and zone out of his story just like everyone around me who stand idly, avoiding his eye contact because that’s how he seems to suck us in, and tap their fingers along the bar. But as soon as I look away from him and at the people around me, I feel his hot breath on my cheek and the strong smell of whisky. He’s drunk but then again so am I. I’d like to hope that I’m not half as annoying as he is. “Are you listening Owen?”

I nod. “Good.” He tells me and jumps back into his story. “So, as I was saying-”

He’s abruptly cut off by a berserk scream that made the whole room simultaneously gasp before the room fell silent. The music stops. There’s no talking, no footsteps, nothing. Complete silence in the room. I try to look around for the screamer so I can thank them for making story teller shut up for a minute but my head’s a mess and my eyes wont focus for long enough for me to search.

Story teller mutters a curse and then his bottle smashes on the ground, spraying my leg with whatever was left in it. Before I can shout at him, he’s gone. So is everyone else who was stood around me. They’re all running and screaming and shouting. Some are even pushing people, forcing people out of their way. This all happens because of the scream that hushed the room before making it turn into a commotion. I can’t see what’s going on, all I can see is a mass of bodies running in all direction, screaming frantically. I feel like I’m supposed to join them �" run and scream �" but I can’t because I don’t know why I’d be running or screaming.

That’s when I hear it. A gunshot erupts in the room followed by another and then three more quick ones. The screams grow louder, fighting for dominance over the guns and my eyes fall on the dozens of tall men, dressed all in black, taking down anyone they can get a hold of. My eyes are glazed over and at first it takes me a while to actually process what is happening. Everyone’s bodies are blurring together and it’s not until someone falls into with me with their full force that something in my brain triggers what is happening and I stand, paralysed, looking down at the person that has fallen into me.

He’s dead.

Or almost dead. Blood spreads all over his once white shirt, seeping over my clothes, and his limbs lay still at my feet. His mouth lolls open as if he’s trying to choke out some final words but nothing comes out. Instead, his eyes roll back into his head and his face turns ashen. My heart thuds in my chest and I feel sick either from the alcohol or the fear, which one it is I’m uncertain but my head swamps with thoughts and I feel like I’m going to faint. I begin moving away, having to kick the dead boy off my leg and stumbling around to the corner of the bar, trying to hide but my efforts are futile: there is nowhere to hide. Obviously, when this place was made, no one considered making good hiding places in case of a raid. Then again, when his place was made, they probably never thought that one day music would become illegal. As more people manage to escape the grasps of the officers, fleeing the invested building, the ratio of officers to civilians scarcely outnumber us. 

Screams, rocket through my eardrums and I watch people fight and whiter to the ground in shackles, losing the little freedom they had left. Some are simply handcuffed and arrested. Others are beaten either for resisting arrest or just because the officers can and others are shot down dead without even a fighting chance. But it’s not fear that passes through me it’s anger. Of all the nights this could happen it has to be on the night where a) I have actually drunk enough to be drunk and b) it was my birthday. It really is living up to its expectations of being an awful day. It’s becoming very clear that this day is always going to be fatefully doomed and that the chance of happiness on one birthday will never happen because we live in a happiness condemned country where everything we love is illegal. You can’t be happy when the most important things are taken away from you.

A mass of bodies all surge for any door they can find and my unbalanced-self clings to a chair for my only form of support. I should be running. I should be getting out of here instead of risking getting arrested or beaten or killed by the officers. I don’t know which one would be worse: being arrested or killed. If I was arrested then I’d be shipped off to a tiny cell designed for one person but were being forced to hold ten or more people because the ‘crime’ rate was shockingly substandard. Whereas if I get killed, that would be it, it’d be all over.

If I try to make a run for a door that would probably be the route I will fall down because my intoxicated head will be unable to hold my body up for long enough so I would end up collapsing to the ground and leading a painful death of getting trodden on.

Before I can even decide what I want to do (run, die or go to prison), a strong hands seize me. I tense up, knowing that this is it; I haven’t even made the choice of the route I want to take before I’m captured. I wait to either be attacked with a bat or handcuffs but as I crouch in a paralysis of fear, neither come and I risk a glance at over at the person holding me and I realise that it was the same hands that had earlier pushed me into the crowd. They shake me, trying to get my full attention to focus on him.

“C’mon, I’ve got you buddy.” He shouts over the petrified screams as I get dragged away from the chair and through the crowd. It’s all such a blur; my legs are moving towards wherever John is dragging me but my mind is still back across the room, contemplating death and imprisonment and the ways I could die and thinking about how much I hate my birthday.

We stand on people. We run over their injured or dead bodies without even thinking twice because right in this moment, it became everyman for himself except for John who’s dragging me across the room.

That’s the sad thing, I know so many people in the room. Well, I don’t necessarily know many of them personally, but I recognise them and as did they me but there were a handful of people in the room that I consider friends and I did nothing to help them, not that I could help them, I can barely walk on my own, but I watch them be grabbed and haltered to one side whilst they struggle, fighting with everything they had left in their drunken bodies as a pair of cuffs get slung tightly and painfully onto their wrists or as they crumble to the ground in pain or die slowly. No one tries to help each other. And I can’t fathom why John is risking his life to help mine. I don’t think I would help him if I was in his position and right now, I’m nothing but a burden to him.

Blonde hair stands in the way of our path. It runs right in front of us before it trips and screams for us to help before it falls to the ground, clutching its leg. I don’t recognise the girl and I don’t think John does either. He stares for a moment as if he’s thinking about helping her but he looks away.

“John should we-” I slur and splutter but he shakes his head, cutting off my sentence, steps over the girl and continues to drag me away from the blonde girl who lies helplessly on the floor, still screaming after us. We carry on and I forget her within a second.

We manage to make it all the way to the door that led to side stage that we’d only walked through an hour or so ago without watching anyone else fall to the ground or their death. My legs are like rubber, bending in ways that I don’t think my legs should even be able to go. They don’t hurt as my ankle twisted to the side or my whole leg bends out in an awkward position, it’s in a perpetual state of numbness. Or it will be until the alcohol left my body in the morning.

I suddenly collapse to the floor, noticing that John has let go of me without warning. The lack of support holding me up takes me by surprise so I crumbled in a heap on the floor like the girl had done in front of us. He looks at me, annoyance or possibly anger plastering his face before looking out of the small, dirty window on the door to watch the chaos erupt in front of him. “Most people have already gotten out.” He mumbles as he slipped a key into the door and locked it shut before turning to look at me again. I wonder where the key had come from. Had he pinched it from somewhere or had it been his before? John sighs, “you know you’re an idiot for drinking that much. Jesus Owen, you’re a mess.”

“Says the one who was practically pouring shots down my throat.” I slur in response. “I am your mess; you created me, my friend.”

A smile creeps onto his face but disappears again quickly, “I wanted you to have a good birthday instead of moping around like you do every year, being antisocial. You’re usually a happy guy but on your birthday you’re the opposite, you’re breaking the rules buddy.”

“Thank you.” I say with a nod of the head, meaning it too. John is a good friend, without him I would probably be dead right now. I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to thank him for helping me. He grabs me from under my armpits and hauls me off the ground and onto my feet again.

“There’s a door behind all of that,” he informs me and motions to the clutter of equipment and chairs and other things that cover a wall in front of us. “If we can move it then we can get out.”

I nod and try my hardest to hold up my own weight this time instead of collapsing again. My legs shake dangerously as I stumble over to the mess of things and begin to try and pull them out of the way so we can escape this warzone. I wonder how many people have lost their lives tonight. It’s an ugly thought how ruthless the officers can be, just taking the lives of innocent for breaking their pathetic laws. In the time that I manage to move one table, John has almost reached the door, hauling old broken speakers out of the way. My usually capable arms are numb, like your mouth after getting a tooth removed at the dentist I struggle to stay in control of them. I could see that I’m as much help here as dead body so I stand back, allowing John to finish the job up because I’m was nothing more than a hindrance. If we die it would be my fault.

“I think I see some in here!” a voice growls from the other side of the door, hungry to imprison more people.

“S**t.” John curses, throwing a guitar with a snapped neck away from the door. The door behind us is now being thumped on by officers trying to knock it down whilst John frantically fumbles with the set of keys in his hand trying to find the one that fits the lock to the exit. “Throw something against that door!” his voice tries to stay calm but the fear was finally breaking through it. My eyes scan the room before finding a chair which I quickly slip under the handle of the door.

“Got it,” he announces, the calm back in his voice as a small click signals the door unlocking. It swings open and grabs my right arm, throwing me out before slamming the door behind us and relocking it.

“C’mon.” he grins, happy because he knows we’d won. Somehow we made it; we’d escaped the clutches of death.

We run a couple hundred feet away from Grayson’s, laughing from the adrenaline and panting and falling a couple times as I lost my feet under my body. Every few seconds we turn our heads to see if we’re being followed by men with shiny guns or heavy bats but we aren’t. We’ve really made it. We’re safe. Somehow we got out of the madness that swamped the buildings and into the freedom of the outdoors. If I had any breath left in me I would thank John for saving my life but I need to focus on running away, putting as much distance between us and them as possible.

 Before we make it to the trees to hide behind us a scream catches us both off guard, forcing us to turn around.

“Can you smell that?” John asks me. I sniff the air like a dog, sticking my head upwards as if it would make any difference. I do smell it. It was weak at first and I thought it was just a passing stench but then a gust of wind blows it towards us, making it stronger. It’s a familiar smell but I can’t put my finger on what it is. Where do I know that smell?  

A faint cloud seeps from the building. The smell is burning. The building is on fire.

My eyes widen and I John freezes beside me.

“Oh my god,” he mutters in a gasp, taking a, small, pointless step forward.

We stand there for longer than it would be deemed safe, watching Grayson’s burn, fixated. Windows shatter creating a gateway for flames to snake out and the glass falls dead to the floor. The open corridor that has no roof lets the flames erupt from it.

It doesn’t take long before the roof caves down on anyone left trapped inside and smoke whirls a heavy net around us making us cough. “It was going to happen sooner or later.” John says, turning away from it and walking towards the trees as if he had just accepted it.

I can’t move once again. I want to turn around and follow John. I don’t want to watch it burn down but I can’t tear my eyes away. It crumbles down, walls collapsing down on each other and flames roar hungrily upward, feasting on every inch of the building. I watch it burn into nothingness along all the memories, the music and our friends. The ember flames dance in the moon light, it destroys the building until it becomes nothing more than a pulp of ashes. I stay until I heard the sickening laugh of officers nearby and drag myself off into the trees after John away from the murder of Grayson’s. We haven’t won after all. Once again, they beat us.  

 

Author's Note

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