Total pages in book: 47
Estimated words: 43557 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 218(@200wpm)___ 174(@250wpm)___ 145(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 43557 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 218(@200wpm)___ 174(@250wpm)___ 145(@300wpm)
Alnilam is a blue supergiant star. In human terms, that means it’s old and likely to blow any million years now, plenty time for us to breed a few thousand generations. Nothing lasts forever is the world’s motto.
“You feeling alright?” Zayne brushes a few stray strands of hair away from my forehead and looks at me with more concern than I need.
“Great,” I say. “I’ve never slept so well in my life as I have on this tour. I feel amazing!”
“That’s because you’re given stimulants before you wake,” he reminds me. “You’re being chemically moderated.”
“Eh, who isn’t. We’re all bags of chemicals. At least this is working for me.”
“Alright,” he says. “As long as you’re happy.”
“How are the reviews from the last concert?”
“Explosive,” he says dryly.
“Wow. Really. Very cool.”
I was so worried I wouldn’t be able to keep up with the demands of the tour. We’re covering light years in days. I’m singing for hours Every. Single. Day. I’ve performed for more people in this first week of tour than I did in my entire career up until this point. I’ve performed for more people than exist on Earth, period. My fame is literally incomprehensible to me. As famous as I might
think I am, I am at least ten times as famous as that.
“How long until I am on?”
“An hour and a half. Enough time for hair and makeup.”
“Perfect.”
This is so easy. I’m a cog in a machine and I love it. I wake up, everybody caters to my every need, and then I get to do what I love most, perform. This is a dream come true.
Before I know it, I look the best I’ve ever looked, yet again, and I’m on my way up the backstage stairs of a massive arena that looks out over the ever-dying blue sun of Alnilam. The audience is bathed in a bright blue glow and though they are mostly human, they appear more than human thanks to their sun-given luminescence. At the brightest part of the day, the world shines turquoise and the entire stadium is bathed in jeweled light refracted from thousands of carefully cut and placed mirrors.
“LYRIC WALKER!”
The sound they make when they see me slide onto the stage is transcendent. It’s a shouting and a cheering so fucking loud I can’t hear anything else. One, two seconds later the opening bars of my most popular original song, Screw You, start to play. With one voice, the crowd and I belt out the beginning.
SCREW YOU, SCREW YOU, WOULDN’T WANT TO BE YOU, BE YOU.
I NEVER WANT TO SEE YOU, SEE YOU, AGGAAAAAAIN.”
The first few concerts I played I was still getting into the swing of things. I was a little nervous of the big crowds, and the even weightier expectations. I was in my head. Tonight, I am out of it. I am fully in the moment, one with the crowd and entirely embodying the song.
They are singing along with me, because they know every fucking word. I bet a lot of them know all of my songs better than I do. I am so touched by their energy, and just so thoroughly thrilled with where I am at this point in the universe. I can feel that this is the kind of peak that has to be enjoyed because it will only come once in a lifetime.
Fuck it. I know Zayne won’t like this, but the crowd is so inviting and so awesome. I want to give them something special, a memory they’ll never forget.
Concerts are powerful things. There’s an energy you get when so many people are in one place, all focused on joy and experiencing something together. It can’t be replicated under any other circumstances. Tens of thousands of people are here, not just for me, but for each other. They were drawn here for reasons none of us might ever understand. And I get to be at the head of it all. I get to feel all that delicious energy rushing over me and through me. I’m hungry for it. I’m fucking starving for it. I. Want. More.
“SCREW YOU! SCREW YOU!”
I sing the lyrics, spread my arms, and I fucking fly. For a few stunning seconds, I am not bound by anything. Not a contract, not my job, not gravity. And then, when I am at most risk of crashing into nothingness, a hundred hands catch me to break my fall and I am held aloft on a surging sea of dancing humanity.
The hands are respectful and loving, carrying me along like a human wave. I don’t have any control of it, but I don’t need control. All I need is to be here with them, and give myself to them the way they give themselves to me.
I see a little dash of effervescent light arcing toward me. Something tells me to open my mouth and catch the little drop of bright pink dew on the tip of my tongue. I taste candy, a little drop of sweetness so ephemeral it is gone before I can even be certain it was ever there, just a blip on my senses.