Shattered By Broken Dreams

Zacky fidgeted in his seat in the studio of the radio station he was sitting in with his band-mates. He was bored, and was absently watching Jimmy flinging spit balls at the console operator. The whole band had been dragged in to the station to do an interview for their upcoming tour, which was a prelude to the release of their next album which they were currently working on. The shows were also a thank you to their fans, as it had been a couple of years since the release of their self-titled album and the fans had still been coming out in droves to see them.

Zacky still had to pinch himself sometimes that his dream to become a rock star had come true, however straight after this thought an unwanted thought had entered his head about his dream, and how it was also someone else’s dream. Seemingly of its own accord, an image of his shy teenage high school girlfriend, Savannah, came into his mind and he closed is eyes briefly before trying to push the thought aside. He couldn’t bring the past back, or change what had happened. He was brought out of his thoughts by an abrupt nudge to his rib-cage and he opened his green eyes and glared at Brian, who was staring at him like he had grown three heads.
“Wake up, Vengeance”, Brian hissed. “Get your goddamn head out of the clouds.”
“Yeah, that’s my job”, Jimmy said a smirk.
“As we were saying”, Matt said with an annoyed glare at Zacky, “we recently finished recording a cover of Paranoid by Black Sabbath for Warner Bros. new release which is called Covered, A Revolution In Sound. 11 of the bands on the label recorded a song from Warner’s back catalog”.
“We originally wanted to cover Mr Bungle’s Strubb (A Dub)”, Brian added.
“We were very excited to cover a song from Mr Bungle, but then we were told that there was a list of songs that we could cover, not choose anything Warner's had put out," Matt revealed. "So after we got the list, the guys chose 'Paranoid'. It was actually a little harder to figure out which song we could learn in time to reach the deadline, so we felt we couldn't go wrong with a Sabbath cover."
“Sabbath have been very influential on all of our favourite bands. Most of the cool shit you hear coming out today is because of Sabbath. Paranoid is a classic and we feel even people who aren't Sabbath fans will know the song. Covers are fun when we find the right one. I love working on Avenged material over anything else, though”, Jimmy added.
“Now guys, you’re back out on the road shortly to do a three month tour around America. Are you excited to get back onto the road?”
“We sure are”, Matt replied with a smile. “We just love playing for the fans, and meeting as many of them as we can.”
“There’s also a huge buzz in the industry and the fan bases about your touring partner”, the DJ began saying. Zacky’s head snapped up at this, as he hadn’t been told who their support act would be. How could the DJ know before the band? He glanced at the other guys, and frowned when they wouldn’t meet his eyes.
“Their debut EP was epic, and is definitely a cult favourite, and our switchboard just about blew up when we first announced the news”, the DJ was saying with a smile.

Zacky looked with confusion at his band mates, who were still looking everywhere but at him. Jimmy was whistling innocently, and looking at the ceiling. He took a sip of the water in the glass in front of him as the DJ began speaking again.
“And to everyone who doesn’t know it yet out there in radio land, Avenged Sevenfold is going on tour with the original line-up of Crimson Sins.”

At that, Zacky’s eyes widened, and he spat out the water in his mouth in shock and managed to spray the DJ, the console and Brian.
“What the fucking fuck?”, he exclaimed, his green eyes wide. The DJ, not privy to Avenged’s history with Crimson Sins, wiped off his face with a glare at Zacky, and continued speaking.
“Crimson Sin’s website crashed within twenty minutes of the announcement, and our switchboard went into over-drive. The severely edited vision of Crimson Sin’s first single, Child of Burning Time, is a classic. Obviously the footage of bass player Savannah Kincaid’s motorcycle accident was edited out of the footage, however the video is still a classic and both the band and their fans are extremely excited that Savannah has rejoined the band.”
“Yeah, they’re absolutely stoked about playing together again”, Matt responded. “They’ve been working on new material for a while now, and when Warner Bros approached them with a new deal and offered them this tour they jumped at the chance”, Brian said with a smile.
“Wait, what?”, Zacky asked in confusion. “You see them?”
“We’ve been seeing all of them for the past ten years, dude”, Jimmy replied, placing emphasis on the all. Zacky’s eyes widened even further. He hadn’t seen any of the members of Crimson Sins, including Savannah, for near on 10 years and in the space of five minutes he had just learned that he would be touring with the band, and his band mates had been seeing Savannah.
“This tour is sure gonna be interesting”, Jimmy added with a laugh. Whilst the guys loved Zacky like a brother, Savannah was like a sister to them and none of them could understand why Zacky had chosen to walk away whilst she was lying in the hospital. They had moved on, but deep inside of them all, they were still disappointed that Zacky had chosen to end his relationship in that way.
“Fuck”, Zacky said, seeming not to notice the console operator leaping for the kill switch to bleep out his language.
“How’d do you think he’s gonna react when he sees her again”, Johnny whispered to Brian.
“Man’s gonna shit himself”, Brian whispered back with a smirk.