Shelter

[Alex]

Alex tried to forget that horrible nightmare, but his mind wouldn’t let him. He kept having the same nightmare over and over again for the next few days. It was worse each time, and he had to watch Jack die a bunch of different ways before his body would finally wake him up. He had been shaky and jumpy with anxiety for the past few days due to the nightmare, and it wasn’t fun.

So he decided to stay awake.

If he didn’t sleep, he wouldn’t have to worry about nightmares. It sounded like a good idea to him. He knew the others wouldn’t approve, so he didn’t tell them about it. When everyone else went to bed, he would lie down and act like he was sleeping for a few hours so the others wouldn’t question him. He was tired but he didn’t want to give in and go to sleep. No way. The nightmares weren’t worth it. Alex was basically living off of energy drinks and coffee to stay awake. It made him really jittery and didn’t help his anxiety any. If anything, it made it worse.

After about three days, Jack and the others were finally getting suspicious. Before their show that night, Jack tugged on Alex’s arm and motioned for him to follow him. Alex followed him to the backstage room. Jack turned to him, asking, “Okay, what gives?”

“What?”

“You had nightmares for five days straight, and suddenly you haven’t had a nightmare in nearly three days. Sorry, but it seems a little fishy to me,” Jack said.

Alex shrugged, taking a sip of his energy drink. “I guess I’ve just been having a good few days with my nightmares. I’ve been sleeping well.”

“You sure?” Jack asked doubtfully. Jack was staring him down. Alex just nodded, looking down so he wouldn’t have to look him in the eye. Jack sighed, “Alright. Let’s go get ready; we go on stage in a few minutes.”

By the time their band went on stage, Alex wasn’t feeling so great. He was feeling dizzy and nauseous, and he kind of wanted to go lie down somewhere. It was weird. This wasn’t the kind of dizziness he usually got when he had anxiety attacks; it was different.

Not wanting to ruin anyone’s night, he pushed past the feeling, trying to move around as little as possible so he wouldn’t lose more energy than he had to. He grabbed onto the microphone stand to hold onto it and sing whenever he was feeling a little unsteady.

About halfway through their set, during the middle of Weightless, Alex took the microphone off the stand and started walking around and singing. That was a mistake. The room suddenly began to spin and Alex stumbled over the words a little, trying to remember them. What was the next line? Did he want to feel reckless or weightless?

He was pretty sure that his bandmates were giving him weird looks, but he wasn’t sure because everything was spinning. Alex finally stopped fighting for the words, his mouth opening and closing like a fish for a few seconds before the microphone fell out of his hands. Suddenly he felt himself falling, and everything went black.

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[Jack]

The crowd and everyone else let out a collective gasp of shock when Alex fell to the ground. He had fallen and hit his head on an amp, and he hadn’t moved at all after that. Jack immediately stopped playing and ran over to Alex, taking his own guitar off and tossing it beside him on the stage. Rian and Zack had jumped up and ran over to Alex too.

Jack pulled Alex onto his back, shaking him by the shoulder and trying to wake him up. “Alex?”

It was too loud to hear himself think. The crowd was screaming and asking what was wrong. Jack sighed in annoyance. If they knew what was wrong, they would have told them already.

The thick curtain suddenly dropped, giving them privacy from the crowd and making it slightly less loud. Jack looked up and saw Flyzik running over to them. “What the fuck happened?”

“I don’t know! Alex just stopped singing suddenly and fell,” Jack said, looking down at Alex. Zack carefully pulled Alex’s guitar off of him and handed it to Rian, who took Alex and Jack’s guitars to Danny.

“He’s breathing, right?” Zack asked.

Jack nodded, “I can see him breathing. His chest is rising and falling.”

Flyzik bent over and put an ear to Alex’s chest before sitting back up and shrugging. “He’s breathing fine and his heart is beating.”

“What are we supposed to do?” Jack asked worriedly.

“Zack, pick Alex up carefully and bring him backstage where it’s quieter. Hopefully he’ll wake up in a few minutes,” Flyzik ordered. He was trying to stay calm and direct the situation, but Jack could see the worry on their tour manager’s face.

Zack carried Alex backstage and put him on the couch. Everyone else followed behind him. Jack sat down on the edge of the couch, brushing Alex’s hair from his face. He shook Alex again, harder than before. “Alex, wake up, this isn’t fucking funny,” he begged.

“Jack, he’s out cold. He’s not going to hear you,” Rian sighed.

“We need to get him to the hospital,” Jack said, looking around at the others. They were ignoring him, paying attention to Flyzik.

“Colussy, have one of the support bands play for the rest of the allotted time. All Time Low definitely isn’t going to be able to go back on stage, and I don’t want the crowd to be completely disappointed. Tell the crowd that Alex will be fine,” Flyzik said, and Colussy headed out of the room.

“But he’s not fine,” Jack argued.

“He will be.”

“He won’t even wake up!” Jack exclaimed, shaking his best friend again. “Someone pour water on his face or something.”

“Jack, calm down. We’ll give him a few more minutes. If he doesn’t wake up, I’ll get an ambulance,” Flyzik said, putting his hands on Jack’s shoulders and looking him in the eye. “Everything will be okay. Overreacting isn’t going to help the situation.”

Jack scowled and looked down at Alex. He reached out to try and shake him again, but Zack stopped him. “For Christ’s sake, Jack. Shaking him is just going to knock his brain around even more. Quit it.”