Elements of a Selfish Desire

New tour, fresh faces, new crowds, playing together on stage again, and traveling the country with his best friends. Zack used to thrive on the first few weeks of road shows. Don’t misunderstand, now. The rhythm absolutely loved that aspect of his career, things were just different since he had been taken. His senses were increasingly on alert each time they set out away from home. Being a hybrid in one’s home turf was hard enough, let alone trying to manage being one in someone else’s.

His mentor was the only creation like him that he spoke to on a regular basis, and he was one of only two people in the world who knew his identity. Most creatures kept their origins and races under wraps. While he was sure there were groups of friends who had banded together, to his knowledge, many like him were loners. It was safer that way. One never knew who could be trusted. It was hard enough to find someone to confide in that would stay loyal until the end just living life normally, but it was nearly impossible to find someone to stick close by in the realm between mortal and immortal.

While he didn’t like to use his giftings and abilities on a day to day basis in general, each year that passed made him more aware of the necessity to use them on the road. Nothing major by any means. Simply for security purposes. He was slowly becoming wiser and with that knowledge came the understanding that his line of work made him more at risk of being recognized. Not as a famous guitarist, but as the split that he had become. Novels about hunters were a bit extreme, because it virtually made no sense that an entity would seek out one of their own to destroy ‘just because’, but there were many other reasons it wasn’t safe to be known as someone or something other than human.

Presently, he paced the halls backstage at the first venue of the tour. It was three hours until set, and people had the place completely surround in anticipation of the doors opening perhaps a tiny bit early. Rarely happened, but the die-hards could always hope. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary on that front, but something did seem to be off. He just wasn’t sure what it was. He was tempted to get ahold of his mentor, but something told him that after he had to call him for help over the hospital incident, that he wouldn’t be too happy if he was disturbed again so soon.

Admittedly, he should be far more advanced at his craft than he was this far in. There was some leeway with that, but there was also a hefty amount of pressure to get up to speed. He hadn’t quite figured out where from, though. His mentor did seem annoyed at times, but he always assured him these things came with time and dedication. He certainly wasn’t pressuring himself, because he still struggled with finding and maintaining a balance. He couldn’t quite wrap his mind around how stepping further into who he truly was would advance him towards that goal. But something was urging him to develop his giftings, that was for sure. It was part of why he had asked Vengeance if he knew something he himself did not.

“Vengeance.” A voice called from around a corner somewhere and his head lifted, but he did not answer.

“Vengeance? Yo Zack!”

Oh, right. He was being called by his stage name. He was wondering why someone would be calling his split side out, or how they would know about it to begin with. He was just a bit lost in his own mind at the moment.

“Yeah? Over here.”

“Hey man, Matt’s looking for you.” The large security guard told him upon coming into view. “He said he’s been calling you. Pick up your phone, man.”

“I think I left it in the other room. I’ll go grab it. Thanks.”

“You’re good, man. See you out there later.”

He waited until the dark skinned man was back out of sight before he manifested the device in his hand. He would have gone to get it, but he had wandered enough that he wasn’t exactly sure where he was.

6 missed calls
2 voicemails
9 messages

“Damn, he must really want something,” he mumbled and cleared all of the notifications in one poke of a button.

“Dude where the hell have you been?” the singer snapped immediately before the first full ring had completed.

“I’m at the venue. What’s going on?”

“We’re good now. Glad you finally decided to answer!”

“What’s going on?” with a furrow of his brows at the noise he heard in the background now, he asked, “Are you at a hospital?”

“Yeah. I probably called you half a dozen or more times, but it’s all fine now. I’ll talk to you at soundcheck.”

“Dude, what ha—” the connection broke before he could finish his sentence.

Dexterous fingers went to work looking back at his messages to see if he could figure out what had taken place. Most of them were from Matt asking where he was and demanding for him to answer his phone. The next one in line sent a chill down his spine.

We can’t find Brian.

What happened to Brian?

Just then, a new alert crossed his screen.

Message from Brian, he quickly opened it and scanned the contents.

Hey man, everything is fine. He’s more upset that it took you this long to answer. I just fainted, nothing to worry about.

Despite the words of dismissal, he did not feel that everything was fine. He knew that it wasn’t. It wasn’t that he thought the other guitarist was lying to him, there was just a deeply sick feeling forming in the pit of his stomach.

Yes, I’m sure. We’re waiting on lab results, but it was probably just that I didn’t eat much between last night and this morning, and I’ve been on the go pretty much since we left home, was the response he received after sending his three word reply.

Are you going to be good to play the show tonight? He knew the answer he was going to get, but he had to ask.

Always.

With a quiet sigh, he grumbled something to himself and decided it was time to leave the hallways to begin his pre-show rituals. He suddenly had no desire to do them, but if he did not, someone would inevitably ask what was wrong. Besides, they provided a good cover to mask the use of his abilities to survey his surroundings. Although it could just be whatever was happening with Brian, his senses were on high alert now and that feeling in his core didn’t help.

*

Although the afternoon hadn’t gone the greatest, the show was going pretty well. Matt was on fire, he and Brian were completely in sync, and Johnny was killing it. The crowd was alive with the music. It couldn’t really get any better. It was times like these that Zack had to remind himself that he needed to still be aware of his surroundings, because it would be the perfect time for something to go wrong. He never actually expected anything to, but that was something his mentor/therapist always stressed that he needed to do. Hybrids shouldn’t always live in fear with the belief that an immortal or another entity was hot on their trails, ready to take them down at any moment. But as the older man told him on many occasions, they just always needed to be on alert so they could act if needed to. He tried to keep that in mind. It was hard.

His fingers crashed over the strings of his greatest passion, and he was admittedly getting caught up in the moment. Spotlights were on him and the one and only Synyster Gates, they were wailing in perfect harmony, and he could hear the crowd over the music in his earpieces. That was super rare, and totally incredible. The smile on his face couldn’t be stopped if he tried. God, he loved his life. As the song was winding down, however, that seemingly impenetrable expression began to falter when he glanced over at his counterpart.

He looked pale. It could definitely be the lights, but he didn’t look the best.

The green eyed man continued on as usual, but kept looking over to be sure his friend was okay. As the minutes ticked by, he became increasingly more confident that it had to be the lighting and it wasn’t until the middle of the next song that confidence came under fire. What should have been two build ups, a change up, and a hammer-on slide ended up being played as enharmonic build ups, no change, and a shorted slide. What was the difference? Power. Major power. And Brian never missed a chance to showcase that kind of intensity and volume.

He stumbled slightly shortly after that, and most people probably didn’t even notice; but Zack did. Something wasn’t right.

“Are you okay?” silly of him to try to ask a question over thousands of screaming fans, and Matt to boot.

Brian saw him, but shrugged in response. Of course he hadn’t heard him.

Several more failed attempts at the lip-reading game raised the level of frustration quite a bit. At this point, his only option was to rip his ear piece out and shout directly into his ear, and he wasn’t exactly sure that was a smart decision. With a growl, he decided instead to haul off to the other side of the stage. Brian was a grown man. If he wasn’t okay, he would say something. The rhythm just hoped that the feeling in his gut was somehow wrong.