By Joseph Sullivan

“Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the stage, your lord and master, the one, the only…!”

The star of the show could not finish his own sentence. He stumbled out onto stage, clinging to the curtain, wreck of a rocker that he was, to the condemning silence of an absent crowd.

“They’re cheering, they’re cheering,” Axel Morelli, a washout to make other washouts envious, was talking to himself. “I just can’t hear them.”

For the most part, he was not sure what he could see or hear anymore. He knew he was on a dangerous cocktail of drugs, one he claimed to have invented to make himself the life of the party, but all he could feel was closer to death. He laughed at the word “addict” just as much as he was forced to accept it. I’ve done shows in worse states, and there were actual people there, too!

But he had a very special show planned for that night.

He was still vaguely lucid enough to be aware of what he was doing, even if everything surrounding that was a grey hazy mist. All over the floor, he took out the bottle he got from the butcher’s shop and started pouring out the pig’s blood in the shape of a pentagram. All the cool kids do this, he thought to himself bitterly. Once he finished the circle around it, he threw the bottle away and heard glass breaking echo through his mind.

“I’m sorry, Mr Morelli, we can’t let you play tonight.”

He had heard that a thousand times, in some form or another, and he heard it shouted again and again now. I’ll show you, he would always think, especially here. I’ll show all of you.

He took out the candles he brought and began to light them around the pentagram. The most he was aware of was that his lighter had a pretty orange flame, one that distracted him ever so briefly from the bugs crawling up his skin.

“I’m leaving you, Axel. You have a problem.”

What problem? It was different every time someone said words like that. Axel could rattle off more than enough to kill a lesser man, and he was still standing.

Once he decided he was done with the candles, he took out his sacrifice, salivating at the thought of burning it up. It was the first song he had ever written, back when he was a little boy. His sisters, two older, three younger, loved it, but when he read over it as an adult, all he could see was pathetic, childish drivel.

“You can’t play the big brother card anymore, Axel, I’m not letting you stay here until you get some help.”

Sometimes it was little brother. Sometimes they said it softly, sometimes it hit hard. Sometimes they left out that part about help. It did not matter anymore. He took out the sheet music and the lyrics, put them in the middle of the pentagram, poured the remainder of his gin over it, tossed the lighter down, and set it ablaze. It started to go up in a huge, roaring fire, and Axel felt the heat, real heat, begin to warm him, almost searing.

“Baal! Beelzebub! Baphomet!” he rattled off names that were associated with demons in his head and continued until they devolved into gibberish. “I beseech you, restore my name!” His voice was full of mock devotion and grandiosity. “Make me a star once more!”

There was no answer, of course, and Axel began to laugh. A lot of tricks and nonsense, he thought. Another wild night ending in a fire, the firemen would surely come to put it out, and Axel’s name might show up in a tabloid or two. Classic…

But he did hear something. His laughter stopped, and he heard what sounded so familiar and yet so foreign to him at the same time…

Cheering.

That was it. He could hear the cheers, the cries of a distant crowd, chanting what sounded like his name, calling for more. He could feel it, on some level, the love and adoration from the masses, what he felt he had deserved for so, so long. I can hear them! His breathing hastened, his heart quickened, his eyes widened. I can hear them now!

And he could see them, too. As he tried his best to steer past the drug-induced haze he inflicted on himself, he could see his audience. He was not quite sure if he was seeing past the fire he had lit or into it, but he could see them, the faceless masses. They wanted him, he knew it, he just knew it in a way he could not explain. He stepped forward, eager to embrace his fans—

And Axel screamed, a horrific shriek of pain, as without even realising it, he had put his foot into the fire. Terrified and hurt, he stumbled back, crashing through the red curtain and seeing the fire growing in front of him.

What did I do, what did I do, what did I do? Axel was not sure anymore. The whole day and night were gone to him now. All he knew was to run, and so he did, limping as fast as he could out the back until he felt the cold embrace of the night air, and his face felt the hard rock of the pavement.

In due time, his predictions came true. The firemen did come, Axel Morelli appeared in a tabloid or two again, and along with some fines and charges came another stint in rehab, which he was sure would last as long as the other times.

But even with everything out of his system, he could still hear the cheers, or at least, he thought he could, when he listened close and blocked out the cold, cold world. They were chanting his name, cheering with fire, and they were calling for him.

They want Axel Morelli, he would think to himself. They want him now and forever.

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