I shuffled through the crowd as I pushed and nudged my way toward the front of the stage as the smoke covered the bright colored lights creating a miasma of reds and blues, the band now hidden by the smoke as the excited crowd roared and cheered while the band tuned their instruments.  The show was about to begin but I was still stuck near the middle of the crowd with my vision obscured by hands and heads that were fully alert and in the air. The combination of human limbs and colored smoke created a feeling of joy within me, seeing all these people enjoying my favorite band so much made me feel like people finally understood me and my interests. For the first time in my life I felt like I belonged to a family rather than just another group of people to judge me . I attempted to squeeze my way through the crowd of people who were now shoving and pushing back since the band finally started playing. I got shoved badly a few times as the band sang “Defiance” which got me pumped up as well. Eventually the crowd got a bit too riled up and at one of the lyrics “The blood in my mouth is not my own” I saw someone in the crowd bite a guy’s arm to the point where it drew blood; as the rest of the crowd began to seemingly start a riot. The chaos was overwhelming, people were throwing punches and elbows, some people even biting others until blood was pouring out of their skin and onto the hard-concrete floor, and I didn’t see any but I’m sure there were a few knives in the crowd that day. I got beaten up and bruised rather badly before I managed to dive under the stage and hide away as the crowd got louder and more violent while the band just kept on playing as if it was nothing.  I stayed hidden and quiet until the concert was scheduled to end I figured I’d at least get to hear the concert even if a few ribs were cracked. However, I could still hear some fighting and even some terrified screams. I decided to crawl back out from under the stage as my face went pale and I covered my mouth to lessen my feelings of nausea. All that was left of the crowd was a mass of human limbs and colored smoke with the few beaten up survivors hovering over the bodies and gnawing on warm bloody limbs as the sound of tearing flesh was accompanied by an overflow of blood. I was about to panic when I saw the lead singer for the band turn to me with eyes as red and the blood coating his lips and dribbling from the corner of his mouth to his chin. “What’s wrong? Don’t you want to be a part of the family?” He asked as if encouraging me to join him, his words seemingly capturing me. I fell to my knees and took a bite of the fresh meal that they had so lovingly prepared for me, and I’m proud to say that I’ve been touring with them ever since.

William Reiland