Summer storms were uncommon in Pancove despite the colder temperature. Mars saw the lightning flash in her peripheral vision, yet she heard no thunder after it.

“Do you think it’ll make it to the mainland this time?” her friend and bandmate Noa asked, turning back to look out the window. He was sitting in a position that didn’t look particularly comfortable. He continued to pluck at his guitar without bother.

Their other bandmate, Koda, got up from the stool he sat on and walked to the large window. “I dun thin’ stho,” he said with a mouth full of sandwich. “We prob’ly have at leas’ another month of summer left.”

“Koda, what have you contributed to practice today?” Noa shot a glare in his direction. "Besides, you know, eating all of Mars’ food?"

Koda returned the glare and cleared his throat to answer, "They said I could help myself. It's not like I can practice drums here, Mars’ neighbors already hate us."

"I offered my place for practice," said their last band member, Salem, from his spot on the floor next to Mars. He sat with his knees tucked in, his hand ran through the thickness of his shoulder-length multicolored hair.

"As did Benji," Mars added.

“Oh, but remember, we’re not here to practice, we’re here to talk shit on Paul.” Koda walked back to the couch, he climbed over the back and sat next to Noa. He offered the rest of his sandwich to him, who declined with a shake of his head.

“I can’t believe he would bail on us for the city,” Salem frowned, touchy about the subject.

“I can,” Mars said.

“I don’t even blame him,” Noa shrugged. “We should be trying to get the hell out of this dump too.”

“Paul had the talent to get him out of here though,” Koda resolved. “We can all agree that he wasn’t the greatest singer, but he had a hell of a stage presence.”

Mars nodded, “I can’t give the kind of show he used to give, especially with our shit lyrics. We need a new lead singer, and possibly a songwriter.”

Koda took a couch pillow and tossed it at Mars’ face. “I know you think it’s cool and edgy to hate on your songwriting skills as an ‘artist’ or whatever, but all your songs are the ones that resonate the most with our audience.”

“That’s because our audience is made up of a bunch of highschoolers.” Mars set down her guitar and stood up, stretching her arms over her head. “You know how every now and then you’ll hear a song and think to yourself, ‘That’s it. I want to hear more of that.’ But then you don’t, at least for a while. And when you do hear a song like that again, you find yourself thinking the same thing, ‘I want more of this kind of music, I need more of this kind of music.' I want to write music like that. Good music has layers… it doesn’t sound flat.”

“So, what you’re saying is that we should have fewer flats?” Noa thought about his finger placement before playing a chord. “That means we’re gonna have to change most of the chords in Seven Days.”

Mars and Koda both frowned at the youngest member of their group.