It was a usual night at Belmont’s Music Club. The punk-rock bands that finished their sets had packed up their equipment and left the venue, Belmont, working like always, quietly ran a damp cloth across the counter while whistling along with a tune that played over the stereo system, and a skeletal figure pulled out a stool to slump his head against the recently scrubbed mahogany. The bartender paid the figure no mind, instead, he took a second to reach out under the counter toward a series of controls, skipping across an annoying pop song with a groan. When the next track began to play over the speakers that were scattered throughout the room, the recorded band’s lead singer was heard yelling to a riotous crowd.

“We’re Fallen and this is ‘Chamberlaine!’”

The patron’s head was gently lifted to gaze toward Belmont. “Will you turn this shit off?”

“I’m a big fan of Fallen, Jason, you know that.”

“I’m not even a fan of Fallen,” the form grimly replied.

“Jesus Christ man, lighten the fuck up. Do you need a drink or something?”

“Funny,” Jason replied, his skeletal digits running through the mound of black hair that covered his head.

“What’s got you down?”

“Everything about this damn band.”

“Let me guess: your girl wised up and dumped your sorry ass?”

“Fuck you, man,” the musician replied weakly, too tired to form a real insult.

“Listen, Jason, I know things seem kind of shitty right now—”

“Really shitty.”

“Really shitty, yeah, but is that an excuse to give up?”

“I think that’s actually the leading cause of fuck-ups giving up.”

“But the Jason I knew wouldn’t give up over something this simple.”

“The Jason you knew didn’t look like this.”

There was a break in the conversation, both parties taking a second to stare each other down. Belmont was the one to shatter the fragile silence, “Why don’t you do what any other rock star does?”

“And what would that be?

“I don’t know, write a fucking song about it?”

The musician’s arms pulled away from the bar with a sigh, a hand running across his leather jacket to smooth a fold before he stood. The bartender’s head tilted, almost as if he couldn’t quite process Jason’s chain of thought. “Where are you going?”

“I have to get ready for my set.”

“What happened to 'giving up?'”

“What the fuck do you want me to say? You’re right, Belmont; it’s time I grew up and faced the music.”

From Grace

For Jason Black, it was just another night. His band, Gravity, played to a half-filled punk-rock club, and between hits of cocaine and whatever was on tap, he took the mic and sang his heart out. Each song was laced with profanity, with his actions turning up no less obscene. For the man, every show was eventful: stripping to reveal his heavily tattooed body on stage, stopping songs just to insult audience members, and the destruction of property were all run-of-the-mill for Gravity’s sets. Over time, Jason became so much of a spectacle on stage that his behavior alone had become a selling point; the brief gratification of sold-out nights only served to feed his addictions, and the never ending cycle had already spiraled out of control. This set was no different: an amp was broken, Jason flashed a few choice areas to the crowd, and “fuck” was said enough to drain any real meaning from the word.

When the musician’s last song came to a close, though, his attitude shifted. A few brief goodbyes were shared with his band, a backup acoustic was tossed to the bartender with brief mumbles about it being ‘a gift,’ and the man was well on his way back to his grimy apartment for one last drink. The walk back was slow, a result of a sudden wave of introspection. Slow, quiet moments were what Jason truly feared. A few short, sober seconds by himself meant that when the musician was forced to stare down his feelings and acknowledge their presence without the ability to cover them with a thick layer of pot smoke and vodka.

Like many musicians, Jason experienced his share of plights, and during a night of playing his uninspired, formulaic music to the crowd at Belmont’s, a switch flipped in his mind. Deep down, the musician struggled with the idea that his band would go nowhere, and that line of thinking dared to suffocate him.

He had nothing to fall back to, and the alternatives terrified him.

Without a safety net, and with his band slowly losing popularity, Jason Black wanted out, and when it came down to it, making his "ultimate decision" was rather easy.

A handful of painkillers chased with whiskey was his initial choice, but it ended up being far more painful than he envisioned. In a matter of hours, the musician was writhing on the floor, the growing agony in his stomach quickly becoming unbearable, and though he initially planned on riding it out until the bitter end, three rounds of vehement vomiting made him reconsider. Doubts began to arise about the medication's potency after so much was removed from his system, and after a few pained seconds of thinking, he was finally forced to rethink his methods. A moment was taken to catch his breath, and soon after, Jason delicately clawed himself off of the bathroom tile to shakily search through his medicine cabinet for any alternative.

He decided to employ his nearly empty set of razor blades, because, in his eyes, anything that would stop the pain that surged through his body would do. In Jason’s final moments, it was decided (with the remnants of his sick sense of humor) that he’d bleed out into the bathtub to "be considerate to his landlord." More time passed, and when enough blood was lost, the singer finally embraced the cold porcelain, preparing himself for the release that he hoped his death would provide.

That moment never came.

His eyes shut, he took his last breath, and his body died, but Jason didn’t find relief. As if his previous actions were just part of some fever dream, he still felt present in that dark, bloody bathroom. Now, however, the man wasn’t alone; a feeling of nearby rage was felt almost instantaneously, as if his suicide had pissed off whatever ungodly force that happened to be passing through his cramped living room. The hair on the back of Jason’s neck stood on end as the creaking of footsteps was heard in the doorway, and he nearly jumped out of his skin when a quiet “Tsk” resonated throughout the bathroom.

Jason tried to force open his eyes, but the task felt monumental, as if the act required more energy than he could possibly muster. A deep, melodic voice quietly eventually laughed at the display, and with a snap of its fingers, the musician’s dark orbs were revealed to focus on the source of the noise. Whatever was situated at the edge of the bathroom was an unsightly beast, one that instantly registered, in Jason's mind, as repulsive. Standing at well over six feet tall, the red-skinned man, if he could be considered that, was dressed rather heavily in black, and charcoal hair, much like Jason’s, framed his sharp face. His figure was covered in a getup that wouldn’t be all that foreign on a mainstream rock star, and it certainly wasn't what Jason expected from otherworldly trespassers. The musician had dozens of questions, like how the man got past the new security system his landlord installed, but Jason didn’t get a word in before the figure spoke.

“I expected better from you, Jason.” He had the appearance of a demon, but his melodic voice could just as easily belong to an angel.

“I—”

“Pills? Really? If you were going to die anyway, couldn’t you at least shell out the money for a more effective method? A gun, perhaps?”

“You need a permit to own a gun!” Jason retorted, “Do you know how hard it is to get a permit in the current political climate?”

“That’s just poor planning on your part,” the figure replied, “I digress! How you did it isn't why I’m here in the slightest; I came because you failed me, Jason! You were going to strike it big, and instead, you threw it all away! You fucked up my plans by killing yourself! Because of this mess, I don't have a tribute!”

“And who are you, exactly?”

“The Demon of Punk Rock, of course!” A grin cracked across the figure’s face, “That’s not important, though. The battle of the bands is in a few months and my opponent decided to off himself. Do you know how much of a pain in the ass this is?”

“When was it decided that I’d be your opponent!?” The lack of information seemed to offend Jason, and that was painted very clearly across his pale face. If he had any mobility in his limbs, he’d have already tried to leave the room.

“Do you always ask so many questions? It was decided when... Fuck it! Let me give you a full rundown. Thousands of years ago, I made a deal with the big man himself: every era would have a tribute musician, and in every era, I’d play against them for keeps. This time was supposed to be you, Jason! You threw a wrench into the works, though, because I’ve never had an opponent die before.”

Jason didn't speak for a moment, trying to work everything out in his head. Battle of the bands? Demons obviously needed something to do. Play for the sake of Earth? It was cliché, but understandable. Everything was moving rather quickly. It was as if the demon expected Jason to know all of these details already, and that was the core of his frustration with this new information: Jason couldn't give less of a damn about the demon itself, those showed up every couple years and humanity just shrugged them off—like the incident in Miami with that pack of undead Corgi—but the musician figured he should have been warned that he was supposed to represent humanity. Really, if he was given the choice, Jason would have outright denied his position, but that didn't seem feasible now... Unless, of course, he could use his unique position as a bargaining chip. “If this is so important, then find a new tribute! I don't want a damn thing to do with this!”

“That just won’t do! You’ll need to fix this.”

“I’ll need to fix this!? I’m supposed to be dead!”

“Yeah, I realize that, smartass.” The demon paused to think, his eyes lighting up with realization. “I’ll be the one to fix this; I'll undo it!”

“You'll be the one to—What's the point!? It’s not like I swallowed those pills for no reason!”

“Yeah, and used razors, too. You really need to stop being a drama queen and tone down the sass, Jason. Start working with me.”

The musician’s eyes narrowed as he looked the demon over, “What’s in it for me?”

“Uh…” the figure trailed off, trying to think of some compensation that he could give away. “If you win the competition... you'll... fame... Fame will come crawling to you! Imagine what the human race would think of their 'champion:' the rock star who fought off the scourge of hell with his musical prowess!”

“I’m still not doing it.”

The demon looked at the stubborn musician with a glare, his cheery demeanor vanishing in an instant. “Fine, just know that I won't take very much pleasure in this."

Jason’s body suddenly felt pain once more as every inch of his flesh seared like it was suddenly bathed in heated oil. As the musician struggled and writhed in his porcelain coffin, the figure shook his head, “Get your band together, Jason, and I’ll think about lifting the curse.”

After a few moments of agony, the figure vanished, and with it, Jason’s consciousness slipped away.

When his senses began to return, the man simply felt numb. That is, he felt numb outside of a pounding headache. Before he even had time to observe the shady alleyway where he awoke or question the encounter that brought him there, he needed to stop that aching. A hand moved to rub at his temples in what would likely be a vain attempt to soothe himself, but seconds before he made contact with skull, a glimpse at his thin fingers gave way to the true nature of the “curse” that the demon had created. With a sinking feeling in his hollow chest, his arm was held outward to fully observe, and to confirm the existence of, the change that had taken place.

Where tattooed flesh originally covered his arm, nothing remained except for the ashen bone that had rested underneath.