2209, Sonus Island (Terri)
Sonus Island is an incredible place, filled with music and diverse people. There was once an ancient society here called the Sonoa that worshiped sounds as deities, with music personified as the king. They prospered for centuries, with music at the very center of their culture, and lived in harmony. However, all good things must come to an end. One fateful night, as they were playing a song they believed brought power, an asteroid struck, wiping out the Sonoa people entirely.
The asteroid itself had unusual properties. Modern scientists realized that it seemed to light up in response to auditory patterns, or in other words, music. Because of this, it was not uncommon to find musicians performing near the asteroid to induce a sort of light show. This was so common that city officials created an annual music festival based around the asteroid. At roughly the same time, there was a breakthrough in technology. The breakthrough in question, allowed objects to be shrunken down or enlarged up to 20 times the original size. Instrument manufacturers used this as an opportunity, and began producing instruments that could be shrunken down to fit into a small case. In time, these became standard, and every musician on Sonus Island had one such instrument. I am a musician.
My name is Terri Rhys. If you saw me, you wouldn’t look twice. Occasionally though, there will be someone who doesn’t look, but listens twice. I didn’t make any friends at school. When school let out, instead of walking home talking to the other kids, I expanded my drum kit in a secluded clearing in the woods near the school and started playing. Almost nobody ever heard me play, but one day I looked up from my set to see vivid green eyes staring at me in wonder from across the clearing. That is how I met my best friend, Jenny Baker. It concerned her that she was my only friend, and constantly tried to get me to make friends with other people, with results worse than most pop songs.
Recently though, she told me she was starting a band with some of her friends, but they needed a drummer. She invited me to join, to which I hesitantly accepted. That’s how I found myself on the bus, heading to the address she told me to meet at. I get off at the bus stop, and I half run, half walk to the house. I stopped at the house, and praying that I was at the right address, I knocked at the door.
Jenny answers the door, a bass guitar at her side.
“Hey! You made it!” she half yells.
“Why wouldn’t I?” I ask. “It’s not like I have anything else to do.”
“Yeah, that’s not a good thing,” Jenny replies. “But you’re here, so I guess I can’t complain. Come on, follow me.”
I follow her inside, and we walk down to the basement. As soon as I get downstairs I expand my drum kit, then frantically check the positioning and make adjustments.
“So are you gonna introduce yourself, or…?”
I turn and see a guy, about my age, holding a microphone loosely at his side.
Ah. The singer.
“Here, I’ll go first,” he starts walking toward me. “James Harris. Welcome to the band.” He extends his hand out.
“I’m Terri Rhyn,” I respond, shaking his hand. “Nice to meet you.”
“Let me introduce the others,” he says. He gestures over to the keyboardist. “That’s Aria Merits.”
“Yo.”
“And I’m assuming you already know Jenny, since she’s the one who invited you here,” he says. “We’re waiting on Kane Charter, he’s the guitarist. He’s also our host until we find somewhere to practice. He’s upstairs getting his guitar.”
Aria pipes up and says, “Since we’re only waiting on Kane, should we just start something quickly?”
“Sure.”
“Why not?”
“Alright,” James, Jenny and I reply.
Just as we’re all about to start playing, the door bursts open, and a guy, Kane, starts running down the stairs.
“Sorry I’m late everybody! I had to-”
I couldn’t pay much attention to the rest of what he was saying, because at this point I was contemplating what or how I would be playing.
“-should we play first?” he was saying. “I was thinking we could improvise some basic rock.”
James interjects, “Actually, I’ve got some lyrics and a melody, and Aria already knows how to play it, I just wanna see what you guys can do with this.” We were all nodding in agreement as he was passing out some sheet music. “Except for me and Aria, this will be totally improvised, so just do what you want with this, okay?”
Aria starts the melody, then the rest of us, slowly getting a feel for the genre and pacing, join in one by one. Jenny joins first, adding a bassline with a moderately complex rhythm. Kane jumps in after her, syncing with the melody and adding a chord progression. I was ready to jump in and play, but something in the sheet music stopped me. A drum solo, I thought, worriedly. As James starts the lyrics, I start to get a feel for the song, and I step in.
For a while, it feels as if we all knew everything about each other, and were playing perfectly synchronized. The melody, the harmonies and chord progressions, my rhythms, they all fit together perfectly. Then, as we came closer and closer to the drum solo, my vision flickered, only for a fraction of a second. At that time, I could’ve sworn that I could see and feel the music in the air. My heart rate rises. Finally, we get to my solo, and I can’t hear anything. I see the music, I feel it. Suddenly, I black out and it’s over. No one is playing. No singing. Everybody just stares… at me.
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