The fans left in the stadium were stunned. In the space of five minutes, the crazy frontman had fallen off the stage and the whole band had been rushed away. What was happening to them now? What was happening to the gig?

Tom stepped out from the side of the stage, stunned, and went up to the microphone. There were a lot of people out there. He felt his hands shake.

"Erm, hey?" he called out into the wild crowd. "Guys! Can you listen?" But he got no reply, just lots of confused people yelling out in the stands. "OI! EVERYONE LISTEN UP! Bloody hell!"

Someone turned towards him, and their friends followed until most of the crowd was staring anxiously up at the stage. Tom felt insignificant in his jeans and T-shirt after the stage's predecessors, but he carried on anyway.

"Hello, I'm Tom Kirk."

A murmur of recognition flew around the stadium.

"Yeah? Okay. Phew. Uh...as you can see, erm, Muse aren't here anymore."

Yeah, nice one, Tom. Very clever.

"Uh..." he stammered, not sure how much to tell them. He looked behind to his crew and they shrugged helpfully, "Matt's had a bit of a problem, so we're going to call this gig officially cancelled..."

The crowd started groaning and calling out.

"Hey, hey! Stop it, okay! It's not anyone's fault. It was an accident, but a big accident. And, uh...we'll refund the tickets. Yeah, yeah, we'll do that. Er...so, uh...we'll get back to you if you purchased tickets and uh...if you could leave in an orderly fashion, that'd be great...thanks." The crowd pushed and shoved their way out, completely ignoring Tom. He sighed and went backstage.

"How bad was it?" one of the crew members asked.

"Didn't you hear?" he answered. "They're really not happy!"

"Quite rightly," somebody else chipped in. "They expected one of the spectacular gigs and instead got panic and had to go straight home. I'd be pissed off if I were them."

"We're going to have to cancel the whole tour," Tom groaned.

"Was it that bad?"

"Of course it was that bad! Matt fell headfirst off the stage. Jesus, you didn't see him! It was...my God, I hope he's okay."

The ambulance was getting closer to the hospital and Matt was looking weaker and weaker. Sarah bit her fingernails anxiously. They'd better hurry up. Didn't the people realise how big a crisis this was? But, of course, it was London on a Friday night, and the traffic was awful. The paramedics driving were trying to keep their cool as they desperately swerved around vehicles.

And then they breathed a sigh of relief as they pulled into the ambulance dock at the hospital. The backdoors flew open and they wheeled Matt out on a stretcher. Dom, Chris and Sarah hopped out and hurried behind them. Inside it smelt of disinfectant and old dressings. They raced down a corridor into A and E, and as the stretcher was shoved through a set of doors the three of them were blocked out.

"I'm sorry, only patients are allowed in there," a nurse told them. They gaped at her.

"You're kidding," Chris muttered.

"No, I'm not. That's a no-go zone for non-patients. If we can ask you to wait out here, please..." She backed away slowly. Dom collapsed into a chair in defeat and Chris punched the wall. Sarah paced the corridor.

"What do they expect us to do?" she grumbled to herself. "Wait here until his treatment's done? What if it's never done?" Her breath caught at the thought, and she buried her face inside her hands. The image of Matt lying broken on the floor was burned into her retinas, and it was crushing her.

They were helpless.