It all started with a simple stomachache, which made its painful presence known to Till in the late afternoon as he and his other band members dressed and prepared their stage makeup for their show, which was set to begin in only a few hours time - they could already hear the excited sounds of the fans gathering outside the venue.
Assuming the aches were originating from something he had eaten earlier in the day, Till simply shrugged it off and soldiered on, moving to talk with the pyrotechnics and lighting teams to ensure everything would go as planned for this show.
He would be fine, it was just a simple stomachache after all. He wouldn't let a stomachache of all things keep him from performing. He didn't want to let down the thousands of fans that had travelled from all over to see Rammstein perform.
The singer simply had a glass of refreshing water and swallowed some acetaminophen pills with it, before continuing to get ready for the show, sharing jokes and quick banter with the others that made up Rammstein.
Till had almost managed to forget about his stomachaches, the coming-and-going pains being lost to the chaos the band went through on the stage, the singer dodging jets of fire and smoke and belting out the lyrics as the crowds jumped and screamed the lyrics alongside him.
But whenever he had almost convinced himself that his stomachache was finally gone, his stomach would cramp once more and the singer would almost double over in pain, his facial features twisting as he grimaced, trying his best to push the pains to the back of his mind as he looked out over the crowds of adoring fans, ignoring the few questioning his friends shot his way.
Even during a normal performance, the band would be drenched in their own - and not uncommonly, others - sweat and various bodily fluids due to the intensity of their stage theatrics and performances, but today Till felt like he was drowning in it, a cold sweat dripping down the back of his neck and dampening his collar as he sang, liquid flying in thick droplets off the tips of his hair as he swung his head back and forth in time to the beat of Christopher's drums.
He holds the microphone, but his hands tremble. It isn't enough to be very obvious to the fans or his other bandmates, but Till could tell that his hand was violently trembling as he held the microphone up to his mouth to belt out the lyrics of the song.
A haze settled over his sickened mind, and the rest of the show passed in a blur of fire and chaos, of songs and screaming fans, of exhaustion and tiredness. Anyone could ask him about it later, but Till wouldn't be able to tell them what he did or how it went. Just that one moment he was singing along to the beat of the music, and the next he was bowing down next between Richard and Paul, before quickly standing up and making his way off stage, not even responding to the cheerful and adrenaline-fueled voices of his fellow band members as they trailed behind him, giving the crowd a few last waves and cries as Till disappeared into the rear hallway of the venue.
Till just barely managed to make it down the hall to their dressing room when he collapsed to his knees on the heavily - painfully - on the concrete floor and curled his body over, reaching out a desperate hand to drag a nearby trashcan to himself before lurching over it and emptying out all of the contents of his stomach, the acidic bile rising and burning his exhausted throat as it dribbled from his lips, all the while Till had an arm tightly clutching his stomach as stabbing pain struck him, the man letting out a low groan of pain, his teeth gritting together tightly.
"Till?!" The voice of Richard, followed by the concerned tones of Flake and Paul broke through to his clouded mind, the mentioned man letting out a grunt and weakly waving his free hand - the other busy clutching the trashcan close to his sweaty form - at his band mates.
Till jerked backwards in surprise as a hand - cold as ice, so cold it almost hurt to feel it placed upon his skin - settled flat against his forehead for a brief moment, before being yanked away almost as quickly as it had arrived as its owner gasped in shock at what they had felt.
"He's burning up! He's definitely got a fever, he feels like he's on fire!" Christopher exclaimed as he turned to look at Richard, the guitarist having crouched down next to Till with a glass of water that Ollie had ran to and from the bathroom drinking fountain to get for him - which the nauseous man gracefully accepted, quickly drinking the whole glass before handing it back to Richard and resting his head back down on his arm, his breathing growing loud and labored as his vision blurred and swam before his eyes, the cacophony of his band members conflicting voices swirling around in his head and making him squeezed his eyes shut, a pained moan escaping his lips once again.
"He's like, really sick guys, I think I'm going to call an ambulance." Richard stood up to make the call, Paul quickly taking his place next to the curled over form of Till. "Ollie, go get the tour manager and explain what's going on."
As Ollie nodded and ran off to follow Richards instructions, Paul turned back to Till and rested a comforting hand on the man's back. "Okay. What hurts, Till?" Paul's tone balanced on the line between calmness and hysteria, concern for his friend audibly apparent. "If you can't speak, just motion to it."
Till nodded, sweat flying in a spray of droplets off of his hair and skin as he did, before his right hand moved and tenderly traced a spot at the lower left-hand side of his stomach, his hand ghosting over the painful section of his stomach for a moment before he dropped it back to the cool floor of the dressing room, his body jerking as dry heaves abruptly forced their way out of his abused throat.
"Guys, you don't think...?" Paul looked up at Christopher and Flake, who were standing over him and Till, concern obvious on his face and in his tone.
"It is the left side, and in the general area that he motioned to." Flake looked unusually somber as he nodded his head. "I wouldn't bet against it, but the paramedics will be able to tell if it's appendicitis or not. We'll just have to wait and see."
Till paid little attention to their words, barely hearing anything they said as his mind focused on the steady and constant pain that had taken over his stomach. There was absolutely no way this was a case of food poisoning, Till had been through that before and that was a walk in the park compared to what he was feeling now.
His friends tried their best to keep him talking and responding as they all waited for the paramedics to arrive, but by the time Till was gently put down onto a stretcher and taken out of the venue to be loaded into the awaiting ambulance, he was barely with them.
There the only one member allowed to join Till in the ambulace due to the lack of space, so the group quickly agreed that Richard would be the one to go, the men quickly coordinating that they would follow the ambulance - and Richard and Till - and meet back up at the hospital, quickly calling out their well-wishes to their ill singer before Richard had clambered up into the ambulance and sat next to his sickly friend, one of the paramedics closing the doors and jogging around the vehicle to hop into the drivers seat, quickly tearing out of the parking lot and into traffic, carrying their band leader towards the hospital.
As the paramedic asked Richard about Tills' medical history and took notes on his answers - the singer being far too out of it again to answer for himself - Richard reached out and clasped one of Till's limp hands within his, the guitarist holding the calloused and sweat-soaked hand of his sickly friend tightly as the other paramedic sunk a needle into the crook of Till's elbow, attaching an IV and turning to write something down on a clipboard.
Richard could only pray, pray that his friend would be alright.