"Eat up, boys. 'Cause after tonight, everything changes." Luke held up his hotdog. The others tapped their dogs to his, in a sign of cheers.
They chewed happily, savoring the moment. This was the night their lives would change. Tonight, their dreams were going to come true.
Alex scrunched his brows, turning to look at the others. Something about the taste seemed off. "That's a new flavor," he said.
Reggie looked over at him, annoyed. "Chill, man. Street dogs haven't killed us yet." He continued chewing to prove his point. Everything was fine and Alex needed to relax. He always thought too much about everything.
Luke looked at his hotdog in hesitation. Maybe Alex had a point, he wondered. He internally shrugged. Alex was overreacting. It was fine. He took a large bite.
They finished their meal in record time, since they had been starving after rehearsal. It was hard to believe that in just a few hours, they would be playing at the Orpheum. They were sure to be picked up by a record executive, and then they'd be living the life they'd been dreaming about.
Luke leaned further into the sofa cushions and propped his feet on the coffee table. His stomach gurgled and he laid a hand on it. It had started aching and he could feel everything sloshing around. Maybe street dogs had been a bad idea.
He pressed his hand into his gut, trying to get it to settle, or at least get the pain to lessen, but it didn't help. The cramps only got worse as his stomach seemed to burn painfully.
He leaned forward with a groan, hunching over as he hugged his middle.
"Dude, you okay?" Alex asked, glancing over at him as he sat slouching into the couch cushions.
"I'll be back," Luke answered. He jumped up and darted to the nearest restroom.
He locked himself into a stall and did his business. His stomach kept cramping, preventing him from feeling any relief. He only felt worse with each passing moment, and was only vaguely aware of his bandmates barging in and also barricading themselves in the stalls. It seemed as though they were all experiencing the same thing.
By the time he had finished up and was washing his hands in at the sink, he was beginning to feel nauseous. In the cracked mirror, he saw he was pale. His skin looked sickly and he had beads of sweat along his forehead. The only color he had was a tinge of pinkness on his cheeks, and along with the sudden chills and aches wracking his bones, he knew he had a fever. A lightheadedness had begun creeping in, so he hurried to dry his hands so he could get back to the old ratty couch.
He walked drunkenly back to the sofa. He felt dizzy and out of touch with reality as the room spun. Why was he sick? Food poisoning couldn't set in this quickly, right? He didn't think he'd ever felt this sick before in his whole life, not even when he'd had pneumonia a couple of years ago.
He just had to shake it off. Tonight was their night. They'd just have to power through it. It'd work out.
Luke sank into the couch, feeling his muscles melt into the plush fabric. He closed his eyes and tried to breathe through the pain, which was only steadily getting worse. His teeth clenched as he held his middle, his fist clutching his shirt tightly. He felt like he'd swallowed poison; he'd never felt anything like this before.
A wave of nausea crashed into him out of nowhere. There was no time to think, no time to move. His body reacted on instinct as he jerked forward and vomited on the cement floor, right between his feet. It was like a dam had been broken. Once he started, he couldn't stop. Round after round of sick burned up from his stomach and poured on the ground, splattering the couch and his unlucky shoes.
His energy left him and he felt himself falling forward. There was nothing he could do to stop it. He felt like his body wasn't even his anymore. He was weak. He couldn't move. He fell, bumping into the coffee table as he went.
The cement floor was unforgiving. He felt his head and shoulder make contact, and knew it would leave bruises. He felt his own vomit seeping into his jacket, but he didn't even care. He used what little energy he had to curl himself up into a tight ball and tried to ride out the pain, but it was unbearable. Waves of agony intertwined with waves of nausea. Death would be more pleasant than this, he thought.
He wasn't aware that his bandmates were experiencing the same thing. They were sprawled on the sofa, also battling the strange, crippling illness that seemed to come out of nowhere.
He coughed and his throat burned. His mouth tasted like bile and something metallic. He opened his eyes. When had he closed them? His vision swam, but he could make out his pool of sick directly in front of him. But sick wasn't red, right? Surely, that wasn't blood. If he was vomiting blood, then things were bad. But tonight was supposed to be their night.
He figured he should do something. Call out for help. But he couldn't think, much less move. He groaned and scrunched his eyes shut tightly. He was in too much pain to care. His tongue was sandpaper and his mouth was cotton. His head had begun to pound and his mind swirled.
He was fading in and out. Time meant nothing anymore. He was only vaguely aware of voices around him. Someone was shouting. Lights were flashing and then there were hands on him. He didn't like that. Couldn't they see he was sick and leave him alone?
He was lifted onto something and moved. He couldn't care less where they were taking him. Anywhere would be better than here, right?
More shouting. A prick to the back of his hand. Something was placed over his face, and he breathed in a rush of cold air. He shivered.
He could hear a loud noise. He thought it kind of sounded like sirens.
He felt himself slipping. Darkness was closing in on him. Not the my-eyes-are-closed kind of darkness, but the type of darkness that swallows the light. It was the absence of warmth. It was like a tangible thing, coming to smother him, to swallow him whole into nothingness.
He didn't like it. He tried to fight it. But it was relentless and wasn't taking no for an answer. It called to him, just as he heard strangers calling his name and tapping his cheek. But the strangers were fading. The darkness only grew until it enveloped him completely.
He felt a shift. It didn't hurt, but it wasn't very pleasant, either. He opened his eyes and saw. . .himself.
He was laying on a gurney. Two medics leaned over him. One held up an IV bag while the other used a defibrillator to shock his chest. His body jerked, one, two, three times. They shouted his name and checked his vitals.
They called it. One medic checked her watch while the other scribbled some notes on his clipboard. They looked worn and frayed. Disappointed. They didn't like giving up, but sometimes that's just how it went.
Luke knew he was dead. He didn't know how to process that, so he didn't. He reached out to touch his body, but his ghostly fingers passed right through his bodily ones. There was no going back.
He took one last glace at himself, at the boy who would never quite become a man. The teen who would never reach his dreams. Everything he'd wanted had been just within his reach. Just a few more hours, and it would all have been his. He felt like he'd left way too much unfinished.
But that was then. That life was gone. If he still had a heart, it would feel heavy. Weighed down and empty.
He floated up and out of the ambulance. Stars were shining brightly in the inky sky. Down below, he saw a second ambulance following his own. As he watched, he saw his two best friends float up and over to him.
Reggie gave him a sad smile while tears streamed down Alex's face. Luke reached his arms out and they embraced each other. The world around them dissolved away, leaving just the three of them surrounded by nothingness.
This may not be what they had wanted. They didn't get the life they'd hoped for, and they didn't know what was coming next. But whatever it was, at least they'd face it together.