Friday April 8th
1.
Yawning, I stumbled out of bed and attempted to leave my room, but something held me back, trying to trip me.
Blinking I stared down at a tangle of cloth wrapped around a leg.
Oh... sheet… I crack myself up.
I kicked it free and stepped over the tangle heading for… huh... why was I up?
"Are you up?" it was my mum's voice coming to the rescue.
"Yeah" I replied nodding as I headed towards her voice.
I found a plate with toast, sausages, bacon and some other things already set out at the table, so I sat and start cutting up the food to bite sized pieces. I glanced at the steaming coffee but quickly lost interest. I don't drink coffee.
"That's… oh never mind." My mum stated - making no sense at all.
"You finish your Art last night?" Dad's voice came from beside me. When did he arrive?
I turned and slowly nodded, memories of colouring in some sheets of music swimming up from the past, "Yeah."
"Make sure you remember to take it." Dad gave mum a strange look before he took a sip of his coffee.
"I'll check before he leaves." Mum stated as I turned back to my breakfast, my part of the conversation seemingly over. I liked the easy conversations – gave me more time to think.
I noted that I'd already cut all the food to easy to manage sizes, so I instead used the knife to tap out a few rhythms as I got to eating. The food was good.
"Robert"
"Sparky!"
"Huh?" I looked up; mum was standing beside me. I wondered what was so important that she had to interrupt me. I had an interesting beat forming.
"Go get changed."
"But my..." I looked down and noted the meal is finished. Right, I had been using both my knife and fork to tap out the beat. No wonder the sounds was a bit metallic, needed more reverb. I dropped my utensils and headed to my room.
My clothing was waiting for me on a neatly made bed, so I changed into them and headed out stopping only at the bathroom to freshen up after my mum reminded me. Brushing teeth made an interesting sound and the grip was spongy that I decided would look into a rubber gripped wire brush for my kit. If I remembered.
I popped the new Kurt Vile into my portable and, with earphones in, let the music wash over me as I followed my sister to school.
School was as school normally was.
I traded CDs with Joshua at lunch time and spent the lunch, afternoon break and the trip home listening to St. Vincent.
Dad pulled me out of my room to have dinner, I was reluctant as I was really getting into the grove of the new song Joshua introduced to us last weekend. Still... meat balls! I idly noted there were only three of us at the table. Mum gave me seconds and then I went back to my drums.
Saturday April 9th
Saturday has been my favourite day of the week for a long time.
After breakfast Josh and his older brother Lucas picked me up. We loaded my drums into his old beat up van and headed over to the old scout's hall on Elm for a day of practice and kicking back. After dinner we moved to Inferno to play the opener for Love Monkeys.
Crowd was a good size. The Under 18s night at the Inferno got quite a revival a few months earlier when Gallant and Clockblocker made an appearance. We set up quickly with the help of Lance, Mary's boy friend and then we were playing and everything else faded away.
"Yo Sparky."
I looked up from the Cymbal bag to see Joshua grinning at me.
"Yeah?"
"Good gig. Had fun, eh?" he was smiling very widely.
"Yeah."
"So, you get her number?"
"Whose?" I asked, wondering who her is.
Joshua laughed and elbowed his brother "Told ya."
"You're so hopeless." That came from Mary who was shaking her head with a frown. She was looking at me, so she was probably talking about me. I shrugged; I got those sort of comments all the time.
"Bloody hell man. She was right into you, and you barely said boo to her. Hell, I play guitar and I don't get near as much attention. So bloody unfair." Joshua also shook his head as he collected my toms. "Must be the long hair."
They start talking about girls. Girls are nice, though not like I have any idea how to talk to them. I guessed I'll get a girlfriend one day. There was a pretty girl that was hanging around us when we were watching the Love Monkeys. I wondered if that was 'her'. Huh.
I returned the wave from the Love Monkey's lead singer as we all take our instruments out to our vans. I filled in for their drummer a couple of times so knew them reasonably well. They have a nicer van. Joshua went on about it and them for a bit, but I didn't see what the big deal is, I've filled in for a bunch of different bands, most I met through the studio sessions I used to play. Dad's old work used to call me in when they needed someone.
That had been fun. Even got a few CDs at home with my name on them. Nothing like that since the studio was robbed and they closed up. Something about the insurance not coming through.
I blinked at the bright light.
It moved to the side.
"Focus on the light." A voice commanded and I looked at the light.
It moved again.
"What?"
"You've been in a car accident. You look fine though. Just a bit shook up." The voice belonged to a man who might be a bit younger than my dad wearing a paramedic uniform. "Just sit here for a bit okay." He moved away.
"oh..." I didn't remember any accident. Didn't even remember getting into the van but there was the van straddling the pavement. Back corner all bent up.
"Yo! Sparky. You good?"
I turned and shrugged at Joshua who was also sitting on the sidewalk like me, "Yeah. I guess. What happened?" I looked around and saw Lucas standing talking with a couple of police.
"Not sure. Happened so fast. Heard some sirens then as I turned to look something hit us hard. You hit your head on the side window and then the sirens were going past us."
I reached up and found out that yeah, side of my head was a bit sore. Not too bad though, I'd hurt my head worse getting out of bed.
I stared at the van for a bit. Something was wrong. Something more wrong than just a bashed up van.
I stood.
"Hey. We are meant to stay…" I didn't hear anymore as I walked towards the Van.
One of the policeman glanced at me as I walked past him. I barely noticed.
The back of the van was all crumpled up. Whatever hit it, hit it high. The wheel looked fine, and the floor of the van looked fine. Though the fact that I can see the floor from beside the van was a solid indication of how badly smashed in the side was. That was not what was wrong.
I reached the back. The doors were bent open, and I could see inside. I could see the wreck that was my drum kit. The amps and speakers we used for practice, but which stayed in the van for the gig, were sitting inside my drums. Bass, snare, and toms, those that weren't squashed under or wrapped around heavy gear were just as wrecked.
A conversation that I had with my dad no more than a few days previously, or maybe a week or two previously, played in my memory as clear as the day I had it.
"But the tension on both is shot, Joshua can get them replaced for $25 each."
"Sorry son. We just don't have enough coming in at the moment, we are having to stretch the grocery money as it is."
"But... but last time…"
"Last time I had a job, and you were making decent money from the sessions. That's not the case anymore. The little you make from the Saturday gigs barely covers your share of the petrol. You know this. Look, I'm sorry son. When I find work and we have sorted out the bills we'll attend to your kit then."
I stared blankly at my drums. The drums that I wouldn't be able to replace.
I climbed in squeezing between the buckled doors and straddled one of the speakers so I could see how much I could salvage. Maybe I could get a part time job if I could at least get the frames back together.
There was yelling from outside and someone reached in and grabbed at my arm, but I roughly shook them off.
Someone yelled something close by and there was banging on the doors, but I ignored it.
They tried again and I climbed further into the van.
I had a sense they moved away. That was good.
There was a massive crashing sound and the van suddenly lurched sending everything inside it flying.
I landed hard and I gasped I looked up to see an amp falling towards me.
Then there was pain. A whole lot of pain.
The pain continued.
The noises and movement had stopped but not the pain.
There were voices but I wasn't sure if they were directed at me or not.
There was a shadow in front of me and I felt a tiny stab. I wondered how I could feel that amongst all the pain. Then all the pain started to fade, and it got darker and then nothing...
Celestial Forge Perk - Coconut Tech - Bloons - 100cp
Author Notes
It's been over six years since I have posted any fanfiction and I am dipping my toes into two entirely new areas at the same time. Celestial Forge and Worm. I make no promises how far this will go and I am writing this with zero plan as to what happens next. It is possible that as the characters and the story come to life, I might gain some semblance of an outline for future events beyond the events of canon timeline but since a lot of this is driven /by the roll of the dice even if plans are made, they could easily change.
Currently posting to SV and then cross-posting here after the most egregious are picked up on and corrected. Also discussed on the Celestial Forge Discord.
Celestial Forge Mechanics: Using a snapshot of the Celestial Forge V3 Google Sheets version I downloaded on 19th August as posted by trekshcool. Using Weight of the Quill at 1000 words per 100cp. Power selections are random though I'll veto/reroll any power that either doesn't make sense, doesn't fit the story or I don't understand. Knowledge of missed rolls (due to price) comes with next successful purchase and Sparky won't understand what is going on at first. He doesn't start with an extra-dimensional space.
This was written for an audience of one but given how much I enjoy reading other people's work I am forcing myself to share this in case anyone gets any inspiration or enjoyment out of reading it. As a fanfiction author I claim no rights to anything here and if anyone wants to take any of the original ideas, I place out here please feel free. The IP of any non-original material belongs to those that initially published it. I do ask that no one that no one republish it as is anywhere else without permission.
As I write this, I am now starting on chapter 18, about 40k words in. I'll be posting the first seven chapters here now and then posting additional chapters at as a yet undetermined and possibly undeterminable rate.
I plan to do a rough proofread of the chapters before posting however the errors I make, and there are probably many, are the errors I am most likely to miss. I'm too old to worry too much about mistakes that I miss so if the quantity is upsetting, I suggest leaving early as it won't get better as I continue to write. I'm not opposed to hearing suggestions and ideas from people and if they spark my imagination, I either might use them or take inspiration from then.
For those that have been waiting patiently, or otherwise, for me to return to my Harry Potter faction - don't despair. This, whilst proving to be a lot of fun to write, is also a way to get me back into the whole swing of writing again and I will be reviewing my old stories and the unpublished chapters that belong to all of them.