Chapter 266 - 266: 266 | Orlando's Show (2)

<🎧 Song Recommendation: I Feel Like I'm Drowning by Two Feet (Inspiration, please listen while reading!)>

...

At 7:59 PM, the arena was a deafening cauldron of stomping feet and roaring chants. Eighteen thousand blue and silver seats rose in steep tiers toward the dark ceiling, vibrating with pure anticipation.

Then the clock struck eight.

Every single light in the Amway Center died in one clean snap.

The venue plunged into pitch blackness.

Before anyone could scream, a low, subterranean sub-bass tone hummed through the concrete floor, vibrating straight inside the chests of eighteen thousand people.

Across the stage, industrial chillers came to life in the dark.

A thick, heavy sea of low-lying dry ice spilled outward, blanketing the stage deck and rolling over the front barricades in dense waves until the floor completely vanished.

Volumetric beams of deep violet laser light cut horizontally through the fog, casting long, shifting silhouettes against the translucent screens.

The crowd screamed, pointing at the center riser where a tall silhouette seemed to stand inside the haze only for the light to flash to the left wing, revealing the exact same shape.

Before anyone could make sense of the optical trick, the hanging scrims dropped simultaneously to the floorboards.

Standing at the very lip of the center stage, directly above the fog, was Von.

The crowd detonated.

Without a word of greeting, Conor's kick drum struck a hard, rolling rhythm. Alex chopped into a heavy, funk-infused groove that caught the entire arena off-guard.

Von launched into a completely rearranged, dark synth-pop rendition of Masquerade.

The thirty dancers moved through the rolling fog in sharp, gliding formations, disappearing behind shifting smoke pillars and reappearing on unexpected counts like phantoms.

The atmosphere was hypnotic. The fluid choreography, paired with the moody lighting, made the stage look like an endless, floating dreamscape.

For the next ninety minutes, Von turned the Amway Center into a musical labyrinth.

Tracks that had been loud, pyrotechnic bangers two nights ago were reimagined with stripped-back, moody arrangements that put Von's raw vocal control on full display.

Alex stepped forward to trade searing guitar lines across the bridges, while Conor locked the live rhythm down with relentless precision.

The audience, initially confused by the lack of high-wire stunts, was completely swallowed by the sheer quality of the performance.

By the time the back half of the set arrived, eighteen thousand voices were screaming every hook back at the stage with feverish intensity.

Then, at the climax of a blistering, bass-heavy rendition of Frozen Attitude, the stage lights flared blinding white, and snapped to black.

The room went dead silent as smoke rolled lazily over the barricades, swallowing the empty risers.

"Where is he?" voices murmured frantically through the dark. "Did he go down the trap door? Is that the end?"

A solitary, narrow white spotlight drilled down from the ceiling, striking the very edge of the runway.

Von stood inside the beam.

He wasn't wearing the charcoal coat anymore. He wore a sleeveless black compression top and his chest was heaving slightly, a single microphone held loose in his right hand.

The arena erupted into a wall of noise that rattled the railings.

Von let them roar for five seconds before raising his left hand. The arena quieted just enough for his voice to carry.

"You really thought that was it?" Von asked, a slow smirk tugging at his lips.

The screaming flared right back up, thousands of hands reaching toward the light.

Von stepped forward, his eyes sweeping across the tiers. "Miami had their moment on Friday. But Orlando... I didn't come here to give you someone else's night."

He lowered the mic slightly, letting the anticipation tighten like a bowstring.

"How about we drop another song?"

The Amway Center came completely unglued.

People grabbed their heads, shaking their friends by the shoulders. Girls in the lower bowl were shrieking so loudly their voices cracked.

Three songs.

In less than a week, this man had officially released Remedy, premiered Blinding Lights mid-air, and was now standing in front of them offering a third brand-new record. It was a dream to many of them.

"Listen," Von's voice cut through the chaos calmly. "I need you with me on this one. No instruments yet. Just hands."

He lifted his left hand to the mic, snapping his thumb and middle finger together.

SNAP.

The sound was amplified through the microphones.

Two seconds passed.

SNAP.

"Right there," Von instructed, nodding to the tempo. "Every two seconds. Give me that pocket."

SNAP.

In the front rows, fans started copying the motion. Within seconds, the pulse spread outward like a shockwave. From the floor to the upper deck, eighteen thousand people locked into a unified, rhythmic acoustic snap.

SNAP... SNAP... SNAP...

"Keep it going," Von whispered into the mic. "Don't rush it."

As the arena held the eerie, rhythmic pulse, industrial chillers hissed in the dark. A heavy, freezing deluge of white fog poured over the deck, swallowing the runway within seconds. The crowd screamed at the sight of the creeping mist, but nobody broke the snap.

SNAP... SNAP... SNAP...

High above the floor, a single column of cold blue light cut through the haze, illuminating a twenty-foot-high steel tower riser that hadn't been visible all night.

Standing atop the tower was a silhouette.

The figure wore an oversized dark trench coat and a stark, sculpted white mask that completely concealed his face.

The visual was chilling, moody, and hypnotic.

Still standing high above the crowd with eighteen thousand people snapping in time beneath him, Von slowly raised his right arm into the empty air.

Clack.

From the shadowy rigging above the tower, a black electric guitar swung down through the air locking seamlessly into his waiting palm like magic.

Von strapped it over his shoulder in one fluid motion, dialed the volume pot, and struck the strings.

🎸♪

A dirty, slow, blues-drenched guitar riff tore through the arena. It was filled with fuzz and heavy tape delay, creeping over the top of the snapping fingers like an ominous warning.

He didn't rush into the lyrics. He let the riff loop, stretching the intro, bending the notes until they wailed against the ceiling while the audience held the beat.

Then, behind the white mask, Von leaned into the headworn mic:

🎸♪

Seats are filled up, people cheering...

Yeah, it's true...

Got the spotlight shining down on what I do.

All these voices too loud now,

Tryna breathe in this crowd now...

Seats are filled up, people cheering,

Yeah, it's true...

🎸♪

His voice was a smoky, haunting tenor that crawled directly under the skin.

As the verse moved, Von stepped off the edge of the twenty-foot tower.

A collective gasp sucked the air out of the arena, except he didn't fall.

To the eighteen thousand people watching below, it looked as if he were literally walking down from the sky on empty air.

Suspended along his descent were glowing, spherical moon-orbs of soft white light. As Von stepped downward, he grazed the surface of the nearest glowing moon with his hand, leaving a ripple of violet light in place of each one he touched.

Halfway down the descent, the projection scrims behind the tower lit up.

Conor Prince materialized behind his acrylic drum kit on the upper platform, hitting a lazy, massive pocket rimshot, while Alex Hall appeared on the opposite riser, layering icy, delayed chords that danced around Von's lead riffs.

Von moved like a man trapped inside a lucid nightmare. As he descended the invisible staircase amidst the fog, he suddenly stumbled.

He turned, clawing frantically upward at empty space like a drunk trying to climb back to safety, only for his knees to buckle in a fluid, theatrical slump as he retreated further down into the fog.

The tension in the arena was unbearable.

He reached the chorus, his voice soaring with raw, desperate resonance:

🎸♪

I just might be dreaming

Be dreaming

Can't trust what I'm seeing

I'm seeing

It's taking control

So slow, oh no

I just might be dreaming

Be dreaming

🎸♪

Conor's hands clamped flat over the drumheads. Alex muted his strings and there was two full beats of silence as planned.

THUMP.

A subterranean sub-bass explosion tore through the arena. Conor's kick drum slammed in like a cannon, Alex stomped his overdrive pedal, and the chorus resonated again.

🎸♪

I just might be dreaming,

Be dreaming!

Can't trust what I'm seeing,

I'm seeing!

It's taking control,

So slow, oh no...

I just might be dreaming,

Be dreaming!

🎸♪

The Amway Center went berserk.

Von shredded across the stage deck, ripping through a screaming blues-rock solo that dueled with Alex's guitar high above. Strobes flickered like lightning through the dense smoke.

As the outro wound down to its final dying phrase, Von pulled the guitar from his shoulder and let it drop flat onto the stage then he collapsed backward.

He hit the deck flat on his back, his limbs spread loose, his dark hair splayed across the flooring under a dying blue pin-spot, looking as if he had slipped into an eternal sleep.

The noise in the arena peaked to a deafening, historic roar.

Before anyone could move, a colossal tidal wave of white fog covered the entire stage. The smoke rolled ten feet high, swallowing the risers, the instruments, and Von's motionless body entirely.

Every light died and only darkness remained but the arena didn't stop screaming.

Thousands of phone screens flared in the blackness as fans frantically saved their recordings, their hands shaking as they opened their social feeds.

Within ninety seconds, the videos of the masked descent hit the internet, captioned in all caps:

{WAKE UP, VON JUST DROPPED ANOTHER BANGER}