A Dance Of Crowns & Thrones | Book I

Chapter 42 | Rage Through The Dying Of The Light

Blinding neon lights.

Deafening music, the suffocating packed ground on Escobar was truly one of those rare nights that the soldiers got to disappear away to.

The bass had felt like it shook the tiny island off the north coast of Isadora, in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by the dead of the seas that have known more stories of war than the bodies that stand upon it.

The lights coloured the pitch-black skies, veiling the stars that normally dotted it. Bodies continued to cluster together in an ocean of flesh, lost to the infectious beats that thundered from the middle central stage.

Richie firmly held Eko's hand in his own, not wanting to lose her amongst the crowd. Here on the summer's night, they stood beneath the raging light of the festival on Escobar that had the crowd at the mercy of every beat, at every speed.

The pair found themselves nestled within the dense crowd, with the beat of the music pounding her senses, Richie tried to make heads and tails of where the rest of the group was. Eko admitted this was a first, never being able to manage to get to any place like this, nor could she manage to escape for hours on end. She was all too happy to sneak away when Richie offered the night of a lifetime.

That, and she got to spend a ridiculous amount of time with a certain someone Richie pointed out as an advantage, in an atmosphere that would surely see him cave by the end of the night.

Eko was pushing past the bodies that suffocated her, bare skin against her own with how she had been dressed. Her senses were nearly obliterated by the sound of the beats as they got closer. She had found out from Richie on the ride over was those who came here, the very same people, had battled with the same everyday life issues as the next person as she had known.

On Escobar, a tiny island uncharted on any system, they could go as wild as they wished, provided they didn't harm themselves or others in the process. Richie had offered it as a place where people could release their pent-up anxieties and frustrations. However, it brought Eko to a standstill question: who looked after those who needed rescuing?

When she asked Richie, he simply replied that they were all adults here, and it wasn't their responsibility to dictate how people chose to find life and fun again.

She assumed that everyone in attendance sought to squeeze as much enjoyment out of these events as possible. They were trying to rid themselves of the never ending pounding war that always seemed to loom over their lives.

It haunts them in ways, never relenting,  a never-ending stigma that life would never be what it was.

It drove a lot of the goers, soldiers, and broken souls to seek all the thrills they could before whatever happened next utterly consumed them. Perhaps that's what made this event more prominent than ever before; with the moon attacked, decimated, and survivors reduced in numbers, people were drawn to knowing how fast the tides of this war could change on them.

It forced them all to face the question of how many days any of them had left.

Amidst the chaos, Eko tightly gripped Richie's sweaty hand, and was pulled along the crowds further into the heart of the chaos; she could only watch the blur of attendees dressed rather ...sparsely as is customary for these kinds of events, or so she was educated on the ride over.

Males and females alike were present wearing the barest minimum clothing, just short of coming in their underwear, which some, mind her, were actually doing.

Others dressed in extremely high-end attire, dressed to the nines, so lavish, sensual, and erotic compared to those who wore the bare minimum. Glancing between herself and what Richie had been wearing—or rather, their lack of clothing—Eko remembered how he had gotten rid of his shirt as soon as they landed on the island, smirking with some cocky comment. And here she was now, amidst the pounding rhythm of the event, not long after following suit.