The next four lessons and twenty minutes of break went by with Amy’s eyes locked on Steven while Steven kept his eyes alternating from being locked on the classroom door and the clock. 10 minutes before the bell for lunch was about go Steven gulped and raised his hand shakily
“Yes Mr. Battelle?” Mr. Johnson the Science teacher answered Steven’s raised hand, in a tired tone,
“Can Amy and I go and get the set ready in time for lunch please?” He asked, confidence rising as he started talking
“And why does Miss. Marvin need to go with you?” Mr. Johnson asked sceptically,
“Amy’s LostAlone’s only official techie, she helped us set up when we were touring and that only took us ten minutes, instead of twenty minutes with just the band, see it takes two people to lift a regular Marshall amp so with four people it takes half the time” Steven explained getting all technical so Mr. Johnson had to stop him and just agree. Amy and Steven packed up their things and briskly left the room after having a chav throw paper at the back of Steven’s head, Steven stopped and threw it right back in his face making the whole class laugh at the chav as Amy and him left the room and went to the Hall where Mark was setting up his drums.
“Dude, what time did you get here?” Steven asked as he jumped up on the stage and helped Amy up with a hand.
“Oh only 5 minutes ago, um... Tom’s outside at the moment, he’s having a cigarette...” Mark replied darkly,
“He smokes?” Amy and Steven both asked in unison,
“Apparently so...” Mark said as he got back working on setting up his drum kit, Steven thought for a moment and realised what Tom could in reality be doing,
“Sharpening a knife or something” Steven whispered to Amy darkly, which answered her question she was thinking of ‘what could he be doing, really?’ Steven hadn’t told Mark about the message because he didn’t want to get him involved; Mark didn’t need it to worry him, he couldn’t help in any way either. Steven walked over to a huge amp that was sat by the stage on the floor, he jumped down and Amy helped him lift it up the stage steps and in to the right position, they did this for the other two huge amps that were for the guitar, drums and bass, Mark helped to plug them all into the right sockets and then set up the microphones and plugged them into the speakers that Amy and Steven had carried onto the stage and put into position. After ten minutes the set was ready, set lists chucked down by the foot of the microphone stands and the guitars leaning against the amps. The lunch bell rang and after 5 minutes the Hall was packed with students, teachers; even some locals from the Vic were waiting to see the spectacle that was LostAlone. Amy, Mark and Steven were backstage waiting for Tom to appear, when he did the whole atmosphere changed to an awkward one, but Tom greeted everyone with a small smile and an “alright let’s go!” which surprised Steven and Amy. Amy held Steven and kissed him passionately as if it was like the last time she would ever be able to do it, Steven explored her mouth with his tongue and moved to kiss her cheeks and lastly finished with a kiss on her forehead,
“I love you, Steven...” Amy whispered as Mark and Tom were drinking bottled water to sing for the backing vocals as they always did,
“I love you more than you know, my angel” Steven smiled as he grabbed a water bottle and gulped a bit down and cleared his throat repeatedly “Right, let’s do this thing!” He announced to everyone back stage, which were the members, Amy and a few other technicians who nodded and made their way across the Hall and into the lighting room to put on the spotlights and backlighting on the stage.
Steven’s heart was racing as he bounded on stage, he looked around and put his guitar over his shoulders, he heard cheers and applause from the audience, Mark hitting the drum and Tom strumming the bass as usual to warm up, Steven strummed his as well,
“Hi there, guys!! We are LostAlone and we welcome you to this little school set, we, Mr. Broadbent and Mr. Meadows helped organise! I have one question for you all... WHO’S READY TO ROCK?!” Steven could see the audience cheering in reply which made Steven smile “Awesome!! Well this one’s a favourite of the locals to the Vic I can see have turned up, great to meet you all again! THIS ONE’S ‘UNLEASH THE SANDS OF ALL TIME’!!!” Steven finished on a scream as the band smashed into the first song, the room filled with applause, guitars, drums and bass, the atmosphere was wild and everyone was singing along to the repeated lyric “To say goodbye is the hardest thing in life” Even if Tom was putting Steven off by being there, they were in sync as always. When they reached the third song on the set list Steven announced “Now to Mr. Meadows and anyone in my music class, you’ve heard me do an acoustic version of this next one if I remember rightly... this one has been dedicated to my loving and supportive girlfriend, Amy Marvin, yeah there you are, I love you, babe! This one’s ‘Ethereal’!!” Steven announced the song and his heart lifted when he saw Amy at the front of the stage standing next to Mr. Meadows who was thoroughly enjoying the set. LostAlone played the song beautifully, and by the end there was even a tear in Mr. Broadbent’s eye, he was applauding loudly at the side of the stage, the rain on the windows was loud but the audience were louder. The rest of the set went swimmingly, and when they played the last song ‘Silence’ in C# even if it had been only just been completely finished on Tuesday, LostAlone had played it perfectly and it was full of strong and powerful riffs which everyone enjoyed. They played their last note in the dark Hall, as the red and orange backlights pivoted at the back of the stage and the spotlight followed Steven as he walked back to his microphone stand after rolling around on the stage during a guitar solo. “Wow! Thank you all so much for making this gig so awesome!! We hope you enjoyed it more than we did! And we also hope you want to see us again sometime! I also come bearing news of a new album called “Say No to the World” which will be released on 12th March, some of the songs we played this afternoon will be featured on there and we hope to make our first album a good one! Thanks so much for coming, love you all and GOODBYE!!” Steven shouted as he wandered around the stage, his mind elsewhere, his body on the stage but his thoughts on trying to find a way to get out of the Hall quickly. Stage diving would have helped but Mr. Broadbent had strictly forbidden that, Steven waited for something, something him and Amy had planned... Suddenly there it was, Mr. Meadows and Amy had pushed everyone back and made a gap in the audience for Steven to jump down and run easily out of the Hall, with his guitar on his back, house keys in his pocket he ran for the doors of the school that led to the field and then to the school gates. Tom had seen Steven jump off the stage and had chucked his bass down and followed swiftly behind Steven, but they both kept running.
“No!!” Amy screamed as she ran after Tom who was in hot pursuit of her love. They all made it onto the field in the pouring rain, the clouds were black and thunder could be heard through the screams of Amy and the shouts of Tom calling for Steven to face him, Tom caught up with Steven who was slowing due to the guitar on his back. Amy wailed and fell to the ground as she witnessed Tom punch Steven right in the face, knocking him over onto the ground. They were both drenched already in the heavy rain, Tom took out of his pocket a short, shiny kitchen knife and flashed it in Steven’s heavily bleeding face as he held his nose in pain. Amy watched from a distance to see Steven look up to see the knife “Tom STOP IT!” Amy screamed to the boys who were now grappling on the floor, getting their white school shirts muddy and bloody from Steven’s bleeding nose. Tom grabbed Steven and pulled him up to stand up and face him. They stood there for a second, Tom turned to look at Amy
“Say the hardest thing in life to your Steven, Amy!!” He cried using a LostAlone song reference before he grabbed the back of Steven’s hair and shoved the knife into the side of Steven’s stomach.
IF YOU AREN'T CRYING YOU HAVE A HEART OF STONE, A HEART OF STONE I TELLS YA!!! D': ;)
