Please, hide me ~Brendon Urie

One

"So tell me, where did you two guys meet?"

"You know that Couchsurfing night I told you about? So we went to that meeting with Adrien and we met some people from England, Germany, Spain..."

My best friend Luka really enjoyed meeting new people from everywhere around the world. He introduced me tonight to a boy around our age, who was here to study for 6 months. He was from Ireland, so my brain was on English mode now. Speaking fully in English when non-French speakers were with us was something we did which I think was great. It may be strange to talk in English in-between us, because most of us were French, but foreign people could understand us and was something really important to integrate.

I've been living in Lille, north of France, for 6 years now. I studied 5 years in an engineering school after graduating high school, and that's where I met most of my friends. We graduated last year, and I now worked in a small company with a dozen of people. We developed games and other applications in virtual reality. I was almost 24, Luka just turned 25, but we still liked to drink with all our friends in bars, or at my place, or Luka's apartment, or Adrien's apartment, or anywhere... We sometimes went to nightclubs on Friday nights, as when we were students. We also played music, all my friends were musicians. We had a band together, and we sometimes played in some bars around the city (there were many, many bars in this city), but our favorite place to play music was the park. Summer nights, sun was up late, air was hot, we got beer, guitars, and we just sit in the grass and sing, and drink, and play, and sing, and drink again, until the morning. Can't wait to get those nights back again.

"Hello, Earth to Stella!"

"Sorry, what were you saying?"

"Always daydreaming..." Luka laughed. "Tomorrow night, at 10pm, rehearsals for next week's show."

"Yeah about that show, there's a song I'd like to play on the piano. Solo."

"We'll talk about it tomorrow then, when everyone is here. Wanna play a card game?"

"You're always cheating..." I joked.

"That's not true! I hate cheaters!" he defended, with his fake wink of his own.

"Actually you should just finish your drink, it's almost time."

"Time for what?"

"Don't tell me you forgot? Luka! The karaoke night with Adrien!"

"Dear Stella, you will forever remain my savior."

"Can I come with you? I love to sing too." the Irish guy asked.

"Sure." we both replied.

We walked together to Adrien's apartment, the rest of the crew was already here. Most of his neighbors were away for the weekend, so we could sing at the top of our lungs all night without disturbing anyone's sleep. YouTube on his big TV screen, speakers on, microphones plugged, and we sang all our favorite songs. We actually played most of them with our band. Green Day, Paramore, All Time Low, Sum 41... But we all were huge fans of Panic! At The Disco. Sadly, we saw last week on social media that Brendon Urie was M.I.A. But nobody knew why, what happened. I just hoped it was not going to last. And hoped he was okay. We would be the saddest people on Earth if the very last member of Panic! left his band like all the others.

"Stella, you're next! What song do you want?" Adrien took me out of my thoughts.

"I've had The Ballad of Mona Lisa stuck in my head all day."

"Let's go for some more Panic! then!"

This song was one of my favorites. But the one I loved most was Golden Days. Although This Is Gospel had a very special meaning to me... I didn't want to think about it right now.

"Hey Stell, are you okay?"

"Yeah Luka, don't worry. Thank you by the way... for everything."

"I'll always be there."

After a hug and a couple more songs, he walked me home as he usually did when we spent nights out. I couldn't come back home alone without meeting strange people even when we didn't go that far.

"Thank you, and stay safe on your way home."

"You know you can speak French now?" he laughed.

"Yeah, but you know it takes me some time to turn my brain back to French!" I smiled.

"So I'll see you tomorrow, same place as usual. Good night little star."

Yes, that was my nickname. Because Stella means star in Italian. As I stepped out of the elevator, I heard some weird noises on my floor. Most of my neighbors were students, but the last one left last week. Who the fuck would come all way up to the seventh floor at 3am? Probably some drunk guy of the sixth who pressed the wrong button. As I was about to close my door, I heard someone shout "WAIT!" and then I saw a man rushing to me. He pushed me inside, slammed the door shut and locked it. It all happened so fast that I couldn't realize what was happening to me. He then turned around to face me, pressing his back against my door and breathing heavily, a very scared look on his face. This face... I could recognize it 1000 miles away. I couldn't believe my eyes, I couldn't move. I tried to say something but my mouth just stayed open without any sound coming out of it. He was no longer missing. Brendon Urie was standing right there in front of me.

"Please, hide me."