Laxton's Chant of Music

"The truth about music."

The words rattled around my skull as I sat staring at the closed door. The client, that cheapskate scumbag, had left with his precious money and I sat alone in my studio. Probably off to buy more drugs or pop some pills to treat whatever disease he had gotten himself.

Music. The truth about music.

I remember my mentor in the first days before I went solo. He was old, and his voice rasped like a snake's when he got drunk enough to sing. His name was Darryl, but everyone called him Darryl the Drunk because he always was drunk. Said he liked the ring to it and it didn't bother him at all. If you were his friend then you would always find him pouring drinks into his glass until it overflowed and spilled onto the bar top, only to be mopped up by a grumbling bartender.

Darryl taught me how to play guitar and how to write songs. He told me that songs are mirrors that reflect your soul to the world and if you're lucky they will resonate with someone out there as well. But there is a terrible secret hidden within them too. A secret that could get you killed if you ever discovered it too early on in your career - or even worse, never discover it at all!

It took me years to figure out what he meant by this, but eventually I did of course, along with my first hit song 'Confessions of an Insomniac'. It made me famous and women swooned over me like flies swarming over a rotting corpse. Drugs flowed freely into my veins and bottle after bottle of wine ended up on my table or floor in varying states of emptyness or fullness depending on who was looking at them. Fame is like quicksand, you know? You think it's great and fun at first, just a little bit of fame here and there - but before you know it you can't move anymore and your career has sunk down beneath some unseen dark wave beyond which you can never return. It's never good news to be caught at the bottom of a wave that hasn't been seen for almost two thousand years either...

I woke up one morning chained to a brick wall in some basement somewhere. I don't remember much except being dragged by men wearing black masks after them into an unmarked van outside my house while I thought they were fans wanting autographs or something like that. Then they shot something into my neck that knocked me out cold until I woke up in chains. The room was pitch black save for the faint glow from a light bulb sitting high above me dangling from the ceiling by a metal chain attached to a long rod of some kind sticking out from the wall near where I was chained up against so tight it felt like my skin would split down my back any moment now!

"Hey! What's going on?! Let me go!" I screamed as loud as I could while flailing around trying break free from the chains binding my hands behind my back against the brick wall behind me. The chains rattled loudly against the hard stone surface behind me but nothing gave away at all, not even a single hairline crack in the thick metal links or links themselves for that matter!

"Look kid," A gruff voice spoke from somewhere nearby, "you ain't goin' nowhere anytime soon so shut up already!"

"They'll find me!" I yelled as loud as I could while screaming bloody murder again hoping someone would hear outside and start looking for whoever kept screaming like this inside this old building somewhere far away from civilization itself! "You let me go now or else!"

"Or else what?" The man asked sarcastically with a chuckle following afterwards both filled with scorn and curiosity all mixed together into one grotesque sound plastered onto his grizzled face covered in scruffy looking grey stubble poking out everywhere making him look like he hadn't shaved himself in weeks if not months now! He was probably laughing because he knew they weren't going to let me go anywhere anytime soon because they had somehow managed to capture one of those legendary musicians who were basically considered gods nowadays, better known as Laxton! Or so they claimed anyway... "You gonna pray for deliverance? Ha ha ha ha! You're no god you little shithead!"