Prologue: Buried Alive
Christmastime,2007
Munich, Germany
Music makes everything better. The concert Chris and Marc were watching from a distance was the perfect proof of it.
This Irish pub had become their second home. If they didn’t end up crashing at each other’s houses, drinking beer like it was water and playing video games, they would come here. Except for the weekends, when they would go to their usual metal nightclubs. The ambience was amazing; the food, the drinks, the music.
With its green padded seats, vintage posters, and license plates decorating the wooden paneled walls, they loved it here. Their favorite thing was the live concerts, though. They didn’t have bands performing every day, but on Thursdays, it was the main attraction.
Marc threw a french fry into his mouth. “Okay, those arpeggios are sick.”
“Yeah, been giving me goosebumps from the beginning.” Chris rubbed a palm over his arm, a slight slur in his voice.
He wasn’t drunk—yet. Three pints weren’t enough to whack his system, but his tongue became looser with just a few drops, and the daze in his head tonight was definitely making him feel buzzed already. He wasn’t sure if it was the exhaustion of a long week and the countless hours he’d spent practicing with a tattoo gun on stupid grapefruits and pigskin, or if it was the melody slithering through his veins like a balm, calming the nervous itch that had his mind awake the early hours in the morning.
“Listen to the riff… so smooth.”
Chris sighed, practically melting into the booth as he leaned back. “I miss playing so fucking much, dude.” He propped his cheek on his palm, staring in amazement at the band on the tiny stage in the opposite corner.
“Yeah, me too.”
“How long have you been band-orphaned?”
“Since Viktor and I moved to Berlin. Trying to build a life there was insane, so music took a backseat.” Marc turned forward, resting both elbows on the table, and sipped from his beer. “What a fucking failure,” he muttered to himself. “So… two years.”
“Ugh, same, dude.” Chris curled his mouth into an exaggerated frown, looking more like a sad clown than an actual nostalgic person.
“Why that long?”
“Since Luca left our hometown and moved here to Munich for college.” He reached for an onion ring and sunk it into some barbecue sauce. “Both Leah and I wanted to keep the band going, but our drummer wasn’t keen. He never admitted it, but I think he was only doing it for the chicks. So it all went to shit, and we called it quits.” He popped the fried delight into his mouth and dusted the salt from his fingers. He could survive on them for the rest of his life. Seriously—so good.
Marc looked deep in thought. “It sucks so much when you’re not in sync with everyone else.”
“Fuck, it does.” Chris took a swig of his drink, hitting the table with his glass right after. “I’ve never asked you, but why the bass?”
“It’s the groove, dude. You can get all flashy and play beautiful harmonics with the guitar, but the way the bass holds the rhythm and adds heaviness is…” He sucked in a deep breath through his nose, pure pleasure spreading all over his face. “So fucking solid, man. Makes me hard just thinking about it.”
Chris laughed at his statement. “You’re gonna make me reconsider my choice now.”
“You could always try, for sure.” Marc chuckled. “I also play the guitar, but the bass is more elegant, allowing you to be essentialwithoutbeing the center of attention.”
The teasing tone of his voice made Chris grin from ear to ear.
He’d moved to Munich only a few months before, meeting this dude a couple of weeks after he had finally settled in, but it was as if they’d known each other forever. His company and whatever their conversation ended up being about—music, video games, movies, tattoos, hockey; they liked all the same crap—were always laid-back and comfortable.
Although he wasn’t alone in such a big foreign city because he’d contacted his old friend and former bandmate Luca, having Marc around was also a blast. Especially since he never got annoyed when Chris went into full-on nerdy mode about his tattooing apprenticeship or looked at him as if he were the strangest of freaks like others did.
Marc owned a music shop and was passionate about anything related to it. It was one of the best Chris had ever seen, but he was barely making a profit when he’d set foot in it for the first time. The street it was on was probably to blame, if you could call it that. That alleyway was creepy as fuck. You wouldn’t walk down it unless you wanted to get kidnapped and have your organs sold on the black market.
Germany was a proud country and had always embraced their history within the heavy metal scene thanks to groups like Accept, Kreator, Destruction, and Sodom—to name a few. Still, finding the perfect shop wasn’t easy. They were too random, keeping CDs from old Spanish rock bands that weren’t together anymore, or stocking only the most popular groups. The worst, however, were those pretentious know-it-all owners that gave you tedious monologues about how classics would never be outdone.Who’s said anything about this being better than that, dude? Everyone’s just trying to do their thing.
Marc’s was one of those shops you had to love. Cozy, with everything you were looking for, and if he didn’t have it, he would make some calls and find it for you. The man knew how to keep his clients happy.
“Let’s do it,” Marc said out of the blue, startling Chris out of his melancholic alcohol stupor.
“What?” He blinked fast several times. “Do what?”
