Prologue

Little in life goes as planned. Staying up and playing drinking games with his older brother Dustin and a few of his friends was not a part of the plan. Kissing Kendra Kohl was not a party of the plan. Puking on Kendra’s shoes shortly after said kiss was most certainly not a part of the plan. As Lady Luck would have it, Ladron simultaneously earned himself the title of ‘Lame Little Brother’, the lovely moniker ‘Dogcatcher’, and the ever amusing nickname ‘Puke-it Sound’, all in the two drunken hours that he could barely remember. While nursing a hangover at Dustin’s apartment the morning before he was due to ship off for his second year at the Curtis Institute of Music, Ladron quietly contemplated suicide to avoid the worst of his hangover, but as with many of his friends, he couldn't find a good enough reason to follow through. That being said, the sheer blackness of the coffee he was sipping on may have darkened his mood in retrospect, but even as he stared blearily through his glasses at the motionless world around him, Ladron Gadai couldn’t help but feel the hype for his next semester of musical mastery. Nothing filled him with more pride than making or contributing to a good song, and a few of his tracks had even gained some popularity around the school. Of course, he was no John Wayne or Flamingosis with his beats quite yet. That didn’t stop him from shooting for the moon.

As Dustin poured himself a nice, tall glass of ice-cold hydration, also known as coconut water, the dark haired, green eyed fellow adjusted his glasses and tried to blink a piece of his brain away. Sadly, the only way to remove a piece of one’s brain without surgery was to take a politician's words at face-value, and as Ladron sipped on his somewhat gross drink, he wondered if it would be worth it. That is, he wondered if it would be worth his time to apologize to his brother for embarrassing both him and himself. Dustin wasn’t the type to make a big deal out of it, but Ladron was the kind to dwell on mistakes whether big or small. Dustin picked up on his little brother’s awkward mood and kept the vibe bright by offering to make some coffee cakes like their great grandfather, Tom, used to make for them. Neither of them knew if cooking caffeine into pancakes actually worked as a pick me up, but Dustin knew that it was Ladron’s preferred comfort food.

“Yo, you going to schlump all day, or are you actually going to shit and git after breakfast?” Dustin asked lightheartedly.

Ladron recognized the olive sapling for what it was and cracked a small grin. “Make ‘em a triple Red-Eye and you’ll never see me stop moving, man. Mud water tastes better when you mix it with something.”

Dustin gave him a dubious look over his shoulder. “You know we have to be the only people who still mix coffee into their actual food, rightr?”

“Ah, I’m calling bull! There’s coffee ice cream, cappuccino, and I heard Bobo’s just came out with an espresso, so bam! Three foods with coffee.”

Ladron smiled cheesily as his brother rolled his eyes, thankful that the younger man had decided to not be mopey. “Those are all ice cream, and you know good and damn well that Mom doesn’t count ice cream as food.”

“Fine, then what about… Uh…” Ladron postulated for a moment. “Yeah, I got nothing besides sweets.”

“And you drench your pancakes in syrup too,” Dustin pointed out.

The younger brother flushed slightly, not exactly upset with the truth. “Who just eats plain bread!?”

“Plain, hot bread. It’s the hot part that makes people enjoy it.”

“And being hot is why people enjoy me.”

Dustin flipped a flapjack before giving his brother the most ‘Are you actually being serious?’ kind of look he could muster. “Trust me, Casanova, it’s not because of the looks.”

Ladron clutched his chest. “Oh, how you have wounded me this day, brother! Hark! Tis the angels from on high I hear calling?”

“Shut the hell up and drink your coconut water, you nutball.” The eldest replied, reminiscing on days that weren’t worth his time.

“If it wasn’t chunky and made of whatever Zero found in Holes, then I might feel obliged.”

“Look here you little shit-” Dustin barked, holding back a laugh.

Before he could finish berating his brutally honest little brother, Maggie, Dustin’s girlfriend, scratched under her breast and rubbed her eyes, clearly exhausted from the previous night’s events. “I don’t know what makes y’all get up so early, but damn! Can a woman get some sleep around here?”

“Maybe when I get some ass,” Dustin teased, accepting and returning Maggie’s morning kiss.

Magdalena took offense to the face Ladron pulled at the private display of affection. “You still here, scrimp? I thought you’d done took off already.”

The aspiring musician gave her a brash smile. “What, so eager to get rid of me?”

“I’m like eighty percent sure it was you an’ your high yellow ass that puked in the bathtub.”

“Nah, he got the lavender and Scott got the bluebells. Already hosed ‘em down.” Dustin said, swooping in for the save.

“My lavender!” Maggie cried. “I swear to- to-”

“God?” Ladron offered.

“Boy!”

“Seriously, I’d be more worried about the dump Ladron’s little ‘date’ took in the downstairs toilet.” Ladron looked at Dustin as he spoke and wondered if his older brother had in fact been machinating against him since birth.

Maggie was wearing a shimmering nylon robe that was barely tied, a Jimi Hendrix shirt, and something that was somewhere between booty shorts and boyshorts. She may as well have been wearing obsidian armor chased in the blood of her foes. Her weapon of choice was the nearest thing she could find, which happened to be her usual weapon; The Week-Ender. It was just a collection of newspapers that she’d glued together and padded with rubberbands, but it was the fact that it was so readily provided to her that made Ladron’s ears start ringing. He’d even thought to hide it earlier while Dustin wasn’t watching, but he’d missed his chance and was soon to pay for it.

“Hey now, at least I didn’t-” He began.

“Fool, give me one reason not to beat you til’ you pack up and ship off.”

“I didn’t do the thing you were originally mad about?”

“I use that lavender to make my own perfume.” She answered sharply.

“I thought you used it to make potpourri?” Dustin asked.

“Dude. My guy. Brother, why have you taken my loops?”

Maggie acted like she was a bunny with a ridiculous name and Ladron was a field mouse. She repeated her method acting just in case she ever needed to get into a play or something. At least that’s what she told people after hitting them. Once she’d worked out some frustration, Dustin chuckled and snickered to himself while Ladron groaned and grumbled, but all three got some breakfast. Oddly enough, they lined up from lightest to darkest and tallest to smallest from left to right simultaneously, with Ladron being the tallest and lightest and his brother being the smallest and darkest. As a charismatic and joy-seeking fellow would do, Dustin kicked off breakfast by making prayer fast and trying to smooth things out between his lover and his brother.

Needless to say, it didn't take long for the heat to die down and the bridge to be rebuilt, though Ladron did have to sacrifice his precious, invaluable sausage to Maggie. As the only red meat of breakfast for the morning, it was a tough loss, but he bore it well and took to his borrowed room. For a musician in the old days, getting gear together as well as all the people who were supposed to use it was nigh on impossible. However, in the digital era, Ladron had a backpack, duffel-bag, and a single bassoon with accompanying case. The bassoon was easier to carry on his shoulder than his duffel-bag, but other than ergonomics, there were more steps to Ladron’s prep phase that he felt were missing. It struck him just as he began pacing; he’d forgotten his packing playlist, and he still needed to hear Dear Laughing Doubters as his breakfast ritual song. It seemed to help him digest better. Maybe it did, maybe it didn’t. Either way, Ladron knew he’d have to plug the songs into his queue if he was to have a totally fine day.

After organizing his Cayin N5iiS for the next couple of hours, Ladron began the process of stripping the room down of any personal effects and did so in impeccable time. Many teachers had long since learned that it was best to let Ladron drown out as much background noise as possible to keep him focused, and for the longest time his parents, teachers, and doctors thought it was tinnitus. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a case of schizoaffective bipolar disorder that was somehow quelled with the right music at the right time. Ladron lived his daily life as an average guy, just with a few secrets and oddities about him. However, the fact that he only needed to listen to an average of three songs out of any playlist was well known to those close to him, so Dustin gave him about fifteen minutes to clean and knocked on Ladron’s door. Packed and ready to head east to Philadelphia again, Ladron and Dustin loaded up the younger brother’s trusty Buick Century.

Just before he left, Dustin and Maggie came out to see Ladron off as he left the lovely little town of Troy, Ohio for bigger dreams in a bigger city. It it was less ‘bittersweet goodbye’ and definitely more ‘yeah, yeah, yeah, see ya later’, though that was just how the brothers had always been. When Dustin himself had moved further north to attend a more apt trade school than the local ones, his departure had much the same tone and mood as Ladron’s. For a moment Dustin briefly wondered if any of his brother’s cited exploits were true, but ultimately decided that if they weren’t, then Ladron had a good enough reason to lie. If they were, then his little brother was lamer than a octoplegic spider. Seriously, indoor pool party where everyone just got their clothes wet? And there was no alcohol? Yeah, Ladron might have been the ‘good’ son, but he was most certainly not the interesting one, and Dustin smiled to himself as he took pride in that little fact.

The thing was that Ladron was actually hiding something from his brother, and even the somber, heavy melody of 4th of July by Soundgarden couldn’t clear the guilt from his mind. It wasn’t that he’d lied to Dustin; no, that wasn’t quite the problem. It was that Maggie had an Adderall habit she’d never kicked from her days in MIT, and Ladron had caught her railing four of the little orange tablets before she settled in for an all-nighter, courtesy of her Computer Engineering degree. All it had taken to learn what she was doing was finding her stache and googling the most prominent ones. Ladron wasn’t the kind of guy to confront her about it directly, so he sent her a text when he knew that Dustin wasn’t around. There was no point in denying it, and Maggie wasn’t the type to lie. The only problem was that Dustin was notorious for condemning any substance outside of alcohol, dead-set on the evils of the Devil’s Lettuce and anything of the sort. If Ladron said anything, then Dustin would either kick his girlfriend out or get kicked out himself, as Maggie threatened. His conscious told him that he was betraying his brother by letting him live with an addict, especially one that could have violent tendencies while high. His head told him that he was making the right choice, and his heart hoped that Maggie followed through when she said that she’d get rid of her supply.

It was a long drive back to Philadelphia, and Ladron had plenty to think of while he rode the interstate. Not only did he have his brother’s lover to worry about, his own love interest had been sending him mixed messages and suggestive snaps that left him wondering if he actually had a shot. Kara Keller might not have been a model, but to Ladron she was the perfect woman. She loved and indulged in a few aspects of geek culture, could hold her own pretty well with most first-person-shooters and RPGs. In fact, she kicked his tail in LoL, WoW pvp, and sadly CS:GO. Little could be said on that matter other than that the guy lost to his girlfriend, which was all his friends needed to say to embarrass him. In fact, it was so frequent that it got brought up in gatherings that Ladron made a point to remember the three people who never said anything about it. Brianna was nice enough most of the time, Don was a complete stoner and therefore was usually pleasant to be around, but Bryce? Bryce was weird. He was also the token gay friend, but he didn’t flaunt his sexuality, and being gay wasn’t what anyone considered weird about him.

No, Bryce was a furry.

He’d never even seen one in person until he met Bryce, but from the moment Ladron laid eyes on his neon green and blue striped tail, he knew he was in for a trip. It didn’t help that Bryce was into incredibly obscure crunkcore, vaporwave, and harsh noise, which were all arguably just sounds that technically count as songs to Ladron. It wasn’t that the guy was the kind of weird that made people actively avoid him, there was just something off that no one could ever put their finger on. Besides the whole ‘furry’ thing. And in all honesty, Ladron didn’t think that fursuits were that weird. He considered it to be extreme cosplay since Bryce, the only one he knew, was incredibly casual about his fursona and rarely ever went full-garb. However, that didn’t stop Ladron from wondering just what kind of… Compulsion, would make someone want to forego their humanity for a fur-laden alter-ego. It wasn’t something he thought about for a long time, but it was still an oddity he wanted to figure out one day.

Beyond Bryce and his quirks, there was the rest of Ladron’s inner circle that he was going to have to read up on during rests so it wouldn’t seem like he didn’t care about them. In truth he did, it was just that they were far more interesting while they were actively searching for new sounds or creating a new song. No one had mentioned plans to work before the brief Fall Break, but lo’ and behold, when Ladron went to check up on Bryce, he had three new tracks on his Soundcloud account that were all labelled under one of the newer waves rippling across the music scene. Vaux Faker was an odd genre to be sure, taking some guitar elements from classic Math Rock and blending them with heavy, rolling basslines reminiscent of Doom Metal. That, and the vocals almost never made any kind of sense, but even when the lyrics were actually formed into something semi-cohesive, low-key famous quotes sprung up. Some were a little less than definite, but there were some such as ‘Twice the toxicity, half the mass; warring nations practice fasts’, which was the official translation of Sludge-Curr Zag-Fang by Derri Aire. Few songs of Vaux Faker had official translations, and most of the comments on Soundcloud mentioned that the users couldn’t hear the lyrics at all. Ladron found it odd since the occasional person mentioned that they, like him, heard it throughout the song along with some other disturbing noises.

Having his thoughts brought back to Bryce, Gadai briefly questioned his sexuality before thinking of snuggling with another man. It still seemed to be an unattractive prospect at the time, so he continued on and wondered why the genre he’d completely dismissed was poking at his thoughts from time to time. He didn’t like anything Bryce had shown him, and he wasn’t sure of what kind of message he was supposed to be getting or if his friend was just weird, but either way, Ladron thought about skimming through a few artists to find something listenable. Even after thirty minutes of surfing, there was no success to be had, the powerful vacuum of Not-Being-Able-to-Find-That-Thing-You’re-Really-Looking-For sucking fiercely. There wasn’t much to be done about it, and Ladron really wasn’t in the mood to fool around with his phone while driving, even if he had a vent-mount. For the time being, he threw on some Bluegrass to the tune of A Beautiful Life by The Stanley Brothers, the road ahead of him longer than he could have ever known.