I was in a small room at Stavros and didn't want to come out. It was already our time to perform, we had already been announced, and suddenly I got cold feet. Cold feet? I had a monstrous, fucking stage fright crisis and went hiding in a kind of broom room.

“Dolores, they already announced us; Matt is trying to postpone, but little chance to work; if you don't come, we'll be out. We have another couple of minutes to start singing, or we leave without.”

“Sorry, I can't...”

“Come on, you know the rehearsal went OK, you are looking gorgeous, it will be good! We just sing a couple of songs and leave! Ten minutes and we are done!?”

He tried to appeal to my pride, but the problem was that I was afraid of people. I hate being in crowded places, and one of my most dreaded things is when they all look at me.

There were so many people there, at least a couple of hundred people, if you counted all rooms adjacent to the central room with the stage, and both me and White Flower, we started to panic at their sight. And in addition, everybody will be looking at me.

“There are too many people here. I cannot come.”

I had to cover my face with my hands. There were intrigued faces trying to look over his shoulder in the tiny room.

“Well...” - said finally Hew giving up with a sigh - “We'll start with Mike's ballad, sung by Matt. We exercised a lot, so that should be a fine performance. I'll be back once we are done, OK?”

He left and closed the door. I breathed deep, relieved.

There was the usual ambient noise that you hear in a restaurant, and then I heard how they prepared for the song. Tom spoke a couple of words, explained what they would perform and then the music started.

It was not so bad, but you clearly felt their stress. I listened to the now very well-known song. It was a lovely piece that filled my heart, but it could be so much better! It was only after almost a minute that I realized that they will have a problem: there was that part where Matt's voice could never cope with the notes. He had no chance to sing the coming high notes.

For a moment, I panicked. Then I closed my eyes. I could still save them.

I opened the door to my closet and stepped out. Lucky me, almost nobody looked at me. I advanced slowly towards the stage, and after the next corner, I saw them. The lights were only pointed towards the stage so I could focus on them and ignore the rest of the dimly lit saloon. It was like with the last rehearsal, and I felt like in Matt's living room.

My stage fright was gone, and I was able to sing, and before they arrived at the dreaded part, I started to sing. I do not really need a microphone; Flo can augment my voice enough. They raised their heads, trying to find me in the dark room. I was afraid I would cause some confusion, and they might stop singing, but they grasped the opportunity and continued.

There was no master light specialist to put the lights on me, but that was OK. I even enjoyed it. I approached Matt slowly, and he ceded me his microphone.

It looked as if staged, the transition was good, and I picked up the high notes with ease.

The song was good. Good enough that we got roaring applauses and the right to sing more. And we just warmed up.

The second song was better, and the roaring applauses encouraged us to continue. We got approval from the owner, so we went on with the third, fourth and fifth songs. I could even ignore the two cameramen. One was stationary, the other was walking between the tables. I thought they were from the restaurant filming to put the performance online, but later on, I learned that they were from the local television station. The group before had arranged to record the performance as they had hoped for a prolonged session and were very disappointed to be ousted after only two songs.

I was feeling better, and the boys were already enjoying their part. That is when I first saw the table with Helen. There was a group of about ten people, and they had a slogan on the wall behind them: free the gamers! They must have learned about the television broadcasting parts of this evening and were trying to raise attention to their cause with the inscription unfolded behind them.

They did not get the attention that they wanted, that's why I did not give the microphone to Matt to introduce the next song, but I did it myself:

“I would like to dedicate the next song to my friend Helen and her group of friends who are here grieving and demanding answers for the disappearance of their friends from the gamers' zone. I was one of the gamers almost a year ago; I learned to love and appreciate their community and I share their worries. The song we are going to sing was written by Hew and is named Despair and Hope.”

It was a sad song with little hope in it, a beautiful piece. The inspiration for it came from Hew's problems with girls, but I did not have to explain that. The song was about a loved girl that he had no hope to meet in real life, and yet he still hoped to be with her, but it could be interpreted differently, like some external power removed the loved girl from existence, and he still dreamed and hoped to meet her.

Previously I've sung it technically correct but without feeling. Only now did I grasp that. Now, as I got the feeling and better understood it, the interpretation went much deeper on the feeling scale, and the end of the song was met with several seconds of silence. Only after that came the roaring applauses.

We were asked to continue singing, and we happily agreed, but we made a five minutes break. We were sweaty and happy, enthusiasm and adrenaline flowing through our veins.

The boys hurried for the toilet, and I used the opportunity to be alone to change my dress with a pair of leather trousers when Joe erupted into the room. I had just put my pants on and was handling the blouse when he came in.

“Hey, ruffian, I'm undressed!”

He simply laughed came and embraced me from the back while I kept my arms with the blouse over my breasts.

“Wow, sweetheart, you are marvellous! You made the whole show! And that voice! It gave me goosebumps! The boys are crazy about you! Don't forget that we go together to Sweenie's after this, to celebrate the whole night!”

“Hey, I need to dress for the...”

“Sure!” - he said, gave me a kiss on the neck that transformed my knees into goo and left in a hurry.

As he left, Mike entered.

“Dolores, do you come... Ow, sorry, I thought...”

I sighed.

“Give me a second, Mike...”

“Sure, sure...” - he said, retreating from the room - “but I need to take my glasses; let me know when it's OK?”

“You can do that, Mike; I'm almost done.”

“Sure?”

“Sure”

He entered while I was putting on my high heels.

“Some fan?” - He asked while searching for the glasses.

“Oh, from the handball team. It's the noisy group in the second room.”

“You play handball?”

I shrugged. Yes, I do. He did not further inquire.

“You stay with us after this? We have a table reserved, and we need to celebrate!”

“Oh, sure!” - I answered, realizing that the impossibility of being in two places at the same time would come upon my head. What do I do? Do I send Joe and the boys to Sweenie's and tell them I'll come later?

I did not have much time to ruminate on what I just did as we had to rush to sing again. I did not want to hurt nobody's feelings, but this was going to be a bigger problem.

I tried to ignore the shit and concentrate on the next song that we hadn't exercised much. It was a lovely easy piece created by Mike when a person entered the main hall. There were a lot of persons entering and leaving the main hall, but this one drew White Flower's attention.

He was tall, dressed in grey and stopped for a moment in the middle.

She had felt his aura even before he entered the room.

Magic aura. I almost stopped singing when I felt his aura.

Then I felt the pulse.

“Should I kill him?”

“What? No! Are you crazy? But... but... Why is he so calm? Is he so high-level? Did you check?”

Flo did not answer immediately, but continued singing, keeping me tense, and only later during the instrumental part of the song answered:

“His pulse gave him no answer; I don't think he suspects anything."

"What do you mean? You can block identify?"

I had again to wait until I got an answer.

"Yes, but do we wait to see if he can feel me? At the moment, he is blind; is it not better to strike now? If he attacks, don't you have to kill him? And if you kill him, do we kill all?"

Kill him? Kill all? Was she ready to kill everybody?

“Why do you say that? What is he?”

“I don't know. He is wearing a false face and mirrors. He is not what he looks like. If I check, he might feel me. What do we do then?”

I was still singing, and I saw a glance from Matt. He felt something, so I concentrated on the song. The person finally sat at a table where several other people suddenly became suspect in my eyes.

As soon as the song ended, I asked Flo:

“How did you do that? How was it possible that he could not identify me?”

“I can control my aura. It is now completely glued to me. He does not have such good control; that's why I felt his aura even before he entered the room. His magic pulse would have echoed on any other magic giving him a response the kind bats have with soundwaves. This is the identification spell: the interpretation of the echo-response to a directed pulse. I can completely absorb the magic pulse when it hits my aura, and so he gets no echo. Simple as that. My magic aura being glued to me does not even radiate, so even with the mage's-sight spell, he would not see anything different from a normal girl. But you know everything is a matter of levels and fine mana manipulation. A horned White Flower might see through my disguise.”

“How could you think of killing all? How could that thought even get into your head?”

“Do you think they would hesitate a second before detonating here another one of those bombs? Everybody here would be dead by now if they knew you were here.”

Oh, fucking fuck! She is right, but still, this is nonsense!

“Of course I would save our friends, they would only get heavy amnesia. What would be your solution if we are unmasked?”