A.SPECKHART | Book One

INSTRUMENTAL SANCTUARY 2.1

The city wasn't any quieter than usual. Despite the underlying current of social distrust, the youth were out in their masses enjoying the club scene. In the queue waiting to enter our favourite place, Lindsay, Theresa, and I took pictures on our phones and teased each other into fits of laughter. After fifteen minutes of waiting in the cold and flashing our student ID cards at the bouncer, we were let loose inside. 

Our trio mingled into the crowd of a hundred moving figures. Beneath the dry-ice smoke screen, an array of blues, acid greens, hot pinks, and bright white lights swirled. An ocean of black silhouettes appeared to be dancing on the northern lights.

For now, we three stood at the shore, anticipating the dive-in. It wasn't long before I was taken and accepted by the undulating swarm. We moved as if the music had fused with our bodies; each note pulled an invisible string, making our limbs slaves to the DJ's puppetry.

All around us, the building quaked under the assault of the heavy techno bassline. Its penetrating intensity assaulted my eardrums so violently that its memory would be that of a headache. I'd suffer hours after I had left the club; it was that way every time.
Though I was secretly concerned I would be deaf by the time I was thirty, I had always been a sucker for punishment. Music had always been my ultimate therapist. It allowed me to escape whatever emotion I wanted and thrust myself into another. Right now, that was what I needed.

Lindsay and Theresa abandoned me when they had danced through three songs. They favoured getting started on drinking enough booze to induce tomorrow morning's hangover. It was the payoff for drinking the poison required to fuel whatever wild exploits that night had in store.

Luckily for them, I had never been averse to dancing alone. In fact, being alone in a crowd of people who didn't see me was, ironically, where I felt the most comfortable. Being trapped in a one-to-one with someone, however, highlighted how socially awkward I could be.

I closed my eyes and surrendered to the music: arms reached into the air, gave over my body to the pumping rhythm, and enjoyed how the neon lights lit up the backs of my eyelids in kaleidoscopic colours. I could never understand how people needed drugs to feel as free as I did while dancing.

When I felt Theresa tugging on my wrist to rouse me from my trance, I'd worked up a sweat. I opened my eyes to find she had a girl grinding against her.

Looks like she's found someone to go home with.

"Lindsay made off with the 'hot guy'," she mouthed under the music. I chuckled and nodded, understanding that they must have already left together. "We want to head home, too, but I don't want to leave you alone."

"Don't worry about it, T. I'm a big girl. I'll get myself home."

It wasn't the first time they had left me to make my own way home. Honestly, if I'd ever thought about it much, I would have realised it was a shitty thing to do —abandoning a friend just for the sake of getting laid. It was something I would never have done to them, but I supposed I had always been the more independent one.

Left to my own devices and having worked up a thirst, I negotiated my way through the crowd to the bar.

The reason the Omen was our scene wasn't only because of its dystopian, techno-noir vibe. Or even that it drew a crowd of like-minded people - in as much as they fell into the wider clique and social group we were part of. No, the main reason was that one of the bartenders had graduated from our university and was a close friend of Lindsay's older brother. Karl had introduced us to the club during freshers' week, and we'd been loyal patrons since. He was a cool guy - a big brother figure because he always kept us safe while we were out.
Too bad that he wasn't working that night; I would've asked him for a lift home.