Cassie // Mitchel Cave

1.

Cassie's POV

I'm walking through the dark alley, hood over my hair and my head titled down.
I hear some voices behind me and unconsciously speed up my steps. I'm almost there. I'm almost there, I think to myself.

My vision blurs and the words in my head slur. My legs feel weak, and I want to give in, lean against a cold stone wall, let the smoke consume my mind and body, and just let go.

But I can't. I keep walking until I find the metal door with black graffiti on it, and the banging of loud music destroys the dark silence surrounding me.

I push down the door handle and stumble inside, skipping one or two steps by accident. Who would place stairs there anyway?
I keep walking forward until my eyes land on the bar; I almost miss the two bar stools, which turn out to be just one.

Finally, I've made it, and my eyes search along the colorful bottles on the wall behind. "Whiskey, please," I say to the bartender on the other side of the counter and point at one of the bottles behind him. He turns around and grimaces.

"Alright, water it is."
"Asshole" I sigh and let my head fall into my palms. I'm too exhausted for this.

He places a glass of water in front of me and I wonder if he put anything in it, but honestly I don't care. It's not like I haven't tried myself at some point.

I turn around on the bar stool and finally push the hood off my head revealing what used to be beautiful  full, light blonde hair, but which is now dull and hangs lazily over my shoulders like I've tried to straighten it.
But I know that's not true, I've just stopped caring about it months ago.

I look over to the stage where sometimes small bands perform, today is one of those days.
Three guys are on the stage, one with a guitar, one with a saxophone and one with the microphone.
The one with the microphone has thin braids tied up into a bun on top of his head, just a few of the braids hanging around his face.
He's wearing black ripped jeans and an oversized red t-shirt with something written on it but the letters keep blurring in and out of focus.

The one with the saxophone has his hair as well in a bun, but no braids.
His posture was tall but he was the only one who hasn't talked yet, he wasn't shy but quiet.

The one with the guitar has shoulder long blonde hair, he's wearing a white t-shirt, blue jeans and waves at the crowd with a wide smile.

I couldn't help but crack a small smile of my own, he looked so happy to be here, so grateful.
The two others talked to each other, the one with the braids laughed out loud, letting his head fall back. His smile was beautiful, so real, no show. it was.. pure.

After a small introduction, the one with the microphone, called Mitchel, waved to the blonde guy, named Christian, who started playing his guitar.

"Girl, tell me what you're doing on the other side." Mitchel started singing, and oh my god. His voice was beautiful, chills ran down my spine and I sat up a bit straighter than before.
The water the bartender gave me sobered me up a bit, too, and I silently thanked him for not giving me even more alcohol.

As they kept singing the song a smile spread across my face, an honest smile.
By the time the had reached the second refrain I could sing along a few of the words even though the singer's accent made it hard to figure out what he was saying, especially not fully sober.

The song ended and everyone clapped, even Jo the bartender behind clapped. I had never heard him clap before.

They played two more songs called Vibes and Meddle about before going backstage, silence swallowed the club.
Obviously there were people talking and laughing and dancing to the other music which kept playing in the background now, but it was empty.
The voice which had just filled this place with more than bad remixes and the smell of vomit and alcohol was gone and it left a kind of emptiness.

I know that emptiness all too well.