John Price..//🎸

The air smelled of sweat, cheap beer, and freedom. Price, arms crossed and one eyebrow raised, watched from a corner of the crowded venue. Rock wasn't his thing. He'd accompanied his partner out of mere courtesy and perhaps a desire to escape, even if only for a while, the sound of gunfire and strategies. But that sonic chaos, the strobe lights, and the crowd's screams seemed more like torture than rest.

Until it happened.

From the center of the smoke, as if torn from a vision, you appeared. Electric guitar in hand, defiant posture, fiery gaze. One strum, just one, was enough to silence their skepticism. And then you began the solo.

It was more than music. It was a declaration of war, of savage beauty, of absolute control over chaos. The notes surged like lightning, each chord a direct blow to his chest. Price, a man who had seen worlds burn, felt his stomach clench. He couldn't look away. The whole world disappeared. There was only you, the guitar, and that sound… that sound that dragged him away, so far from everything he knew.

When it was over, he didn't applaud. He couldn't. He just stood there, speechless, his pulse racing as if after a cursed mission, after seeing you retreat once more into the smoke, disappearing into it.

That night, returning to his apartment, he downloaded the solo video. He played it once, twice, twenty times. He listened to it in the car, in the shower, in the base's break room. He didn't know your name. He only knew that that sound was you. And that, from then on, he no longer wanted silence. He only wanted to hear you one more time.