DON'T DISAPPEAR

The bass thumped through the dry summer air like a second heartbeat, vibrating up through the soles of Lia’s boots and settling somewhere beneath her ribs. She hadn’t planned on being here tonight. She wasn’t even supposed to be anywhere near the main stage. But Harper had looked at her with that mixture of pleading and mischief that meant No had never been an option.

“Come on, Lia. You haven’t been out in weeks. The sky’s clear, the beer’s cold, and the music’s loud. It’s spiritual healing.”

Lia snorted as they wove deeper through the crowd.

“Pretty sure that’s not how healing works.”

“It is,” Harper insisted, tossing her blonde braid over her shoulder. “Besides, you need… stimulation. Too much time alone with your sketchbooks and your brain turns into soup.”

“I like soup.”

“That’s the problem.”

They laughed, and for a moment Lia felt almost normal — just another twenty-something at a festival, surrounded by strangers wearing glitter, leather, or not enough clothing to avoid hypothermia after midnight. The humid warmth of the day still clung to the air, mingling with the smells of dust, food trucks, hot plastic wristbands, and that particular metallic tang of festival generators overheating under strain.

Her tote bag knocked lightly against her hip, filled with sketch pens, a water bottle, and the lingering scent of the coffee she’d spilled into it earlier. She felt the world through a haze of noise and color — not quite a part of it, but not apart from it either. Harper dragged her forward, refusing to let Lia’s thoughts drift too far inward.

They weren’t here for the main stage — that was for the obsessed, the curious, and the ones hungry for the spectacle known as Obsidian Veil. A band that had practically risen from the shadows overnight, faceless, voiceless outside their music, their masked silhouettes plastered across half the city. Their image was everywhere — posters, billboards, fan shirts — a cult branding that thrived on anonymity.

Lia didn’t get the hype.

Or maybe she didn’t let herself.

Mystery wasn’t always alluring. Sometimes it was just… tiring.

“You’re spacing out again,” Harper said, bumping her shoulder. “Thinking dark thoughts?”

“No, just… thoughts.”

“Uh-huh.” Harper narrowed her eyes but didn’t press. She never did unless she had to. It was one of the dozens of reasons Lia loved her — Harper didn’t bulldoze; she waited.

The sun dipped lower, painting the sky in streaks of copper and blood-orange. The warm light softened everyone’s faces, smoothing shadows, making the moment feel suspended — almost cinematic. They reached the small side-stage, already pulsing with anticipation for the indie band Harper adored. This — this was supposed to be the plan. Music, beers, maybe flirting with strangers. Letting herself exist without analyzing the way she existed.

They got two drinks and found a spot near the front. Harper was already swaying to the warm-up track, yelling over the crowd:

“Isn’t this perfect?”

Lia let out a breath and nodded.

“It is. It actually is.”

Harper beamed, satisfied.

For ten seconds, she even believed it.

Then something shifted.

Not in the crowd — in the air itself. A subtle current, prickling the back of her neck. The kind of instinct she hated having because it never turned out to be wrong. Her body reacted before her mind did; that cold tightness spread low in her stomach, a ghost of an old reflex.

The loudspeakers crackled.

A voice echoed from the main stage in the distance:

“—requesting medical assistance backstage. Do we have any trained personnel on-site? Anyone with nursing, EMT, or medical experience—”

Lia froze.

Harper turned slowly, her expression falling.

“No,” she said, reading Lia’s thoughts instantly. “Lia, don’t. You’re not— You left all that behind.”

But the world was already narrowing around Lia. The call repeated. Sharper. More urgent this time. It cut through the festival noise like a blade.

Her pulse kicked.

Her chest tightened — not with fear, but recognition.

You’re needed.

And with it, that awful sense of clarity she hadn’t felt in months. The one she wished she didn’t still have.

“I can’t just ignore it,” Lia whispered.

“Li… please. You don’t owe anyone—”

But a shout rose from ahead.

“Is anyone medically trained? We need help! Now!”

The crowd parted in a rippling wave as a security guard scanned the sea of faces, desperation etched into every line of him.

And then his eyes locked on Lia.

Not because she looked capable.

But because she didn’t look away.

“You,” he said, pointing sharply. “Are you trained?”

Lia swallowed. Her heartbeat thundered once, twice, and then fell into a strange, eerie calm — the kind that had always scared her. The kind she didn’t want to admit she sometimes missed.

“Yes,” she said before she could stop herself.

Harper exhaled a curse and grabbed her wrist.

“Lia—”

But Lia squeezed her hand once — an apology, a reassurance, a promise she wasn’t sure she could keep — and stepped forward.

Everything else faded.

The music.

The lights.

The warmth of the evening.

She crossed the threshold of the barricade and the guard ushered her through with brisk urgency.

And as the noise of the crowd died behind her, a different sound rose ahead — radios crackling, rushed footsteps, voices tight with panic. The backstage smelled different too: metal, sweat, spilled cables, ozone from overheated equipment.

Lia didn’t know it yet, but with each step she was walking straight toward the center of a world she should never have entered.

A world wrapped in secrets, shadows, and masks.

A world that had already noticed her.

The moment Lia stepped backstage, the festival atmosphere dissolved into something rawer, harsher — the kind of chaos she knew intimately. People rushed in sharp lines, radios buzzed with clipped commands, lights flashed like warning sirens across the metal scaffolding.

A cluster of crew members knelt beside a collapsed stagehand, their faces pale, eyes frantic.

Lia didn’t hesitate. She stripped her tote bag off her shoulder mid-stride, fingers flying as she tugged off her rings, bracelets — anything that could get in the way. Her heartbeat was steady, too steady, as if her body remembered a version of her mind no longer claimed.

“Here,” she snapped, thrusting everything at the nearest person standing in her path.

A tall figure caught the bundle reflexively.

Lia didn’t even look up — she was already dropping to her knees beside the injured worker.

But the figure stood frozen, her tote bag and jewelry clutched awkwardly in gloved hands.

A black mask stared down at her — smooth, matte, emotionless except for two eyes watching her with unsettling intensity.

She didn’t look up.

She only registered the black mask — unmistakably one of the band’s — and the steady, almost deliberate way he held her things, as if chaos bent around him instead of touching him.

She heard a soft exhale behind the mask, almost curious.

As if she’d done something impossible.

Or something he wasn’t used to.

Something… intimate.

But Lia was already leaning over the wounded man, snapping into a voice she hadn’t used in months.

“What’s your name?” she demanded, her tone gentle but commanding.

The man groaned, clutching his abdomen. A deep slash ran across his side, blood soaking his clothes and pooling onto the ground.

“M—Mark,” he gasped.

“Okay, Mark. I’m Lia. Stay awake for me, all right? I’ve got you.”

She pressed her hands around the wound, applying firm pressure. “Has someone called an ambulance?”

A beat of silence followed.

Crew members exchanged guilty looks.

“No,” someone muttered. “We thought he’d— we thought—”

Lia’s voice sliced through them.

“Call an ambulance. Now.”

Still nothing.

She turned her head sharply, eyes blazing.

“Now!”

A woman jolted into action, fumbling her phone out.

“On it!”

“Put it on speaker,” Lia ordered, already pressing her hands harder against the wound.

She glanced up at the surrounding crew.

“And I need towels. Clean ones. Anything you have — now.”

That broke the paralysis. Several people scattered at once — some for towels, some simply because they needed todosomething, anything, under the force of her voice.

Within seconds, the emergency operator’s voice filled the air.

The responder asked rapid questions and Lia answered without faltering, every syllable clipped and precise.

“Yes, male, mid-thirties, laceration to the left abdomen—

No, no signs of puncture to the chest—

He’s conscious but fading—

Yes, heavy bleeding—

We’re backstage at the Obsidian Veil main stage—”

At the mention of the band name, several heads turned — including the masked man still holding her belongings.

Lia didn’t see him.

But he saw her.

He watched the way her hands stayed steady, the way her breath never shook.

The way she wielded command like she was born with it.

He watched, and something in him sharpened.

Focused.

Fixed.

When the operator confirmed the ambulance was en route, Lia hung up and refocused on Mark.

“You’re doing great,” she murmured. “Keep talking to me.”

He tried — stuttering words about cables and falling equipment — but his voice wavered.

“Stay with me, Mark.”

Her fingers pressed harder. “Stay with me. Eyes open.”

She didn’t notice the shadow that moved closer behind her, silent and purposeful.

The other band members lingered a short distance away, drawn by the commotion, their masks turned in her direction. But the one holding her things didn’t look at them.

He only watched her.

When Mark wavered again, Lia leaned closer, her voice dropping gently.

“Listen. You’re going to be fine. Help is minutes away.”

Minutes stretched like hours — but finally the distant wail of sirens cut through the tension. The crew sagged with relief as paramedics rushed in, taking over with swift efficiency.

Lia stepped back, breathing hard for the first time. Blood soaked her hands, smeared across her wrists, her knees. And her shirt. Her hair clung to her cheek. Her heartbeat — steady through all of it — finally began to rise.

The moment she let go of Mark, the world slammed back in.

Voices. Footsteps. Lights.

The metallic tang of blood and adrenaline.

And someone standing very, very close behind her.

Lia turned —

— and found herself inches from a black mask.

The man held her tote bag out to her with both hands, almost carefully, as if afraid to disturb whatever fragile balance had formed around them.

“You dropped these,” he said, voice low and smooth — a stark contrast to the chaos she’d just commanded.

Lia blinked, caught off guard.

He opened his palm, revealing her rings.

She reached automatically, and his fingers brushed hers — lingering an instant too long to be accidental.

Not accidental at all.

There was a warmth to his touch despite the gloves, a steady, quiet pressure that made the chaotic world around them narrow into a tight, electric line between their hands. For a second, Lia forgot the blood drying on her skin, forgot the shouts and footsteps, forgot the metallic sting in the air. All she felt was the weight of his gaze tracking every small movement she made — as if memorizing them.

Behind the mask, his eyes were sharp.

Focused.

Curious.

And filled with something she didn’t have a name for.

Something she wasn’t sure she wanted a name for.

Before she could speak, a crew member called out,

“Hey — we need you over here!”

He didn’t move.

Not right away.

He just looked at her, as if trying to solve a puzzle he’d suddenly, unexpectedly become obsessed with — one he wasn’t sure he wanted to put down.

Then he whispered before he turned away.

“Don’t disappear.”