Final Destination: Toronto Prologue

I'm gonna do something I've never done.

I'm skipping over most of the good stuff & focusing on the bad.

Okay, fine. Hardly ever done. But this is what I saw.

This is what happened.

...

It started out simply enough. Back at the Rock-It for a second gig. Gradually, Sex Bob-Omb started getting a mild following. We were hoping (okay, mostly Stephen) that tonight would drum up some enthusiasm, no pun intended.

Okay, totally intended, but anyways.

For once, everyone came out to support us. Knives was the first to arrive, not surprisingly. Ramona shuffled in soon after, still proving that she wasn't too cool to be fashionably late. Just fashionably on time. Wallace & Stacy showed up together as sort of a joke, saying that they had so much in common (like the guys they dated) that why the hell not (Wallace was still checking out every single guy at the bar anyway). Even Julie crawled out of her hole, & somehow managed to drag Envy along. "But please," I heard her say with a meaningful look in Julie's direction, "Call me Nat." Everyone hung out & bought a drink or two & then Sex Bob-Omb had sound check.

I wasn't officially part of the band anymore thanks to Neil, but luckily Kim didn't hate me so much anymore so the whole band approved of dubbing me Scott Pilgrim, Expert Roadie.

Well, more like Heavy-Lifter & Buy-Everyone-Coffee-Guy, but hey. It pays. No, it doesn't.

All four of us, Neil, Kim, Stephen & I, were lounging around in the Green Room while we waited  to go on. Stephen was freaking out as usual.

"Remember what happened last time?!" He barked hysterically. "We didn't even have that deal for a weekend! & next thing you know, POOF! Nothing! Nothing but a bunch of loonies & toonies!" He jingled his pockets for emphasis. I don't know why, but he liked to tote around pocketfuls of change in hopes that it might magically bring back his precious little record deal.

"You forget that you signed with an enormous douche." I said. G-man Graves. Otherwise known as the biggest dick who ever set foot in Toronto. About a month ago, I kicked him in the head so hard he burst into a shower of change worth millions.

Things were a lot easier now.

"Whatever." Kim muttered glumly. "Enough ancient history. We're on."

"We're on!" Neil repeated as if this were the most amazing piece of information he'd learned thus far in his life. I guess I'd be excited too. This was technically his first gig.

"Cool." I hollered after their stampede onstage. "I'll be right...here if you need-"

"WE ARE SEX BOB-OMB!" Kim's voice cut in. She counted the band in & a barrage of amptastic noise rang through the amphitheater. I think I might have even heard some cheering if it weren't so loud backstage.

& then everything fell silent. The amps shut off without warning, as if someone had unplugged them all & all the lights while they were at it. Everyone gasped in perfect unison, & then...nothing. We waited.

One of the main lighting fixtures sparked & fizzed above the audience. I've always had a habit of imagining the worst, but I think given what happened last month has given me plenty of reason to feel this way about my surroundings.

In just a few short moments I was unfortunately proven right.

The fixture in question, dangling above where Ramona & Knives sat, came down in a flash. All I could see was the outline of the structure, illuminated by its own flickering malfunction, until it landed with a dull crash on the two most important girls in my life.

The most important actually. I heard Knives shriek moments afterward. She'd gotten away.

But Ramona...I didn't hear a word from her.

Never again.

That alone would have killed me if the the emergency lights hadn't come on while Stephen reached out to  pull me offstage. I could see the walls crumbling at the point where they met the ceiling, & people rushing to the exits.

"Little brother!" Stacy shouted. She was always so calm, it was hard to hear her like this. "Are you the last one?" She asked.

I nodded, but I wasn't really sure.

She nodded back & rushed past the bar, but somebody bumped her into it trying to squeeze ahead of her. She fell over the counter screaming & tried to  climb back over it, but another large group of stragglers ran past & knocked it over.

I was so close I could hear the squish.

"No." I heard myself mutter under my breath. "No way. This isn't happening. Why couldn't I have just fought Patel again? I'd go through all of that just to undo this..."

"Shut UP, Scott! This is NO time to be whining, just FOLLOW US OUT OF HERE!"

I'm not sure who screamed it, because I was now surrounded by what was left of my friends. Envy, I mean Natalie, & Julie took up the rear, jabbering to each other in disbelief.

"What are you doing?! Come on!" I shouted after them.

"But, wait! I need to call Emergency!" Nat called back. Julie nodded in agreement & shot me a poisonous look.

Part of the metal rods supporting the stage came rolling towards them. I shouted at both of them trying to warn them of the danger, but it was too late. The sharp irregular end, where the beam had broken off impaled them both in one go & kept rolling onward.

& then, as luck would have it, Wallace tripped, screaming as he got trampled while the rest of us kept running. The rod took him out, along with the folks surrounding him, with its tremendous weight. They were ground beef in minutes.

I kept glancing back to watch the awful scene unfold, witnessing every last one of my friend's gruesome deaths. Tears blurred my vision, but I kept on running.

At least they slowed the rod down, I thought somewhat darkly.

A man's scream returned my attention to the front. I'd been looking behind me so many times I wasn't paying any attention to what lay ahead.

The walls were practically Swiss cheese at this point, crumbling in on themselves & taking ill-timed people with it. In a desperate attempt to get out, Stephen had run up ahead of our shrinking group. He was one of many now buried beneath the wall. Neil ran towards where his body lay, just in time to receive a support beam in the chest. He coughed, spewing blood, & collapsed on top of Stephen.

It was just me & Knives left, & between the two of us, I didn't think we had much chance of escaping. Nor did I particularly care. But Knives clutched at my hand & started running for a small clearing where the wall had come down completely. She shrieked & cried, pushing past people angrily & bring me along for the ride. She was shouting something incoherently among the mass of hysteria around us. It was only after we leaped past three others trying to leave ahead of us that I could hear what she was saying.

"WE HAVE TO GET OUT OF HERE ALIVE! WE HAVE TO!"

I nodded like an idiot, knowing full well she wasn't looking at me & that it wouldn't matter much if she was. I jumped over a pile of rubble & we ducked past a dumpster in time to see the rest of the building come down, with whoever hadn't escaped still inside, & most likely dead.

"You got out too?" A familiar voice gasped breathlessly.

"Kim?!" I couldn't believe it. Knives leaped away from me & wrapped her in a huge hug.

Kim sighed airily in relief & returned the hug gratefully. "I just can't believe that the Rock-It collapsed just like that! Holy shit!"

"Yeah. Shit." Knives agreed.

"Well, we're safe now..." Kim concluded, staring intently at the wreckage. Then, as if out of nowhere, a loose piece of the nearby fence came down on both of them. I could see Knives shoot up in an effort to stop the fence from hitting Kim but it came down anyway, crushing their bodies horribly over a pool of their blood.

Surprisingly, I didn't faint at the sight of it. I've been known to do that in the past. But having seen so many close friends die already, I did the only thing I felt like doing for the rest of my life.

I screamed. I screamed & screamed until my throat felt red & raw. Everything that was right with my life, suddenly gone. After finally getting it together, the only thing I had left was my rapidly shrinking sanity.

Maybe not even that anymore.

...

"We're on." Kim said.

"We're on!" Neil shouted happily.

My mind went on autopilot. Release the oxygen masks. "WHAT?!"