Riley Kendall never knew his place in the world. All he wanted was to forget his past and live in the future. To reach his goal, he formed a band called the Dreaded Miracles.
Christopher Anderson, Conner Marshall, and Max Weth, his band members, had the same idea, and now the four young men were well-known. One and Eight, their first album, sold a million copies in just two days, but it appeared most fans did not know the true meaning behind the name “Dreaded Miracles”. Riley had to find a way to get the message across to them, but it was something he had to ask himself as well. Who was he? Who were the Dreaded Miracles? Why were they important?
Their first major tour for One and Eight was coming to a close, but to celebrate getting it done, Riley worked his band members three times as hard. It was midnight, and the small studio smelled like Papa John’s pizza. Riley and his friends banged away, but they were exhausted. It was almost too obvious that Riley’s voice was hurting him, and he wasn’t feeling well.
“Come on, guys, step it up,” he begged Christopher, Conner, and Max. “Do you expect us to finish off the tour sounding like amateurs?”
Slightly offended, Christopher dropped his drumsticks and fixed his deep brown eyes on the pale man sitting in front of him. “Riley, we’re tired. We want to go to bed, and you need to rest your voice. I think it’s safe to say you’re the amateur here, not us.”
Riley’s cheeks flushed. He did not like to be bossed around. A memory found its way into his brain, and he shook his head to get rid of it. “No! I’m the leader here, and I say we keep on practicing!”
The band members groaned, but they complied.
Christopher picked up his drumsticks, and Conner and Max tightened their grips on their guitar picks. All three men glared at Riley, who gave them the cue to start playing. They cringed when they heard how hoarse he was.
“Eighteen!” he screamed. “Eighteen years have passed! Eighteen! And they became, One and Eight!” but then his voice cracked. He set Reggie, his childhood guitar, down and pushed the microphone away, closing his baby blue eyes. His head dropped to the left. The instruments continued to play, but it wasn’t long until they cut off.
Christopher tried to help him. He pulled a bottle of water out from a twenty-four pack and hopped down from his chair. Coming within reach of Riley, he held it out to him. “Riley, listen to yourself. You sound like a dying toad. Here’s a water bottle.”
Riley, though, smacked the bottle out of Christopher’s hand. It hit the studio wall, where all their guitars hung. His feet hit the dirty ground trashed with pizza crumbs as he, too, hopped off his chair. The shadows were back. He gripped his head with both hands when he heard them laughing at him from the studio’s four gray walls.
Christopher snapped at him. “Hey! That was unnecessary! For Pete’s sake, Riley! I’m trying to help you!”
“I don’t need your help! We’re going to get One and Eight perfect, and that’s final!”
“You’re sick, you know? We’ve been practicing since 10 am. Poor Conner and Max can hardly keep their eyes open.” To emphasize his point, Christopher pointed at Conner and Max.
“Are we still practicing?” Conner asked. “All right.” Nevertheless, his head fell forward, and it landed in a half-eaten box of pizza.
Max could no longer feel his thumb and index finger, because he’d been holding the guitar pick so long. He ran his fingers through his short, brown hair to calm down, but it was difficult. Like Conner and Christopher, he was mad and tired.
Riley did not have time for sissies. He placed his hands on his hips and said, “Look at you guys. You’re obviously not ready. We have much to do before the concert tomorrow.”
“It is tomorrow,” Conner mumbled with his face still in the warm, pepperoni pizza.
“Don’t ya get smart with me!” angrily retorted Riley.
“You need to stop treating us like animals!” Christopher shouted. “We’re human, too!”
Riley scoffed. “Well, that’s more your problem than mine, right?”
That did it! Christopher had had enough of his attitude. He shoved Riley’s chest, and he broke through a cluster of music stands in the corner of the room.
The crash woke Conner and Max.
Conner took his face out of the pizza box. It was dripping with pepperoni pieces and Marinara sauce. He and Max almost called out Christopher, but then they concluded Riley deserved that push.
“Please, don’t hurt me,” he begged. Riley cradled his arm. Tears streamed down his slightly flushed cheeks. He crawled away from Christopher and stopped under a table, hugging one of its legs. Instead of his friend, he saw his father: his gaping mouth, fangs, and white eyes with no pupils.
Christopher did not bother to pick him up. He stomped his foot and stormed out of the studio. “Go ahead and kill yourself, Riley! See if I care!” He slammed the door so hard, the guitars shook on their hooks.
Riley rose to his shaky legs. He saw Conner and Max heading toward the door as well. “Oh, so now you two are turning against me?” he asked.
“Christopher’s right, Ri,” said Max.
“We’ve had enough,” finished Conner.
Without another word, they left Riley Kendall all alone in the studio.
A volcano erupted from his head. The fear. The anger. It was intense. He proceeded to turn over the table he was hiding under, and he picked up one of the downed music stands. Riley chucked it into the wall and tightly clenched his fists. The music stand shattered just like his blackened heart, which had very little light in it. He was not yet satisfied with his actions, though. His next victim was Reggie. Riley lifted him high over his head and smashed him on the floor. Guitar pieces catapulted all over the studio until all Riley held was Reggie’s neck.
He fell to his hands and knees and sobbed. He remembered the time his father threw him into a table and broke his arm, the time his mom died, and all the times he tried to hide from the Devil himself. His black clothes stuck to his body as sweat mixed with his tears. Riley just accepted that nobody would ever love him.
He rose to his feet and made his way to the studio’s guitar rack. He stopped next to a few hanging guitars and used their slick surfaces as mirrors. Riley was a very handsome young man, but he never saw his inner beauty. He had medium-length, black hair and a small goatee on his chin. His life depended on fear, for that was the only emotion he had. The only way he could forget his past was through music. That was why he felt so connected to the Dreaded Miracles.
His band members may have ditched him, but that didn’t stop him from practicing. Therefore, Riley pulled a new guitar off the rack and plopped down in his chair. He sang until five in the morning. By then, he could do no more. Riley collapsed out of the chair and landed unconscious on the floor.
Christopher, Conner, and Max found him just three hours later, and they worked together to wake him. “Riley! Riley!”
“What happened?” Riley shot to a sitting position, but he accidentally smacked Christopher in the nose. His eyes rolled over to Conner, who showed him Reggie’s broken neck.
“Um, you see, Riley,” he stuttered, “it looks like you and Reggie here became involved in a fist fight.”
At the sight of the guitar, Riley’s heart snapped from two pieces to three. Reggie was his only way to keep him sane, and he just murdered him. He really was a monster. No Reggie meant no concert, and no concert meant no money. Riley Kendall himself was going to be the downfall of the Dreaded Miracles.
He shoved past his friends and slipped into the studio’s bathroom, where failures like him belonged. Inside, he closed the drapes and picked up a razor blade. He thought about cutting himself, but then something else came to mind. A cut on his arm would not tell the whole world his story, so he decided to vandalize the bathroom instead. The message he carved into the wall tortured him, but it was the truth: Stop the abuse. It’s gotten old.
He hid in the deepest corner of the room and covered himself with his jacket. Riley had to understand he wasn’t the only one suffering. Christopher, Conner, and Max were, too. All four band members wanted to start their lives over because no one ever loved them as children. Riley needed his friends' support. They knew he did, so they joined him in the bathroom.
Christopher sat cross-legged in front of him, and he sighed as he tried to find his words. “Riley, you need to stop living in fear. Think about music. I know you can do this concert.”
“Reggie or not, we are still the Dreaded Miracles,” Max said. “Our name means ‘there are still miracles waiting for you, even if you have lived a dreaded life’.”
“We’re brothers—the Big Four. And brothers never leave each other in the dark,” Conner elucidated.
Riley agreed, but his suffering wasn’t the only thing devouring him. He was homesick. After six months on the road, he just wanted to skip this concert and return to his lonely life in Greenville, South Carolina. His forehead burned, and his vocal cords screamed in agony. It was like somebody stuck an ax in his throat, but he refused to tell his friends he was hurting.
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and then Add to home screen.