The Prince Who Stole Music

turned to give the sound assistants the thumbs up to load the next track. Blake breathed deeply and readied himself to begin rapping, allowing the cheers to fill his ears. The music swelled and the first verse was nearing, when the melody shut off with an ear- splitting screech. “ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!”, he screamed at the technicians, his voice echoing through the microphone, “TURN THE MUSIC BACK ON!”. “WE CAN’T!”, a voice shouted back from side-stage. Blake faced the audience again and pressed his fingers into his ears. Audience members were covering the sides of their heads, attempting to block the sound out. He looked closer at the faces in the front row of the crowd. The dimmed lights of the arena made it difficult for him to make out any distinct expressions, but he thought he saw a man running forward through the crowd, his mouth wide in a scream. Blake noticed this same expression on two women rushing from the sides of the Opera house. What’s going on? he thought. He turned and ran towards the side-stage. His heart was beating out of his chest and he could feel sweat running down between his shoulder blades. He yelled to a man who was standing by the light control centre flicking switches. “What happened?”, Blake said when he was close enough to speak to the man without screaming. “I don’t know”, the man said back in a worried voice, “We don’t have control over the technology”. He was still turning knobs and pushing buttons, attempting to turn the sound off. “Just get the arena light’s up!” Blake shouted at him. The light technician nodded at him and flicked a large series of switches on the wall above the panel. A flare of white light shone down on the stage and the audience. “Thank god!”, Blake said and rushed back to the middle of the stage to look down on the audience. It was chaos. People were screaming and charging in different directions around the arena. He looked to the exits of the Opera house, searching for the cause of the panic. Blake’s heart dropped and his stomach knotted, standing at the four doorways were rows upon rows of gigantic metallic machines. They were humanoid in appearance, with thick arms and legs and a shining pink stripe on their chests.

To Blake’s horror, they began moving through the rows of seats towards the stage, leaving the members of the crowd untouched. “What could they possibly want