Chapter 247: I Feel Like I’m Dreaming
<🎧 Song Recommendation: I Feel Like I’m Drowning by Two Feet>
...
Von closed his notebook and pulled out his phone. He wanted to verify something that had been nagging at the back of his mind.
He opened his Musify and typed in Illustrious Man, the stage name of an indie alt-electronic artist he used to listen to frequently in his past life.
In that previous timeline, Illustrious Man had released a standout single titled I Feel Like I’m Drowning toward the tail end of 2019 on his sophomore studio album.
It hadn’t had a video, but it still managed to crawl across the internet on its own for two years until everybody knew it without knowing where they’d heard it.
Von tapped on the artist’s profile and noticed the second album was there.
It had indeed been released earlier this year, but as Von scrolled through the tracklist, his brow furrowed.
The song wasn’t there.
He refreshed the page, checking the single releases and bonus editions. Nothing.
In its place were several completely new tracks that Von had never heard before in his life. The timeline shift had altered Illustrious Man’s discography entirely.
Von let out a quiet sigh, leaning back in his leather chair. It was honestly unfortunate.
That record had been wildly well-received in his past life, a track defined by its dark, moody bassline and hypnotic rhythm. Up until now, Illustrious Man hadn’t put out any new music since that album dropped.
"Such a waste of a great foundation," Von muttered to himself.
He tapped his pen against the desk. If the song wasn’t going to exist in this timeline, then there was no reason to let the idea die. He would remake it himself.
He didn’t want to copy it outright, though. The only elements he planned to keep were the core rhythm and the structural variation.
His plan was to completely redesign the beats, alter the harmonic progression, and recreate a brand-new concept from the ground up.
He flipped to a clean page in his notebook and began scribbling down stuff.
The original had been about sinking and the water closing over your head.
But Von wasn’t drowning...
He was standing in a house he owned, two days out from the second night of a sold-out arena tour, with millions of people watching and cheering him, and none of it felt real yet.
He scribbled four lines fast, crossed out two, kept the other two, and then sat very still.
’...I Just Might Be Dreaming.’
As the lines took shape on the paper, his eyes lit up.
"Yeah. That’s looking nice already."
Von opened his System inventory and his eyes lingered on the newly acquired [Zone State] pills.
Using one right now would allow him to crazily accelerate his speed and creativity, and help him construct something magnificent.
But Von deliberated for a moment before deciding against it.
’No,’ he thought, swiping the inventory panel away. ’I need to save these for later. The tour is long, and there will be nights where I’m running on empty. Using one now when I’m fresh is just wasteful.’
He set the pen down and stretched his arms over his head.
"But before I begin," Von said aloud to the empty studio, "there’s something I’ve been forgetting for a while."
[STATUS PANEL — TITLES]
● Uncrowned King (equipped)
● Street Performer
● Mogul
● The Visionary
He had been walking around with Uncrowned King whenever he wasn’t performing, because it protected him from smear campaigns and he’d been in a war. Which was fine and smart.
But it was also completely useless in a room with no people in it.
[Unequip Uncrowned King?]
[Equip The Visionary (SS)?]
[Confirm]
The change felt like his eyes adjusting to a brighter room.
The notes on the page stopped being notes and became a structure, and he could see three separate problems in the second line that he hadn’t noticed thirty seconds ago.
’I’m an idiot,’ Von thought pleasantly, and got to work.
***
Constructing [I Just Might Be Dreaming] proved to be far more challenging than he had anticipated.
Rebuilding a song from a hazy memory while trying to stamp his own signature onto it required endless trial and error.
His first hurdle came with the low end. He wanted a heavy, distorted synth-bass that would shake the subwoofers in an arena, but every patch he dialed in felt either too muddy or too thin.
Von stood up from the console, walked into the recording booth, and picked up a four-string bass guitar.
He plugged it directly into the interface and spent forty-five minutes tracking live bass lines, layering them beneath a digital sub-synth to give the rhythm a visceral, human pulse.
He stepped over to the electric guitar stand next, strapping on a Fender Stratocaster to test various short, atmospheric riffs for the verse.
He spent the next two hours going back and forth between the booth and the desk; stepping inside to record vocal takes, testing different microphone distances, playing the instruments himself, and tweaking the EQ to decide which elements belonged in this updated version.
Around eight in the evening, Von stepped out of the studio, walking down the quiet corridor to the glass patio doors to catch some light and break the mental strain.
He stood under the cool night sky for ten minutes, letting his ears rest before diving back into the trench.
When he sat back down at the desk, however, he hit a wall.
No matter how many times he rearranged the transition into the chorus, the energy felt flat.
The bridge lacked the dramatic lift he needed, and the vocal hook wasn’t landing with the sharp impact he envisioned.
Von rubbed his temples, staring at the DAW screen where dozens of audio tracks lay stacked in a messy grid.
"What am I missing here?" he asked himself, leaning close to the monitors to replay the sixteen-bar loop.
"The transition is too abrupt. If I drop the drums out entirely, the momentum dies. If I keep them in, the chorus doesn’t hit hard enough."
He tried swapping the snare for a rimshot. It sounded weak. He tried layering a vocal swell. It sounded cluttered.
He leaned back in his chair with a groan, staring up at the acoustic panels on the ceiling.
"No... that’s not it at all," Von muttered with frustration. "I’m forcing it."
He checked the digital clock in the corner of the monitor screen.
[9:48 PM]
He had been locked in this room for nearly over seven hours straight.
Von let out a quiet sigh, saving the session file and closing the software. Pushing through creative exhaustion would only result in a compromised record. He decided to call it a night and retire.
As soon as the studio monitors powered down, Von’s stomach let out a rumble as if reminding him that he had the chance to eat now
Von placed his hand on his stomach with a wry smile. The only food he’s eaten all day was Marcello’s ossobuco at two in the afternoon.
His body was begging for fuel.
Leaving the studio exactly as it was, Von stretched his sore shoulders and headed out.
The main wing of the Pinecrest Mansion was dead silent.
The warm ambient lights along the hallways had dimmed to their nighttime settings, throwing shadows across the floors.
Von assumed everyone else had already gone to bed given how late it was getting.
However, as he rounded the corner toward the main kitchen space, Von noticed bright light, accompanied by a sound.
"!"