Chapter 243: Tour Opening (3)
<🎧 Song Recommendation: WE ON GO by BIA>
...
Von strutted to the top of the walkway, and the screen behind him detonated into vivid color as the show exploded into life.
Frozen Attitude went off like a flashbang. Von sang the second verse while walking backward down the ramp, the crowd screaming every word back at him.
Thirty dancers dressed in black flooded the stage from both wings in one fluid motion. Sabrina found her hands rising off her lap without her permission.
Thousand Miles brought Conor Prince out on a rising platform, the thunderous drums rearranging something deep in her chest.
It Doesn’t Even Matter featured Alex Hall stepping up beside Von at center stage. The two traded lines across the bridge back and forth until the entire arena took over the final verse for them.
And then came Masquerade.
Masquerade was the moment Sabrina stopped pretending.
The lights dropped into a deep, blood-red glow. Von took the front of the stage with the dancers coiled tightly behind him in a sharp wedge formation. And then he moved.
Sabrina didn’t even have the words for it. She wasn’t a dancer, but she knew what she was watching was beyond human.
He hit every musical accent so precisely it looked pre-recorded, then deliberately landed half a beat late on purpose, driving the arena insane.
He wasn’t just standing in front of the dancers, he was woven inside the formation, thirty bodies revolving around him like he was the axis holding them together.
At one point, he dropped low, spun seamlessly off one hand, and snapped right back up on the exact snare hit without a single hair out of place.
Sabrina gasped out loud.
She actually heard herself do it, looking around in mild embarrassment, only to realize four thousand people around her had just gasped at the exact same second.
"He’s a really good dancer!" she screamed, clutching Nicholas’s sleeve. "Nicky! He’s a really good dancer!"
"I know!" Nicholas shouted back, grinning wide.
"No, like... he’s really good!"
"I KNOW!"
Nicholas was too caught up in the energy of the show to keep talking, and Sabrina couldn’t pull her eyes away either.
Emotion washed over her so fast she found herself singing along to melodies she barely even knew.
Song after song flew by, the lights never repeating a single pattern. Then, near the two-hour mark, the stage went quiet.
Von walked back to center stage with a black towel draped around his neck. He pulled the mic from its stand, breathing heavily with a satisfied grin.
"Miami, you’ve been unbelievable tonight. Seriously," he said, wiping sweat from his forehead. "So listen... I’ve got a surprise for you."
The roar of the crowd doubled.
The lighting truss dimmed down into a soft, warm gold wash. A stage tech jogged out and handed him an acoustic guitar. Von walked over and sat right on the edge of the stage, his feet dangling over the barricade.
He struck the opening chords.
The entire arena exploded into screams because everyone recognized it immediately. Every single person in the building knew those notes; it had been dominating every feed, chart, and playlist since Thursday morning.
Remedy.
It wasn’t a surprise at all. In fact, it was the most predictable song he could have played.
And it didn’t matter in the slightest.
Because this was him singing it live.
🎸♪
Oh baby, you are my remedy~
The only peace that sets me free.
When I get lost and cannot see,
You hold my heart so tenderly.
Through every dark and stormy sea,
Oh baby, you are my remedy~
🎸♪
His voice echoed through the stadium so clean it felt unfair, warm and deep on the low notes, before soaring effortlessly into a higher register the studio recording hadn’t even captured.
Sabrina found herself singing along to every word of the chorus. Nearly twenty thousand voices joined in on the second verse.
Von smiled, holding the mic out toward the crowd, letting the wave of sound wash over the stage.
Nicholas glanced to his side and saw Sabrina watching with both hands pressed over her mouth, her eyes glistening under the warm gold lights.
When the final chord faded, Von stood up, set the guitar on its stand, and took a deep bow.
At that exact moment, the ceiling split open, and a shower of thousands of red and white flowers began to fall.
They spun slowly through the light beams, blanketing the stage and walkway until the black flooring completely vanished beneath them.
The wall of sound inside the stadium was beyond anything Sabrina could describe. It had been an incredible night and she was never, ever going to admit out loud just how right Nicholas had been.
Everyone assumed the show had reached its grand finale. Nobody wanted it to end after an experience like that, but the flower drop felt like the definitive closing mark.
Then Von straightened up from his bow.
He walked slowly back to the center of the stage, stepping through the petals, picking up the mic, and letting the thunderous applause wash over him for a few moments.
Then he tilted his head slightly, and that signature smirk crept onto his face.
"So," Von said softly into the mic. "Was that a surprise?"
The crowd hesitated, unsure of what answer he wanted.
Half the arena shouted "YEAHHH!" just to cheer him on, while a few scattered voices yelled back that it wasn’t a surprise at all.
Von’s smirk widened.
"Oh, most of you are wrong."
He let the silence hang for a heavy beat.
"How about I give you a surprise now?"
Sabrina’s heart slammed on her chest. Everyone’s did. After two hours of jumping, screaming, and singing, the adrenaline surged right back up.
And as their hearts quickened, every single light in the building went out.
The truss. The main screen. The stage fixtures. The house lights, the emergency runners along the aisles, the floor strips lining the stairs. The tiny red standby LEDs on the speaker amps. The camera tally lights. The digital menu screens in the outer concourse.
Every single source of light in the Kaseya Center died at the exact same instant, dropping twenty thousand people into pitch blackness.
A solitary scream cut through the dark, followed by complete, heavy silence. Two seconds. Three seconds.
Then, out of the dark, a synth line cut in.
One note at a time was an icy and climbing in a tight, rising arpeggio.
Sabrina felt the goosebumps spread instantly down both of her arms.
She didn’t know this song.
She looked over at Nicholas in the dark. She could barely make out the outline of his face, but he was already looking back at her, his mouth slightly open. He didn’t know it either.
Nobody knew it.
No one on earth had ever heard this track before.
And in the quiet dark, twenty thousand hearts raced in unison, waiting for the beat to drop and for Von to reappear.