The Devil's In The Feedback

-They say every story begins somewhere. This one began on a night too lazy for saints but loud enough for the devil to show up.

They say, 'the devil don’t go looking for contracts in Michigan', but they don’t know how he works. He doesn’t knock. He hums. He awaits the melodic summoning.

That night, the chords were nothing at first. Just three kids, an old, beat-up amp, and the kind of recklessness that only comes from having nothing left to lose.

It was in a graveyard, of course. Somewhere on the edge of town, where the map stops and the headlights fade. A place where the air tastes of wet stone and memory. They dragged the drum kit past cracked tombstones. The bass stood crooked on a slab of marble. The singer tuned his guitar until it bled static into the night.

They called themselves We Burn. But names are easy to change. It's dreams that are harder to kill.

The air was lethargic that night, like the way smoke hangs in the back of a bar after closing. They lit a cigarette, passing it between themselves. One of them laughed. They played without reckoning. A session without an audience. Well, except for the dead that is.

They drank and smoked amongst the gravestones to figure it all out. Maybe they thought it would make the silence answer them. Maybe they just liked the way it made their hands shake.

The bass came first. A low thrum that rolled under their boots. The lead guitar followed, ragged and raw. The drums hit their skin like quiet thunder. The air bent around the sound. Something shifted.

They weren’t aware of it right away, but somewhere in the distance, someone was listening. No, not listening, waiting. And not just waiting but leaning forward in the dark.

He came out of nowhere. Not in flame or shadow, but like an afterthought in the noise. A man in red, with boots lustrous enough to drink in your reflection. He clapped once, slow, deliberate.

The music didn’t stop immediately. But his voice cut through as though it had. “You want forever?” he said. It wasn't a question, more like a chorus line. The words made no sense then, and yet somehow, they understood.

The singer stopped. His hand still on the frets. “Who... no, what are you?” he asked.

The man smiled, but it wasn’t kind. “A producer. A lover. A collector of promises. I work in exchange. And you boys… you have a sound worth owning.”

The words rolled through the air like smoke. The drummer laughed nervously. The guitarist looked at the singer. The singer just stared at the man.

The man stepped closer, boots brushing cold stone. "Play me the song that embodies you," he said directly to the singer.

They played. No one stopped them. Not even the stones. Every note was heavier than the last, a hymn among the graves. Something in the air tightened, like a coil ready to spring.

When the song ended, there was no applause. Only the man in red, the hush of the night and the promise.

They didn't want forever. They just wanted to burn beautifully. The man in red nodded. That was all he needed.

They didn't know it then, but they had just signed their first song to hell.

-They say fame comes at a price, but you never know what you've paid until the music won't let you go. And our boys? They would learn that the hard way.

They woke the next morning to the sound of themselves.

Not music, not laughter, but their own names sung back to them. It was faint, like something trapped inside the hollow of their skulls. They swore it was the wind, but the wind doesn't hum chords in three-part harmonies.

By the end of the week, they had a new name: Hollow Mercy. By the end of the month, they had a small crowd. By the end of the year? They had the world eating out of the palms of their hands.

The devil doesn't rush things. He gives you just enough to want more, and then he hands you the rope with a smile.

They sold their first record for nothing but their own souls. It was gold before they even touched it. They kept playing, always playing.

It started small. A local dive bar that smelled of spilled beer and broken dreams. They played for three hours, then six, then nine. They played until the bottles in the crowd ran dry. They played until the air in the room throbbed with static, until the faces in the crowd began to blur together.

It became a ritual. The more they played, the bigger the crowd. The more they played, the more their bodies remembered the hum of that first night. the more they played, the less they remembered the silence.

The singer-Dante-loved it. The noise. The lights. The shouting. The applause that came after each set like a benediction and a wound all at once. He started needing it. Needing the rush.

Luca, the lead guitarist noticed the way Dante's hands trembled after every show, the way his voice cracked even when the crowd roared loud enough to drown him out. Luca noticed the smell of smoke under Dante's skin, even when he wasn't smoking. Luca noticed that they weren't making music anymore-they were feeding something. Something old, something not human.

The crowds didn't know it. The critics didn't know it. Not even the band knew it yet. But the man in red knew it. He was always there, in the back of the venue, the first to clap, the last to leave.

One night, after a show that left the crowd screaming for more, Dante leaned against the bass amp, still humming the last chord.

"I hear him," Dante said.

Luca didn't turn. "You mean him," Luca stated, pointing to the man in red.

Dante nodded, "He's not going to let us stop. He's gonna keep us playing till one day? We won't wake in the morning," he whispered.

Luca didn't answer. He just watched Dante walk back to the dressing room, guitar slung low, fingers bleeding through calluses.

They kept playing. Because they couldn't stop. Because the noise was a drug now. Because silence was death.

Somewhere along the way, they stopped asking what the cost was. They only asked when they could play again.

The devil doesn't need to make you sign twice. Once is enough.

-They say you can't hide from what you've signed up for. And our boys were beginning to learn that California dreaming didn't hide them from the devil, it let him watch.

They moved west. Not because the dream asked them to. But because the dream began to feel like a shadow in their own town.

California, they said. The hills. The heat. The endless night of neon and noise. But these streets have eyes. And the eyes remember your chords long after you’ve played them.

The mansion they rented was high above the city, glass walls catching the sun until it burned your skin. Inside, the air never stopped humming. Not with music, not with silence—just a melodic hum. Like a tuning fork for the mind.

They recorded their second album there. They called it Hallowed Ground. But the notes were wrong. Not bad, just… different. More echo than sound.

Dante spent nights alone in the recording booth, humming words nobody recognized, tuning his voice until it cracked. Luca would find him there in the mornings, guitar in hand, staring at a blank wall as if it were a verse.

“You’re losing it,” Luca said once.

“Maybe I’m finding it,” Dante answered.

But it wasn’t just Dante who was losing it. It was all of them.

The walls pulsed. The floors breathed. Sometimes they woke to find the mansion rearranged. Rooms were in places they didn’t remember building them, guitars gone and later returned, drums with new scars. They said it was paranoia. The drummer said it was the hills talking. Luca thought it was something worse.

One night, the man in red came to visit them. Not as a producer this time, but as a guest—sitting at the kitchen table drinking whiskey that burned like fire. “You boys sound tired,” he said.

“We’re fine,” Dante said.

“You don’t sound fine,” Luca said to the singer.

The man smiled. 'That’s because he's not fine. He never is," he pauses, placing a finger under Dante's chin to force the singer to look at him, "I’m patient. I wait for the right chord, and when it comes… oh, boy, I take it.”

He left before sunrise. But the words stayed in Luca’s fingers, in the air that didn’t stop humming. The man in red's touch burned on Dante’s skin like an invisible brand.

Luca began to dig. Old records. Folklore. Urban myths about musicians who played forever. Who disappeared without silence. He found the same story in every language, every chord progression: They made a bargain. They kept playing. They could never stop.

The deeper Luca dug, the louder the hum became. And one night, when Dante stepped off-stage mid-song, the crowd screamed for him like a wound calling for blood.

Luca realized the truth. They weren’t playing for themselves anymore. They were playing for him. The man in red.

And maybe the man in red wasn’t asking. Maybe he was keeping score.

-They say the last song is the one you never stop playing. And Dante would learn that truth too late. They burned beautifully. But forever came with ashes.

They said every song has an ending. They lied.

The stage was set. Not just any stage—this was the stage the devil had built for them. Somewhere between a coliseum and a dream. Lights like molten gold, and a crowd that wasn’t quite flesh. The air smelled of ozone and ash.

They called it their final show. They called it The Last Set. But the truth is—there is no last set. There is only the song you keep playing until the sky catches fire.

Dante was first to notice. His fingers bled before the first note, but he didn’t stop. The guitar sang through the amp like a confession. Luca watched him, guitar slung low, watching the sweat curl on Dante’s skin like steam over coals.

The crowd didn’t cheer. They waited.

They knew this wasn’t just a show. This was a reckoning.

The man in red stepped onto the stage. Not to watch, but to conduct. The light bent to him. The crowd bent to him. His voice cut the air: “Play it for me, boys. Play it for me forever.”

And they did.

The drums beat like a heartbeat in a coffin. The bass rattled through their bones. The guitar cried until it broke.

Somewhere in the middle, Dante laughed. Not with joy. Not with sorrow. But with something sharp and awful that made Luca’s skin crawl.

They played until they could no longer stand. They played until the stage burned under their feet. They played until the man in red was gone and the crowd was silent except for the hum—the hum that had been following them since the graveyard.

Dante fell to his knees. The crowd screamed anyway. They called his name, begged for more, but there was nothing left to give.

Luca stepped forward. He wanted to end it. Dante wanted to keep going.

They played the final chord together. It didn’t fade. It stayed. A note stretched into eternity.

The lights went out.

-They say silence is the end of a song. But silence is a lie.

Luca woke with a ringing in his head. It was not the ringing of music—it was the hum. The hum that had been following them since the graveyard.

The stage was gone. The lights were gone. Dante was gone. But the music was still there. In the air. In the walls. In the dust they breathed.

He could still hear it. Not in the way you hear a song, but in the way a wound remembers pain.

The man in red was gone, too. But Luca knew better. The devil doesn’t leave. He doesn’t need to. He only waits.

Luca walked through the ruins of what they had built. The amps were cracked, the strings turned to silver ash. The ghost of their music still hung heavy in the air, like smoke in a graveyard.

Somewhere, on a radio that should not still work, Dante’s voice whispered: “Encore?”

It was not a proposition. It was a promise.

The hum was a dull roar, the hills have eyes, and someone was still listening.

-They say every legend dies. They lie. Some songs don’t end. They just echo until the world forgets the words. So listen carefully, friends. If you hear a hum at midnight, it is not the wind. It is the song they never stopped playing.

Live fast. Leave loud. And pray you don’t ignite beautifully.

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Legends live as long as someone sings their songs. If The Devil's in the Feedback still hums in your mind, send me a song you'd like to see become the next legend. The stage is always set. All that is waiting is you.