The curtain opened like a wound shamelessly exposed. The white lights hit them directly in the face, blinding them for a second. Valeria took the first step onto the stage, her heart pounding in her chest. The microphone seemed too big, the room too quiet.
The place wasn't full. Some people in the front rows were chatting among themselves, glasses in hand, their gaze distracted. Further back, others stared at the stage with neutral expressions, as if they weren't expecting anything new. Valeria felt a slight tremor in her back. But she didn't stop.
She looked at Cami. Three hits of the drumstick. Julián took a deep breath.
And the first song began: Ruido propio (Proper Noise).
The sound came out raspy, honest, raw. Valeria's voice cut through the drums and bass like a blade of suppressed emotion. But the audience didn't move. Only a couple of heads swayed slowly. Some continued talking. The applause at the end was lukewarm.
The second song, Calle sin nombre, had a more introspective tempo. Julián closed his eyes as he played. For him, music was a conversation with his past, and that stage, though cold at first, was beginning to feel like a borrowed home. The bass filled the empty spaces of the room with an invisible force.
Cami, meanwhile, played as if nothing else existed. She had stopped seeing the audience from the first note. She was immersed in her own rhythm, guiding each beat with savage conviction. She struck mercilessly, but with surgical precision. She knew something was going to change. She felt it in her handclaps.
It was during the third song, Cenizas de jueves, that something happened.
A woman in the second row closed her eyes and began to sing the chorus. A boy next to her raised his fist in the air. Then another. And another.
Valeria noticed that the lights were no longer so blinding. Now they lit up the faces that were singing. The audience had multiplied without warning. Suddenly, "Pain of Amplifier" broke out like a flash of lightning. Screams. Clapping. Jumping. Dancing.
The end of the show was an explosion of screams and cheers. The last song, "We Are Noise," became a collective mantra. The stage shook. The floor vibrated beneath their feet. And when they played the last chord, the silence that remained was so profound it hurt.
Valeria looked at the audience. At her friends. At Dani, smiling in the shadows.
And she wondered, her chest pounding:
And now... what's next?