The GPS brought them to a squat, stucco building labeled “Mid-Oklahoma Conference Center & Banquet Hall”, which was generously optimistic. Half the letters on the sign were missing. The parking lot was full of minivans, bumper stickers that said “ASK ME ABOUT MY ORB PHOTOS,” and one rusted-out hearse painted with a wolf howling at three different moons.

Thane stared out the van window, unblinking. “We’ve been tricked.”

Gabriel grinned. “We’ve been invited to destiny.

Jonah yawned. “Please let this be a vampire LARP thing. I brought my cloak this time.”

The banner above the entrance read:

“3rd Annual Paranormal Midwest Con: Energy, Entities, & Enlightenment!”
Starring: Feral Eclipse – Live Ritual Sound Journey

Maya’s voice was dangerously flat. “…What the hell is a ritual sound journey?”

Cassie, peeking at the event flyer someone handed her, raised a brow. “Apparently we’re headlining between ‘Aura Cleansing with Dr. Phaedra’ and ‘Bigfoot Roundtable: Why He’s Real and Probably Sad.’”

They walked inside like they were entering a crime scene.

The lobby smelled like sage, old carpet, and stale cinnamon rolls. People in wizard hats mingled with folks in alien t-shirts and one man in a full plague doctor costume. A nearby booth had a banner: “Past Life Regression While You Wait.”

Mark looked around with deadpan calm. “I swear to the moon, if someone tries to smudge me with a turkey feather, I’m lighting the whole booth on fire.”

A woman with eight crystal necklaces stopped Gabriel immediately. “You’re glowing. I mean, really glowing. Your aura is vibrating like a microwave.”

Gabriel, already caffeinated beyond reason, lit up. “Thanks! I had three espresso shots and a chocolate donut shaped like a pentagram!”

Cassie kept getting mistaken for an actual medium.

Jonah accidentally walked into a ghost photography slideshow and got stuck between two guys arguing about EMF interference.

Thane? Thane was trying to find the event coordinator. The only “staff” he managed to locate was a guy in a bathrobe who claimed the band’s performance needed to “match the resonance frequency of the collective astral field.”

“Do you have a rider?” the guy asked, eyes wild with chaotic intent.

Thane stared at him, dead inside. “Yeah. We emailed it. Twice.”

“Oh, right. Uh… we don’t really do paperwork. We align our logistics through crystal resonance.”

Gabriel appeared behind Thane, coffee in hand, barely suppressing a grin. “Perfect. Our lighting rig’s calibrated to shatter quartz.”

Thane turned and walked away without another word, muttering, “I hate everything about this gig.”


🔮 The Show

Their stage was a repurposed ballroom, complete with folding chairs, a disco ball, and one massive dreamcatcher hanging behind the band logo.

Before the set, someone handed Thane a “blessed quartz triangle” and asked him to place it near the subwoofer to “channel ancestral frequencies.”

He nearly ate it.

Then the lights dimmed. The fog machine—already rigged up by Mark—hissed to life. The band took their places.

Gabriel leaned into the mic.

“Are you ready to transcend?”

The audience erupted into whoops, howls, and one person yelling, “CHANNEL THE WOLF GOD!”

They started playing.

It was thunderous. Wild. Ferocious. The kind of show that makes walls shake and ancestors weep. The crowd didn’t mosh—they vibrated. Some people cried. One woman screamed she saw a vision of her dog reincarnated as a bass guitar.

Midway through the second song, someone tossed a crystal at the stage and Gabriel caught it without missing a note. “A gift from the spirits,” he said, dead serious.

By the end, Gabriel was soaked in sweat, the room reeked of incense and fog fluid, and Mark was holding up a power strip like a talisman against whatever might try to talk to him next.


Aftermath

As they loaded out, a man in a lab coat gave Jonah a handmade award that read:

“Best Rhythmic Portal Opening 2025”

Jonah: “I’m putting this on my résumé.”

Rico found a zine titled “Werewolf Soulmates & the 5th Dimension” featuring artwork suspiciously similar to Gabriel.

Maya was glaring at someone trying to hand her a pamphlet about lycanthropy as spiritual awakening. “Do I look like I need awakening?”

Gabriel hugged three people goodbye and was offered a speaking slot next year.

Cassie handed Thane a souvenir T-shirt:
“I Played a Paranormal Convention and All I Got Was Possessed (by Riffs)”

Thane didn’t speak for 20 minutes.

When they finally got back in the van, Mark turned to him and said:

“At least no one tried to baptize us this time.”

Thane nodded. “…We are never doing that again.”

Gabriel: “They want us back next year.”

Thane didn’t even flinch.