Halfway through the setlist in Amarillo, things were going too well.
Thane was in the zone, every level dialed, every EQ curve singing. Mark had somehow coaxed the venue’s ancient lighting rig into behaving with a mixture of brute willpower and threats. Gabriel was bouncing across the stage like a caffeinated panther. Cassie’s vocals were incredible. Jonah hadn’t broken anything.
Yet.
Maya turned to Rico between songs. “This feels suspiciously functional.”
“Yeah,” Rico muttered. “I don’t trust it.”
The very next song—“Monsters Like Us” — started off killer. Big riff. Loud crowd. Flashing lights.
And then… the fog machine lost its mind.
Instead of a steady haze, it suddenly launched a plume of dense smoke directly into Jonah’s face with the force of a small jet engine.
“GAAHHH,” Jonah yelped mid-drumroll, vanishing like a magician doing a vanishing act with a leaf blower.
Cassie burst out laughing mid-line, choking on a note. Maya tripped over a cable trying to look back. Rico shouted, “IS HE STILL IN THERE?!”
From the cloud, Jonah’s voice emerged:
“I HAVE TRANSCENDED THIS PLANE OF EXISTENCE. I AM THE DRUM-GHOST NOW.”
Meanwhile in the crowd, someone had tossed a taco onto the stage.
Like… a perfect, structurally intact taco, in a tiny foil cradle. It landed softly right at Gabriel’s feet.
He blinked.
“Is this… for me?”
The crowd roared with approval.
Thane, deadpan into the mic from side-stage: “Please do not feed the werewolf.”
Gabriel, ignoring him completely, picked up the taco with a reverent look. “I will name you Cruncho. You are my son now.”
That was about when the crowd started doing the Wave. But not just any Wave—this one involved glowsticks, foam wolf ears, at least three inflatable guitars, and a shirtless dude on someone’s shoulders holding up a sign that read:
“TOUCH PAWS 4 GOOD LUCK”
Thane facepalmed.
Rico leaned over mid-solo and whispered, “Should we… encourage this?”
Gabriel grabbed a mic. “Alright, Amarillo. You want chaos? You got chaos.”
He launched into a solo bass riff so nasty it physically rattled a row of stadium chairs.
Cassie jumped down into the pit to do a dance with a six-year-old in a DIY wolf hoodie.
Emily caught all of it on camera.
Mark’s voice came through the comms: “I swear if one more inflatable wolf head hits the lighting truss I will rewire the universe.”
From above, an inflatable wolf head gently bounced off the moving lights.
Mark: “That’s it. Smoke mode maximum.”
The fog machines all fired at once.
By the end of the song, the crowd was drenched, glowing, and screaming.
Thane’s fur was puffed out from sheer humidity. Gabriel had shredded a solo so hard he snapped a string and just kept going. Jonah looked like he’d gone five rounds with a ghost-powered taco stand.
Cassie stepped back up to the mic, breathless.
“AMARILLO… what the HELL was that?!”
“FERAL ECLIPSE!”
“WE LOVE YOU!”
“I THREW THE TACO!”
A spotlight found the taco-thrower. A tiny elderly woman in a homemade wolf hoodie held up both fists in triumph.
Gabriel nearly collapsed laughing. “She’s our new manager. It’s decided.”
They closed the show with “Run With Us”, still howling from the chaos. The final note faded into a sea of chants, cheers, and people barking like enthusiastic wolves.
Thane gave one last look out at the crowd from sidestage — utterly feral, glowing in the dark — and shook his head with a grin.
“You people are completely unhinged,” he muttered.
Gabriel slung an arm around him.
“And we love every second of it.”