Lunacy by R.A. Sears

have
been close since they were in diapers. It does tend to feed the
rabid fan girls, though…”
    I nodded, still having a squeeing fan girl moment of
my own on the inside. Then something hit me that had slipped right
past initially. “Aya, are you and Gavin..?”
    “Together?” she laughed. “No. We… you know,
sometimes. But we’re not together. That boy’s way too wild to be
tamed.” Aya was trying to play it off, but there was a sorrow in
her eyes that I knew all too well. She wanted to be the one to tame
him, but he was too stupid and blind to see it.
    God damned playboys…
    Jynxx’s voice brought me from my thoughts of slow and
painful premeditated murder. “For all you cherries out in the
crowd, we’re Battousi. This is a fairly new song for us, so forgive
us if we screw it up. It’s about being pushed too far, and it’s
called The Limit.”
    Unsurprisingly, the song started out with some heavy
guitar and a light piano melody on the keyboard in the background.
The drums and bass picked up, nothing but pure synchronization
between the five of them for a moment before all but the guitar and
keyboard faded away and Jynxx began to sing. “Chained and barred,
collared and fettered, I am a thing to be toyed with…”
    I gasped. “I remember seeing him writing that at
school a few days ago!”
    “I can believe it,” Aya agreed. “He’s got one hell of
a set of pipes…”
    “You mean his arms, or his voice?” We both
chuckled.
    “Used and abused, beaten and bruised… Soon you’ll
learn that my limits don’t go very far.” The drumbeat slowly began
to pick up the background and I found myself leaning forward
eagerly, feeling every note produced by both the instruments and
Jynxx’s voice reverberating somewhere deep within me.
    “How far… will it go today? Just make…this pain… GO
AWAY!” Jynxx’s voice rose to a crescendo, not quite screaming, but
as close as you could get without actually yelling. His voice was
softer than before as he went on. “I’ve… got nothing left to say.
Since I can’t go… I guess I’ll stay.”
    A few screams broke out in the crowd, shouts of
encouragement from the fans. Jynxx couldn’t fight the smile on his
lips as he went on, the other boys now playing again. The whole
tempo was slowly picking up, bringing the crowd’s energy with it,
like being carried away by the ramblings of a madman.
    “And I know you won’t admit it… But I... just won’t
submit. My personality’s... been split.” Everything stopped other
than Kenshin’s guitar as Jynxx roared into the microphone, “Can you
push me to the LIMIT?!”
    There was a short span of about fifteen seconds when
the music continued to play at the loud and heavy pace, none of
them singing. I was almost afraid to breathe watching the perfect
union between the boys and their instruments, frightened that a
heavy exhalation might break the spell they had wrapped around us.
Everyone was silent with awe until Jynxx took his place at the
microphone again and more lyrics he’d been writing only a few short
days ago spilled from his lips.
    “I can only bleed so much before I am BROKEN. Before
the daemon is loosed and the beast is AWOKEN… Those who know try to
keep me apathetic.
    “And then there are those who just whip me HARDER…”
His voice went from harsh and guttural to nigh-angelic in less than
two seconds flat. “Thinking that since they are free... They are
smarter… If released, I would rule them all…”
    They hit the chorus again and no one spoke as they
went on, the whole atmosphere louder and full of rage unlike in any
of the previous verses. “They keep me locked up; feel like I’m in a
cage. They know my imprisonment strengthens my rage… as I sit here,
day after lone-someday…
    “But one day I’ll break free. I’ll make them pay;
I’ll make them see that NO ONE can imprison ME!” Everything slowed
down and the beat became softer, Jynxx’s voice following suit. “But
until