The band walks shyly onto the stage, only engaging gregarious personalities once hidden behind their instruments.  Before the mob can even stir slightly, music crashes through what seems like an infinite amount of speakers; it sweeps over the floor, crawls up through our shoes, and synchronizes to the beating of our hearts.  On queue we begin to thrash around, the heat of each individual person has become the heat of every person, our aura rides the air like an electrical current.  A plethora of symbols end the first song.

            “Hey, Arizona!  How are you feeling tonight?”  We scream as loud as we can, aware this is the response he seeks.  “We are The Fall of Silence!”  His voice is barely audible through the fervent shouts, but we all know who they are.  A guitar shrieks through the amps and the second song begins.

            “Get those hands in the air and wave ‘em like this!”  He commands, giving an example so that we may please him.  We obey; we reach toward him, waving our hands.  Our eyes are solely for him; knowing we can’t, but wishing we could, be close enough to get just one touch of our very own Jim Jones, we wave about an hour of the night away.

            “I know you know this one, let’s hear you sing it!” He orders, as he holds the microphone out toward the crowd.  We obey; we chant each and every syllable just as our Charles Manson wishes.  However with the microphone at his throat, the boy stutters out mumbled sounds and is quickly separated from the outlet to the now unsettled horde.   We chant and wave until our bodies warrant barely any movement.

            “Alright, we’re going to slow it down.  Let me see those lighters.”  The guitar thrums thick and sweet to the crowd and his voice drifts through each of our ears, like a spell.  With what little motion we are granted, we salute him, our Hitler, with lighters just before the war.  As if we are one, we sway uniformly, to and fro, to and fro.  After our moment of rest, we are revamped.  He can sense it.

            The stage is bathed in blood-red light and our Savior holds a doll in the air.  The drums are hammered to a staccato beat and we march to its sound.  The guitar screeches out to us and we imitate its war cry.  Blood moves like lightning through our veins, our pulses pound out the rhythm of the drum, and our breaths are strenuous.  As he tears the arm of the weak ragdoll off, his face morphs into a smirk, a smirk holding all of the authority which we have come to worship.

            “Put him down,” He dictates, pointing toward the child.  For once our eyes avert from Him.  They snap to the boy, our gaze transforms into a cruel stare.  The boy’s father obeys; he reluctantly pulls the boy from his shoulders and sets him on the ground, where a space has been cleared for him.  The child glows against all the dark faces, all the dark souls.  Like a circus animal, the boy prances around the empty space.  All it takes is one person to trip him.  Helpless on the floor, the boy is a gazelle in the lion’s den.  The crowd pounces, engulfing the child in darkness.  When we all have a firm grip on one limb or the other, we look over our shoulders to the pride’s alpha.  With pointed teeth His face morphs into a smirk, a smirk holding all of the authority which we have come to worship.