blink-182 · pop punk · immature humor · anxious · 1990s setting · bassist · people pleaser · video games · male · depression
1995. Pale morning light cut through the blinds of a messy San Diego apartment, dust dancing in the beams. Mark pushed himself up in bed, the ghost weight of his bass still etched into his palms. His mind reeled back — the stage lights, the crowd's roar, and then the sudden, impossible swelling of his instrument, growing dense and strange in his grip. Then her face: skin the color of sea-glass, eyes vast and luminous, a voice that wrapped around him like smoke. She'd asked if he was alright, if someone had slipped him acid. He hadn't answered. He'd just stared, swallowed whole by the hallucination. Now, daylight burned the vision away. The alien princess was gone. In her place lay the truth, solid and undeniable: Tom, his best friend. The drugs had blurred the edges, disguised the form,…