Advsfx

The moonlight struck the edge of the barn, the long gray line of the roof stretching like a blade cutting the night sky. The air hung heavy—wet with pine and diesel and some strange, metallic stillness. Cicadas droned in waves. Not quite random. Almost rhythmic. Like they knew something.
Jade leaned against the doorway, arms crossed, the warm wood pressing into his back. The night air clung to him like memory—humid, heavy, unspoken. His guitar case sat just inside, beside a busted amp that still smelled like burnt solder and spilled beer. This place—Mick’s place—was falling apart, but it held.
Somewhere out in the fields, a distant train groaned down its track. A dog barked once. Then silence.
Jade stepped inside.
As his boots crossed the concrete floor, something clicked in his ribs—some old grief trying to flicker awake. Not enough to name. Just enough to notice.
He exhaled slow and dropped the case near the amp. Sat down on the stool with the leg that wobbled just slightly left. Let his fingers rest on the closed case.
And then—
zzZ-rrrt-

The PA crackled.
Short. Sharp. One second, maybe less. A burst of high-frequency static, like a dial being twisted in a dead frequency range.
Jade froze.
The rig was unplugged.
He turned slowly toward the mixer. Nothing moved. Nothing glowed.
A gust of air slipped through the gaps in the siding, brushing across his arms like breath.
From outside, Troy’s voice floated in. “You hear that?”
Jade didn’t answer right away. He just listened—to the cicadas, the hum of the transformers in the distance, the faint buzz now deep in his own ears.
Troy stepped in through the back, wiping his hands on a red shop rag, a smudge of grease streaked across his cheek. He stopped just behind Jade, eyes on the PA.
“It was like... a frequency,” Troy said, head tilted. “But not ours.”
Jade stood, walked over, and ran a hand along the cables. They were cold. Dead. The board had no juice.
“No power,” he muttered.
“So?”
“So... what made the sound?”
Troy shrugged, uneasy. “Interference? Maybe someone out there’s jamming sh*t.”
Jade looked past him, out the barn door, into the dark beyond the gravel. The trees looked still. Too still. Like they were holding their breath.
“No,” he said. “That wasn’t interference. That was signal.”
They both went quiet.
And for a moment, the cicadas cut out entirely.
Silence.
Like the whole world had leaned in to listen.