The high didn't last.
For a few days, Alex had been floating—carried by a wave of texts from people who had never noticed him before, wide-eyed stories from Leo about rumors spreading through school like wildfire, the quiet pride glowing in his parents' eyes. But that rush was gone now. Burned off like a fever. And what remained was silence.
Pre-dawn stillness pressed against the walls of his bedroom. The space no longer felt like a teenage refuge. It had become something colder, harder. A war room.
His desk was a wreck: scribbled-on legal pads stacked like loose bricks, protein bar wrappers crumpled between highlighters, a mug of coffee long gone cold. On his laptop, YouTube was minimized—forgotten. In its place, spreadsheet cells blinked, contracts sat open, and tabs with titles like "IP rights music industry" filled the browser.
The fifteen-year-old who'd been swept up in the dream was gone—tucked away like a younger brother sent off to bed.
The ghost was awake.
And the ghost knew the rules.
He'd seen this movie before—dozens of times. Viral kids exploding into the stratosphere, riding that glittering wave for a few glorious months… until it crashed. Hard. Until the wrong deal, the wrong call, the wrong trust ended everything. The ghost living behind Alex's eyes had stood in too many meetings where the artist was the last to know they'd been sold out.
So he went to work—not as a musician, but as an architect.
With a cold, practiced intensity that felt unnatural in a room still decorated with posters and guitar picks, he began building something real. Not a fantasy. Not a dream.
A plan.
He remembered her first: a young songwriter with lightning in her voice who signed away her publishing rights for an advance that barely covered rent. A year later, her song was charting on five continents—and she was seeing pennies. That memory became a browser tab titled: "A&R Structures and Talent Investment Ethics."
He opened a blank document. Typed the title:
Echo Chamber Records: An artist-first label built on transparency, creative ownership, and long-term trust.
It wasn't just a name. It was a rebellion.
A memory stabbed through: a sterile boardroom, the scent of artificial citrus in the air, the suited exec sliding a contract across the glass table.
"Standard deal, kid. Everyone signs it."
The ghost remembered the way his stomach had twisted—the way it had felt like watching a beautiful trap close around him.
Not this time.
His fingers flew. He opened a new doc: Echo Chamber Contract Model v1.0.
He wrote until the lines between teenager and adult blurred. His search history looked like it belonged to a law student twice his age:
"California LLC liability protection""Master recordings ownership clauses, music""Fair royalty rates vs. net profit splits"
He carved out a contract that would make industry lawyers scoff, then rage.
Higher royalty percentages from stream one, no fake recoupment clauses.Transparent accounting and real creative control.The linchpin clause:
Master recordings — 50% ownership to the artist from day one. 100% ownership reverts after seven years. Non-negotiable.
He could still see her—another ghost. The singer with a velvet voice and no rights to her own songs. The bitterness that lived in the corners of her mouth when she talked about the hits she could never reclaim.
He would not let that happen to Billie.
He would not let her be sold, wrapped, and owned.
As the hours crawled on, Alex's room became a strange portrait: the boy who still lived there in posters and messy drawers, and the man who had risen in his place, building a fortress from memory and grief.
He mapped marketing strategies—not glossy ad campaigns, but community-based growth. The kind of real traction the majors still didn't understand. He drafted revenue projections built on future models—models they would dismiss as naïve.
But he knew. The ghost always knew.
He was alone in this. His friends were still sleeping a few blocks away, dreaming about music, stages, tours.
Alex was dreaming too—but of contract clauses and risk mitigation.
He was building the world that would let them fly.
And it hurt. The loneliness was sharp. But it also kept him focused. It was a companion now. Familiar. Useful.
By the time dawn began to blur the edges of the night, he sat back in his chair. The springs creaked under the shift in weight. Thirty pages sat complete on the screen. A full business plan. Vision, contracts, rollout strategy, legal framework.
Not a pipe dream.
A blueprint.
It wasn't inspiration. It wasn't stardust. It was math, grit, and scars.
It was protection, disguised as paperwork.
And he was ready.
The ghost had done this before. This time, he'd do it right.
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