The studio wasn't much to look at.
Tucked between a donut shop and a used guitar store in North Hollywood, it didn't carry the polished gleam of a major-label room or the Instagram-ready minimalism of a boutique production house. The carpets were threadbare, the walls lined with decades-old foam that had yellowed at the edges, and the couch in the control room was a sagging relic from some forgotten sitcom set. The air carried a blend of old coffee, warm circuitry, and ambition—the kind that burned slow and quiet, like a fuse.
To Alex, it was perfect.
He stood just inside the doorway for a moment, taking it in. The console glowed softly, a tangle of LED lights blinking like a language only sound engineers understood. A battered upright piano leaned against one wall, its keys chipped like teeth. A poster of Bowie in his Aladdin Sane years peeled at the corners, held up by thumbtacks. This was the kind of place where things started. He could feel it in the walls. It wasn't sleek, but it was sacred.
It was also the first real investment Echo Chamber Records had made—a full-day rental bought with the early revenue trickling in from "Lost Boy." Not enough to make anyone rich yet, but enough to prove they weren't just dreaming anymore. They were doing.
Finneas was already at the board, hunched forward, eyes gleaming with focus. His fingers moved quickly, confidently, adjusting levels, tweaking compressors, building the bones of something out of nothing. Billie lounged on the couch, one leg slung over the armrest, headphones around her neck and a notebook open on her lap. Alex had brought a song—something bold, loud, and full of blood—and the three of them were here to turn it into a flag they could plant.
The song was called "Youth."
He'd pulled it from deep in the ghost's archives. Not the most emotional, not the most polished. But strategic. Anthemic. A declaration, not a confession. Synth-heavy, with a punchy rhythm and lyrics that danced on the edge of arrogance and awe. It didn't whisper; it roared.
They worked quickly. Their roles, once forged in a garage, had sharpened in the weeks since signing the pact. Now, they moved like gears in a machine, each one turning in sync with the others.
Finneas was the technician and the architect. Within an hour, he'd built a soundscape that felt like midnight speeding down a freeway—sharp drums, sweeping pads, bass that throbbed like a second heartbeat. Billie chimed in with little melodic suggestions, adjusting vowel placements, nudging harmony ideas into the mix. She had a gift for locating the soul of a track, even before the first vocal was laid down.
Alex stepped into the booth, heart pounding.
It wasn't nerves, exactly. It was something deeper—a collision between who he was pretending to be and who he had been before. The heavy studio door clicked shut behind him, sealing him in silence. Through the double-pane glass, he could see Finneas and Billie. Finneas was tweaking a plugin. Billie was watching him.
The track rolled.
He sang.
The notes were clean. Every pitch locked. Every phrase controlled. Decades of phantom sessions had drilled him to perfection. It was, objectively, good.
But it was dead.
He knew it before the last word even left his mouth.
He was singing like a producer. Like a technician. Every line placed just right, but devoid of risk, of anger, of youth. He was hitting the ghost's marks—the safe version, the future-proof version. And it wasn't what the song needed.
He waited for the usual critique—EQ adjustments, maybe breath placement. Instead, it came from the couch.
"It sounds pretty."
Billie's voice came through the headphones, dry as desert wind.
"But it doesn't sound like you give a damn."
The control room fell silent for a second.
She leaned forward, speaking through the talkback. "You sound like you're auditioning for a toothpaste commercial. This song's supposed to feel like the world is ending and you're dancing on the ruins."
Alex blinked.
She wasn't being rude. She wasn't even being harsh. She was being honest in a way that only someone who cared could be. And she was right. She'd seen through it instantly. The performance was polished, yes—but also sterile, cautious. The song wasn't supposed to be safe.
It was supposed to burn.
He looked at her through the glass. She was staring right back, unflinching. Daring him to be better. Daring him to be real.
A beat passed. Then he gave her a small, crooked grin and nodded once.
"Run it again," he said.
Finneas clicked the mouse, and the track rolled again.
Alex closed his eyes and took a breath, this time not to steady his nerves, but to let them in. He stopped aiming for perfect. Stopped trying to thread the needle between past and future. He reached into the wild tangle of everything he was feeling—the anxiety, the thrill, the ridiculous hope of trying to build something that might just matter—and he let it all loose.
This time, when he sang, his voice cracked slightly on the second chorus. He breathed too hard into one of the phrases. His timing slipped by half a beat on the bridge.
But the fire was there.
"My youth, my youth is yours…"
He wasn't singing at the mic. He was singing at the world.
When the final note died, the silence in the control room wasn't technical—it was reverent.
Then Finneas exhaled.
"Yeah," he said, softly. "That's the one."
Alex met Billie's gaze. She nodded, just once, the ghost of a smile playing at the corner of her lips. Approval, hard-earned and honest. The kind that didn't need words.
"Play it back," Alex said.
The song filled the room. It wasn't perfect. It was human. It pulsed with urgency, with risk, with something reckless and alive. It sounded like running barefoot down a street at 2AM, like shouting against the sky, like the promise of youth—that everything matters and everything is possible.
They didn't cheer. They didn't need to. The look they exchanged through the studio glass said it all.
This wasn't just their first track as a label.
It was their first anthem.
Their sound had found its voice.
And it was just getting started.