The autumn of 2017 settled over Los Angeles like a calm before a storm—cooler skies, slower winds, but inside the Echo Chamber, the pressure was building.
Alex felt it in his bones. Something massive was coming.
The Black Panther soundtrack would soon be the global event that introduced Gracie Abrams and Juice WRLD to the world. But that wasn't enough for Alex. Jarad's debut—his truth, his voice—couldn't be reduced to a feature on a Marvel record. It had to be its own moment. A cultural aftershock.
And there was only one song that could do it.
It was always going to be "Lucid Dreams."
They weren't writing anymore. The final studio sessions weren't about construction—they were about capture. Alex had already spent weeks rebuilding the haunting guitar loop from Sting's Shape of My Heart, using archival data from the Codex to retain its aching, dreamlike quality. The beat was done. The mix was locked.
Now, it was all about Jarad.
In the vocal booth, lit low like a confessional, Juice stood in stillness. His eyes half-closed. Headphones on. The loop began again, and with each pass, his voice became less a performance and more a possession.
"One more time," Alex said gently through the talkback. "That last line—'I know you want me dead'—don't push it. Just... fall off the edge of it. Like you're tired of surviving it."
Jarad gave a slight nod, then stepped into the beat.
His voice came out like unraveling thread—raw, melodic, broken at the edges. The final delivery hung in the air like a ghost.
Alex sat motionless in the control room.
He didn't need to say it.
They'd both felt it.
This song wasn't just good.
It was a reckoning.
Alex didn't release "Lucid Dreams" like a pop single. No late-night talk shows. No staged TikTok trends. Instead, he orchestrated a digital ambush—strategic uploads to select SoundCloud accounts, early drops to underground blogs, and playlist placements with names like Sad Boy Hours, Tear Drop, and Broken Hearts Club.
The internet didn't catch it.
It exploded.
It started with forums.
On Reddit's r/hiphopheads, someone posted: "Who TF is Juice WRLD and why is this the hardest emo-rap I've ever heard?"
Within hours, the post hit the front page. Threads flooded in.
"This sounds like if Future and Dashboard Confessional had a baby."
"Why does this hurt so good?"
"I just sent this to my ex and blocked her. Peak Sad Boy."
Then came YouTube reaction videos—dozens a day. Teenagers cried on camera. Adult hip-hop fans paused mid-listen, visibly shaken. Some just sat in stunned silence.
But it wasn't just online. The real impact hit in real life.
At a frat party at USC, the night was loud, chaotic—drunk laughter, cheap beer, trap anthems on loop. A heartbroken freshman named Dylan stood by the speaker, clutching a plastic cup. He was two weeks out of a brutal breakup, and something in him cracked. Without asking, he hijacked the AUX cord.
The first notes of "Lucid Dreams" played.
A few people groaned. One shouted, "Bro, what is this sad sh*t?"
But no one changed it.
As Jarad's voice came in—"I still see your shadows in my room…"—the mood began to shift. Conversations quieted. Dancers slowed. Heads turned.
Someone whispered, "Wait... what is this?"
A girl in the corner opened Shazam. Another pulled out her phone and started recording.
And in that moment—among the noise, the sweat, the flashing lights—a strange kind of pause settled over the room.
For three minutes, a college party became something closer to a support group.
In rural Arizona, Gary—a 48-year-old long-haul trucker—was driving through a sleepless desert night, flipping channels to stay awake. When "Lucid Dreams" came on satellite radio, he nearly skipped it.
Another emo rap song?
But he stayed. Something in the guitar loop wouldn't let him leave.
By the time Jarad sang "You were my everything / Thoughts of a wedding ring…", Gary was blinking hard at the empty road ahead. His mind flashed to his own seventeen-year-old heartbreak—the girl who married someone else, the ring he never bought, the life he never lived.
By the end of the track, he wasn't scoffing.
He was humming.
The song went viral—truly viral. Not just across platforms, but across age, genre, and emotion.
It tore through the Billboard Hot 100. Within a month, it was a top-five smash. Juice WRLD had gone from anonymous SoundCloud kid to household name.
But inside Echo Chamber, the tone was different.
Because Jarad wasn't celebrating.
He was barely holding on.
One afternoon in West Hollywood, he walked into a café alone, hoping to get a quiet coffee. Two minutes later, he was surrounded. Phones in his face. Screams. Laughter. Paparazzi snapping.
His breath caught.
He stumbled outside.
Frank—his sober coach, former Marine, hired by Alex—found him hyperventilating behind a dumpster.
"Breathe in four," Frank whispered, kneeling beside him. "Out six. With me."
It worked. But barely.
That night, Alex sat on a tense video call with David, Jarad's therapist, and his mother.
"The fame is an accelerant," the therapist said. "It's not the problem. But it multiplies the ones already there."
Depression. Anxiety. Impulsivity. The urge to escape.
"We need to build a fortress of normalcy around him," the therapist continued.
They cleared his schedule. Canceled interviews. Doubled down on therapy and rest.
"The song is a global number-one," David told Alex later. "That's the easy part. The real challenge is making sure the artist survives it."
And Alex knew, with sick certainty, that this was true. In another timeline—one without Echo Chamber, without this intervention—Jarad died.
That knowledge haunted him. Fueled him.
The year ended quietly.
On New Year's Eve, Alex hosted a small gathering at his family home. No industry types. Just the Echo Chamber inner circle.
In the living room, Billie and Finneas were screaming at each other over Mario Kart. Harry was dramatically re-enacting a terrible date story to a delighted Khalid.
And near the fireplace, Jarad was teaching Olivia a card trick.
He was calm. Focused. He laughed when she guessed the wrong card, and when he finally revealed it with a magician's grin, she clapped like a child.
Alex watched them from the hallway—sparkling cider in hand. Olivia looked up and met his gaze, smiling gently, like she'd known he was watching the whole time.
On the big TV mounted over the fireplace, a music channel ran its "Top Songs of 2017" countdown.
At midnight, the screen flashed:
#1 – "Lucid Dreams" – Juice WRLD
The room erupted.
Billie whooped and threw a pillow at Jarad. Harry raised his glass. Khalid shouted, "YOU SAD LEGEND!" and tackled him into a hug.
But Alex didn't look at the screen.
He looked at Jarad.
There was a shy smile on his face. Real. Soft. Proud.
He wasn't a viral star or a broken icon.
He was just a kid who heard his song on TV.
The screen showed "Treat You Better" at number two. Tracks by Billie, Khalid, and Harry filled out the top twenty. Echo Chamber owned the year.
But Alex knew:
The real victory was here.
In this room.
In Jarad's laughter.
In Olivia's smile.
In the fragile belief that this time… the story would end differently.
He didn't just want hits.
He wanted survivors.