3 March 2016
The house was quiet when Aiden got home.
He dropped his bag by the door and stood still for a moment, listening.
It smelled like food, the kind of simple dinner that made a place feel normal.
"Hey, you're back," his mother called from the kitchen.
"Yeah," he said, walking in.
His dad sat at the table, reading something on his phone.
"School alright?"
"Yeah, same as always."
His mom smiled, setting down a bowl of pasta. "Good. Eat before it gets cold."
He nodded and sat.
Dinner was calm. They talked about small things traffic, weather, a coworker his dad didn't like.
Aiden listened and answered when he had to.
For the first time, it didn't feel uncomfortable. Just quiet.
When the plates were empty, he helped clear the table, rinsed a few dishes, and went upstairs.
His room was dim, lit only by the glow from his monitor.
He turned the computer on and sat down.
The familiar hum filled the silence.
For a few seconds he didn't move.
Then he opened the browser.
The cursor blinked in the search bar.
He typed a name. Martin Garrix.
Nothing.
A few random links, none of them right.
He tried again. Avicii.
Still nothing.
His fingers hesitated on the keyboard.
Tiesto. Hardwell.
Nothing there either.
Different names filled the results DJs he'd never heard of, songs that didn't exist in his world.
He leaned back, frowning slightly.
That wasn't possible.
He searched something else to be sure.
Coldplay.
There.
Eminem. Rihanna.
All there.
So the world hadn't changed.
Only the part he cared about most.
He scrolled through pages of music charts and playlists.
All filled with unfamiliar faces.
New producers, different logos, other songs.
Everything looked professional,
He clicked one at random.
The track played through cheap laptop speakers, clean and polished.
It wasn't bad. It just wasn't them.
He let it play a minute, then stopped it.
He stared at the blank search bar.
If those artists never existed, then their songs didn't either.
All the music that once filled clubs, radio, the internet it was gone.
He rubbed his eyes. The glow from the screen blurred for a second.
Then a thought settled quietly in the back of his mind.
If nobody here had made that kind of music… someone still could.
After a moment, he searched music software.
The list of programs looked familiar enough.
He downloaded one he recognised by name and waited for it to install.
When it finally opened, he stared at the empty project window.
Tracks. Samples. Plugins. Everything in place.
He moved the mouse a little, clicked around, and then stopped.
Not tonight.
He saved nothing and closed the program.
He watched the little blue light blink on the tower for a second, then reached down and held the power button.
The hum stopped.
Silence filled the room.
He leaned back in the chair and exhaled.
He hadn't really done anything, just searched and thought.
But the thought stayed quiet, somewhere in the back of his mind.
He stood up, stretched, and glanced around the room.
Tomorrow he'd open that program again, maybe try something small.
Not because he had to, but because he wanted to.
He turned off the lamp, the room fading to darkness.
Then he lay down, eyes still open for a few seconds before sleep took over.
4 March 2016
Aiden came home the next day around four.
He kicked off his shoes, dropped his bag by the stairs, and walked into the kitchen.
A note was stuck to the fridge: Leftovers in the fridge Mom.
He smiled a little, heated the food, ate fast, and went upstairs.
His computer still sat where he'd left it the night before.
He pressed the power button.
The fans started, the screen blinked on.
That small orange icon from last night waited on the desktop: FL Studio.
He clicked it, and a new project loaded.
Blank. Silent.
It didn't feel confusing though it felt like coming back to something he already knew.
He started simple.
Tempo first. 128 BPM.
The same speed as most EDM tracks something people could dance to without it feeling rushed.
He turned on the metronome and opened a new track.
The default sound was harsh, so he swapped it for a softer synth, one that used "saw" and "square" waves.
He didn't know what those names meant before, but now he just understood.
Saw waves made the sound full; square waves added a sharp edge.
He blended them until it felt right.
Then he opened the piano roll the place where melodies are drawn instead of played.
He set four chords in A minor, looping every four bars.
A minor, F, C, G.
It sounded smooth but real.
He nudged one note off-beat by a few milliseconds.
Instantly less robotic.
He added a bass next.
Just a deep tone, slightly warm, following the same chords.
It filled the space under the melody.
Then came the drums.
He placed a kick drum on every beat that steady thump-thump-thump that drives almost every dance track.
A clap on two and four, a few hi-hats in between.
He shifted the hats slightly late so they didn't feel stiff.
Every sound snapped together like it had always been there.
He hit play.
The loop repeated, clear and tight.
His head moved a little to the rhythm.
He added a small melody, a bright pluck that bounced over the chords.
He shaped the sound short attack, fast decay so it hit and faded quickly.
He added a bit of reverb, the effect that made it echo softly, like being in a larger room.
Not too much, just enough to make it breathe.
He checked the mix window all the volumes sitting just under red.
He didn't know how he knew it, but every fader, every knob, felt familiar.
He balanced the kick and bass first, keeping the low end solid.
Then the chords, then the pluck.
Everything found its place.
He added one more thing: sidechain compression.
It sounded complicated, but it was simple now.
He linked the kick drum to the bass, so every time the kick hit, the bass dipped slightly in volume.
That made it feel like the sound was pulsing, the heartbeat of electronic music.
He listened again.
The track moved like it was alive.
He could feel it more than he could explain it.
He opened the EQ short for equalizer and removed some deep tones from the pluck so it didn't clash with the bass.
He boosted a bit around 2 kHz on the kick to make it punch through.
Every change made sense.
Not theory. Just instinct.
He zoomed out and copied the pattern across sixteen bars.
The first eight bars were lighter, just chords and hats.
At bar nine, he unmuted the bass and claps.
The sound dropped harder, but stayed clean.
He leaned closer, listening for mistakes.
There weren't any.
No peaks, no clipping, nothing off-time.
It all sat where it should.
He saved the file: Aiden_Test_01.flp.
Then he started a second project.
He wanted to see if it was luck.
This time slower 120 BPM darker chords, C minor.
He made a heavier kick, deeper bass.
Same process, same flow.
Each layer fit perfectly the first time.
He compared the two.
Different styles, but both felt right.
And what surprised him most wasn't the sound.
It was how natural it felt to make them.
He checked the time: 18:52.
His mom would be home soon.
He saved both projects, closed FL Studio, and sat back.
The room went quiet.
He looked at the screen for a few seconds, not really seeing it.
He didn't say anything.
Didn't need to.
He just knew he'd done something that mattered even if no one else had heard it yet.
Aiden sat at his desk, the monitor still on from earlier.
Two projects open, two ideas that didn't matter anymore.
He played one for a few seconds, then stopped it.
It was clean, balanced, but it didn't feel like him.
He leaned back, hands behind his head.
Something else had been stuck in his mind all evening.
Not the track he made today, but one he used to know.
He could hear it clearly — a low kick, a sharp lead,
and that ticking sound right before the drop,
like a clock counting down to chaos.
He'd never heard anything like it the first time.
Back then it changed everything.
He smiled faintly.
Animals.
There was no Martin Garrix here.
No version of that sound, no track that made the crowd explode.
Spinnin' Records still existed,
but none of the names on their list meant anything to him.
Different world, same industry.
He looked at the screen again and opened a new blank project in FL Studio.
He didn't touch anything yet.
He just listened in his head.
The rhythm was there, the snare roll,
that ticking noise right before the kick hit —
every sound in perfect order, stored somewhere deeper than memory.
Tomorrow.
He reached for his notebook and wrote it down.
Animals – 128 BPM.
Clock tick intro. Punchy kick. Dry lead. Heavy reverb on drop.
He underlined the title once.
He closed the notebook, saved the empty project as Animals,
and shut the computer down.
The fan slowed until the room was still.
He leaned back in the chair,
eyes fixed on the dark screen.
He could already hear the drop in his head.
Tomorrow he'd make it real.