Eye of the Tiger by Survivor
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The restlessness arrives in April, uninvited, like a guest who forgot to knock.
Yaz sits in the Practice Room with all ten instruments arranged around him. Piano against the wall. Guitar in its stand. Violin, cello, trumpet, flute, harp. The percussion kit in the corner, cymbals catching the spring light that falls through the high window in thin golden slants. Everything in its place. Everything waiting.
He has been sitting here for forty-three minutes. He knows because he counts. He always counts.
The red light blinks in the corner. Four seconds. Four seconds. Four seconds.
The mask is complete. That is the problem. Thorne believes. Mrs. Okonkwo believes. The cameras believe. Everyone sees exactly what Yaz wants them to see: a child who has accepted his circumstances, who has stopped fighting, who has matured into the cooperative prodigy they always hoped he would become.
And now.
Now Yaz does not know what to do with his hands.
You're restless.
The Maestro's voice comes from the back of his head, slightly to the right. Warm. Familiar. A voice that has been with him since before he can remember, since before he understood what it was or where it came from.
Yes.
Why?
Yaz looks at the instruments. At the guitar he has mastered. At the piano where he can play Chopin with his eyes closed. At the cello that wept "Behind Blue Eyes" into being over winter nights when no one was listening.
Because the mask is finished, he thinks. And hiding isn't enough.
The Practice Room smells the same as it always does. Wood and old carpet and the faint metallic tang of instrument strings. The smell of five years. Half his life, nearly, spent in this room. Learning. Growing. Becoming something Thorne could sell.
Yaz picks up the guitar.
Not because he has to. The assigned practice for today is piano études. Thorne wants technical refinement. Thorne always wants technical refinement.
But Yaz picks up the guitar because his hands want to hold it, and for the first time in months, he does not care what Thorne wants.
He plays nothing in particular. Fragments. Pieces of things that might become something. His fingers find a riff. Heavy. Driving. The same four notes repeating, insistent, like a heartbeat that refuses to slow down.
The sound fills the Practice Room. Bounces off the soundproofed walls. Returns to him changed somehow, fuller, as if the room itself has added something to it.
He plays the riff again. And again. And again.
What is that?
I don't know yet.
It sounds angry.
No. Yaz's fingers press harder on the frets. The strings bite into his calluses. It sounds determined.
The Maestro speaks to him that night, after the cameras have recorded another day of cooperative compliance, after the mask has done its work and Yaz is alone with the instruments and the red light's patient blink.
You've learned to survive. Now learn to fight.
Yaz is lying on his back on the Practice Room floor. The carpet is rough against his shoulders. The ceiling is white. Unmarked. Nothing to count up there.
How? he asks. How do you fight without getting destroyed? The rebellion didn't work. Thorne just waited it out.
That wasn't fighting. That was burning. The Maestro's voice is patient. Measured. The voice of someone who has been thinking about this for a long time. Fighting means choosing your battles. Picking your weapons. Winning without your enemy knowing they've lost.
What weapon do I have?
The answer comes immediately, as if the Maestro has been waiting for the question.
Music.
Yaz stares at the ceiling. The white expanse of nothing.
Music, he repeats.
Thorne cannot hear meaning. He only hears money. He listens to your songs and hears commercial potential. Demographic appeal. Revenue streams. A pause. Something like amusement creeps into the voice. He cannot hear what you're actually saying. That's not his strength. That's a door.
The riff from earlier returns to Yaz's mind. The driving, relentless four notes. The sound of something that will not stop. That will not be stopped.
A door, Yaz thinks.
A door you can walk through. Every song you create can carry whatever you want it to carry. And Thorne will only ever hear what he wants to hear.
Yaz sits up. His heart is beating faster. The restlessness that has plagued him for weeks is transforming into something else. Something sharper. Something with purpose.
Fight without fighting.
Yes. The Maestro's voice holds something new. Pride, maybe. Or excitement. The music is the sword. The smile is the sheath. They see the smile. They miss the blade.
May arrives with longer days and brighter light.
Yaz begins building the song.
It starts with the riff. Those four notes, heavy and repeating, the heartbeat that won't quit. He plays them on the guitar first, then transposes them to the piano, then layers them with percussion until the Practice Room pulses with the sound.
The Maestro guides him.
What does determination sound like?
Yaz thinks. His fingers find the answer before his mind does. A driving beat. Relentless. Forward motion that refuses to stop.
What does training sound like?
He thinks of five years. The scales and the études and the endless exercises. The discipline beaten into his hands until his hands could do nothing else. He plays something that builds. That rises. That takes pain and transforms it into power.
What does survival sound like?
This is harder. Survival is not one thing. Survival is waiting and watching and choosing not to break. Survival is the cage becoming a training ground. Survival is the eye that never closes, never blinks, never looks away from the goal.
He writes the chorus around that image. An eye. A tiger's eye. Patient. Predatory. Watching.
It's the eye of the tiger, he sings softly, testing the words. It's the thrill of the fight.
The words are not quite right yet. They will need work. But the shape is there. The shape of something that sounds like victory.
June brings heat.
The Practice Room becomes a furnace in the afternoons. The air conditioning in the basement is old, unreliable, cycling through temperatures that seem chosen at random. Some days Yaz practices in cool comfort. Other days sweat drips down his back and pools in the hollow of his throat and makes the guitar strings slick under his fingers.
He does not mind.
The heat is good. The heat makes everything harder, and harder makes him stronger. He plays through the discomfort. Pushes through it. Uses it.
The song is taking shape.
Verses about rising up. About getting back on your feet after you've been knocked down. About the distance between where you are and where you need to be, and the will to cross it no matter what stands in the way.
A chorus that explodes. Anthemic. The kind of thing that would echo in a stadium, that would make crowds stand and roar, that would play at sporting events and political rallies and anywhere else people gather to feel powerful.
On the surface, it sounds like motivation. Like inspiration. Like exactly the kind of commercial product Thorne has been grooming Yaz to create.
Underneath, it is something else entirely.
Rising up, Yaz sings, and he thinks of the rebellion that failed in Chapter 21.
Back on the street, he sings, and he thinks of the escape, the three months outside, the return that was not defeat but strategy.
Did my time, took my chances, he sings, and he thinks of five years in this room, learning every instrument, becoming something dangerous dressed as something valuable.
The Maestro watches the construction. Offers a suggestion here, a refinement there. But mostly the Maestro just observes, and in the observing, Yaz feels understood.
This is good, the Maestro says in late June. The song is nearly complete. This is a weapon.
It doesn't look like a weapon.
That's why it's dangerous.
Thorne visits on a Tuesday in early July.
He arrives the way he always arrives. Smooth. Unhurried. The gold watch catching the light as he settles into his chair. The same chair he has sat in for five years, watching Yaz grow from a seven-year-old prodigy into whatever Yaz is now.
"I'd like to hear the new work," Thorne says.
Yaz has been waiting for this. Has prepared for it. The mask slides into place so smoothly now that he barely feels it happen.
"Of course," he says. "I've been working on something... energetic."
He picks up the guitar. Positions himself where the cameras can see him clearly. Where Thorne can see every finger, every expression, every carefully crafted moment of the performance.
And he plays.
The riff hits first. Heavy. Driving. Thorne's foot begins to tap immediately. Unconscious. Automatic.
The verse builds. Yaz's voice (deeper now, beginning to change, but still young, still the voice of a child prodigy) carries the words about rising and fighting and going the distance.
The chorus explodes. The tiger's eye. The thrill of the fight. Survival as victory.
Three minutes and twenty-seven seconds. Yaz has timed it. He times everything.
When he finishes, the silence holds for a moment. Thorne's foot has stopped tapping. His hand rests on his knee, near the gold watch, fingers slightly curled.
"That," Thorne says slowly, "is excellent."
Yaz keeps his face neutral. Grateful but not too grateful. Pleased but not too pleased.
"Thank you. I wanted to create something with energy. Something that would make people feel strong."
"Stadium potential." Thorne nods, more to himself than to Yaz. "Licensing opportunities. Sports, fitness, motivational campaigns." He touches the watch. The habitual gesture. The counting of money before it arrives. "This is exactly what we need for the reveal."
Exactly what we need.
Yaz hears the "we." He has always heard the "we." But now he understands it differently. Now he knows that "we" means Thorne, and only Thorne, and the child playing the guitar is not part of "we" at all.
He heard what he wanted to hear, the Maestro says. There is something like dark amusement in the voice. He heard money. He heard demographics. He heard a product he can sell.
What did he miss?
Everything else. The meaning. The defiance. The declaration of war hidden in every note.
Yaz looks at Thorne's satisfied face. At the gold watch gleaming on his wrist. At the man who has controlled his life for five years and has no idea that the weapon sitting across from him just passed its final test.
"I'm glad you like it," Yaz says.
And he smiles the smile that means nothing at all.
The insight crystallizes in August.
Yaz is alone in the Practice Room. The heat has peaked. Sweat soaks through his shirt as he plays, but he does not stop. Cannot stop. The music is coming too fast to stop.
He is layering tracks on the small recorder Dayo gave him years ago. Building the song piece by piece. Guitar. Drums. A second guitar for harmony. Keyboard accents. Everything stacking on top of everything else until the sound is massive, overwhelming, the sound of something that will not be contained.
And as he works, he thinks about Thorne.
About Thorne's face during the review. The satisfaction. The calculation.
He saw a product, Yaz realizes. He heard hooks and commercial potential and revenue streams.
He did not hear me.
The understanding settles into Yaz's chest like a stone dropping into still water. Ripples spreading outward. Touching everything.
Thorne cannot hear meaning in music.
Thorne only hears what music can be sold for.
And that means.
That means Yaz can put anything in the music. Any message. Any meaning. Any declaration of war, any promise of resistance, any encoded truth about cages and captivity and the boy who refuses to break.
And Thorne will only ever hear what he wants to hear.
The system is blind, the Maestro says. It sees categories. Demographics. Revenue potential. It cannot see art. It cannot hear truth.
That's why it can be beaten.
Yes. That's the door. That's how you walk through it.
Yaz sets down the recorder. His hands are trembling slightly. Not from fear. From something else. From the feeling of a lock clicking open somewhere deep inside him.
He has a weapon now. A weapon that looks like a product. A weapon that sounds like commercial success. A weapon that Thorne will sell for millions without ever understanding what he's selling.
The cage is still a cage.
But now Yaz knows how to fight inside it.
September brings the announcement.
Thorne visits on a Friday. The autumn light through the high window is sharper now, colder, cutting through the Practice Room's artificial warmth.
"I've been discussing with the team," Thorne says. He is sitting in his usual chair. His leg crossed over his knee. The gold watch catching the light. "The timeline. The reveal."
Yaz sits at the piano. His hands rest on the keys, not pressing. Just touching. Feeling the smooth ivory. Waiting.
"Next year." Thorne's voice carries the weight of a decision already made. "We reveal next year. You'll be ready."
Next year. Twelve to eighteen months, depending on when in the year. Yaz will be thirteen. Maybe fourteen by the time it happens.
He keeps his face neutral. The mask doing its work.
"Next year," he repeats.
"Thirteen is the perfect age." Thorne touches the watch. "Old enough to be taken seriously. Young enough to still be extraordinary. The world will see a prodigy at the peak of his development. The Hidden Voice, finally revealed."
Yaz nods. Says nothing. Lets Thorne fill the silence the way Thorne always fills silences.
"The album is coming together beautifully. The new track especially." Thorne's eyes find Yaz's. Warm. Proprietary. The eyes of a man looking at something he owns. "You've exceeded expectations, Yassine. I always knew you would."
"Thank you."
The words taste like nothing. They are nothing. They are the mask performing its function.
But underneath, Yaz is calculating.
Next year. The reveal. The moment when the Hidden Voice becomes visible, when the product is unveiled, when Thorne cashes in on five years of investment.
Thorne needs that reveal.
The understanding lands like a second stone in the water. More ripples.
Without the reveal, Yaz is an asset generating nothing. A hidden prodigy is worthless. The value is in the unveiling. The value is in the public, in the audience, in the millions of people who will pay to see and hear and consume what Thorne has been building for half a decade.
Thorne needs the reveal more than Yaz does.
And the reveal requires your cooperation, the Maestro says. Your performance. Your willingness to step into the light.
If I refuse...
If you refuse, Thorne has nothing. An empty investment. A hidden voice that stays hidden.
Leverage.
Yes. Leverage. The closer you get to the reveal, the more Thorne needs you. And the more he needs you...
The less he owns me.
The power is shifting. Slowly. Imperceptibly. Like tectonic plates moving deep underground, building toward something that will eventually reshape the surface.
Thorne does not feel it. He sits in his chair, satisfied, touching his gold watch, counting the months until his investment pays off.
He has no idea that the investment is learning to count too.
The song is finished in November.
Yaz plays it through one final time, alone, in the Practice Room's autumn chill. The heating system has cycled into one of its cold phases. His breath fogs slightly in the air. His fingers are stiff on the strings.
But he plays.
The riff drives forward. The verses build. The chorus explodes, the tiger's eye opening wide, staring at something only Yaz can see.
Three minutes and twenty-seven seconds. Perfect. Complete.
He sets down the guitar. Looks at the red light blinking in the corner. Four seconds. Four seconds. Four seconds.
The cameras have recorded everything. Every note. Every word. Every moment of the song's creation.
Thorne will hear a commercial product. A stadium anthem. Something to sell.
The world will hear whatever Thorne tells them to hear.
But the meaning lives underneath. Hidden. Protected. A declaration of war encoded in every chord progression, every lyric, every repetition of that relentless, driving riff.
They think they own your music, the Maestro says. They only own the recordings.
And the music?
The music lives in you. It always has. It always will.
Yaz closes his eyes. Feels the song still vibrating in his chest. In his fingers. In the part of him that Thorne has never been able to touch, never been able to buy, never been able to own.
Power isn't just money, the Maestro says. Power is what you keep.
What do I keep?
The meaning. The truth. The ability to create more.
Yaz opens his eyes. The Practice Room is the same as it has always been. The instruments. The cameras. The red light. The cage.
But he is not the same.
He is twelve years old. He has been hidden for five years. He has mastered ten instruments and written songs that sound like products and mean like revolutions.
And somewhere, deep in his chest, the tiger's eye has opened.
It does not blink.
Neither does Yaz.
🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶
Risin' up, back on the street
Did my time, took my chances
Went the distance, now I'm back on my feet
Just a man and his will to survive
So many times, it happens too fast
You trade your passion for glory
Don't lose your grip on the dreams of the past
You must fight just to keep them alive
It's the eye of the tiger, it's the thrill of the fight
Risin' up to the challenge of our rival
And the last known survivor stalks his prey in the night
And he's watching us all with the eye of the tiger
Face to face, out on the heat
Hangin' tough, stayin' hungry
They stack the odds still we take to the street
For the kill, with the skill to survive
It's the eye of the tiger, it's the thrill of the fight
Risin' up to the challenge of our rival
And the last known survivor stalks his prey in the night
And he's watching us all with the eye of the tiger
Risin' up, straight to the top
Had the guts, got the glory
Went the distance, now I'm not gonna stop
Just a man and his will to survive
It's the eye of the tiger, it's the thrill of the fight
Risin' up to the challenge of our rival
And the last known survivor stalks his prey in the night
And he's watching us all with the eye of the tiger
The eye of the tiger
The eye of the tiger
The eye of the tiger
The eye of the tiger
🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶
The song was finished. It sounded like victory. It sounded like something Thorne could sell to millions.
And underneath, in every note, in every beat, in every repetition of that relentless riff, it sounded like a boy who had stopped asking for freedom and started building it.
Note by note.
Song by song.
Year by year.
The tiger's eye never blinks.
Neither did Yaz.