Page 9 of Soul Food

@TylerOnTheseBeatz: Tragedy has struck SoulGoddess again. She lost a makeup artist today. SoulGoddess woke up to find her lying dead on her tour bus. Talk about a nightmare. Cause of death was unexplained, most likely natural causes. No drugs seemed to be involved at this time.

@LizJamesfan to @TylerOnTheseBeatz: Still trying to defend “your girl”?

***

“This is yo boy Tyler Dee with Tyler On These Beatz and wow, I’m getting chill bumps. Two more in the span of weeks. While on tour with SoulGoddess, Flo from the duo rapper sensation LoFlo has passed away. Fans are mourning the loss. What was Lo without his best friend Flo?

Where did he pass away you say? Minnesota. Backstage while in SoulGoddess’s dressing room.

What else is strange is the fact that a fan died a rather mysterious way after sneaking into her dressing room in Wisconsin.

Safe to say the rest of the tour is cancelled indefinitely.

***

This is Tyler Dee again with Tyler On These Beatz and boy have I got some news for you. Two years after the haunting occurrences that shook her second tour, SoulGoddess is finally back with a brand new album even going as far as naming it Dark Goddess after being dubbed by angry fans either calling her a killer or cursed.

Either way, Dark Goddess is real guys.

She’s back and bigger than ever with her new hit song, “Thorns.”

Those thorns you’ve built around yourself are probably for the best, SoulGoddess, us mere mortals can’t seem to get close to you without paying for it with our lives.

Chapter Two

9 years, 10 months later...

PRESENT DAY

RUTH

My heart thundered and roared in my ears despite the screaming and cheers, despite the beat coming to life—the night’s cadence—as my fans waited for me to go back on stage. I closed my eyes and studied the music, her beauty, her tempo in which she flowed beneath my boots. Music heard me. Musicwasme.

I was simply a mortal that she strummed repeatedly. I let her lay claim to me. I loved her, and I thought she must love me. She gave me a voice. She gave me all these years… This was my last concert tour. Only no one knew that.

Make it count.

Leave an impression. Make yourself everlasting, so even when you are long gone someone will remember you.

If you think I hated the demon if you think I wished I hadn’t stumbled across that library—that was surprisingly empty the very next day—then you’re wrong.

Ten years were better than none.

Six platinums.

Four albums.

Fifteen hits.

Ten years were enough and too little all at once.

The demon could have taken my soul that day, but he hadn’t. Oh, did I witness his capabilities? Ask the seven dead fools that died around me in the last decade if you ever see them on the other side.

“Time to go back on.”

Without a nod or a word, I passed the backstage staff member and walked onto my very last stage.

As the cries grew louder, and that epic high reached my bloodstream—the only place I’d ever experience this scorching in my veins—I knew if I hadn’t stumbled upon the library, I would have begged him to come to me. I would have offered the demon my soul in exchange for this one last moment all over again.

---