Mac reached over and picked up his spectacles. He swung his tired legs out of bed.

‘And so the day I always knew is right here now.’

Mac looked out into the darkness.

‘If you are reading this then you will know that we tried. We really did.’

Mac paused and a small tear began to form in his tired eye.

‘I suppose it was always the case that an old man and a young child would be no match for all the evil that the world has never seen.’

Mac smiled.

‘When the inevitable darkness comes for you be assured that it wasn’t the whole world that surrendered.’

The Rock star felt a stir within.

‘The5 are coming,’ he spoke in his heart. ‘I am near complete.’

Inteachán  was laying in her bed again just before the explosion. Her parents sleeping in the room beside her.

Mac woke from his elderly dreams.

‘And so it starts,’ he whispered in the darkness.

‘Inteachán has failed.’

At this point it is fair to say that the world has reached a dreadful juncture.

With the terrible truth now slowly pouring from beyond the NotBeSpeak are beginning.

No-one was able to see but a form began to materialise on the stage.

A form that coalesced in the light that the video cast upon the dark.

Indeterminate but concrete. Fleeting but arrived.

The first of the NotBeSpeak.

Inteachán had nearly reached the spanner when the video started playing. The terrible truth began slowly pouring from beyond.

thereisonlynowandnowisonlygonepastpresentfutureisallnowneverthisistheterribletruthamenoverandforever

Inteachán inched carefully over towards the spanner. Being left-handed she held the ornate box in her right hand. In the hurry of her escape she hadn’t had time to think much about the box but now Inteachán noticed it wasn’t very heavy.

Inteachán stopped and carefully opened it. The box was empty! The Rock Star had tricked her. Inteachán looked down and to her horror she saw that the Horn was tucked into the Rock Star’s belt.

As she digested this dreadful news the Biggest Band in the World launched into their opening number.

Once in the gantry Inteachán could see various angry-looking men hunting for her behind the band who were just getting ready to begin.

Inteachán found herself above the giant wall of video screens and she set about scanning the wall for any weak spots.

‘No one would be foolish enough to have one giant switch that turned the whole thing on and off,’ she said to herself. ‘That would just make all of this far too easy.’

The first of the lights started to dim beside her. As they dimmed Inteachán noticed that a stagehand had left a bolt spanner attached to the bolt that held the chain that held the lights to the gantry.

‘Not quite but close,’ smiled Inteachán.

From where she was currently hidden Inteachán had a great view of the crowd that had gathered for the concert. It seemed almost impossible that so many people could be contained in one place.

Inteachán shuddered when she considered the possibility of an army this size of hypnotized people hell-bent on allowing the NotBeSpeak to destroy the world.

‘I need to get going,’ Inteachán said to herself as the roar of the crowd washed over her like waves from an unknowingly deadly sea.

‘I may have the box but I still need to stop the screens from playing the film.’

Looking around, Inteachán spotted a steel ladder leading up into the lighting rigs.

Once through the door Inteachán found herself in a small control room to one side of the main stage.

A locked panel on the wall in front of her proved no match to her  skills and Inteachán soon had access to the main terminal for the stage lights.

It would be too obvious to turn off all the lights at once so Inteachán set the timer on the digital clock to allow the various set of lights to go off in sequence until none remained.

‘With any luck,’ she thought, ‘the band will be too busy to notice.’

Inteachán stood in an empty kitchen. Steel pans and wicked-looking knives hung on the wall. Three huge ovens dominated the room.

As it was just before the start of the show the kitchen had closed down and Inteachán looked around.

A sign above a door marked ‘Backstage’ instructed people not to enter unless they had official business.

‘You couldn’t get much more official than saving the world from total destruction,’ Inteachán said to herself as she opened the door and closed it quietly behind her.