1 Chapter 1: To the Beat of the Storm

New York was-- and still is, a very dangerous place. For someone who's always "under the weather" and nearly petrified by the violent storms that have taken over the wind and skies of Harlem, that fact can only be made truer. For people like Bronte, that fact is inescapable. Especially when you factor in billionaires in flying exoskeletons, men who can cover their skin in ice and psychopaths in weird Rhinoceros suits. Dangerous indeed.

Bronte spent most of his days as he was now. In his dark and modestly designed bedroom, seated at the window left to his own devices.

There was a time when his lacking physical might, and courage bothered him to no end. A time when he'd cry-- and rage, at the unfairness the world seemed to drown him in. But that time had long since shriveled and faded to nothing more than an incessant tick at the back of his mind.

A tick that would never fail to disintegrate the moment he slid on his headphones and his fingers found a home on the familiar black square keys of his beat pad. So smooth-- worn, shaped to the tips of his fingers. Like an extension of himself, an extension that he could use to mold and shape the world around him.

The world. Seemingly always terrifying. So dangerous. Under the harmonic miasma that poured from his headphones, it seemed to become the exact opposite. And as he built upon his sample, chopping and screwing-- reverbing, and adding drumlines, the world around him only felt further from danger.

Even as the storm raged beyond his window-- like a boogeyman that couldn't reach the confines of his rhythmic domain, he stayed calm. In a zone impenetrable by anything.

Instead, it only added to his state of calm.

The steady pitter patter of rain that bombarded his windowsill fell on his ears as a dull beat that blended his own. The gusts of wind, they slipped through the partially opened frame as a longing whine that harmonized with the melodic base sample playing into his ears.

And the thunder. The chaotic and hard-hitting sound that terrified him most had become his greatest aid as it hit in unison with the slam of the 808 drum machine he worked on. 808.... the penal code for disturbing the peace. How ironic.

In moments such as the one he was experiencing; peace was exactly where he was. Hell, as he brought life and variation to the music blaring through his headphones, he felt like he was flying. Zipping and dashing through a storm that was only welcoming to him and his musical eccentrics.

Peace. Flowing, listening, observing, growing.

Bronte soaked it all in. Foot tapping the floor like there was a roach beneath his heel. Fingers moving as if he were a young pianist while his braided head bobbed to the bass heavy drumbeat.

The storm only raged onward. Wailing against his window as the thunder hit in unison with the bass drops even harder. He began singing with the melodic sample playing over everything. Suddenly his guitar found its way into his hand. Gibson. Electric. The musical personification of intensity wrapped in polished mahogany wood and nickel-plated steel strings.

The instrument fell in perfectly with the beat as his fingers pulled music from its stringed surface.

Flowing. It was a beautiful thing. And music seemed to be the only time he could feel it.

He didn't know how much time passed since he'd began, but the sudden offbeat knock of his door pulled him from the confines of his sheltered mind with a start.

"Tay!....Tay!-- honey the music sounds lovely, but you're gonna be late for school." A warm and finely aged feminine voice called out from the other side of his door. Familiar. A voice he heard every morning for that matter. His mother.

Bronte froze and slid off his headphones as he closed the producing app on his laptop and checked the time on the bottom right corner of his screen. It read seven-thirty-seven.

His heart began pulsing as if it were ready to produce its own beat.

"Awe damn!" He shouted before he began shuffling through his room for clothes and his backpack.

"I know it's storming pretty bad, but you better not be late, Tay." The feminine voice said from the other side of the door in a sterner tone than before.

".....Yep-- I hear you, Ma." Bronte replied as he bounced around on one leg while trying to put on a pair of jeans.

For a moment he froze as he faced the window. Beads of rainwater still marred the surface and glistened under the morning sun. But nothing more came. The storm had faded-- as it had most mornings for the past few months. Once a giant storm that shook the apartment complex he lived in, and then in the next instant..... gone as if it were never there.

He stayed looking out the window a while longer, finding his eyes fasten on a hooded figure standing in the entrance to an alley across the street. They stood out from the mob of pedestrians flooding the sidewalks.

Based on the width of the hips and the long black hair that flowed from the shadows of the hood, he would've guessed it was a woman. For some reason, he felt like she was looking up through his window directly at him. Her hands were exposed from the sleeves of her jacket. Dried blood covered her knuckles as if the skin between them had been ripped repeatedly.

He stared at her for a few seconds as she stood frozen in the alley. Then seemingly out of nowhere, an Oscorp Industries marked semi careened up the street, cutting off their staring contest abruptly. And when it passed, she was no longer there.

Gone.... as if she was never in the alley.

"Weird...." He mumbled before he continued getting ready. All the while, he continued to check the alley.