Ground Zero in Beyond the Lost: Sky Concert Venue

Sky Concert Venue is where life turned into a living hell for Quinn Cozens and Yui Kikuchi. It was Ground Zero for the events about to unfold.

It was a concert Quinn Cozens never wanted to attend. And it was a concert Yui Kikuchi never wanted to perform. Neither of them thought it would end in such tragedy, with terrorists readying themselves for a massive coordinated attack. One of over a thousand attacks to hit the U.S that night.

As Yui went through the motions on stage and Quinn looked for an excuse to bail, a group of terrorists snuck into the venue, undetected from the nearby woods. Specifically, the trail that ran through one state and into another.

Then came the gunshots. Quinn didn’t register what they were at first. Neither did Yui, whose mind was on Chicago, not in what she called a “hick town” her agency forced her and the band to perform in. Subsequent gunshots fired, and Quinn realized what was happening. Ditto for Yui.

Ultimately, they’d cross paths within the tree line, just as the terrorists advanced into the venue.

What can—and can’t—be said about Sky Concert Venue

There’s a concert venue that has gone by so many names that I won’t name drop it since they’ll call it something else about 20 minutes after I publish this post.

I based the location on that venue for the inciting incident because, frankly, I’ve only been to two concerts in my entire life. That said, there was little to choose from.

This one was out in the sticks. It also made for a good location, since it’s in the middle of nowhere, and I wanted a small-town, wilderness, and not an urban vibe for most of this trilogy. Not for my characters to escape through a jumble of buildings, but forest.

The venue is also an eerie symbol of what once was

Few have more fun in a place than a concert venue, even if it’s not my cup of tea. The same goes for pro sporting events, festivals held in big cities, on college campuses, and even county fairs in small towns.

And imagine if one cataclysmic moment comprised of terrorist cells that’ve lived in America for decades came out of the woodwork at all these venues. That’s what we’re looking at here. Places where people went to forget about life for a while, only for their lives, in one way, shape, or form, to get extinguished.

As for Quinn and Yui, they survived the onslaught, or else Beyond the Lost Horizon wouldn’t have come into fruition. But for two people who knew the spotlight, albeit in different ways, parts of their lives ended on that fateful day in July 2030. Check out this dystopian survival novella and see what they make of themselves after the deadliest attack in American history.

For more profiles like Sky Concert Venue, head over to the Beyond the Lost Hub.