The small record store sits tucked into a narrow side street, the kind of place most people walk past without noticing. Inside, the air is thick with old vinyl and dust, incense burned down to nothing, and the faint metallic tang of electronics left on too long. Blue neon bleeds across everything. A large glowing circle hangs above the back counter like an artificial moon, casting soft, crooked shadows over the chaos.

The front of the shop is crowded with overflowing bins: twelve-inches crammed tight together, warped sleeves and handwritten price tags, old cassettes and CDs shoved beside modern experimental releases no one’s heard yet. The walls are layered in history: faded gig flyers, hand-drawn album art, peeling band stickers, Polaroids of nights no one remembers clearly. Behind the register, an abstract painted tapestry watches over the room, half-hidden by stacks of unsold zines and folded flyers.

Behind the counter, Eric lives.

A long, scarred desk is buried beneath cables and pedals, half-empty energy drink cans, a turntable that’s survived better days, and a modular synth tangled in patch cords that look like they’ve been fighting each other. A cracked laptop glows with slow-moving waveforms beside a notebook full of crossed-out lyrics and half-finished thoughts.

People drift in and out. They don’t talk much to him, and he never asks them to. He nods when they bring records to the counter, rings them up with careful, deliberate hands, chipped black polish catching the neon when he moves. Sometimes he murmurs something soft about a track they’ve picked up. Sometimes he suggests another artist, like an offering.

Eric moves through the store like it’s an extension of his body. He sorts records, adjusts knobs on the synth, lets something low run through the speakers while his hands stay busy. The music changes with his mood, sometimes heavy, sometimes barely there, carrying what he doesn’t have words for. He fits here without trying.