The Oscar sat untouched on a high shelf in Alex's studio, gleaming beneath the soft amber lights. A symbol of artistic triumph, yes—but lately, it felt more like a weight. A mirror reflecting a version of himself he no longer recognized.
To the world, he was still Alex Vance, the prodigy who wrote timeless, sweeping ballads. The Grammy-winning boy wonder behind "Hello," "Perfect," and "Just the Way You Are." The guy whose voice made strangers cry and whose name came up in every love story playlist.
But he was also eighteen. And under the veneer of award show speeches and midnight songwriting sessions, there was a restlessness in him now. A growing itch.
It came from the chaos of the artists he was now shaping—Juice WRLD's unfiltered pain, Harry Styles' magnetic unpredictability. It came from the late-night drives through L.A., the surreal quiet that came after crowds of screaming fans. It came from seeing his face on a billboard and feeling... nothing.
He needed to destroy the safe version of himself.
So, he turned to the Codex. He didn't scroll aimlessly—he hunted.
Genre: Dark Pop. Alt R&B.
Themes: Fame. Narcissism. Reinvention.
He paused when a title from The Weeknd's vault caught his eye.
"Starboy."
It was perfect.
The song was everything he wasn't—detached, venomously confident, oozing luxury and hollowness in equal measure. It was a hymn for the haunted side of celebrity, a sound that felt less like a warm hug and more like stepping into a chrome sports car at 3 a.m., unsure if you were heading home or disappearing for good.
And for Alex, it became an obsession.
He locked himself in the studio for days. The vibe: midnight futurism laced with 80s nostalgia. He started with the bassline—a slow, rubbery pulse that crawled under the skin—and built upward, layering shimmering synths that felt like neon bouncing off black glass.
He discarded the earnest, golden-throated vocals he was known for. Instead, he turned to a vocoder—not to hide his voice, but to reshape it. Cold. Robotic. Detached.
This wasn't Alex Vance singing.
This was someone else.
A Starboy.
The lyrics were unapologetic: he bragged, flexed, dismissed. Not to provoke—but to reveal the hollow roar of excess. The song wasn't sad, but it was undeniably lonely.
But Alex knew the song wouldn't be enough. The statement had to be cinematic.
He partnered with a provocative visual director known for couture-meets-chaos videos. The concept they built together was simple: kill the old Alex.
The video opened in silence. A tied-up figure sat in the center of a sterile, mansion-white room: the Alex everyone knew. Soft sweater. Tousled hair. The face of "All of Me."
Then, from the shadows: a new version. Black leather. Cropped hair. Jaw clenched. The camera lingered as "Starboy" began, its synthetic heartbeat echoing in the marble.
Without a word, the new Alex suffocated the old one.
And then the rampage began.
The Starboy walked through a glass house of his own history. He shattered the case containing the acoustic guitar from his viral subway sessions. He smashed the wall of platinum plaques for "Photograph" and "Thinking Out Loud" with a glowing neon-pink cross. The symbols of his innocence—his belovedness—were torn apart in an operatic act of self-erasure.
In the final scene, he stepped into an obsidian hypercar. The camera watched as he vanished into a rainy night, taillights bleeding into the dark.
He wasn't the safe boy anymore.
He wasn't asking to be loved.
He wasn't asking at all.
In a cramped off-campus apartment in Westwood, UCLA senior Jessica was curling her hair while "Heartbreak Playlist #27" played softly in the background. Her boyfriend, Mark, slouched across the bed, scrolling Instagram with one eye and throwing snark with the other.
"Please tell me you're not putting on another Alex Vance piano cry-fest," he groaned.
Jessica smirked. "He dropped a new track today. Just one listen, I swear."
Mark rolled his eyes. "If I hear even one chord progression that sounds like 'All of Me,' I'm hijacking the aux."
She tapped play.
What followed wasn't a piano.
It was a pulse. Thick. Menacing. Like a nightclub heartbeat. Jessica froze mid-curl. Mark's eyes lifted from his phone.
Then came the beat.
Then came the voice.
"I'm tryna put you in the worst mood, ah… P1 cleaner than your church shoes, ah…"
The voice was cold, modulated, untouchable. Jessica didn't recognize it at first. And when she did, she stared at the speaker, lipstick uncapped in her hand, completely still.
Mark, who usually tuned out anything too tender, started nodding. "Wait. This is… Alex Vance?"
Jessica didn't answer. She couldn't. The song was hypnotic, brazen, alien. Her heart felt strange, like something dear to her had quietly slipped away.
"Look what you've done… I'm a motherfuckin' Starboy."
Mark whistled. "Okay. Respect. This is fire."
Jessica stared at her reflection. The boy whose songs once made her feel seen had vanished into the glare of his own evolution. And in his place… a stranger. Distant. Brilliant. Untouchable.
Across social media, fans were split.
Some called it a betrayal.
Some called it his masterpiece.
But no one looked away.
Alex didn't respond to the noise. He didn't explain. He didn't do interviews.
He let the song speak.
He let the video scream.
And in doing so, he made one thing clear:
The boy next door was gone.
The Starboy had arrived.