This is mixtape, Volume 1, a collection of short stories inspired by songs and music.

Written and performed by New York Times best-selling novelist Scott Sigler.

This content may not be used for AI training in any way.

Hello, junkies.

This episode first hit the feed in January of 2026.

If you are listening in real time, I hope you have had a great new year so far.

And if you are listening well after the fact, I hope you had a great 2026.

This is track 7 of mixtape.

The song that inspires this story is blinding lights by the weekend.

For you oldies, but goodies at home, that is spelled W, E, E, K, N, D.

There's no third E. Maybe he thought the first two E's were enough. I don't know.

I'm old, too. But so far, this is the most current song on mixtape. We have had Mr. Sandman

from 1954, Hotel California from 1976, and Hurt from 2002.

For blinding lights, we jump all the way to November of 2019.

This was a monster hit, spending 57 weeks in the Billboard top 10, over 90 weeks in the chart,

and it is the all-time number one on Billboard's Hot 100.

It is the most stream song of all time as well.

No matter how you slice it, this 1980s vibe track is the biggest hit single in the history

of man.

Whoa.

And now it's one of the scariest songs of all time.

This story is a two-parter.

...