Dawn had yet to break, but a sizable crowd had already gathered in a field ten kilometres outside of Amsterdam. Permits had been secured in haste, and a ten-by-ten-metre square had been cordoned off by caution tape. Dutch police were stationed around the perimeter, holding back onlookers. The crowd was a motley bunch—curious locals intermingled with international fans of Ed Sheeran and the Weeknd, scientists, occultists, and thrill-seekers.

At once two glowing cocoons appeared on opposite sides of the horizon, each flanked by helicopters and drones. Edward Christopher Sheeran, beaming in freckled splendour, crystalline refraction. Abel Makkonen Tesfaye, flecks of grey dotting his veil, unperturbed serenity. Both at infinite ease in their gowns of light, streaking through the low-lying brown fog en route to their altar.

A countdown was projected against a makeshift billboard. Twenty seconds to impact. I craned my neck for a better view. A chant arose from the crowd in a language I didn’t speak. I began recording video from my phone. Five seconds.

A flash! I averted my eyes, but in a second all light was gone. My phone had died, and it appeared from the confusion that everybody else’s phones had died too. But within a few more seconds lights began to flicker back—flashlights, police car lights, helicopter lights, floodlights—all to illuminate a single patch of grass.

There in the centre stood a monstrous humanoid figure, eight feet tall. Glasses and a dreadlock pompadour adorned a face awash with indeterminate colour and spotted with freckles. The figure lumbered across the field, swiping left and right, producing guttural attempts at vocalisation. Then an officer shouted through a megaphone, “Get down!” and in the ensuing pandemonium I heard shots ring out.