Distraught over the death of the last of the Epps brothers, Marc is confronted by the one man responsible for all he has become. In the brief encounter, it is a frail Stu, ravaged by the disease that will soon take his life, that reopens the wounds of their past. Haunted by the echoes of his sins, Marc loses himself among his demons sojourning to the moment he was swept into the torrents of an unstoppable destiny. As the young prodigy happily pursues his music, a curious rant topples his uncomplicated life. Enter the star maker, recognizing the boy's tremendous potential, Stu uses Marc's unyielding desire to transform him into a hideous, loved no less hated, pariah. Nevertheless, unfettered by tomorrow's secrets, Marc accepts Stu's stewardship leading him down a path that awakens him to a future forever damned by his inner beasts. Eventually, with Stu's guidance, Marc finds redemption rocking out the night with Jason and Chad Epps. Yet, as the road wears on, it becomes clear he has only traded purgatory for the minacity of hell as the trio slowly unravels in Jason's mounting discontent of past tragedies, and his affair with Stu's young wife, Rachel. In the maelstrom of Dust's inevitable break-up, angered when he learns Jason had killed himself and Stu's final album that makes a mockery of their music, he walks out on Stu intent on mending the shattered runestones of Dust and regain the truth of his music.