Decided to write a bit for R&CO, and honestly I’m really proud of it, so I’m also posting it.
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They clenched their bag and sped up. They had to hurry. Anything to get out of here.
Their skin was itching all over, and their headache was getting worse. They needed to get out of here.
The sunlight around them was blinding, painfully hot on their skin. They shivered— they weren’t supposed to be shivering, it was too hot to shiver out of cold— and broke into a run.
“You late for a class kiddo?” someone called after them from under the tree near the sidewalk.
They shook their head harshly, but whoever it was couldn’t see them anymore.
They burst into the music building, skin burning with swarms of wasps under it, and ducked into the nearest piano practice room as the walls reeled around them. They wanted to scream. They wanted it to stop.
They fumbled with the lock on the door until it clicked and dizzily reached for the piano keys. Any of them. Anything. Anything to stop this or hold it back.
Their fingers hit C, D, and E in a discordant noise. But it was something. Something was good.
They kept smashing keys as they sat down on the bench. A, F, B, D#. Something. Anything. Everything.
Once they were sitting down they managed something more musical: scales. Over and over again, up and down the keys. Racing along, back and forth and back again. They couldn’t stop. Not until everything was gone.
They started playing the circle of fifths over and over again. Around and around and around. Scale by scale, with more and more care as their pain subsided and they could focus more on it. Every note washed them in more relief, relieving their pain like waves smooth a beach as they kept playing. They stopped playing, finally, once they were sure the pain was gone, and reveled in the silence.
It was only then that they realized they hadn’t turned the lights on. They stood up to turn them on, but caught their reflection in the mirror above the piano. Between the dark and the bends in the metal, they could almost make out a pair of mandibles, closed tight, where their mouth should have been. Raven shook the image out of their head, and turned on the light before they could see it again and turned back to the piano to practice. It wasn’t real.
Not anymore.
