He left me alone.

For that, I was grateful. I thought he'd be overbearing and stay by my side, trying to get me to move pass this 'mood.' Instead, he left me to myself.

That room became my sanctuary and my prison.  I isolated myself away from the world and learned it like the back of my hand. 

I wasn't completely alone. could hear him when he brought food and set it down outside my closed door. And when he took the uneaten ones away. But he did no more than that.. 

I didn't want to see his face. I didn't want to see anyone's face, especially my own. All faces warped into one face, the face I couldn't get out my head. Too raw, the memories were like a scab, bleeding again each time it was picked at.

I couldn't help picking at it, couldn't stop thinking about it. I tried to, really, but everything came back to those moments to play on an endless loop in my mind. They haunted my sleep and haunted my wake until I couldn't tell the difference between either.

Big, brown, dead eyes. The taste of flesh and blood. Screaming.  

Those images—

I didn't even make it off the bed before I threw up.

Monster. I was a monster.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," I muttered, curling into myself as this a guilt consumed me. 

***

It hurt too much to feel, so I choose not to feel.

Easier said than done, but for the most part, I succeeded. Feeling everything was replaced with feeling nothing at all. I was a black hole, devoid of all.

Still, there were some instances I could not escape all the haunted memories try as hard as I might. There are somethings the mind would never let you forget

Like—no. Lock it away.

But—no. Don't touch it.

Her—no. Leave it alone

If I let it all in I'd finally break and I wasn't sure I could handle anymore broken than this.

***

The music woke me. 'Woke' wasn't the right word--I hadn't slept in the real sense sine I made this room my purgatory--but it woke me from the listless daze I found myself in.

A piano.

A lifetime ago, Eskil told me he was good at instruments. The piano must be one of those said instruments.

He was pretty good, too. I wasn't an expert and never learned an instrument, but he sounded good, everything flowing from one sound to another effortless. And yet that's all it was: perfectly executed but empty as if all the emotion had been drained and only the hollow structure shell of what the song should have been.

How sad.

***

He was at it again today with that haunting melody. I wonder if he knew I could hear it if he even remembered I was huddled somewhere in this large mansion, or if he was just bored enough he played.

Was it possible for the song to sound more hollow than the last? I didn't even know music could sound so hallow. It seemed against its nature. But here it was.

***

The next time I heard it was a week later. I wondered if he'd left, finally fed-up with dealing me but the food deliveries told me that wasn't the case. I'd been tempted a few times to open the door and ask him about the song. I couldn't bring myself to do it.

It never changed and yet it did. Still hallow, still empty, still depressing and yet something more.

I didn't understand it.

***

There was a shift.

I didn't notice it at first or really when it had happened until it had already passed.

Instead of my days focused solely on my guilt—and a large portion of me still did—a part of me focused on listening for when he'd start. There was no time frame or pattern for when he would play it. Sometimes it would be early, sometimes it would be late.

But I would listen for it and when I heard it I would curl up against the closed door and listen until it was nothing.

How beautiful.

***

The next time I heard it I left the room. I hadn't planned on it. Honestly, I hadn't planned on leaving that room. But today I couldn't stop it.

I followed it to a large parlor room. His back was to me as he played.

He was a vampire; he had to know I was here, but he didn't miss a key. He needed to play it, just as much as I had to hear it.

I stood there listening until he finished. I willed myself to leave the final note but my stubborn feet refused to budge. Traitors.

He finished and paused, not turning around right away. Maybe he was hoping I'd leave just as much as I wanted to.

He was stone-cold when he faced me. His eyes raked over me and I grimaced at the image I'd probably look like. Nothing but a shell of the former stud I was.

"I-I-I" my voice was hoarse from disuse. Another grimace on my part.

He didn't say anything as he walked over towards me. He stopped a good foot in front of me and stared some more.

Then he did something that surprised me—he held out his hand.

But what surprised me the most? I took it. 

*** = time gaps. Could be days, could be weeks, it just depends. 

Poor Kyle. I tried to show him struggling without going into too much depressing detail because I am not good with all that. That's part of the reason the chapter is short. So hopefully I didn't rush it too much for you. But I'm excited because the next few chapters are really going to show Eskil and Kyle bonding and I'm pumped for that. It'll probably be updated sometime next weekend if all goes well too. So until then!~

P.S. the title of this chapter is named after a piano song I imagined Eskil playing. Not exactly, but it was good inspiration and at midnight my creative chapter naming juices are at E.