Dark As Night

Cisum: An Angel To Kill For

It was when Jeffrey was clearing up his desk at the end of a long Friday afternoon at school he found the notice. His teacher had gone round the class handing out slips, but Jeffrey, being the rebel he was, hadn't taken much notice about it, and he had just shoved the slip back inside his desk like the vermin it was. Jeffrey didn't really think much of schoolwork or any work in general, except maybe one thing. Music lessons was where Jeffrey excelled best at in school.

Looking at the slip, Jeffrey suddenly saw the ad was about a music class taking place down the corridor the next Monday. He was curious, because nothing much in school perked his attention. But this music class, the way it was advertised, was something else. It looked flashy, and it commanded all his attention. It had, in bold letters, A TALENT TO KILL FOR.

Jeffrey felt, well, chosen by this. There was no way he was just going to turn down such a proposal. Music was one of the only things in which he was remotely interested in. Well, aside from science. But the rest of school was just a general waste of time.

Anyway, why not? Jeffrey checked his watch which the evil Miss Clarkson had thrown into her desk halfway through the lesson because "It distracted her" that he was looking at his watch all the time, and then she had thrown back to him at the last minute so it hit him on the head, boing, he was thinking of calling social services but then at the last minute he had found the music class slip.

Jeffrey went down the corridor and checked his watch and then he saw it was about quarter to four. He lived half a mile from school so he wouldn't be needed back for about fifty minutes anyway. He went down to the music room and knocked, hoping he wouldn't find anyone inside. But there was anyway, because Mrs Robbins yelled out when he knocked.

"Yes?" she hollered.

Jeffrey turned the knob and went in, brandishing the slip. "Yes?" asked Mrs Robbins, "if you've come about the detention I don't want any." Jeffrey had been in detention three times that week.

"It's not that, miss," he replied because true to form he was a lot mischievous. "It's just the music class..."

"What about it?" she rapped.

"I'm... here to audition," he said.

"It's too late in the day, go and bother me on Monday," Mrs Robbins said.

"But you don't see miss, I am totally full on Monday and I want to audition today. I have lunchtime maths class and everything too."

"I know it's a bit rude, but I'm going to kick you out now," Mrs Robbins confirmed, "I know its rude but I must ask you to stop intruding..."

Jeffrey knew he didn't have much time so rather than audition formally, he simply opened his mouth and rallied out: "Amazing grace, how sweet the sound..."

There was a silence, then Mrs Robbins was standing there shocked as he belched out-of-tune notes to the room. The sound was worse than the Devil on the toilet.

Almost like he knew he was a failure and would never win, Jeffrey shut up.

Yet he wasn't going to give up so quickly. "I was good, wasn't I?" he asked hesitantly.

"What were you thinking of?" Mrs Robbins yelled, white-faced in fury. "I told you to stop wasting my time! YOU CAN'T SING TO SAVE YOUR LIFE! GET OUT OF HERE!" To avoid a possible beating, Jeffrey scrambled out the room and bolted like the dog he was.

In bed that night, Jeffrey had a dream. Or a vision. Or even a nightmare, not that he remembered it as such. All he recalled was being in a long, dark corridor, faintly lit with torches. The Medieval kind, with mahogany wood. But Jeffrey was stumbling around, lost in the corridor, when suddenly he came upon a gigantic figure. It was too obscure to see much, bit it seemed to be human. He wasn't prepared to believe this though, because the figure alone was about eighteen feet tall. His heart thumping, Jeffrey approached the figure nervously.