Angel of the Night

Prologue: The Music of the Night Brings You to Me

The loneliness of darkness and solitude. To his credit he was in many ways used to such things, cursed as he was by the hideousness of his birth, but to his core he was a human despite what others would argue and humans needed companionship. Humans needed light. Humans needed humans.

The man attempted to suffocate such emotions with the thought of something else; music, engineering, art, secrets woven within secrets and designs that could make the gods stand in awe. But music alone held to the mind and curled, swirled, within the recesses. Yet instead of banishing the unpleasant sensations he felt dragging down what he could call his heart, it seemed to join with it, dancing a imperfect waltz of feelings. He was discontent, this he knew, and the reasoning was because with every thing he had done and experienced, that he had suffered and survived, there was so few true moments of peace and harmony. To one whose soul swelled in the notes and tones of god's most perfect creation, music, the lack of harmony was a physical and psychological torment. His heart ached, his mind dragged, and the words to sing flickered across his mind just seconds before they could pass through ruined lips.

Attempts to sleep did little; he lay upon his coffin, closing his eyes and trying to call upon the muses, the angels, demons, anyone to give him something else. He hummed a melody he was not yet sure of, a song that had not yet gained it's words though he felt so close to finding them in the cacophony within his mind. And it would be sweet, it would be lovely, and one day he was sure he would sing it to someone who surely would break this loneliness in him, someone beautiful, someone kind, someone who might even see past the horror of his face. If only, if only....

"Nighttime sharpens, heightens each sensations

Darkness stirs and wakes imagination..."

He was thrown from his weak and struggling slumber, he felt his heart start to race. Those words, those words; they were the words he'd been trying to grasp and without a thought or prompting his voice rose in answer, "Silently the senses abandon their defenses, helpless to resist the notes I write, for I compose the music of the night."

The first voice though, the one who started it, it was not his own. It felt like a phantom in the shadows, something small and weak and beckoning him. It was calling out to him and he removed himself from his not so final resting place to search for it within the darkness, beyond flickering candlelight and within the coolness of night. It seemed to have a direction and he moved to go towards it, drawn towards it's sweet tones; his foot took one step and the next sensation was that of falling. Slow, soft, he felt as if he was disappearing into the shadows themselves, surrounded and cradled as he fell through space, through darkness, and yet every thought of fear felt too far from his mind to be a concept. Whether by lack of concern for his own death or some divinity within that voice he could still hear, hear clearer now, was unclear to him but he could do nothing but surrender himself to it like a child could only surrender to the darkness.

He was entirely uncertain where the rain had come from or how he had come to be outside but the sky was dark and heavy with the cruelest looking clouds and unfamiliar smells and sights surrounded him. Buildings, trees, roads and pathways, but none that beggared recognition within him. They held his attention for a second, a fraction of a fraction of existence, before his eyes found the source he'd been looking for, the voice that called out to him so sweetly.

A child, she was but a child, perhaps no older than sixteen at best; she lay among the cut wet grass with her face to the sky and there within her eyes he saw a familiar thing: pain. Indeed though she sang so sweetly, an angel in this cold wet night, her body shook and it occurred to him it was not as simple as chills from the rain. Her clothes were strange, material unknown to him, composition uncertain; she wore a hooded jacket but long black hair, slicked by rain, lay out behind her anyway, almost like wings. Wings for a broken angel, wings for a dying angel. In all things she looked whole and unblemished but he could not help but notice the color of her eyes, bright and full of anguish as they were: red, they were a deep scarlet, and his own could not move from them by some strange pull.

His arrival seemed to draw her attention yet she did not stop and he watched as she winced, as she seemed to cry though it mixed instantly with the rain already on her face, and to his surprise she lifted a hand, she reached out to him. And all too suddenly he remember where he'd left his mask and recoiled, uncertain, unsure; what could she be possibly thinking, what was she doing. Out in this rain, laying here, alone, singing, reaching out to a monster like him?

"Close your eyes for your eyes will only tell the truth," he sang in the softest of whispers, a plea that she not look, not reach, not try, "And the truth isn't what you want to see. In the dark it is easy to pretend that the truth is what it ought to be..."

He did not wish to be seen. No, he could not be seen, not by this tiny broken thing that could only possibly be from the divine, so soft her plying voice was to his ears. A siren, an angel, an essence of something not of this world; this whole existence could not possibly be true or real and he too felt the need to cry.

"Softly, deftly, music shall caress you," she answered in song, and though so pained, so alone, her words drew his attention and he saw her smile ever so gently, "Hear it, feel it, secretly possess you. Open up your mind, let your fantasies unwind..."

"...In this darkness that you know you cannot fight" came his response and he moved without thought, without consequence; he leaned to her side and his heart raced only to stop as he felt soft fingers, still so warm, how could they be so warm in this pouring rain, brushing against his face, against his shame. He wanted to drown in it, this warmth, this sensation, and in the music as their voices joined together into one: "The darkness of the music of the night."

It felt as electricity, the essence of something the man could not quite understand and made him hungry for more. Their voices together sang, sweet and sad, warm and encompassing; he reached up to place a hand over hers and tried to cling to this moment, this one peaceful and harmonious moment. The rain fell, the cold bit at him, but for a time he felt his loneliness abade, melt away into the pure serenity of connection. This girl, this angel, seemed stronger for it as well and he could only imagine what her smile meant, and how her body held such warmth still despite this cold; their eyes met again and he wondered too how she could look at him, touch him, when he knew what he looked like, what he was.

"You alone can make my song take flight," the two sang together and she closed her eyes and he knew she was crying and he knew; he didn't know how he knew but he knew. The song was ending, this glorious second was ending and he too felt the urge to cry. Why. Why. Why why why.

He hesitated, he held back and pulled away from her, catching sight of her face, confused and uncertain but he didn't want to. He refused the end, he refused this dream. He heard a small voice, that voice, say something but it was drowned out by his own heart pounding, his own mind racing.

The candlelight flickered and he realized that he was back where he'd been. No rain, no angel, no song; he felt unraveled and contradictory. His clothes and skin were dry, how was it so dry, but he still felt the warmth upon his cheek, that tingle of a kind hand touching him in ways he was far from used to. And that voice still rang in his ears, so sweet, so angelic.

"un reve?" he muttered to himself, over and over; a dream, a dream, it had to be a dream. But the touch still lingered and he could hear the voice ringing in his ears; when he closed his eyes he still saw hers, such a strange color, pained but bright. The way she reached out to him, the way she smiled. It had to be a dream, it could not have been anything but, but it was a dream that clung and filled him and he wrapped his arms around himself as if to cling to that final second.

And regret. They'd been singing and he refused that last note, those last words, and now they lingered and stirred within him, begging to be let out. In a small half sad voice, he whispered, "Help me...make the music of the night...."