Music

For as long as she could remember, Rosemary could hear things that no one else ever could. They were strange, yet wonderful, sounds that echoed around her head, unbidden, and unknowable. Sometimes, they sounded human. Other times, they did not. All she knew was that they were lovely, and mysterious, and they could fill her with all sorts of emotions that were equally mysterious. The vocabulary she had to describe her feelings were not enough to explain how she felt when these strange sounds permeated her mind, but she actually felt quite excited about that. There was something thrilling about this newness and mysteriousness that was hers and hers alone. It made her feel special!

But the problem was, specialness of that ilk was often frowned upon in her Community. Although small differences were encouraged, Rosemary could feel it within her heart that this difference was too much. This was something she wasn't supposed to be able to do. This was something unnatural and wrong. So for the sake of her peaceful little Community, she bit her tongue and kept these feelings to herself. But even though she intuitively knew she could never breathe a word about what she was hearing, and all the powerful things that the noises made her feel, she was still so in love with it all that, under the cover of darkness and secrecy, she would spend long hours trying to replicate those sounds, so that she might bring some of that magic from within, out to the outside world, even if only on a small scale.

But when Rosemary turned 16, she finally gained a companion to talk to: the Community's Receiver of Memory, and her new mentor.

"I have so much to show you," he told her, voice soft but full of energy and wonder. He reached out and touched her forearms, placing his right over hers. The second their skin touched, the room in which they had been standing vanished. A second later, Rosemary found herself standing in a dwelling, but it was unlike any dwelling she had ever seen before.

"What is this place?" she asked softly, but the Receiver only gave her a small, sad smile and tilted his head. As if on cue, sounds suddenly began to fill the air and Rosemary gasped. Those sounds! Those were the ones from her dreams!

A soft cry falling from her lips, Rosemary's body jerked her long towards the noise until she managed to find its source. A few rooms away from where she and the Receiver had first appeared, there was a large, strange contraption with a human sitting behind it, touching black and white pieces on the contraption. Every time that person's fingers hit one of the black or white... buttons? The noise would play.

"What-?" Rosemary breathed, and in an immediate response, her head filled with the words, the answers: Music. Piano. Music. Singing. Music.

From that day on, Rosemary saw many more beautiful things in the Receiver's memories, but nothing could ever compare to music. That first memory was by far her favorite. Oh! Sweet, lovely music! She would request memories of music whenever the Receiver was feeling generous enough to let her pick what she wanted to experience for the day and was always more than happy to comply, seeming to delight in her endless energy about the topic. But soon, it was not enough for her to simply hear the music in memories. She wanted to recreated in real time!

So a piano was brought to the Receiver's home, custom made for Rosemary. With pages full of sloppily-scrawled musical ideas, Rosemary would spend hours and hours at that piano, reveling in every single sweet little note, eyes brighter and wider than the sun as she played and sang the long hours away. There was never a silent moment in her, or the Receiver's, life ever again after that.

But this joy could not last forever. Instead, the Receiver began to explain to her the darker sides of their shared memories. He told her about how these memories had been stolen from the Community, and how they needed to be given back.

"There are things that the Community makes us do," the Receiver whispered one day, as if scared that even the walls had ears. It frightened Rosemary a little, but she only leaned in closer to him, eager to hear his every word. "If we all had these memories again, we'd know that these things were wrong, and we would be able to fight them! That's why I need your help to restore these memories to the rest of the Community!"