Moonlight Sonata flows throughout my skull like that of blood flowing down a blade.

  While walking through those halls, trying not to be noticed by air.

  That damn sonata keeps filling my mind.

  Drowning me in memories of the past… my memories.

  Dancing through the shadow… or more like a drunken bastard tango.

  I wonder what Miyamoto is doing back in the library.

  Does he read?

  Of course, he read.

  I wonder what he likes.

  If we were back on Earth, he would get a kick from those samurai flicks.

  Every room I slip into always looks the same—wooden walls reek of the church smell, with nothing interesting every time.

  Just a normal fucking church.

  Still a fucking creepy place, filled with scenery of

  The Scorn.

  The Damn.

  The Despised.

  A place for those who fear death to gather, to worship instead of daring to look into the abyss.

  Daring to go mad.

  Good for them; who wants to dance with madness…or with the Devil.

  The sound of a piano started to float through the silence.

  A deeper and somewhat bastardized version of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata was playing. The tempo was much slower than how the original piece should be played.

  Odd.

  Did I think this piece into existence over here?

  Was this Sonata brought by someone?

  Different mystery for a different time.

  A coarse an obvious trap.

  The music is supposed to draw me in, and then I’m jumped.

  Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

  But that means I was exposed.

  Found out.

  Well, Miyamoto would be fine.

  Not like they could use him against me.

  But he sure is a stickler for his ideals. Won’t have it any other way.

  They won’t be able to do anything I haven’t seen before if I walk into this so-called trap. A trap any five-year-old can come up with, or anyone who has ever seen a horror flick.

  Fuck it.

  It would speed up this investigation.

  Christ, I hate having my hand tied behind my fucking back.

  I pulled my right Jericho and stepped out of the shadows.

  And walked into the heart of darkness.

  The hallway, once steeped with the setting sun, was now coated in shadows with only a few golden rays of midday leaking in.

  The stained glass window that stood upon the wall behind me colored the wooden door where the sonata was being played.

  I creaked the door open.

  Revealing a woman in the middle of the dim lit room.

  Performing the pace for the nothingness.

  With a hushed tone, she spoke to me, “My former master taught me this piece.”

  “Hm.”

  “Not the most talkative person, are you?”

  “Why should I talk to someone so incompetent that they mess up such an easy piece?”

  “So cold to someone who has only shown you kindness.”

  A small smile formed on her face while increasing the tempo of the piece closer to that of the original.

  “Kindness is a lie fools use to fool other fools.”

  “Only the unloved would believe in such a notion.”

  Fake pity filled her eyes.

  I felt like a fly in Venus flytraps with her using these emotional grabs. Well, having an emotionless rat bastard makes her job one hundred percent harder.

  “Love is a mere chemical reaction to get monkeys to fuck.”

  “What a broken man you are. Then what is a parent’s love for their children?”

  “It’s simpler; people have children to keep their bloodline flowing. Also, what are you, a fool? Not every parent loves their child.”

  “And is that why you’re like this, V?”

  “The people who popped me out have nothing to do with what I have become. For the Devil makes its own bloody choices.”

  “The Devil… You shouldn’t dehumanize yourself in such a way. To compare yourself to such evil when you are such a man…”

  “Don’t call me a man. And the Devil gets screwed; he never did any genocides, never killed any firstborns, never massacred nonbelievers. Just give man free will, so they say… And who punished the evil that would be the so-called Devil itself. The thing that has been dragged through the mud for doing what. So don’t try to push your shit onto me.”

  Trying to push her damn lies onto me—well, she'll learn what the Devil does best soon.

  “In simple terms, don’t try to fool the greatest fool, Joan. I've seen… I’ve lived through the horrors of all men, women, children, and everyone else. I have been both killed and killer at once. Not even a goddamn mad god was able to break me, so a girl like you never will.”

  I pulled my pistol to my right eye and aimed it at Joan's head.

  “You know I could end this right now with one loud noise and then one forever silent.”

  Her eyes narrowed.

  The smile faded.

  And the tempo grew to a complete stop.

  “Kill me… Kill me not… But the people won’t believe you.”

  She got up from a piano bench and placed her chest at the end of the barrel.

  Fucking hell.

  I should have just thrown up the rope on the tree branch and wrapped it around my throat when I started following the rules of this game I made. Making it seem more like Death Note than reality.

  “Well, come on, sweety, end this game.”

  I removed my finger from the trigger and returned it to the holster on my right side. Would have turned the pistol back on myself if I processed her using sweety fast enough.

  “The embers of hell will drown your church in an inferno by the break of night.”

  “Well, until then, why don’t you and your friend join us for a meal?”

  She said that with that damn mask of a smile.

  “I don’t eat.”

  “Then just enjoy the atmosphere.”

  It may crack this whole thing wide open.

  “Fine.”

  The two of us stared each other down.

  If only this were a western and I were the Man with No Name. Could have gunned her down right here, right now.

  “Great.”

  While leaving the room, I kept my eye on her.

  I’m ready for a massacre if shit hits the fan.

  When I returned to the hallway, there were still eyes digging into my back like daggers.

  All I could hope their weren’t twenty-two.

  My mind starts to drift, trying to figure out this damn case.

  “Water is my eye.

  Most faithful mirror.

  Feathers on my breath.

  Teardrop on the fire of a confession.” —Teardrop by José González