2012, December 13^th, 17:54

A beautiful melody was playing one rainy evening in a small, unknown town. The pianist, a young girl, was too immersed in every note she pushed. It was no longer a new melody for her; she was practicing it for two months straight. By the holidays she has to perfect it. There was only little time left until the big performance.

You might think that playing piano perfectly meant everything to Krystal. If so, you’re utterly wrong. The young girl could care less about the Christmas’ performance where she has to play this melody in front of a big audience. It was her older sister, Alice who really cared about it. The sister always pushed Krystal to her limit at whatever she was doing. Be it sports, acting or even reading out loud. With Alice’s persistence, Krystal had to be perfect herself.

Alice may sound strict and unreasonable, but she just tried to give Krystal a parent figure to become a good person. The girls don’t have any real family, since their family had a horrible tragedy many years ago. Girls survived car’s accident only with a miracle given by god, many elders told them. But if god was truly involved, how come he didn’t save their parents? Both girls were too small to lose them, Krystal being a new born even.

While their parents didn’t leave any sort of family connection to girls, they still didn’t have to live in an orphanage. One old woman took them as their short-term guardian. But because the town they lived in was really small, nobody wanted to adopt them and girls lived with the woman ever since.

The elder woman was a widow who never had any children. Her name was Helena, but the girls called her ‘grandmother’. Both Krystal and Alice loved her dearly, not caring if the woman was blood related to them or not. The love Helena gave them through the years was more than enough to the sisters.

Recently the grandma was becoming more and more sick, making the girls grew conscious of the sad reality. The elder was already too old to live another year. Helena was only a few steps away from death doors. Alice seemed to accept the fact, while Krystal, on the other hand, still hoped for a miracle to happen. She was naïve as that.

Feeling bored already, Krystal stopped playing the piano and went outside their room. She played the same melody for what seemed like hours today. Signing, she took another step towards a small kitchen located at the end of the hall, hoping that Alice was outside with her friends. But luck was probably not on her side, Krystal concluded as she heard her older sister’s room opening. Alice must have been listening to Krystal playing, again.

“Why did you stop?” Alice stepped out of her tiny room, her angelic face showing slight dissatisfaction. Krystal went inside the kitchen, opened the fridge and looked for something sweet. Alice came after her, her arms now crossed on her chest, lips puffed.

“How many times do I have to play it for you to leave me be?” Krystal took out a small chocolate bar, biting it right away. Whenever she felt displeased, she always munched some candies.

“Krystal,” Alice began, “You’re playing not for me. You’re playing for yourself.”

“Really?” Krystal gave her sister a surprised look. “I can argue about that.”

Alice chuckled, receiving a raised eyebrow from the youngster. “You know full well why you’re playing at the concert, Krys.”

“But that’s a wrong reason!” Krystal was signed to the performance by Alice who said that it might be the last holiday they’ll celebrate with their grandma. “Grandma’s not going anywhere anytime soon.” Alice’s shoulders went up and down as she breaded out deeply and slowly, calming her nerves. They already talked about this, and she thought Krystal was already old enough to understand it. Maybe trusting a sixteen year old girl to have an adult mind was stupid of her.

“Really, calm down. Helena might hear you.” Alice shushed her younger sister, pointing with her finger to the hallway. The elder has returned from the hospital just two days ago and needed as much rest as she could get. Girls were used to doing all the chores since a really young age, so taking care of their ‘grandmother’ was no big deal to two teenagers.

“Aish!” Krystal walked past Alice and looked through the window. It was pouring like from Niagara’s waterfall. And the weather was like that twenty four hours a day, seven days in a week. At least, it felt like it.

“I heard some mistakes earlier. Go and play the song again, kiddo. In the mean time I’ll cook your favorite kind of pancakes as a reward.”

Feeling even more frustrated, Krystal showed her tongue to her sister and went back to her room. She had no choice than to play the piano, again. Almost crying from boredom, she sat down once again and put her fingers on the keyboard, letting them move around effortlessly. A soft and fast-paced melody was playing again and Krystal could already hear Alice’s singing voice. Her sister actually created lyrics that went well with the sound, making it into a song. The older girl’s voice sang beautifully, maybe even more loudly than the melody itself.

Concentrating more on the voice and not on her fingers, Krystal started pushing wrong notes. Distracted by the mistake, the sound stopped and she started kicking piano’s bottom with her leg. She knew the melody perfectly. How could she make a mistake? Now Alice won’t let her off the hook, she’ll have to play it non-stop!

Everything fell to a dead silence around Krystal suddenly, startling her. Only some sort of buzzing sound was heard. Krystal looked around the room. There wasn’t anything to make that sound, not even a fly. Listening to it more attentively, she could make some words out. The words were getting clearer every second, now seriously scaring Krystal.

“Try… once more…” Krystal thought that maybe she was hallucinating, so she tried to think about something else.

“You can play better than this, Krystal.” Krystal jumped up from the seat, looking around as if she could see anything that’s talking to her. ‘Ghosts don’t exist, they don’t exist...’ she tried to calm herself, but at the same time, thinking about shouting to Alice for help. The voice sounded like a human’s voice too, she noted, an unheard one.

“Your grandmother loves listening to the piano. Do it for her at least, if not for your sister.” Krystal couldn’t think straight so she flopped herself in front of the piano and tried playing it, doing many mistakes. She’s scared as hell.

“Krystal…” The voice sounded disappointed, full with feeling. Krystal’s eyes were forming tears, her whole body trembling. She couldn’t even open to shout. But it seems that Alice noticed strange sounds and came in the room without a knock.

“Kiddo, what are you doing?” She let out a sign and kneeled down besides Krystal, taking the latter’s hands. “Stop crying, please. If you’re really that tired, you should have said that right away.” Alice clearly didn’t hear the mysterious voice, so she misunderstood the whole situation. Krystal was debating whether to tell her or not.

“It’s not your fault, sis. It was that sound…”

“What sound?” Alice stood up raised one brow.

“I think it was a ghost… Some voice talked to me just now…” Krystal wiped off her tears, also standing up, giving Alice a hug to support herself.

“It’s stress, Krystal. You have a lot of activities this year. Loosen up a bit.”

“Look who’s talking!” Krystal broke the hug and gave her older sister an unbelieving look. “You’re making me do all of those things!”

Alice clicked her tongue. Here they go again. “Well sorry for being the only one to show you the right way. You need to learn a lot of things, Krys. They will help you in life a lot.”

Krystal couldn’t believe her ears. “How will additional math or badminton help me exactly?”

Biting her lower lip, Alice clenched her sweaty palms, turned around and left the room with a loud bang. She was two years older than Krystal, but sometimes acted really childish as well. Krystal fell to the ground and started sobbing. She hated having big arguments with her only real family. But she can’t take all the pressure that continued for more than ten years any longer. Krystal is a sixteen year old girl, one of the best students at school, track team’s star. She also exceeded with her acting abilities, one of the most talented instrument artists in the region. But most of all, she liked drawing. Only no one, even her beloved sister Alice ever noticed her true calling, her true passion. Krystal was beyond tired and hurt. She needed freedom.

Krystal didn’t notice how the memory of a strange voice disappeared from her mind…

“Did you hear it?” a man’s voice called out to his companion.

“Yes. Finally, after all these years of silence… We found you, Lelia.” The companion spoke up, grinning lightly. The first man shook his head and rolled his eyes.

“Not quite. We don’t know how she looks as a human.”

“But we’ll definitely find her, right?” The second man put his forearm on another’s shoulders, smiling victoriously. “She finally spoke up…”

“Well, it’s worth the try. If we get her back, he will be pleased.” The first one responded, smirking in his usual manner, earning a smack on his head.

“He’s the one that shouldn’t know about this in the first place. If he knew, we wouldn’t have a chance to save her. She once was our ally, remember?”

“She was. But she made her choice. I won’t help her this time.”