Gabriel held the violin in his hand, cradling it gently with his chin. He held the bow lightly, long fingers caressing the wood as he waited patiently for her to come. Like a storm on the wind, he’d felt her coming for some time now. There was no denying her. He hadn’t tried in years. She shiver through the house like a cold wind, setting the eaves to groaning and the floors creaking., she was coming to him. Patiently, ever her servant, he waited for her.

“Gabriel,” her voice whispered in the darkened room, sliding down his spine like cold water. “Are you ready?” she asked.

He nodded and lifted the bow over the strings, hands shaking slightly, body taut, he waited for her command.

She slipped closer to him, her empty, sightless eyes staring through him. Her melodic voice hollow in the vast chamber. “Dance with me, my beautiful Gabriel. We’ll dance until the morning light.”

He closed his eyes, her sweet music flowing through his veins. He’d been waiting for this moment. Like an addict. Waiting for her call. Waiting to feel her touch again. He smiled as she hummed the notes to him. He could hear it. The beautiful waltz she’d brought him. It was light and warm, around him dancers took their places, their formal clothing resplendent in the golden firelight. He drew the bow across the waiting strings and music flowed into the emptiness, lighting the ballroom with sound. Resin puffed into the air, loosed from the bow to dance in the air that moved and swirled with each of his breaths and each stroke of his arm.His fingers danced over the strings, the waltz seeming to spin out of the violin of its own volition. The dancers swirled around him. They ebbed and flowed through the waltz, always beautiful, never tiring.

Slowly the music changed from the beautiful and light to something dark and haunting. The dancers fled the floor for more macabre specters. And Gabriel played on as the dead and damned extinguished the light; their frigid corpses stealing the warmth. Their decomposing grins taunting him as he played for those the music called. It was always this way. She tempted him with beauty and brought him low with decay. He knew she would do this. He’d known. But he couldn’t deny her call anymore than the addict the needle that called his name. And just like the needle, she lied. She always lied. He hated her for it. He loved her despite it.

However he didn’t stop in spite of her lies. He couldn’t stop. To stop was futile. To continue was madness. He chose madness. He always chose madness. She loved him because of it.

The music changed again, darkness pouring from F holes, filling his lungs with each breath, blotting out the ghosts of his past, memories lost and decaying in the cesspool of his mind. He played on as it filled his lungs and blood and mind, suffocating him from the inside. And the violin screamed beneath the bow. His fingers flew over the strings as man and instrument struggled to keep up with the melody. It took on a life of its own. The sound of a mind pushed beyond its capacity to comprehend. With a flex of fingers and bow and instrument it shattered, breaking into a million fragmented pieces. The inhuman sound grated against mind and body and soul. In its aftermath anguish dripped from the strings like blood, madness pooling at his feet.

And still he played, unable to deny her siren song, unable to unravel his own past. He played past pain and into numbness. He played through numbness and staggered into exhaustion. The bow sliding sloppily over strings, cut and bruised fingers clumsily searching for chords. And still she demanded he continue to play. With a whimper of failure, he dropped to his knees, the bow falling from useless digits and skittering across the floor. The violin keening loudly as it thumped against the floor far more solidly than it should have been allowed to.

“I can’t,” he whispers. “No more, please, I can’t,” he begged the darkness that pressed against him. Her answer was frigid silence as the melody moved on without him, throbbing through is mind and veins though his body was unable to answer her call. Tears slid from beneath his lashes as he crumpled beneath the failure.