Scarlett Choi

Sam followed Jesse through the winding abandoned halls in a swift chase. The air brushed against them as they ran, coursing through their hair and ruffling their clothes. It was invigorating, almost. 

 

“Where are we going?” Sam yelled out in front of him. 

 

Jesse abruptly stopped in front of a specific door. Sam slowed down, resting on his knees as he caught his breath. 

 

“You...shouldn’t...be allowed...to do that…” he panted. Jesse shot him a disdainful glance. 

 

“I would expect more from someone like you, Sam,” he muttered. Sam narrowed his eyes.

 

He replied dryly, “Thanks.”

 

Jesse pulled the door handle. It remained strictly in place.

 

“Looks like it’s locked,” Sam observed. Jesse shook his head.

 

“Not necessarily.” He reached into the pocket of his forest green jacket and pulled out a thin black pin. Carefully, he stuck it through the lock and twisted it. He then stood back while the door swung open. Sam looked perplexed.

 

He asked suspiciously, “How did you do that?” Jesse shrugged.

 

“Don’t know,” he replied. “Lucky try.” 

 

The two quietly entered the room. Sam shut his eyes, fear and reluctance intermingling in his body. If he died like this, alone in a room with Jesse, it would be great humiliation, to say the least. He braced himself and waited for the worst. Despite his apprehension, the room posed no threat.  

 

He was greeted with the surprise of nothing. No monsters. No ulterior motives from Jesse. Just the whirring gray of silence. The quiet hit his skin with a soft embrace and Sam paused. Cautiously, he allowed himself to open his eyes.

 

The room was serene and dimly lit. Starlight filtered through the broken windows and dappled onto the floor and walls. There was no light otherwise. It was smaller than the other rooms he had been in and nearly empty too. The only furniture daring to take up space was a melancholy grand piano. 

 

Jesse approached it slowly. He reached out and ran his fingers across its smooth yet dusty surface. 

 

“It’s beautiful, right?” He remarked, beaming with passion. 

 

Sam stared down at the abandoned wonder. It sat in isolation, pondering like an old man. Despite being inanimate, the piano seemed to weep with loneliness; beckoning for someone to come play it, rescuing it from its eternal misery. 

 

Thoughtfully, Sam pressed down on one of the old ivory keys. It sang an eerie, mysterious note that was slightly off. 

 

“Probably years since it was played,” he guessed. He reached down to try another key.

 

“Oh!” Jesse suddenly exclaimed, causing Sam’s insides to jump. He whipped around.

 

“What?” 

 

The boy stood behind him, intensely reading a crumpled piece of paper with torn edges. He noticed Sam and quickly shifted to show him.

 

“Look,” he displayed, trying his best to smooth out the imperfections, “I found this.” 

“We really shouldn’t be picking things up off the ground,” Sam commented. Jesse ignored him. Sam’s words of advice were lost.

 

“Look,” he uttered again. Sam sighed and started to read.

 

The paper was filthy, marked with stains. Sam wondered if it had been blowing around the abandoned room for a long period of time. There was a title at the top of the page and an illegible date near it. It was sheet music since it had a series of extended lines and black circular marks freckling them. 

 

The most noticeable thing about it, however, was the large handwritten lettering along the side. 

 

“Clair De Lune,” Jesse read from the title. “Hey, I know this song!” 

 

“Really?” Sam voiced. Jesse nodded. 

 

He explained, “It’s a famous French piece.” 

 

Sam looked back down at the paper and squinted his eyes. The dots and swirls and circles danced around in a provocative manner, sending his brain in every direction. Sam never learned how to read music as a child, and he probably never would in the future. The assorted functions of every symbol were simply too mystifying for him to handle.

 

“Do you know how to read music?” He asked, gesturing towards the page cluelessly. Jesse paused.

 

“Perhaps,” he answered, running his finger across the lines, “I use to play a bit.” He promptly took the paper and propped it up on the piano’s face. 

 

Sam watched curiously as Jesse’s slender hands fell over the off-white keys. They trembled ever so slightly as they found their place. 

 

“Are you going to play?” He asked. 

 

“Yes,” Jesse answered boldly. “Well, I’m going to try.” The boy sat down on the old wooden bench next to the piano. Then, with an intake of breath and a graceful sigh, he began to play. 

 

The first chord rang out, soon accompanied by raindrops of single notes. Then another chord. And a third. With that, the piece had officially begun.

 

Jesse’s eyes followed the paper in a slow manner, exploring each key as he pressed it down. They all created a unique sound, none like the one previous. Sam felt the sound enter his body and he closed his eyes. His mind had entered a world of possibility. 

 

The gentle notes hummed. Each one was cinematic, singing a story of its own. They felt like winter snowfall or a collection of light on a flower. They were like a romantic street lamp greeting the edge of a city block. They were a moment in time. 

 

Sam suddenly felt as if he saw the beginning and the end. He was witnessing the first hints of life dawn upon the empty earth and the last survivors of it as they drifted into sleep.

 

Jesse paused periodically throughout his playing. His mind seemed to move faster than his hands, creating a more off-beat symphony. 

 

“Sorry,” he murmured, his eyes smiling guiltily. “I’m not very good.” 

 

Sam did not notice. He felt like he was submerged in a vast ocean made up of the entire universe, floating aimlessly beyond the stars and into another place. 

 

He whispered, “I think you’re doing alright.”

 

Jesse continued stumbling through the music until the end of the second side. He then came to a stop and let the sounds echo and fizzle out into the room. Neither of the two spoke for a good minute. They watched the song dissolve into silence, processing the experience they had just shared. 

 

“That was… actually really nice,” Sam remarked. “How did you learn to play like that?” 

 

“Again, I’m not very good,” Jesse clarified. He stared down at the keys. “And I learned it when I was a kid.” 

 

He lifted his hands from the piano and stood up. 

 

“It was hard,” he confessed. “Spending so much time in this place, and having to be sick all the time. This room was like a safe space for me.” 

 

“Oh, I see,” Sam responded quietly. 

 

Jesse murmured, “I guess you could say that it brought me hope.” He collected the sheet music and smiled. “Or is that weird to say now?” 

 

“No, well…” Sam began. The words trailed off. 

 

Hope. What a word. Sam’s mind flashed back to when it had no association. It was simply a pretty word, meant to charm and uplift and deliver a sense of possibility out of nothingness. Where had that time gone? Now, here they are. 

 

Jesse noticed his silence. Immediately, the smile faded away from his face. 

“I understand,” he said simply. 

 

The sunrise seemed to just be coming up past the horizon. It was evident from behind the window. Jesse walked over and perched his arms on the sill. 

 

“All this happened, you know, and I can’t shake it,” he reflected. “I still think that hope is the ultimate good.” 

 

Sam’s body stiffened. He commented, “I’d be surprised if you didn’t think that. That was your whole philosophy, well it is your whole philosophy, I guess.” Jesse rested his head on his hand.

 

“It is the idea of something greater,” he explained. “Isn’t that what we all strive for? Isn’t that what you strive for?” 

 

The two were now immersed in one another. They stood, suspended in the moment, as if they were able to see through the thin glass walls of the other’s eyes. 

 

“I do,” Sam replied. “Trust me, I always have. But to call it the ultimate good? I’m not sure about that.” He thought back to the ocean and the conversation they had on the boat. Of course, he wished for something greater. That was true. But the way that Jesse fixated on the idea of hope was still alien to him. He resisted the thought. 

 

“What do you think then?” Jesse questioned. Sam hesitated.

 

“Don’t know,” he answered honestly. “I always wanted something better than hope. I wanted life to be more than that, you know? The ultimate good should be tangible. There are just…” He paused again. “...Other things.”

 

Jesse chuckled at the statement. 

 

“You try being a dying kid, Sam.” 

 

The wind outside came to a halt. The planet stopped midway through rotation. The birds stopped singing. All that was left was an awkward silence, the kind of silence that seeped into the skin and poisoned the mind.

 

Sam couldn’t process the sentence at first. He felt his entire body turn to ice. There was a wordless tension in the room. 

 

Jesse continued, the words starting to become more pained, “You try losing everything you ever loved. You try being so utterly alone.”  

 

He began to slither towards Sam like a desert snake, and the former serenity in his eyes began to swirl. Yet, when he reached him and they stood face to face, his eyes had reverted back to gray. There was weariness in them. Something broken. 

 

“Then,” he said, “tell me if there’s anything left for you except for hope.” 

 

After what seemed like hours, the morning had finally arrived. Sam stared into Jesse’s eyes. He felt his heart skip a beat and bitterness wrack his body. 

 

He always wanted to assume Jesse was spewing nonsense and dismiss the ramblings as chaotic sermons. But there were a few times where the bastard would sing out some crazed manifesto, and Sam would feel some truth to it. He hated that. 

More than anything he hated that here in this room, at this moment, Sam felt a rawness that he wished was gone. He and Jesse were seeing through each other and discovering something neither of them wished to admit, something vile and cruel. Something that only the other could understand. Despite the darkness, he couldn’t stop. He almost wanted to touch Jesse, to hold him in this twisted empathy. His dug his nails into his palm.

 

Over the shoulder of the world, the sun had found its place in the sky. The light illuminated the floors and walls. Sunshine crept through the glass window. 

 

“Let’s go,” Jesse whispered. “The group is probably waking up now. Wondering where we went.”

 

“Oh,” Sam said, releasing the tension in his hand. “Yeah. Okay.”