Unsung Requiem by C.L. Stone
Niente
(Nothing, barely audible, dying away)
Victor
Everything changed so much, that by morning, Victor felt he’d dreamed it all.
Was Mr. Buble really there?
He was still angry. Mostly at himself.
Was he in Europe now?
The pain of his face ebbed, came back, faded.
The doctor had said he needed surgery on his face.
When he opened his eyes, he was in his own bed. There was a tightness at his face, and a throbbing at the back of his head started the moment he shifted to look around the room.
Why did everything hurt so bad?
Why was he home?
Someone was standing by, a woman in blue scrubs. She approached him. He didn’t recognize her. “How are you feeling, Victor?”
“Who…” He breathed. He suddenly remembered the hospital. They had stitched his nose, examined him, given him medicines.
The groggy effect was strong in him.
Within moments, he seemed to doze again.
When he woke, the nurse was at his piano, idly opening pages that had been sitting on top.
She was talking to herself. “What a clever kid. Able to write music. A sonata? This requiem? No title. No lyrics.”
Victor breathed in sharply. He didn’t like the woman picking through his things, especially the music. It was something no one ever looked at or noticed.
When he got stuck at his home, waiting for concerts, he often dabbled with lines of music, writing down random notes on blank music sheets. No real reason. Mostly boredom while he had to wait for so long.
He started to say something, but choked quickly, his throat very dry.
The nurse jolted on the piano bench, dropping the pages, a couple scattering to the floor.
She came over, looking at him. “Oh good. You are awake now?”
He hadn’t realized he was attached to an IV bag until now, suddenly feeling the needle as he lifted his hand to her. He coughed again. “Water,” he said.
She brought over just a small paper cup of ice chips. “Try this for now. You don’t want to vomit while your face is healing. Let’s move slowly.”
He took in an ice chip, and the wetness stung the inside of his throat that he choked on it.
She nodded and took the cup away. “Careful.”
He swallowed hard several times, soaking in the wetness from the chip.
“Do you know where you are?” she asked him.
He nodded. His own bedroom. Not in the hospital.
“Do you remember what happened?”
He nodded again. Mostly. Sort of. How did he get here?
She left him and went to a case sitting near the piano. She brought it over and performed a short examination, something Dr. Green had done similarly to him more than enough to know the routine. Pulse, checked for fever.
When she was done, she smiled at him. “Don’t move, okay?”
He wasn’t sure he could. The medicine was strong.
Should he be here?
His mother. She’d said something about getting him out of the country. The doctor said he couldn’t go. They don’t normally allow people out of the hospital while still unconscious.
“How…” he whispered.
With a puzzled gaze, she sat next to him on the bed. “Try again?”
Victor smothered the urge to grumble. Flashes of his mother at the hospital came to him. He remembered the crash and Sang being pulled from the car, but parts of it were still a blur, like waking up in the ambulance, his mother insisting the doctor call the surgeon to fix his nose. The conversation about sending Victor to Europe. Her demands for different doctors. He even remembered waking up on his back in the surgery room, and the pull of string against his nose, although at that point his face was numb.
Lost in a mess of memories, Victor fell asleep again.
And woke again shortly. He didn’t want to sleep more.
His mother would have insisted he stay at home and not at the hospital. He imagined it was not for his health, but to salvage whatever reputation she could. And if she got the opportunity, she’d fly him off perhaps.
Victor tried to talk.
Mr. Buble. He’d left him. DepthCrawler.
They could have taken him from the hospital.
They knew how.
But they wouldn’t. They didn’t. They left him. And soon, his parents might have him on that flight they wanted him on. A private plane would take him anywhere.
He almost thought he should go. He almost risked Sang’s life. Was she hurt? They promised…
They said she wasn’t. That she was fine.
Was she?
Was she safe around him? He’d almost killed her.
Her face.
Upside down.
He sobbed, the memory too strong for him to handle.
The nurse peered down at him and gently touched his arm. “If you need to sleep, sleep.” She shifted. He was pretty sure the nurse put more medicine into the IV.
After a few minutes, he didn’t have a choice.
He never had a choice.