God Word

One

Long, pale, slender fingers touched the strings of the cello, the mournful melody carried through the room touching all who heard it, striking a chord in their hearts, gentle vibrato and with each movement of the bow the sound grew. Cobalt blue eyes that had been half-closed, lost deep within the music flashed up and caught hold of me causing the breath in my throat to catch. I was caught up in the trance of the music and those eyes, how I had longed for those eyes to look at me for so long, and now they were, as though I were the reason for the beautiful yet mournful music that captured the hearts and souls of all listening. His eyes dropped once more, encasing himself in the music as it came to an end, the breath that had caught in my throat slowly escaped and I was able to breathe again. His bow stopped moving then was slowly folded down in his graceful looking hands.

Silence.

Squeals from the chorus of women erupted as they all held their hands to their chest, clutching at their breast as though it would settle their fluttering hearts. The sudden high pitched noises felt like they had burst my eardrums, I put a hand up to each, covering them as I made my way out the door, the feeling of eyes following me involuntarily turned my face in to see those eyes looking at me once more as I moved out of view, through the door into the blast of sudden wind. I had been so entranced with the music like everybody else that I hadn't noticed the wind coming up. Great, my hair was messed up beyond repair now and I probably looked like a stunned mullet.

"Sway?" The voice made me jump, never mind that it had used my incredibly nerdy nickname. Turning I saw that it was Lethe, his cobalt eyes studying me. When did he learn that nickname?

"Oh, hey. I wasn't expecting you to escape from your horde of screaming fangirls for a little longer." I smiled and shoved my hands into my jacket pocket both because they were cold and because his catching me off guard had made me a little shy.

He returned the smile. "I saw that you were in there watching too. I didn't expect the great Reyleen to come to such a concert."

My cheeks heat up and I knew without any doubt that I was blushing furiously. "Oh come on, you know as well as I do that your music is incredible, how else would you have been accepted to the conservatory of music here. Besides, I like your music..."

"The Cello isn't very difficult to play, I could... Teach you if you'd like." He turned his head to the side slightly, avoiding looking at me directly, his fringe fell across his eye and cheek, a touch of colour could be seen only just behind the hair.

Was he... Was he blushing? "I'd appreciate that, though I'd probably massacre it. I can't seem to get the hang of string instruments. As you probably saw several months back with Bernadette's violin..." That incident was still fresh in my mind at least. My friend Bernadette who was one of the Conservatory's promising Violinists had offered to teach me a little bit of how to play her violin. I had it held correctly after a lot of wrist turning and lifting and prodding, and when I had attempted to play a note... Whatever rooster had just been strangled didn't appreciate me, neither did anybody else stuck in that room with me.

"Maybe you just need a better teacher." He looked up at me from behind that flop of hair, that all too innocent looking face that made every girl turn to putty.

"That would be nice."

"Reyleen! Hurry up we're starting soon. God girl..." Both Lethe and I jumped as Bernadette seemed to pop up from thin air. She paused for a second then that sly grin crossed her lips as she looked at me as though some secret she knew and I didn't. "Did I interrupt an intimate moment my dears?"

Lethe shook his head. "Of course not. We were simply talking. I won't hold you up any longer, apologies Miss Dominicus, Miss Numan." He gave us both a curt nod then turned and walked back into the room with the squealing women and his Cello.

"Well damn that was cold." Bernadette raised an eyebrow, glancing his direction before shrugging and grabbing hold of my arm and giving me a sharp tug. "Well let's get going. You've been oggling him long enough, now it's our turn oh great Miss Dominicus."

Snatching my arm from her grip I folded them across my chest and huffed. "I was not oggling him."

"Then you're the only female in this entire conservatory that isn't or wasn't. I mean he is rather nice on the eyes, I sure wouldn't mind waking up next to that each morning..." I rolled my eyes, Bernadette certainly had a way of making me feel like cringing without even having to go into details, they were written all over her face. She continued to chat as we hurried over to where our performance was due to begin within the next five or so minutes. The wind continued to blow as though it wanted to knock me off my feet, that or turn me around and have me march right back over to Lethe, which honestly didn't strike me as a terrible idea. I wasn't particularly keen on this performance after all. I knew most of those that would be turning up to watch it would be purely for me or Bernadette, but that didn't bother her at all, obviously.

Bernadette Numan was a particularly bubbly, bouncy girl. Okay maybe girl isn't really the word to describe her, she would be a 'young woman', she just happened to be short and slightly flat in the chest which made her look younger than she really is. She also seemed to have the current obsession with anything that was bright orange. She did have the olive skin to make it work for her though and the dark slightly curly hair that constantly bounced around her face as though it were a buoy in a stormy sea. Well, that was certainly an interesting simile. I chuckled to myself causing her to smack me in the arm. "That's not funny."

"Sorry. I couldn't help it."

"You weren't listening again were you?"

"Of course I was. You were talking about the pink elephant jumping the fence again."

"Why do you always do that?! You don't pay any attention at all and yet always hear that part." I shrugged and we walked into the gentle heated stage area. I could see the seats filling and sighed. It wasn't that I hated the performances, it was that I didn't like being one of the attractions. Of course, the families and friends of the other performers were there as support but anybody else was here for Bernadette's incredible violin or me. It was cringe worthy to me. I wasn't the attention seeking type unlike Bernadette who thrived off it, I was perfectly happy to keep to myself.

The organiser bustled over to us, bundling Bernadette up and ushering her into the backstage waiting area where she'd be able to tune her violin - as though she hadn't already done it. A paper was thrust into my hands as I too was eventually shoved into the back waiting room to do just that. Rolling my eyes and moving off to one of the few seats available I decided I should really look at that sheet.

"Ooh now there's a twist, you're doing a duet." It was Bernadette again. How the hell did she always manage to just appear?

"Apparently." It was true. They had changed my original performance to a duet, with none other than Lethe Wyrmbel. Brilliant, really. There was no way that I could do this now. I'd freeze up and make a fool of myself. "Who decided to change it?"

"Relax, you get to play with your pretty boy."

I smacked her arm, probably a little too hard. "That's the problem. And he's not mine. I can't play with him, this is ridiculous!"

"I apologise. I simply wanted to play with you."

And that was just the voice I did not want to hear at that very moment. Oh let the ground swallow me whole right now please. Put me out of my misery and sheer embarrassment and idiocy. Dear god how did this mess happen, someone do something to fix it. "It's not that you're a bad musician or anything Lethe, you're very talented. It's just..." I looked to Bernadette trying to plead with my eyes for help.

"She likes you. She's going to fuck up."

Oh god please let the ground open up beneath me. This was just not my day. Please, please, please someone interrupt this incredibly awkward moment.

"Ah here you two are. Dominicus, Wyrmbel this way please. We have an available room for you both. No doubt with the sudden change of plans you two will need as much time as possible to practise. Come with me." And without waiting to see if either of us, never mind both, followed, off he went. The two of us silently followed to one of the outside portable rooms. Fiddling with the keys, his fat little stubs called fingers eventually found the right one and opened it. "Just lock it up when you're done. We'll have someone come around the performance before you two are due on stage, it should be long enough, I think it's Logan playing." And he left.

Now, this was awkward. Standing at the door with nobody but Lethe, who was now enlightened beautifully by Bernadette as to my emotional state and my saying that I couldn't play with him. Neither of us said anything and managed to wander into the portable standing on either side as though the other had the plague. God this sucked. This sucked! Why do you hate me so much today? What did I do to deserve this? Okay sure I haven't been a good little prayer-bunny or anything at all for that matter but this was just not fair. Sucking in a deep breathe, I moved over to the window and pressed my forehead against it, then exhaled and turned to Lethe.

"We should probably start working on this duet, it was sprung on me so I have no idea what's meant to be happening now."

Lethe nodded without looking at me. "Sorry, it's just that I've been wanting to do a duet with you for months now and it never seemed to work, then suddenly they accepted my request. I didn't mean to put you on the spot or make you feel awkward, I didn't know, but... It's flattering."

Flattering? Isn't that a nice way of letting someone down? 'Oh it's real flattering that you like me and all but really, gee tee eff oh.' Oh god this is payback isn't it? For when I turned down that Tim guy. Sighing I opened my mouth to speak when it got abnormally bright. "Lights?" Lethe's head snapped to me, his eyes widened.

"Fuck. Move!" Without warning, Lethe leapt at me, the lights suddenly brighter and I turned. A four-wheel drive slammed into the side of the portable right before me at the window. Lethe's arm managed to wrap around my middle in time for the glass to shatter, the metal bent toward us as the force of the vehicle crashed through before it was upon us.

I died that night.