The whispered apologies dissolved into the dark like smoke, unanswered, unacknowledged. The weight in Alex's chest had solidified—no longer just emotion, but matter. A leaden knot of guilt and grief, swelling with every heartbeat. He couldn't stay still. His body rejected stillness like it rejected poison.
Without thought, he threw the covers off as if they'd turned to fire.
He stumbled into the room's blackness, breath ragged, limbs shaking. His feet found the cool floor with awkward, fumbling steps. He wasn't seeking comfort or resolution. He was just moving. A reflex. A flight instinct without direction.
His hands reached for the walls, as if needing proof the world was still there. They skimmed smooth drywall, brushed the edge of a poster, then—wood. His fingers curled around it before his mind even processed what it was.
The guitar.
It had leaned silently against the wall for a week—untouched, ignored. Now, it was something to hold. Something that wasn't memory or silence or blame.
His grip tightened.
It wasn't music he was reaching for. It was oxygen. Survival. The instinct of someone drowning, flailing for anything that floated. It felt alien in his hands—familiar and wrong at once, like rediscovering a part of himself that had atrophied.
He didn't sit on a chair. He collapsed.
He slid down to the floor, spine meeting the bed, the guitar awkwardly heavy across his lap. His hands trembled as they positioned themselves—one at the fretboard, the other on the strings. His fingers were clumsy, stiff from disuse. They didn't remember where to go, didn't try to.
He just pressed down. Hard. Random. Unthinking.
Then he dragged his thumb across the strings in a single, violent stroke.
The sound that erupted was hideous.
It tore through the room like glass through flesh—a jagged, dissonant shriek. No rhythm. No harmony. Just noise. Pain turned into vibration. It wasn't music. It was impact. It was the sound of something breaking—inside the room, inside him.
It rang out, unresolved, and then hung there.
But in the echo, something shifted.
The pressure in his chest eased—just slightly. Just enough.
So he did it again.
Another savage strum, louder this time. His fingers mashed against the strings with white-knuckled force. The sound clanged into the room like a weapon. It struck back at silence, at memory, at the image of Leo's quiet stare. It was fury. It was regret. It was all the words he hadn't said, turned into sound.
A third strum. Then a fourth.
Each one uglier than the last, discordant and raw. They filled the space around him like fists slamming into the air. Not chords. Not notes. Just noise. Honest, brutal, necessary noise.
Again.
A final, full-body motion. He pulled his arm back and slammed it down across the strings with everything he had—every ounce of guilt, every second of grief compressed into one catastrophic chord.
The sound rang out like a scream—inhuman, furious, broken.
Then it faded.
Silence rushed in behind it, but it was different now. Not oppressive. Not pristine. It had been scarred. Fractured.
Alex sat frozen, back against the bed, the guitar limp in his lap. His chest rose and fell in uneven gasps. His fingers ached. His ears rang.
It wasn't relief. It wasn't healing. But it was something.
Not music. Not yet.
But a sound. A crack in the stillness.
A start.
------------------
I've written up to Arc 3 now, which should cover around 80 chapters on Patreon. But honestly, the response there hasn't been very active, and here only 2 or 3 people are reading it. Because of that, I've been thinking about dropping the novel. But at the same time, it goes against the principle I had when I first started writing.
So instead of stopping completely, I'm thinking of reducing the number of updates per week. The story is long, and just to reach the main part, it will take around 5 arcs. In total, I expect at least 8 arcs, which means more than 300 chapters. Originally, I hoped to finish it in around 200 chapters, but the way I've written it doesn't let me rush the ending, so I feel a bit stuck.
To balance things out, I'm also planning to release other novels I've been working on. I'll share them once they reach at least 10 chapters, right now they are only at 3. Hopefully, those might bring in more readers.
On a happy note, I received my first payment from Patreon, around 60 dollars, which came at the perfect time. I'm really grateful for the support I've gotten so far.
Please share your thoughts and suggestions in the comments, it will help me a lot in deciding how to move forward.