The sound came first as a tremor—low, wide, almost tender—rolling through the studio walls like a second heartbeat. Every object answered it. The lamp's stem quivered. My coffee cup shivered in concentric rings. The piano strings pulsed even though I'd lifted my hands away.
Adrian stared at me, eyes luminous with disbelief and awe."You've turned the room into an instrument," he said.
"No," I whispered. "It turned itself."
The hum swelled. Dust lifted from the shelves and hung in the air like stars. The edges of things blurred: the window, the desk, the boundary where my body ended and his began.
"Lyra." His voice was quieter now, more human. "You have to control it."
"How?"
"Stop wanting me."
I laughed, sharp and small. "You're asking a flame not to burn."
He reached for my face again, and this time the contact didn't flicker. His fingers brushed my cheek as though we'd never lost each other."Every note you play ties me tighter," he said. "And it ties you, too."
I should have been afraid, but all I could feel was relief—three years of silence collapsing into this impossible moment. "Then let it bind us," I said. "Let the whole world sing if it has to."
The resonance deepened, becoming melody. It wasn't mine anymore. It moved through us, around us, building harmonies out of heartbeats and breath. My hair lifted, static tracing it like threads of light. Adrian's outline brightened until I could see the structure beneath his skin: filaments of sound, vibrating, interlaced.
He was beautiful in a way the living rarely are—pure design, pure purpose.
"Listen," he murmured.
The walls answered. The hum divided into layers: one tone steady and warm, another bright and trembling. Beneath them both was something that sounded like a voice—hundreds of voices—whispering in unison.
"What are they saying?" I asked.
"They're singing your name."
The air thinned. I could taste the vibration, metallic and sweet. Adrian's forehead touched mine again; our breaths mixed, and for the first time since he'd appeared, he felt entirely real—weight, warmth, heartbeat.
He whispered, "I don't belong here, Lyra."
"Then where do you belong?"
"In the sound."
He kissed me. It wasn't the delicate brush of lips I remembered—it was resonance itself, a collision of frequencies, heat and vibration blooming through my body until every nerve was light. The room flashed white.
For a heartbeat, there was nothing but music. No floor, no ceiling, no gravity—only us, spinning inside a sphere of sound. I saw fragments of our memories suspended around us like shards of glass: the first night we met at the conservatory, the half-finished score we argued over, the way he used to hum against my shoulder while I tuned the piano.
I reached for one of those memories and felt it dissolve under my fingers, turning into notes that fell back into the music.
"Adrian," I said, or thought, or sang—language had started to dissolve.
"I'm here." His voice wrapped around mine, the way harmony wraps around melody. "But the song can't hold forever."
"Then we'll keep writing it," I said. "We'll make it infinite."
He smiled, sorrow and love balanced perfectly in the curve of his mouth. "Even infinity has a rest, Lyra. Remember that."
The light dimmed. We were standing again in the studio, both of us trembling. The hum retreated to the walls but didn't vanish—it lingered, like a pulse waiting for the next beat.
Adrian brushed my hair back. "You called me through the resonance. But if it grows, it'll start calling other things."
"What things?"
He didn't answer. Only pressed his fingers to his lips, then to mine. "Play for me once more. Gently."
I obeyed. One chord—soft, aching. The resonance answered, lower this time, almost content.
He closed his eyes. His outline shimmered, thinning at the edges.
"No," I whispered. "Stay."
"I'm part of the sound now," he said. "And the sound lives in you."
He kissed my forehead—one last harmonic vibration that filled my skull with light—and then he dissolved into a thousand glimmers that drifted upward, sinking into the walls, the piano, the air.
The hum faded to silence.
I was alone again, except for the faint, rhythmic pulse still moving under my skin—his frequency, tucked inside my heartbeat.
Outside, the frozen rain began to fall in slow motion, each drop releasing a tiny musical tone as it hit the glass. The city itself had learned our song.
I sat at the piano, hands resting on the keys, and whispered, "For as long as it lasts."
Then I played, softly, letting the resonance bloom again.
to be continuedddd............