I

I checked the time: 6:12 a.m. We had been there for way too long, and the others were likely about to wake up. I leaned against the wall, trying to stand, but it was impossible; Ruby had latched onto me, making me lose my balance over and over. With no other choice, I pushed us along, step by step, until we made it through the door. There, still with her draped over me, I managed to straighten up little by little, feeling a sharp sting in my abdomen from the effort.

"I can’t stand you," I said, my voice clear.

Panic surged through me when I noticed Rose’s door was open. She was already awake.

"Ruby! Ruby!" I swatted at her a couple of times without letting go of the doorframe. "Help me!"

"Everyone full... energy..." she mumbled, lost in her own world.

I put the strength of my knees to the test and managed to drag her to her room. I dropped her onto the bed and threw a blanket over her. Just as I was about to turn off the light, she opened her eyes.

"Mia... what are you doing in my room so late?"

"It’s already morning."

"Are you lost? Don't you like sleeping alone?" she asked sleepily.

"What were you doing on my stairs?"

"Don't make things up. You just saw me wake up here."

"This is ridiculous," I whispered.

"Come here," she asked, patting the sheet. "Sit down."

I didn't care if my annoyance was obvious to her. I wanted to leave, but now that I know her better, I knew that if I wanted this to end, I just had to listen to her and sit on the edge of the mattress, fast.

"Which one do you like best?" she asked with her eyes half-closed.

"What?" The question made me instantly uncomfortable.

"Don't you know yet? Is it that hard of a choice?" She chuckled.

"Which one of what, Ruby?"

"Of them," she said, pointing to her guitars. "Of the stories I told you today, which one did you like most?"

"The one about your teacher was the most interesting," I replied, trying to hide my bewilderment.

"Right?" Ruby smiled and jumped out of bed in one move to grab it. "Here, I’m going to lend it to you."

I looked at the instrument doubtfully, but she cut me off.

"No, no. You never reject an instrument offered by a fellow musician. My first lesson for you is to touch the strings to get to know them." She began to settle back under the covers. "The texture, the sound, the vibration... everything you manage to perceive from it, tell me later."

I ended up accepting it. The marks of time on the wood caught my attention.

"If you're not staying here with me, you can go," she added, tucking herself in up to her nose.

I was about to close the door when she shouted:

"MIA! By the way! Remember to always keep it vertical. She’s very delicate and hates being horizontal."

Closing her door, I checked Rose’s room once more; it was exactly the same. She hadn't gone in or out. I was safe for today, and I could flee to the attic.

This time, the stairs to my bed felt shorter. I sat down, adopting a posture as if I knew what I was doing, and let my nails brush the strings.

"It has a nice sound," I whispered, as my fingers toyed with the vibration of the metal wires, cutting each note short.

In the silence of my space, sleep hit me uncontrollably. I placed the guitar on the plastic stand by my bed and, as I had every day since I arrived at the residence, I collapsed. I had a deep, heavy sleep—the kind that promises to leave you renewed. Or at least it could have been, until a hollow, thundering sound knocked me out of bed.

"No way..." I froze as I realized the noise was the impact of wood.

I rushed toward the instrument, and then my breath hitched. The neck was separated from the body, and the base looked splintered. The strangest thing was that the stand was intact; what had happened made no logical sense.

"How did this happen? Did I set it down wrong? What am I going to do?" I collapsed onto the bed, covering my mouth with my hands.

I tried to control my breathing, but the air burned my throat and my pulse thundered in my ears.

"Alan! He plays guitar!" I dialed him desperately. I messaged the group he was in, sent photos, voice notes, texts—everything! I dropped the phone, dizzy with stress, and tried to piece together the splintered fragments that kept slipping through my trembling hands.

"I don't know what to do..."

The alarm for my class began to ring, and a few seconds later, there was a knock at the door. I heard the creak of the hinge opening.

"Mia, are you ready?" It was Luna.

II

Luna was as fast and silent as a specter; you never heard her footsteps. One moment you'd see her somewhere, and the next, she was breathing down your neck. That’s why, when she walked in, I collapsed. By the time I was about to return her greeting, she was almost at my side.

"I thought you wouldn't be awake. Can I come up?" she asked when she was already halfway up the stairs. "Did you manage to get any sleep?"

"Yes!" I replied, finishing hiding the guitar under the bed with my feet. "Wait... just a second..."

I gave the remains one last kick and pulled the duvet over to hide the stash. Luna didn't catch me only because she immediately focused on the books on a shelf on the opposite wall.

"Cozy," she said, straightening one of the frames that was tilted. "Is this your selection of...—she stopped in front of my erotic mangas—...literature?"

I stepped between her and the shelf, hiding the titles with my back.

"The books are somewhere else!" I exclaimed, but Luna wasn't even listening. She continued analyzing every spine of my mangas with an expressionless smile.

"Ah... so you have many more..." she replied without losing the smile. "Do you want to go to my studio or would you rather stay here?"

"I... don't know..."

"Very well," she said, picking up one of the volumes and sitting on my bed. "You have curious taste," she commented, looking at the back. "The Scourge of Truth," she read in a serious tone.

Embarrassment won over my fear for the guitar. Maybe she’d think I was a pervert, or childish, or desperate; who knows what was going through that broken mind today. I only remember that after a blink, she stared at me without blinking again. She fell silent, tilting her head slightly while her soft, fine black hair fell over her shoulder. It was an eternal moment; I inhaled deeply and involuntarily held my breath until she, as if it were nothing, continued what she was saying:

"I’m going to start right away so we can finish early," she said, handing me a notebook. "These are my notes from the academy; take a look."

Setting the volume aside, she crossed her legs, resting her hands on her knee.

"Mia, something you need to watch is your transparency. Your weaknesses are very obvious, and for the audience, there can't be a weak flank."

"If you can see them so easily, name one."

"You challenge when you're scared. You just did it right now, and what I’m trying to find out without you telling me is what’s wrong with you today. It’s like a game, see?"

A game...

I opened her notes to steer her away from the subject. They weren't organized like I imagined; there were two types of handwriting, lots of white space, and small drawings. It wasn't even full.

"What do I need to read here?"

"I noted down what mattered to me at the time; read it all, it’s not much." She stood up to inspect the books on the desk. "Focus on the practice with me; theory isn't much use on stage."

With the morning I’d had, I completely forgot she was coming. I hadn't tidied my things, and she found my original Nappoky CDs with all the postcards and photo albums. She picked them up and began to look through them one by one, meticulously.

"I want you to repeat this to yourself every day." She didn't stop looking at the photos. "In this industry, the winner isn't the one with the most endurance or the worst temper, but the least vulnerable. As soon as they smell fear, you become bait for others."

I was paying attention, though I was distracted trying to nudge the neck—which was still sticking out a bit from under the bed—with my foot.

"Acting is like any other manipulation," she continued. "You show people you don't know someone who doesn't exist, and they don't know they needed them until they see you. If you mix it with music, you pull the strings of their feelings, making them travel through time. To the future, the past, the present... No one is truly there when they hear our music."

"Hm..." I had never thought about it like that.

"The concert starts, they take photos, they watch us for a while, and after a few songs, if we don't do something, their gaze drifts," she went on. "The strings of the music take them to another moment in their lives: memories, illusions, sorrows. Those who stay completely are an exacting minority, and for both groups, we cannot fail. For this 'magic' to work, you have to keep them all with you at the same time and that..." she interlaced her fingers, breathing heavily, "that isn't just about standing there and playing well."

"Should I write that down?"

"It’s written in there somewhere," she replied, waving her fingers dismissively toward the notebook.

"For me, concerts are a purgatory of talent," she continued. "A single wrong note ruins your work and your group’s for years; it’s hard to recover socially from that. It’s as fatal as going viral for falling on a runway."

"If you were wondering what had me so scared, I can repeat what you just told me several times until you understand."

I made her let out a laugh. She sat down next to me, breaking the safe distance between us.

"Nothing is going to happen to you," she said in a softer tone. "I’m supposed to be here so no one takes advantage of you."

I felt her hand open mine and place my phone in it.

"I want you to save and then study the videos I’m going to show you."

I nodded, speechless.

"Rule number one: do not imagine yourself failing."

"I hadn't until you told me," I joked to ease the tension she continued to feed whenever she could.

"Search for the EOS channel."

"Wouldn't you rather do it?" I asked, holding the phone out to her.

"We minimize device use to protect our ligaments."

"But you’re with Ruby, whose hand is practically fused to her phone?"

"That... is too complicated for me to explain to you right now. You'll have to see it for yourself." She laughed, watching as I unlocked the screen. "What’s this?" she asked curiously, pointing at my mess of icons.

"Ah... they're games..." I braced myself.

"You're not satisfied with just reading them; you have to play them too," she commented, trying to read the titles of my visual novels. "Night Punishment... Neighbors with Benefits... Send Me a Photo... The Broken Divan..."

I opened the browser in a rush to make her stop reading.

"Search for Alice’s solo in our last concert," she ordered.

We started watching it, and shortly after it began, she asked me to stop it.

"Stop it there, look at her face. Zoom in on her eyes."

I zoomed in. Her eyebrows arched, shifting her gaze for a millisecond.

"Do you know why she did that? The wind turned the page and she had to play the rest from memory because the music stand was too far from her. She didn't secure the sheet music well, and Marlene reprimanded her in front of all of us."

"Who is Marlene?"

"The supervisor of the second division at CDC. If she says we're no good, we’re re-evaluated. And if we’re unlucky... we’re discarded," she said with total seriousness. "Making a bad impression on her is the worst thing that can happen to any of us, but that won't be your case."

"How are you so sure?"

"I have your back."

Usually, she looked at me like a femme fatale whenever she dropped one of those comments; this time, she didn't. It was probably one of the few genuine things she ever told me.

"Play the next one," she requested, giving me an impatient little tap with her finger on the back of my hand to hurry me up.

It was a video of Ruby. She looked imposing, with an explosive energy; there I understood all the virtuosity she bragged about and why she had so many portraits of herself. She didn't have a single bad angle. Nothing like the drunk on my stairs.

Out of nowhere, a giant box came flying from above directly at her, nearly hitting her in the face. Ruby stopped playing abruptly to catch it without letting go of her viola. The stadium went silent while she, eyes wide, looked very slowly from side to side.

"That face was recorded as a joke for the rest of her life; even we use her stickers, and I have no doubt you'll use them too, you won't be able to help it." She laughed with a hint of secondhand embarrassment. "Ruby fixed it later: she said thanks, stopped everything, and turned our big New Year's finale into the unboxing of a painting of herself. It was such a large canvas that she didn't have to fake the tear that escaped when she saw it."

"Isn't that... a waste of production money?" I asked, trying to understand the logic.

"Yes and no, because it got so many views it made up for any damage... her case is special in every way." She laughed again.

Luna smiled with bright eyes. What did that expression mean? No idea. The bond between the two of them was always something as deep as two soulmates in conflict; something irrationally toxic and, at the same time, beautiful. And surprisingly, it wasn't the only bond with that terrible intensity inside that house.

"Where is security in those cases?"

"They never have enough staff, just like here... stop it!"

As she tried to tap the screen, she accidentally hit the phone and made it fall.

"Oh! Sorry!"

She knelt down apologetically to pick it up, and that was when she came face to face with one of the guitar’s tuning pegs. I was too tired to react; I just pressed my lips together and let whatever happened, happen. Luna pulled the instrument out with curiosity; she held the body that hung sadly from the strings and ran her fingers over the splintered wood.

"Ah... it was this," she remarked, sounding annoyed.