Opening his eyes, Louis looks towards the conductor standing confidently atop his podium, raising his baton skywards. The violins and cellos begin to play a rich and warm melody. With the introduction of the violas, Louis takes a deep inhale, and his bass section join the orchestra.

The crowd watches in a silent awe as they listen to “Serenade for Strings in E Major, OP. 22” by Antonín Dvořák. Vivid thoughts pouring into Louis’s mind as he plays, his imagination running wild to the practiced melody, as if the song whispered a story in his ear. Succumbing to his imagination, he was taken to a dream, standing in an audience of a rock concert. Noticing the crowd that surrounded him vanish from his sight, he felt alone.

Louis walked towards the stage to see a door left ajar behind the curtains, allowing a dim sliver of light shining onto the darkened stage. He opens it to see an alleyway filled with faded concert posters. Their ink smudged and corners curled from age. His eyes spot a small red string lying innocently on the ground. Wondering where it’ll go, he follows the path it laid out to him.

Guided by the thread, he hears a girl’s faint sob in the distance, the cry faintly louder with every step. The string taking him through a maze of walls, laden with the sight of old broken guitars scattered across the ground. Rain begins to pour down from the bleak sky as he reaches the other end of the string, seeing a girl, her hair darkened by the rain, balled up against a door step.

“Who is she? Why is she crying so quietly out here all alone?” He asks himself, “Maybe there’s something I can do to help her.” Louis calls out to her, noticing her cries soften as he does. Instinctively he moves towards her, the short distance between them becoming infinite from each fleeting footstep. As if he was running in reverse, the distance growing by the second. The fading thoughts bring Louis back to the concert he played. Using vibrato on the final note, letting it ring out across the stage.

The conductor smiles while looking over his orchestra, enjoying that final moment of their performance. He turned around and took a bow, followed by everyone on stage. Erupting in a loud wave of cheers and applause, the audience rise from their seats. Satisfied with the concert, Louis gives an honest smile to the audience.

Placing his upright bass on its rack, Louis gives a deep exhale before leaving the orchestra room. “Louis!” A voice called out across the hallway. He turned towards the voice and sees his girlfriend, Roxanne, speed walking towards him—

“You did awesome!” She exclaims, “you looked so professional up there!”

“Thanks… glad you liked it!” He replied with a blush showing through his smile.

“OH, I almost forgot… I got you this the other day.” He reached in his pocket to reveal a little charm of a cat with (•ㅅ•) for its face.

“You’re always so thoughtful.” Roxanne says, her voice wavering slightly. “Sometimes, I worry I don’t—I mean, thanks… it’s really sweet of you.” Louis replies to her comment with a sincere smile, “if it brightens your day, then I don’t mind!”

The audience in the lobby slowly dispersed as the two head their separate ways for the evening. Roxanne hopping in her car, reaches into her purse and began to stare at the charm. A mix of affection and sadness crossing her face. “Why is this so hard?” She muttered to herself before laying her head on the steering wheel. “I’m sorry, Louis.”

Louis returns to the conservatory the next day, prepared to practice with his other section members, Emma and Jonas.

Upon walking into the room, he sees both of them making jokes and cracking up while playing parts of a song. He makes his way to a file cabinet in the office on the side of the room and digs through dozens of books.

“Good job last night!” Emma shouts to Louis, “you too, you guys were excellent!” He replies while shuffling through pages of a tome.

“Anyone doing anything fun later?” Jonas questions with a yawn.

“Not much, just finishing some homework,” she replies after setting her instrument down, reaching for her bag stuffed with papers. “What about you Louis?”

Louis digs in his pocket to check his phone, opening a text from Roxanne. “I’m going to the lake with Roxy. She asked to meet up there this evening.”

“How romantic!” Jonas commented with a snicker. Emma rolls the sheet music from the stand—and with a loud thud—slaps Jonas in the back of his head. Louis hearing the sound peaks out of the office to see Jonas laying on the floor with Emma sitting on her stool eating a bag of chips. “Hope you have fun tonight!”

Louis gives a hearty laugh before returning his phone to his pocket. “Thanks! It took a minute but… how about we play this?”

He brings out a booklet titled “Symphony no.2 ‘Resurrection’ Im Tempo” by Gustav Mahler.

Jonas looks it over and sighs heavily, “ugh we finish a concert and you wanna practice with this!?”

“Oooh that’s a tough one, I’m down if we can skip all the boring parts.” Emma remarks as she finishes her snack, tossing the empty bag over Jonas and into the trash. “Score!”

“Alright here’s your guys’s copies, we’ll only play this part for now,” pointing to a sea of notes on the paper. They ready their instruments and play for hours through the day.

“I say we call it good,” Louis says with a stretch, “it’s getting late, gotta head o it so I’ll see you guys tomorrow!” He waves them goodbye before departing the conservatory campus and into the downtown city area.

On his stroll to the lake, he passes a few old shuttered stores, their interiors darkened by faded wood boards covering their windows. Sealed with heavy chains as if imprisoned for committing heinous crimes. Sun bleached concert posters plastered over by government warnings: “Prohibition of Rock and Metal Music Enforced.” Taking a moment to stop and glance over the scenery, he thinks to himself, wondering why should certain music be made illegal? His mind drifts back to Roxy when he passes a little store, charms filling its window display. He looks at them briefly until a particular one catches his eye, a blue rose with its stem in the shape of an eighth note. He immediately goes in to purchase it with a wholesome smile across his face. A small gesture meant to brighten her day.

Moments after exiting, a girl walking down the sidewalk collided with Louis, the small charm slips from his grasp. "Sorry!" They both exclaim. “Here I got it.” She says, picking it up with the utmost care. She couldn’t stop looking over the charm as she stands up, smiling the whole time. “That’s cute,” her eyes move to Louis and in that moment the world began to slow down. Her fiery red hair, eyes filled with an unspoken passion, Louis felt as though he was lost in an ocean of words as she handed him the charm.

"Thanks," Louis says, a hint of obvious embarrassment colored his cheeks. "I'm Louis..."

"Nice to meet you, Louis—I'm Sona," she responds, “you like music?”

Surprised by Sona's warmth, he nods with a slight hesitation. “Yeah, I saw it and couldn’t help myself. A last minute gift really.”

“Aw that’s sweet of you, they’re lucky.“ she begins to depart but briefly faces Louis, giving him a playful wave, “later!” Pacing away with a smile.

“Later...” Watching her move further away, he looks back to the charm in his hand, and slips it in his pocket. As he departs for the lake, he couldn’t shake the feeling of deja-vu with the girl he just met. The way she smiled at him leaving a score of thoughts and emotions in his mind. He continued his walk as the sun began to set, the sky slowly shifting away from its daily blur of blue.

Before arriving at the lake, Louis checks his phone to see where Roxanne wanted to meet up at. Staring at the message, he notices how it’s typed different from her regular texts—it was shorter and felt serious. Louis started to get an uneasy feeling when he saw her sitting on a bench, gaze fixed on the tranquil waters ahead.

Hearing him call out, she looks over with a bittersweet smile on her face. "Hey," she says softly before getting up, “let's take a walk." He notices a slight tremor in her voice, a wavering that he had never heard before. His heart began to sink with the growing unease with thoughts of what she wants to say.

The lake felt still, mirroring the waning sun’s melancholy orange glow. The quiet was punctuated by the rustle of trees in the wind. They stroll along the lakeside path in silence for a few moments before Roxy speaks to Louis. "There's something I need to tell you. It's been weighing on me, and I can't keep pretending everything's okay."

"You know you can tell me anything, right?" His voice dropped to a whisper, the words barely escaping as he noticed the unusual seriousness in her eyes. "I think we should break up," she says—her voice tinged with a practiced sorrow—“Louis, it's not... you haven't done anything wrong. You're wonderful, really, but... I just think you deserve someone better. Someone who can give you what I can't.”

The words hit Louis like a cold wave, his knees weakening as he struggled to process her words. For a moment, the world seemed to blur, sounds fading into a distant hum.

Roxy reaches out to gently touch his arm—absent of her usual warmth. "I'm sorry, Louis... I've tried, I really have. But the feelings, they're just not... they're not there. And pretending, it's just not a good idea.”

She gives a deep sigh before letting go, “I don’t want to lead you on and hurt you Louis. Thanks for everything you’ve done for me, but it’s not a good idea for us to continue this.” Refusing to look him in the eyes, she turns away and begins to walk alone.

"Roxanne, please..." his voice cracked, the words choked by tears. She paused, for just a moment, their eyes meeting in silent agony. “Don't go," he whispered, but she turned away, leaving him with a soft, heartbreaking, "Goodbye, Louis.”

Louis collapses onto his knees while Roxanne walks out of sight. The feeling of his heart sunder, left him there motionless… “I don’t want to be alone…” he thinks to himself.

Orange hues of the evening sky gradually meld into deep, dark blue. Lost in his emotions, he finds himself wandering back to the cold, empty bench he found Roxanne at. His mind adrift in memories and unanswered questions, thoughts of her weighing heavily on him.

He sat in his solitary contemplation for hours—watching the moon rise above the distant horizon past the water. Feeling his phone vibrate, he opens it to see a text from his brother Mark… asking if he’ll be home for dinner.

Looking over the message for a minute, he opens up Mark’s contact to call him. “Hey… can you come pick me up?” His voice absent of the joys from earlier in the day, echoed a hollow emptiness.

Half an hour passes and a police car slows to a stop next to him. Stepping out of the vehicle, the officer walks towards him, his polished police chief badge reflecting the nearby lighting from a lamppost.

His voice, gentle and calm, interrupts the silence. "Louis, are you alright?" He asked with a concerned look.

Forcing a smile for the unexpected company, “hey, Mark. Just thinking."

Mark sits down besides him. "What’s wrong? You know you can talk to me…"

Unable to contain his words any longer, he lets it all out, "It's Roxy… she ended things, just like that," Louis admitted—his voice choking with emotion.

"That's rough, buddy…” he thought to himself for a moment—recollecting on his own experience—”it’s gonna hurt for a while, but you need to keep moving forward.” Staring at the ground, Louis picks his eyes up, towards his brother.

Mark takes a moment to choose his next words with care. “Think of love like a flower... if you pluck it, it doesn’t last, right? It’s better to just appreciate it for what it is.” He pauses, spotting a glimmer of light in Louis’s eyes. “So, hang in there,” placing his hand delicately onto his grieving brother’s shoulder. “With time, you’ll find that kind of love again—the kind that you can admire and grow with.”

“Thanks...” Louis mutters, a slight shift towards a brighter tone—“It’s getting late, let’s head home, huh?” Barely the will to speak, Louis nods in response. After they settle into their seats, Louis catches sight of the Moon through the window, its celestial beauty illuminating the melancholic night sky. The way it lit up the darkness spoke volumes to him in silent words.

As Louis’s gaze leaves the Moon… miles away, Sona stands on a rooftop—the same moonlight casting shadows—as she takes a long drag from her cigarette. “The preparations are finished, Ma’am,” calls out a voice from behind… she turns around to face the silhouette standing in the open doorway—

“Good. Have the roadies spread the word for Saturday…”

“Yes Ma’am.” He replies before walking inside. When the door shuts, she turns her sight back towards the Moon, pressing her cigarette into the guard rail. Slipping her hands into her jacket pockets, she closes her eyes while facing the heavens with determination.

In the quiet of the night, as the Moon casts its glow over a world full of music and hidden stories, the stage is set. This is the story of a band called Rock On, and how they played the greatest and best song in the world.