The talented author of The Cellist, Finnyh and I are happy to present our musical-themed Halloween shorts! For more info on The Cellist, visit the next chapter: Special Announcement.

And thanks for reading, voting, commenting, and adding our stories to your reading list!

Please enjoy Song of Humanity.

"This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before."

-Leonard Bernstein

"Whatever you want me to sing, I'll sing." She turns her head to the side and the crimson tips of her golden colored hair sticks to her cheek just below a trail of tears. As I approach, her breathing becomes more rapid while her eyes widen at the wooden club in my fist. "Tell me what to sing. I could sing anything. Just don't hurt me." She's right. She could sing anything. Her talent is what attracted me to her in the first place, but her words are not what I'm after.

Her eyes grow round and steal attention from the darkened, cobwebbed corners of the room, and I assume the emotion that surges through her is fear. However, fear is easily conveyed, readily available, and already a key component of the score.

This song needs more. Much more.

"What do you feel?" The dampness seeps in from the muggy streets, through the doors at the top of the staircase, causing beads of sweat to cluster on my brows. Although my patience was quickly fading, with a steady voice I repeat, "Tell me what you feel."

"I'm scared-"

I dismiss her answer with a wave of my hand, annoyed at her naivety. "Other than fear, pain, and anger?"

"I don't know." Her bruised wrists twist and squirm in the tightly bound rope that anchors her to the wide wooden table. The old planks are not only stained with many of her fluids but that of twenty-three previous contributors. "Please, let me go. I can't take another day of this. The wet, the cold, the... I've suffered enough!"

The last contributor spent nearly twenty-one days down here to perfect his skill and give me the exact vocals I needed. Here she is, weary from a mere three days?

I cock my head and finger the stubble on my chin, examining the sight before me. "We all feel pain. Pain is universal. I need something else from you. You can do better." I adjust the heavy club in my hand and she flinches. "Fear won't do it either. I have enough samples to convey fear. Don't you want to feel something other than what's been fueling you for the majority of your life?"

"Yes, I want to feel something." She whimpers and pleads with her eyes. Her pleading and complaining are static efforts of manipulation that never works, still many try.

"You can't. We can't. What a shame." I stare at the dark red liquid that oozes from her left ear and demand my brain to contradict my words and trigger a new, unfamiliar feeling within me, but to no avail. I stare into her vacant eyes. "However, that doesn't mean you never will. You only have to work for it."

"You want me to sing." She stares above into the light where my wireless, compact microphone blends with the fixture. "What does pain and fear have to do with me singing?"

"I've lived twice as long as you." I rest the end of the heavy club against her cheek, creating a mold of soft flesh to support the rounded tip. "In that time, I watched the world grow grimmer and the people become colder with each passing day. You can't feel anything other than fear and pain because you've been anesthetized of every other emotion. We've all been. But I know the way to fix it."

It had been a gradual process. Unlike a rapid insult to Earth as we imagined the end times would be, this change warped the mind and altered the world bit by bit. To transition from a skilled musician to an unsatisfied replica of one left me with a void.

Music that had moved me to laugh, cry, and sway to its melodic rhythm no longer stirred me. Likewise to the strings that had sang to my soul in an angelic tune, percussion that had energized and synchronized with the beat of my heart, and horns that had urged me to replicate such noise with my lips while my fingers manipulated the valves of a phantom instrument. Those devices now do nothing more than produce sound that fills silent space, much like her singing.

However, through the perfect arrangement, by combining the resonances of anger, fear, and pain into a precise melody, I will crack the code. Humankind will be moved again. My anger, my drive will see to that. It'll awaken the remnants of what was left behind. 

Where joy and love ceases to exist, most would take the instant gratification of violence over pain and fear any day. This is the way of life. This is how it's been since the life-changing event, right before the event, and even long before that.

Footsteps from the alley above echoes through the sliver of space between the angled hatch doors. I peer atop the narrow staircase to the doors that leads outside, and suppress the anxiety that bubbles in my gut from fear of the unknown. I'm sure the footsteps belong to the Halloween fanatics, out raising hell as they do every year.

For years that followed the event, Halloween's customs were to acknowledge and embrace our evolution from caring human beings to heated animals over-saturated with hate, anger, and fear. Tonight's no different.

The footsteps grow louder, closer, and more intimidating.

"Hey!" With her hands and feet still bound to the table, her midsection lunges forward as she screams and fights against the snug ties. "Somebody, please. Down here." Her cries go on until the footsteps pass and fade, and then her shouts meld into sobs as she relaxes, allowing her head to rest in the puddle of red wetness.

Our gazes lock, and for a second I wonder if I would feel sympathy, pity, or remorse. Emotions I remember the names of but not the sensation. Those exact feelings the person outside needed in order to intervene.

"A while ago, people used to complain about violence and gore in entertainment and media." I slide the club down her exposed torso, between the mounds on her chest, and just below her heaving diaphragm. "They'd often shelter the young, like you, from foul language and violence, concerned with how the gratuitous nature can harm. During those days, they also worried about the well being of the world and the animals, plants, and people who inhabit it. But as time went on, it wasn't animals, plants, or humans that met their demise, only the emotions that allowed humans to care about any of those things."

As I look to her on the table and she looks back, I'm certain she's come to understand.

She stares unblinking, ignoring the dull light above her. "There's no reason to speak of feelings when you no longer experience them."

"I feel," I confess. "I sense an emptiness within me that needs to be filled."

I'd spend many nights training myself to control my negative emotions until I was no longer able to feel anything at all. Although violence provided a satisfying resolution to anger, it was anger that had initially prompted me to hunt for a solution to this worldwide tragedy. In the end, the urge to fulfill my emptiness persuaded me to continue my work.

Acts of kindness have long been a thing of the past. Our impulse to survive, along with our self-serving nature, is what blinds her and the other twenty-three contributors. That urge is how they became longtime guests in my studio.

There are only a few, like me, who are old enough to remember the way life used to be, and unfortunate enough to remember the kindness and empathy that had been carved out of that hallow space. Fewer have the urge to replace that void in all of mankind, but this breed is perishing as the population of our world diminishes.

Life will not come full circle and renew, because nothing exists to allow a woman to preserve her health to ensure that life will develop in the womb. And if, by wonder, a birth comes to fruition, nothing exists to persuade a mother or father to tend to another's well being over their own. What had maintained our survival in this world has deteriorated, much like our compassion.

I press the wood into her belly, creating an impression under her rib cage. Her howling cries reverberate off the damp brick walls of the room, stinging my ears. Her face distorts as I press harder, stopping only when a sharp crack cuts through her screams.

I watch and wait as more of her glistening tears mix with the pool of blood under her head.

She heaves and coughs, determined to catch her breath. "G-Gordon. Pl-please."

I wait for a sensation, an emotional reaction ... anything.

Instead, more footsteps approach the doors above with an ever increasing clump, clump, clump.

Even as she struggles to whisper my name, I feel nothing.

Her whisper reminds me of the neon lights that used to glow above the theater stage that had forever engraved the name Francis Gordon in recent history. That name and my musical arrangements used to elicit emotion in the audience. The listeners would clap with joy and excitement. They were moved to heartfelt tears, to stand, to smile, to cheer.

And most importantly, my music had done the same for me.

Nowadays, to "bare your teeth" was as close to a smile as we got. And we only did that out of instinct like a rabid animal on the attack. Not because we were full of joy.

She coughs again, snapping me out of my reverie. This time a mist of bloodied phlegm sprays from her lips to trickle onto her exposed torso.

"Gor-don..." she wheezes, her facial expression exudes fear, her eyes pleads for mercy and reprieve.

She speaks my name but she knows it's not her words I'm after. She knows speaking my name has no effect on me.

Pieces of lung litter the vomit that dribbles from her mouth, and she quiets down. I rush to the corner of the room to my production panel and adjust the input volume of the microphone attached to the light fixture. I toggle the digital switches, amplifying her weary whimpers as I record them in real time.

"Please sing for me, Thalia." I nod to encourage her, using her name as she used mine; in an attempt to remind one another of our humanity. We both know it's a wasted effort, but we each had to take a chance. "All it takes are twenty-four vocalists to complete my score. Only twenty-four until the world feels again. Really feels again." I stare at the jagged bone protruding from her side, awaiting an unfamiliar feeling to build from within and overtake me. "I honor you for being the twenty-fourth contributor."

Her eyes are round and unblinking as she struggles to breathe into the only properly functioning lung. But the sound that came from her lips was not the required note at the perfect key I anticipated.

Heavy footsteps pause near the entrance above the stairway.

I focus my gaze on the sliver of space between the hatch doors where moonlight, rancid rain water, and the occasional sour stench of autumn creeps in.

"H-hey," she wheezes. "Pl-please."

The pair of footsteps slowly parade back and forth near the doorway. My heartbeat triples and throbs in my temples. I fail at my attempt to calm my fear when the moonlight no longer gleams through the crack.

The doors bursts open as if a gust of violent wind blasts it from the inside.

"Hey, what's happening down there?" The deep and husky voice startles me as the bass in the man's tone rumbles my gut. One oversize red shoe hobbles after the other as he limps down each step, pausing only when he reaches the bottom landing. The crooked smile painted around his lips and the red blush smeared on his cheeks matches the color of his false round nose, and it's apparent that he takes an interest in the iconic clown costume.

The clothing is similar to the majority of costumed freaks who roam the night, engaging in the rituals of Halloween. And even though there were many variations of the get-up, they all had one thing in common ... the embellished smile.

I clear my throat, preparing for the unexpected. "You don't belong down here."

With wide eyes and his jaw agape, the intruder's gaze travels from the girl and lands on me. "What do we have here?"

"Leave." I point to the exit. "You have no business here."

He inches forward, barely balancing his massive, brute frame while narrowing the space between us. "Oh, but you've made it my business, chap."

I raise the club like a skilled batter in the hopes of frightening the trespasser away. "This is none of your concern. Back away."

I cave to the fear that attacks my body in the form of rapid breaths and a twist in my gut. I imagine him doing me in with his plump, bare hands and freeing the girl, ruining the work I put so much effort into for the past year-and the work from the past few days with her in particular.

He approaches the table and reaches for the strap on her wrist.

"I beg you, step away." I shake my head, aiming the tip of the club toward his head. "This is important work you must not interfere with."

The man looks up to meet my gaze. The confusion in his narrow eyes captures my attention. "Important work? This?" He looks down over the feeble girl.

I bob my head as I attempt to shake my nerves and express my sincerity. "As soon as I present my work to the world, they'll claim it my most memorable masterpiece, as it will link our brains to our hearts and allow us to feel again. Feel the emotions we've lost because of the ones we let consume us."

"Masterpiece, huh?" His fingers tuck beneath the bonds on her wrist.

"Stop!" My words weren't enough as he continues to tug and yank at the secured ties. I rush forward, after a split moment of hesitation, and swing my club at his head, missing my target but connecting with his shoulder.

"Oh, you've went and done it, mate." He moves around the table so fast his hands grip my wrist before I can swing again. He rings my arm, bringing a searing heat to the flesh.

"No more. Stop." My pleas fall on deaf ears as the burning sensation overpowers any sign of fear or fury I may have harbored. I stare into his angry eyes until his exposed teeth rob my attention. Before I can defend myself, his forehead slams forward, butting mine, and the room spins me off kilter.

After blinking away a haze of blurriness, the cold from the damp concrete beneath me sends a harsh chill throughout my body. I remain still and look to the table, heat and rage threatens to overtake me at the thought of my missing subject, freed and hiding among the Halloween hell-raisers.

However, as my vision becomes clearer, relief floods me when I discover she's still tied to the table. But my respite is short lived as the costumed man towers over her. His hands snug around her neck, his weight pressing against her clavicle, and smudges of his cherry red lips stain various parts of her bare body. On a second look, a collection of bluish-purple crescent shaped teeth marks lie within each smeared and misshapen lip print.

I remain still out of fear, not wanting to bring attention to myself, just in case his desire is a similar fate for me.

The guttural sounds that emerge from the puncture on her side mixes with his rhythmic grunts. Seconds pass before the noises cease, and only then did the man bare his teeth, gratified. After permanently altering my work, he leaves her on the table and ascends the steps to disappear back into the dark alleyway. The hatch doors rattle the room as they slam close behind him.

After a bit of hesitancy, I struggle to stand. Once on my feet, the soggy brick walls around me spin until I shut my eyes to anchor myself and regain my composure. This time, when I open them, my sights land on the girl's motionless body. I look and listen for signs of life, but instead of the rise and fall of her diaphragm or the familiar guttural gurgling, there's nothing.

Silence.

Anger rumbles in the pit of my gut but I douse the flames and stagger to the doors to secure the lock, and then make my way to my work station in the corner. I press the button to replay the recent recording.

Over the audio, the intruder's grunts drowns out the girl's subtle cries for the majority of the recording, but for a few seconds where the girl's contribution peaks through.

A subtle, "Yes-"

It's barely a whisper, but it comes through clearly. I enhance her voice, making it louder by digitally removing the gurgling that precedes and follows.

In a soft, wispy breath she sings, "Yes-"

What does it mean? What was she referring to? Why did she say it at that time? So many questions clutter my thoughts, but one thing won't leave my mind.

Her contribution's a word-a single word.

But words were not what I was after.

I glance over my shoulder toward the hatch doors, although curious I was certain that my assailant was off wreaking havoc in the streets and would not return. My fingers move over the switches and keys, editing, splicing, mixing, blending, and mastering the tune from the contributors. My forehead aches but I ignore the pain by focusing on the sounds-the twenty-four distinct vocals-humming from the audio box. I expel a mouthful of bloodied saliva into the corner of the space, all the while continuing to put the finishing touches on my self-proclaimed masterpiece.

Only when the girl's flesh begin to reek of rot do I realize I've been working for hours. Being in a damp and constrain space with one hundred pounds of decaying flesh had a way of halting the creative process.

To assess my work and effort, I press play.

I close my eyes, listening to my song, demanding my body to feel, however the stench in the room nauseates me. I turn the sound of the audio box up to its maximum limit and emerge onto the street of the alleyway and into moist, dank air.

With the hatch doors wide open, the music and her stench escape into the alleyway. I close my eyes to listen. If it works as planned, there is no need to fear an attack from the brute clown or anyone. Their compassion would return and prevent them from finding satisfaction in violence. At the very least, it would instill sympathy, pity, or remorse-the exact feelings a person would need in order to intervene.

It will mark the beginning of a new world.

A soft purr like violin strings enters my ear, slow and weary. Like waves, a harmonic melody follows, wavering, modulating. Several voices combine and they slowly build into a choir of chords that shudder my spine.

I flinch from the unexpected shock of it.

As more vocals escape the room, enter the street, and blend into a symphony of distinct instruments, an image of the girl slices through my mind. The music continues to intensify, coming upon a chorus of painful wails and whines that remind me of the strings of an electric guitar or the rapidly moving bow over a violin's cords.

Another image wrecks my brain and brings me from my concentration. It's the image of the girl when I found her searching the garbage bin for a bite to eat. The ballad she sings amplifies as it ricochets off the inside of the metal bin, but the song is more captivating in recollection than it was in real time. My voice cuts into the memory, urging her to come with me for some fresh food. Then immediately the graphic image of her splayed and bound to my wooden table by her wrists and ankles pulls me from my reverie.

All twenty-four voices collaborate in sync to produce my most memorable score. The song echoes off the walls of the alleyway and carry on the breeze through the sporadic crowds of costumed revelers. The vocals rise in perfect harmony into an adulating crescendo, stirring something from within, and I relive my past few hours-

The scarlet blood stains on her hair, her pleading eyes sinking into me, the wooden club dipping into her flesh, the crack of thin bone, the tears, the pain, fear ... and finally, acceptance.

"Yes-" I grip my chest in an attempt to relieve my searing agony, nearly collapsing from the abrupt ache that bubbles from the pit of my bowels. And as the world continues on, people moving to the beat of their own drums, moisture tickles my cheek. I swipe the wetness away with a knuckle, thinking of my contributors, especially the most honored twenty-fourth. Finally, I recognize her heartache, her contribution, her acceptance. "Yes, Thalia. Yes-"