No matter how often she came to the water, it always soothed her. As wind whipped her long brown hair into her face without regard for the grey beanie on her head, Melody tried to relax. She listened to the rhythm of the waves, a steadiness interrupted now and then by the sharp honk of a car horn. The water almost glowed in the moonlight. Melody let the scent of the Sound fill her nose, an oddly comforting mix of fish, salt, and damp sand.

Few people were with her there in the Golden Gardens Park. Most of Seattle had retreated back into their neighborhoods once the sun had set, leaving the beach beautifully empty. It was 9pm. Melody had wanted to make the most of her night off from the bar. She got so few of them those days, certainly fewer nights off than when she'd worked at the coffee shop.

Melody's face fell. Of course, that all would be changing yet again very soon. In fact, she only had one more night of work before it would all be over. One more night at Roni's, one more night before Victoria Belfrey forced another of her workplaces closed.

The waves continued to lap the beach. It was rhythmic, predictable. Like a heartbeat.

Like a song.

Melody couldn't suppress her gasping breath at the memories that flooded her senses. She could still see their faces and their voices. Cleo and her backpack, and her plan to unearth the next great historical dig. Erin and her wedding journal, always looking for the next venue to scout. Talia and her comedy tour, someday to open across the globe. Her sisters not by blood but bound for life by those three Greek letters they'd all chosen.

But the world spun on even without them in it. The dark night filled with lapping waves spoke to this truth even as she sat alone on the bench, trying to find solace in the epicness of nature. She couldn't find solace though, not when even her dreams tried to remind her of the sisters she had lost.

It was always the same. They would take on the form of Grecian women, glowing with light, smiles painted on every face. It was never just those three, either. Somehow her whole Sorority family, all eight of them, Littles, Bigs, and G-Bigs, would be in the dream.

Melody scoffed, lifting the Venti hot chocolate to her lips. It was still warm, though not nearly as hot as when she'd gotten it. The liquid chocolate coated her mouth and throat.

It wasn't a dream, it was a nightmare.

She blamed her degree in Classical Literature for letting her eight sisters take on the form of the Muses. Each night when she closed her eyes she would see them, watch as they screamed and begged for help. But she could never get to them. She could never save them.

Glancing down at her watch, Melody sighed. 9:30. She hadn't driven herself from the Heights and wanted to catch a Swyft ride before they bumped the prices up too high. With a last, lingering look out across the basin, she stood. Her brown boots sank down into the sand. It took only a moment for her to wrap her arms around herself for a bit more warmth and move through the wind back towards the Visitors' Center.

It took nearly ten minutes of shivering in the chilly night air before the car pulled up. It was grey, befitting both her mood and the sky that had darkened over with rain clouds. After a quick check of the license plate and the name of her driver, she opened the back door.

"Melody Black?" asked the man.

She nodded. "That's me. You're Henry?"

"Yep."

He couldn't have been much younger than her, his dark hair contrasting the pale face that looked about as tired as she felt. As she scrambled into the back, smoothing down her brown skirt over her dark leggings to its proper place, he asked her to confirm their destination. She gave the street address.

"Hyperion Heights? Pretty up and coming neighborhood," he said.

She turned from the window, leaving behind a small fog cloud, and nodded. "It's a good place."

Up and Coming. That was on every bulletin board and Seattle tourist website. Hyperion Heights, the next hot destination. A Starbucks to be installed on each corner, a new luxury movie theater in the works, and beautiful towering apartments with the best appliances planned for the coming year. But Melody missed the old Hyperion Heights.

She missed her Barista job, in the little mom-and-pop-owned loft-style corner cafe. It had been therapeutic, spending each morning handing out drinks to customers, offering them a forced smile to hopefully inspire their day. It had paid pretty well, and what she couldn't earn selling espresso she made doing street performances under the graffiti murals.

Soon that wall would be gone. Soon all of the Hyperion Heights she had come to know over the past half a decade would be gone. Even Roni was selling out to Belfrey. A buzz in her pocket interrupted her thoughts and she turned from the city streets outside the car.

Speak of the devil. Roni's name popped up in a notification across her lock screen. She opened it.

"Bring your guitar tomorrow night. Might as well have some fun on our last shift."

The corners of her mouth perked up in a smile. The acoustics in Roni's were wonderful. She'd never formally played there but even just sitting around having drinks, she had been able to tell it would be a good music venue. At least she could enjoy it with her music once before Belfrey tore it all to the ground.

The car stilled as they came to a streetlight. Red filled the car, and the strobing of headlights being obscured by cross-traffic lulled Melody. She couldn't see her driver's face from where he had one hand lazily on the top of the wheel, but his yawn told her enough. They were all tired. She was tired, Roni was tired, even this Henry was tired. Seattle seemed to have that effect on people those days.

Green light flooded the car and a small jerk made her turn back to the side window. Her mind wandered back to Cleo, Talia, and Erin. Her smile fell. She wondered what their last moments were like, if they'd felt any pain when the 18 Wheeler had bulldozed into them. The driver had been drunk. He'd been fine, protected by a ton of metal and breakneck speed.

Her sorority sisters hadn't been so lucky. They'd barely celebrated being free of college for two weeks before their bodies had been carted away to the morgue. Their cold bodies had left behind a broken family, a sorority family line destroyed by that drunkard.

"Here we are." Henry clicked a few buttons on his propped-up phone as the car came to a stop before her apartment building. He turned and looked at her. "Have a good night."

"Thank you," she told him. Offering a small smile, Melody tried to cheer up as she got out of the car. "You too."

He nodded back with a smile of his own right before she shut the side door. Melody shifted her skirt down again. A light drizzle of rain began to fall around her as she looked at the building that had been home to her for the last five years. The dark red brick looked pleasant enough, but the iron fire escape had seen better days, and the padlocked front door screamed in protest at being opened.

She didn't hear a sound once the front door of the building shut with a click. She checked her watch. 10:15. Most of her neighbors were respectable folk, asleep or quiet enough not to be noticed. The fading off-white wallpaper glowed in the soft light of the entrance. It felt almost homey.

Melody started up. Her footfalls sounded loud to her ears in the silent stairwell. But no one said anything as she came to the third floor, so she just dug around her pocket for her keys and found her door. 317.

It was small, the same one-bedroom apartment she'd had since she'd first moved to the city, running from grief and graduation. Walls painted white, with dark wood crown molding. A few paintings of areas around Puget Sound hung on the walls. She'd bought them from an art shop since closed. Melody owed Victoria Belfrey for that one too.

Her keys went on the sandy-colored Formica counters. Her hat, scarf, and coat took the two hooks to the left of the entrance across from the kitchen. She quickly turned a lamp on so she could off the painfully bright overhead light and then settled into her wooden desk.

She opened her journal. Two-thirds of it was filled already. Mostly she had snippets of poetry, rough drafts often still waiting for revision. Sketches of her favorites spots in Seattle joined them, as well as drawings of ships. Some, she had drawn when visiting the water. Others she drew from her own imagination.

Some of the entries weren't creative pieces at all. They were journalings of her dreams, of her fears and nightmares. Sometimes they were snippets of conversation that came to mind. Her plans of being a full-time writer had died with her sisters, but she still tried to keep track of inspiration that came to her.

Just in case.

Melody yawned. Rain had started to pound on the balcony door, the noise lulling her to sleep like the lapping of the waves. Rhythmic, predictable. Beautiful.

She flipped through the journal. A page caught her eye, one she'd sketched almost a year ago, of a lyre with only nine strings, and beneath it a pan flute. Her blood always ran cold when she saw them. Melody wasn't sure why she kept the page around but she did. It was like she couldn't remove it. She couldn't erase it, not from the page nor from her memory.

Her phone buzzed again. Roni.

"What's your favorite kind of donut?"

Melody smirked. She pushed the chair out from her desk, typing back her reply as she went into her bedroom. "Double chocolate."

"Gotcha. We're going to throw a mini party tomorrow. Just me, you, and the bar."

"One last hurrah before Belfrey gets her claws into it?"

"Something like that."

Melody couldn't help but laugh. One last hurrah. A funeral party for their dying neighborhood. That sounded about right.