Note: This is the revised version.

Klavier

She sat at the piano, silently, immobile. Her long fingers, turned white by isolation and cold rested uncertainly on the dusty keys. She was young, but seemed as if she had felt pain beyond her tender years. Her clear eyes were thrown starkly into shadow by the single guttering candle as she stared down at her hands. Slowly, she began to play. Her song was a simple one, the notes flowing like a tear, slowly, but always there, always flowing. The song caressed the air with its gentle melancholy as the room grew darker. Her body curled in upon itself, her long black hair casting its shadow across her face, lined by pain more then time. As the song died away, the tears, which had started gently, flowed in a silent torrent down her face, falling softly on the keys of the shadowed piano.

Unbeknownst to her, a stranger had watched her as she played. The stranger watched through the dingy window as the girl's song ended and she began to cry. The stranger, a woman hardly older than the girl, watched in silence, wishing to comfort the girl without knowing why. The girl raised her head and gazed out the window. As her blue-green eyes widened in shock, the stranger ducked out of sight. The girl rose, crossing to the window and pulling it open. The stranger cowered beneath the sill, curled in a fetal position. The girl reached out the window into the night, placing her hand on the shoulder of the stranger. The girl took her hand, helping her step through the window. Their eyes met. The girl's were a soft blue-green colour, like the sea, calm, but flaring with a tempest if roused. The stranger returned her gaze with eyes like midnight, soft and dark. They drew closer together, each not knowing why, neither of them understanding. Suddenly, they stopped, eyes still locked, and the stranger spoke for the first time. "Klavier." The girl nodded, and her eyes again filled with tears. The stranger reached out, brushing away her tears, as the girl drew her breath in sharply. She reached up to the stranger's hand, grasping it as one grasps a faltering straw in the maelstrom. The stranger spoke again. "Who are we?" "I..I don't know." faltered the girl. "We are the musicians of a twisted and terrible god, we are the castrati, the fools. We are nothingness." The girl gasped, releasing the stranger's hand and sitting down on the piano bench. Her eyes gazed into the stranger's with fear and hope and an uncertain love. She stood, as if in a daze, and pulled the stranger closer to her. Their lips met as the last bomb fell, the last sacrament of a twisted and terrible god. As they lay in the rubble, this stranger and this girl, they heard the dusty piano keys crack as the giant instrument toppled. They whispered to each other, as they lay dying. "Klavier...".