"Luna, I'm home!" Lina called as she opened the front door, scanning the dim living room for signs of her sister. When she saw no one, she hoisted the guitar onto her shoulder again and took a left as she strolled into the kitchen. She rounded a quick wall corner, and found herself face to face with the refrigerator. Attached to it was a note, written quickly in her sister's handwriting:

            Lina,

            Parents left for another business trip this afternoon, not expected back for a couple of months.

            Anyway, I'm leaving this afternoon for a few days on a reenactment trip. You can expect me to be back by Friday, and I want you to be sure and clean up the house while I'm away; and take care of that damn room of yours, please!

            There's money in its usual spot for the week. Have a good time.

            Luna

            P.S. If you get in trouble or even think of touching the cheesecake in the fridge, I WILL HAVE YOUR HEAD!

            She cringed at the last sentence; she knew that her sister was serious.

            "Ever since that little incident with the camera you haven't given me an inch around the house, even while you're away. It's not like I'm going to go out and destroy the town." A mischievous thought crossed her mind, the image of a smiley face on the cheesecake's surface bringing a broad smile to her lips.

            "Nah, I don't need Luna kicking me out of the house again." She opened the refrigerator and grabbed the gallon of milk, twisted the top off, and took a long gulp from it. With her other hand she seized a plate of leftover turkey. She licked the milk moustache from her upper lip, turned, and set both the milk and turkey down on the counter before she turned back to the open refrigerator door.

            "Good, there are plenty of leftovers. Some mashed potatoes, stuffing, cranberries, creamed corn, sweet potatoes with marshmallow on top, Waldorf salad, and apple pie to top it off, topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream," she told herself gleefully as she retrieved each item and set it on the counter, "Very tasty!"

            She crossed to the far cupboards and opened them, pulling down two dinner plates, a bowl, and a dessert plate. Nodding quickly, she slid open the drawer in front of her and picked out the proper serving spoons and silverware. She stacked them with the dishes and brought them over to where the food was waiting. Not wasting a moment, she piled generous servings of everything onto the two plates, almost a quarter of the apple pie into the bowl, and carefully balanced each plate as she positioned them in the microwave.

            Once the microwave had started, Lina hummed absently, first as a drone to match the microwave, and then flowing off into the guitar melodies of the day's practices. However, as she passed the second bar of the melody, another one interposed itself in her mind, laying its full weight on top of her own notes.

            "Wait a minute, that's not how it went," she told herself, and then started the melody again. Once again the intruding melody sat on hers, rewriting itself to blend with the original. She shook her head,

            "Zelgadis, you idiot. You ruined my melody." She thought to only a couple of hours earlier, when he had brought his guitar and amp out into the garage, hooked it up, and played what he suggested they could do with the melody, adding in part of his own tone.

It wasn't his playing that bothered her. In fact, he had quite a bit of skill, his notes hard and driving yet tenderly played and danced off the strings, like they were the notes of his own soul. It bothered her that he had altered her original idea and now made it impossible to think of it as it was before.

The microwave dinged, and she opened it, still trying to hum her original melody, but to no avail. Why was it his idea has to make sense AND sound good as well?

"Stop thinking about the music, the food's ready." She took the hot plates and set them down, and then moved to the refrigerator once again, where she opened the freezer door and removed the tub of vanilla ice cream inside.

"All set."

Each bite was a small piece of culinary heaven for her, despite the fact that she ate through the entire meal in less than 10 minutes. Satisfied that she had eaten, she slipped the plates and bowl together and set them in the sink.

"That should stave me off until later. Time to try and write some music." She left the kitchen with her guitar and rounded another wall corner to the door to the basement stairs. She opened it, reached out and flipped the light switch on, and descended the carpet-covered stairs.

The basement was her private domain, spacious yet homey. On the right side was her bed, stereo system that took a summer's worth of paychecks to buy, TV/VCR/DVD system covered on all sides by DVDs and VHS tapes, milk crate chairs, construction-spool table spray painted black and covered with a thick army-green canvas tablecloth where she did all of her major projects, and an ancient crimson couch she had rescued from a curb, musty but functioning.

On the left side was her own little piece of musical bliss: a soundproofed room for practices and a partly completed studio, only so because she had run out of money to develop it, not to mention the equipment required to record.

"Eventually it will be complete, and then Lord of Nightmares can record in its own private studio." She smiled at the thought of getting their first album out, of making the top ten lists, and then on to fame and fortune, travel and adventure.

"And a chance to get out of Atlas Heights."

Crossing the basement to the practice room, she closed the door behind her. She set her guitar on a couch, this one stolen from Luna, who was going to throw it out when she had bought a new one, and cast her gaze to the file cabinet on the other side of the room. She crossed to it and opened the top drawer shifting aside piles of receipts and several drawing books filled with images of her wondrous ideas for the band, looking for one particular folder.

"Where are you?" she asked the drawer, pushing aside an old logo design for Lord of Nightmares and several pictures of some of their earliest concerts. Even though it was only a year and a half ago, it felt as if it had been nearly ten years since she had first stepped on the stage as lead singer of Lord of Nightmares.

Finally, a blue folder caught her eye, which she promptly tore from the top drawer and opened. Inside were several packets of blank score paper.

"Bingo. All right, let's get started."

She took the folder and sat down on the couch. Reaching to the floor, she picked up a pencil, one of dozens she had left from previous writing sessions, half-chewed and a nearly worn out eraser. She chuckled slightly, and then redirected her attention to the blank score in front of her.

She began to write, nodding out tempo and rests, writing in side notes and making notes for the other instruments. In her mind she could hear the lead guitar, the bass, the keyboard, and drums, all starting separate, spinning around one another as if in a whirlpool, and slowly coming together.

She added the vocals, this time having to concentrate more to write the secondary voice for Xellos. "Be my sword, my bodyguard. Banish those who would oppose me. I will be your charge, hold to your side, your partner forevermore."

Lina felt her eyes getting heavy. Was it that late already? She looked to the far wall, where the clock read 12:44 AM.

"Damn, I have class tomorrow," she whined, pressing the score against her face. As she moved it away though, she noticed something.

"What is this?" She scrutinized the score carefully, reading each line with increasing disbelief. Her original melody was not alone, instead melded with Zelgadis' and written on the page.

"How could I still have his lame melody in my head?" She wanted to believe that his melody was nothing more than a fluke, a stupid little line that got stuck in your head, like that annoying elevator music you heard in the doctor's office, the dentist's office, the elevator, or those annoying family shops in the mall. She couldn't shake it however: Zelgadis had planted the right notes in the right place.

Picking up the score in somewhat shocked amusement, she opened the practice room door and walked over to her stereo, turned on the radio, and cranked the volume high. A set of voices, the backgrounds slightly altered from their normal sound, pounded into her eardrums:

Bitches love me 'cause they know that I can rock

Bitches love me 'cause they know that I can rhyme

Bitches love me 'cause they know that I can fuck

Bitches love me 'cause they know that I'm on time

            Throughout the projects!

            Throughout the projects!

            Throughout the projects! *

            She let herself drift; thinking on what she would need to do tomorrow, and what she needed to do to get herself into detention without having to see Mr. Phil. The last thing she needed was a "Mood Booster".

            "Maybe I should thank Zel for his contribution."

            Her stomach rumbled. It was about time she had her pre-bedtime snack. She set down the score sheets and proceeded upstairs, where she quickly polished off the rest of the apple pie and a large portion of the remaining vanilla ice cream.

            Coming back down the stairs, Lina was humming the new melody written on the score sheets, and she yawned, for a moment stretching everything to its limit.

            "Boy, all this eating has made me sleepy," she hummed a few more bars, then grunted angrily, "Zelgadis, this is your fault. Now I'll be humming the damn melody all night. I don't care if it does sound good."

            The stereo was still booming, and she turned it down to a dull roar before she plopped down onto her bed. She listened closely to the music, a new band she hadn't heard before:

            Taking my time I'm trying to leave the memories of you behind

            Gonna be fine as soon as I get your picture right out of my mind

           

I wanna feel the way you make me feel when I'm with you

I wanna be the only hand you need to hold on to

But every time I call you don't have time

I guess I'll never get to call you mine…*2

Somewhere inside, her heart and stomach jumped a little. She didn't understand why, but hearing these lyrics were making her feel strange. In fact, the idea of music was making her feel that way. Her thoughts traversed to Zelgadis and Xellos, with Xellos' firm grasp of vocal variety and style, and Zelgadis' savvy for music and performance style. Was it their sudden insertion into the band causing this?

She shook her head, logic taking over, "You probably ate too fast, Lina. Your stomach's just complaining, that's all it is, nothing to be worrying about."

She kicked off her boots and lazily rolled her socks off using her toes, letting the cooling night air give her a measure of comfort. She sighed and rolled onto her stomach, letting out another yawn, and crawled forward to the alarm clock on the edge of the bed. She kept it next to her pillow so that she could shut it off and throw it across the basement without having to get out of bed in the morning. Grabbing it and pulling it to her, she set the alarm.

"7:00 should do it," she told the clock as she set it back in its spot, then flipped over and undid her pants, slid them off and tossed them on the floor. She suddenly remembered that she had more to do, and she cursed quietly as she got out of bed, picked up her toothbrush and toothpaste, and crossed to the stairs to go to the bathroom.

As she squirted the paste onto her brush, she stuck her tongue out at herself in the mirror and chuckled.

"I must really be getting tired," she told herself as she put the brush to her teeth and began brushing, "Particularly if I'm laughing at my own tongue." She brushed vigorously for several minutes, then spat it out and turned the faucet on, cupping some water to her lips to rinse out the leftover paste. She spat again, then smiled and winked at herself in the mirror.

"And finally, I can go downstairs and try to get some sleep. Ugh! I need to be up in less than six hours. Tomorrow is going to be a long day."

Once in the basement again, Lina changed the radio station to a soft station, a gentle female solo floating around the room:

The lass, whenever she saw him

Carried away by a moonlight shadow

Passed on worried and haunting

Carried away by a moonlight shadow

Lost in a riddle of a Saturday night

Far away on the other side

He was caught in the middle of a desperate fight

And she couldn't find how to push through…*3

As she listened, her body slowly sank into a numb state of relaxation, sleep coming heavy to her. Why she was so tired she couldn't tell. Maybe it was the new practice area, or the amount of work she had put into the score this evening. Whatever it was, she felt herself slowly fading into dark dreams of sleep.

She started humming, and immediately her mind recognized the tune as her original melody.

"I finally got it back," she nearly shouted as she sat up, "Yes! No more combined melodies, just my own thoughts in my head from now on." Grinning smugly to herself, she grabbed her blanket and pulled it up over her legs, laying her head on the pillow once again, humming pleasantly.

Just as she was about to fall asleep, her humming changed again. Her mind groggily registered Zelgadis' melody mixed with her own, and she shook her head to clear it, trying to hum her own original melody again. No matter how she tried, the mixed melodies carried too strongly, blocking out the original.

She punched the pillow next to her and growled, "Damn you Zelgadis! No, I will not be thinking about it anymore. I need the sleep. No more of his little," and she hummed it, "Just my own." She tried to but instead found the mixed melodies back. She punched the pillow again.

"No Lina, no more! No more of his music, no more of him, no more of…"

She stopped herself. Did she just say what she thought she heard herself say? Shaking her head once again, she slammed her face into the pillow.

"Sleep, sleep, I need sleep! Just go away, stupid melody. I'll concede it you just go away for six hours!"

Suddenly, the only music she heard was the radio, the woman's voice still softly floating through the air to her. She waited for a moment to see if the melody came back, and when it didn't she turned on her side and let out a heavy sigh.

"Finally, some peace and quiet."

* Bitches by Mindless Self Indulgence

*2 When I'm With You by Simple Plan

*3 Moonlight Shadow by Maggie Reilly