• After what seemed ages, Felicia decided to slowly unravel the truth.
    “Just about the time you were going out on a date with Helen…”
    “Wait, how’d you know about that?” I interrupted.
    She gave me a facepalm expression alongside a laugh.
    “Everyone knew about it; your friend Mark was to blame.” I was more or less shocked, but I kinda felt he was the culprit. After all, he just couldn’t keep his mouth shut even after promising things, how typical.
    “Oddr, I’ll continue, but please wait until I finish. I really don’t like doing this over and over again.”
    I nodded, acknowledging the fact that it may be hard for her.
    “The day before when you went out with Helen, Jaden came home real late. He was all weird and rambled about music I couldn’t understand. He mentioned you, and Helen, and…” she took a deep breath “…and I felt my heart sink because I was into you, how Odd, right?”
    That bomb just blew up in front of me. After all this time, or maybe less, this girl had a crush on me and I never realized.
    “He said something about a perfect melody, that it was able to ‘cause brain stasis’ or something alike. I really didn’t understand that, but the next day he showed up in the morning and we could see he hadn’t slept at all. The thing is, he played some music he had recorded and said that we look at the watch on the wall. Suddenly I was surprised to see that an hour had passed in a blink of an eye.”
    I slowly leaned back, clenching my fists. My eyes darted around as I was thinking what had happened, as if the answers were floating in the air. Felicia gave me a look, and then continued.
    “He then said that it was groundbreaking, a few tweaks to the music and it could cause a soothing effect that helped you heal. I asked him how he knew that. Jaden showed us a cut in his hand, one I hadn’t seen the day before, and he said his body reacted to the music and accelerated his healing.”
    She looked at me and slowly extended her arm towards me, pushing my chin up, smiling.
    “After that he went out with his recording, and said something I think was along the lines of ‘I have to show this to our music teacher’ and he never came home after that. The night of that day I wanted to call you and see if you had any news of him, but I remembered you were on a date.”
    I slumped back in my chair, my hands running though my hair. What happened, Jaden? Where did you go?
    “He never returned…”
    “W-what?” I stammered.
    She sighed “Jaden never came back home. And all of a sudden, some black car appeared in front of our house, and I couldn’t see who it was. Every time I went outside to ask, it just drove off.”
    “There was a black car outside of Helen’s house, and one out of mine after our date…”
    Felicia looked at me with a warm, loving expression.
    “You’ve told me this before, you just don’t remember. Oddr, the next day everything changed for everyone in town.”
    She lifted her hand again, caressing my cheek softly, with watery eyes.
    “My mom asked me to help her search for my brother, and while we were on the road someone on the radio mentioned a new song had come out, from an unknown artist…”
    “Oh no…don’t tell me…”
    “Yeah, I found myself in the car head first into a house wall. I looked beside me, but my mom wasn’t there…” and she started to cry “…she was 50 feet away behind the car since another car had crashed her side, and the door and her flew away with the impact…”
    Felix clenched her stomach in pain, sobbing. I stood up and hugged her, trying to hold back the tears that came anyways.
    “There was a massive body count that day, and nobody could explain what happened; but I knew what it was.”
    “I understand why you don’t like to repeat this, I’m sorry I don’t remember…” I said, meanwhile I tried to comfort her.
    “Oddr, that day…that day…Mark died…”
    Silence.
    “…And Helen vanished….Nobody went to school during that week. I visited you, and you were so heartbroken. But I didn’t know what to do to help you.
    The media and the news blew up with this, and many things were said. I tried to say something about it to the people I knew, and those who didn’t, however, nobody listened and I was quickly discarded.”
    She was trembling, but at least her tears had calmed down.
    “We became friends, Oddr, as we continued out search for Jaden, and Helen. Nothing.” She said, gripping my towel and pulling me closer.
    “That week everywhere else was struck, as I saw on the news, and I knew from that point on I had to take care of myself with whatever I could; noise cancelling earphones, walls, vehicles, anything to keep the music out of my head. I warned you, but one day you heard it too…you forgot everything up until the date with Helen. That is more or less the important part of it all, the rest should explain itself.”
    My legs were shaking, and her eyes met mine as she looked up to me. My legs gave in and I sat down hard, on the floor, with an expression that made her seem worried. Felicia hugged me hard, and I hugged back. A shiver ran down my spine as my chest squeezed in pain.
    “So, now what?” I asked her, with a quirky voice.
    “We keep going…”
    Oh, how heavy those words were; life turned into a bittersweet nightmare and I wasn't ready for it. I took a deep breath after a while, and I really didn’t know what to say.
    "I guess I’ll have some black coffee..."