Chapter Text
Music. Music was always coming from somewhere else, for as long as he could remember. As a young child, he would constantly hear two songs the most. His mother, Sarai, would have a specific sound and song always following her. He remembered being lulled to sleep by it so often, night after night. His step father, Harrow, had a unique song too. It was his own, and even young, he knew that each song he heard was meant to be for the person it radiated out from. Life was good for awhile. Then his baby brother was born, and a new song entered his life. It was confusing, yet expected at the same time. He never truly questioned the way his life went until that moment.
Sarai sat him down one day, while his father tended to his new brother. In truth, he’d come to her first, asking about why she had a song, why everyone had a song, following them all the time. She’d looked at him confused, telling him that yes, everyone had a song, a song that represented their very soul- proof that magic was real. But those songs were secret, able to be controlled by the person they belonged to. No one kept their songs out in the open, and if they did, it was only for a few minutes in a moment of intimacy with another person. He shouldn’t be able to hear their songs at all, much less all the time.
So he was an oddity. The way his mother had reacted to his confession spooked him into never mentioning it again, to anyone else. It had clearly unnerved her that he could hear her song no matter what she did. He could hear anyone’s song without much of a second thought.
Later that same day, she told him that as much as his gift was interesting, it was an invasion of everyone’s privacy- she knew he couldn’t help it, but she reaffirmed his decision by advising him never to talk about what he could do. So he listened.
And then, later on, she died.
He was left with his step father and brother. The absence of the song he’d heard the most was incredibly jarring to him, and he ended up being more distant for the rest of his time in the family of three. Two songs were left, but that wasn’t enough to heal the hole in his heart that the absence of Sarai’s song left.
Then, in a tragic accident, his step dad died too.
He couldn’t take it anymore. Left orphaned, he and his brother Ezran fell under the care of their mother’s sister, their aunt, Amaya. They were forced to leave their childhood home and move in with her. The only song he had left was his brother’s. Amaya had a song, of course, but he couldn’t bear to hear it. It sounded too much like his mother’s, but not quite the same, and it tore him apart all over again. He began to learn how to suppress his ability. He practiced blocking out the songs of the souls around him, even his brother’s. He couldn’t take it. Every song he had loved and needed the most had left, and he couldn’t bear to have that last song ripped from him as well, so he cut it off himself. But he still remembers. A faint memory of the past.
When he and Ezran moved to live with their aunt, they made a few new friends. Their names were Soren and Claudia, and they were silent.
Everyone was silent now.
His world had always been full of noise, melody, rhythm, all unique and unmatched, but now there was deafening silence. He wasn’t sure if he liked this outcome, but ultimately decided that this fate was better than experiencing his old world while it crumbles around him. So, they were silent.
Soren was never one to talk about soul songs, but his sister was quite obsessed with them. She’d talk to him for hours about how she loved the concept, how wonderful magic was existing in their world. As their friendship continued, Claudia eventually allowed him to hear her song. He was surprised that he could hear it at all when she did- he’d spent so long at that point suppressing them all, it didn’t occur to him that the consent and determination of the song’s owner to share it could override his blocks. It reminded him of the old days, and made him realize how much he missed it.
He still regrets running off on Claudia that day.
He avoided her for days, and tried to avoid everyone for days. He knew this wasn’t right, but he just got so overwhelmed over hearing someone’s song again. He just wanted to hear his parents’ songs again. Hearing Claudia’s just reminded him that he could never do that again. It hurt, but it wasn’t her fault. She didn’t know. She didn’t know why he had been acting like this, and that pushed him enough to get up and make things right.
So he told her.
He told Claudia about his ability, what he’d gone through, everything. And he apologized for any negative feelings he may have caused her by running off like how he did. And to his surprise, she forgave him. She understood, and she became very interested in him. Well, more interested in his special ability. Like an excitable puppy, she would ask him so many questions about it, point to random people or animals and ask what he heard, and every time he had to remind her he didn’t do that anymore. He didn’t listen anymore. It wasn’t a gift, it was a curse.
Little did he know.
As the years continued, Soren and Claudia became almost siblings to him and Ezran. They were like their own family now, they attended the same school, they did almost everything together. And he almost felt whole again. Almost, until he decided to share his soul song with his brother and friends.
And there was nothing.
Nothing came about. His friends around him looked at him with pity, and his skin burned. He was an oddity,he’d known that from the start, but he felt so helpless and lost. Never in the world’s history had anything like this been recorded. He was too unique. He was wrong.
His name was Callum, and he had no soul song.
“Do you think the best music artists of our time sample their own soul songs and use them in their hit singles without anyone suspecting a thing?”
To say that Callum was having a rather off day was an understatement. His sleep the night before had been rough, his morning gray, his school day annoying. And now he was walking home with Claudia, who still nagged him with soul song questions and theories after all of these years. You’d think she would have run out of things to prod him about a long time ago.
“I have no idea, Claudia. It’s hardly an important thing to think about anyways.” He replied with a wary sigh, rubbing a gloved hand across his face.
“Well, if anyone would know, it’d be you. I know you block your special ability, but just think about all of the cool stuff we could discover if you just took the blocks off!” Claudia persisted.
Callum let out a more gruff sigh. His eyes ached, his head throbbed, his grip on his blocks were weak at best. The less sleep he got, the harder it was to garrison his mental walls, and this persistent nagging wasn’t helping. “Clauds, please. Lay off. You know how I feel about my power. You’ve known for years. Why would my mind change suddenly? It stays off.”
Considering just how long their friendship went back, the two of them had gotten more than enough time to discuss his ability on a more personal level. Callum had told her multiple times during these conversations that his power was dirty, an invasion of a person’s privacy, and it didn’t matter what Claudia wanted to use it for to learn, none of it was worth violating another person like that. He had an inkling that Claudia’s ever-living curiosity was the reason she never dropped the subject. Sometimes it made him feel like that’s all she ever cared about when it came to him.
But Claudia’s face dropped. She frowned, regret sparkling in her eyes and she stopped him and made him look at her. “I’m sorry, Callum. I know my undying interest combats heavily with what you want for yourself. I’m trying to get better, I swear. It’s just hard for me to not run my mouth.”
Callum rolled his eyes, but smirked nonetheless. “Alright, big mouth, apology accepted. Though I do know better than most about how hard it is to get you to shut up.”
Claudia scoffed and slapped her hand against his shoulder. “Rude!” They began walking again, before she continued. “Also, spill. Don’t think I haven’t noticed you’ve been off today. What’s wrong, Cal?”
Damn. And just when he was thinking he could get home and collapse in peace. “I just… didn’t sleep that well last night, that’s all. And school sucked as usual. Art History is hard enough on a good day. God forbid I try to focus when I’m running on severely broken sleep.”
Claudia frowned at him again. “Another night? I got you those melatonin pills, why aren’t you using those? They’re supposed to help with sleepless nights. I hate seeing you like this.”
He sighed a third time. “It’s just… I have nightmares sometimes. It’s always the same thing, too. Me, in my body, running through the Midnight Forest in the dark and alone. I never know why I’m running, but I always get the sense of anger and guilt. Something strong and negative. There’s no real light other than the slight amount of stars that can reach me through the treetops. The moon is always missing, and I still don’t know why that’s such a prominent feature. The dream never really goes anywhere either. I always wake up before anything else happens. It’s just me, running alone in the forest in the dead of night, no light to guide me, and it’s eerily silent. Too quiet. It unnerves the hell out of me, and I get afraid to try and go back to sleep.” He stops, realizing he’d been rambling and began to backpedal with a curse on the tip of his tongue. “Sorry. You didn’t ask for a research paper.”
“No no, It’s okay. It sounds like you needed to get that off your chest.” Claudia said quickly, working to fend off a negative reaction from Callum- he usually went off on himself if he revealed too much of something. “It is odd, though. The dream. The moon is never there? One of the crowning traits of that forest is that the moon’s light always manages to get past the trees. It’s like a magic thing. Magic we don’t understand or possess. I wonder what it could mean, that the moon is just not there in your dream.”
Callum knew another rant was coming. “Claudia, please no more TwitLongers about random stuff you hyper-fixate on. It’s just a dream. It probably doesn’t mean anything.”
“ Probably! ” Claudia exclaimed in reply, jabbing a finger into his arm. “A probably isn’t a certainty! Magic is real, who says this dream isn’t something related to it! There’s still so much we don’t understand about magic, all we really know is the soul song stuff. Plus, the whole running-alone-in-the-Midnight-Forest thing is concerning as hell and you know it. At night! You know predators are around at night! What if this is a glimpse into your future! You could die!! ”
Callum stared at her with exasperation in his eyes. “Seriously?”
“Nothing is more important to me than the safety of my friends. So yes, seriously. This could be a major issue!”
Claudia kept going on, and Callum was at the end of his patience. Like he’d done so many times before, he tuned Claudia out and continued his walk home. He just needed to rest and he’d be back to normal. He just hoped he could evade the claws of that dumb dream again. The world had beat him down enough.
Dinner was uneventful as usual. Amaya wasn’t home again, as her job required her to travel a lot. While it did make the house feel that much more lonely and empty while she was away, there was one pro to it. It took less effort to hold his blocks in place. All he had to do was focus on blocking Ezran’s song. Well, Ezran’s and their pet bulldog Bait. Yes, even animals had soul songs. But Bait was in the other room, and Callum had found that the soul song of an animal was much less powerful and more quiet, therefore way easier to block out. So as far as he was concerned, it was an easy day.
“...We were learning about the history of soul songs in class today, Callum.” Ezran started cautiously, knowing the unstable path he tread going into this subject.
Throb. Callum didn’t want to blow off his little brother- Ezran was the most important thing to him. But he knew if he wasn’t careful, his less than normal state might push him over the limits, if his terrible headache had anything to say about it. So he swallowed, set his fork down, and forced a smile.
“Oh yeah? How interesting.”
Ezran nodded, an unsure smile on his face to reply to Callum’s. “Yeah. There was a new teacher today too. Mr. Runaan. I think he’s our neighbor that just moved in a week ago.”
Throb. That caught Callum off guard. He’d forgotten about the new neighbors. The house a few over from theirs. It had been empty for the longest time, and everyone on the block had just assumed it’d never be filled. But the world was always full of surprises, wasn’t it?
“Huh. Well, you better behave well in class, mister. He’ll know where you live soon enough.” Callum said, taking in Ezran’s mildly frightened expression, and continued hastily. “It’s rude to not introduce yourself to your neighbors. Aunt Amaya will probably have us go over with a gift when she comes back. He’s not going to stalk you out, relax.”
A pause. “I… I asked him if he knew anything about people not having soul songs.”
There it was. Throb. Callum felt his grip on his emotions beginning to slip. He didn’t understand, hadn’t he told Ezran not to ask about that for him to anyone anymore? Why didn’t he listen? Why couldn’t he respect his request for once?
“And?” Callum bit out with clenched teeth. “What did this man say?”
He could see Ezran visibly gulp across the table. The last bit of rationality in Callum screamed at him to stop, that he was scaring his baby brother and that was the last thing he ever wanted, but the floodgates were cracking, and he was so very tired, and his head ached, and his blocks were threatening to crumble…
“He… he had nothing. He said he never heard of anything of the sort. I got no answers.” Ezran confessed, shoulders sagging in defeat.
Throb. “Yeah… As usual.” Callum replied, his eyes like stone. “I have homework. I should start on it. Please finish your dinner, and remember to put your plate away in the dishwasher when you’re done.”
As Callum stood, plates in hand, he felt Ezran’s eyes burning into his back. He ignored the feeling as he put his dishes away, and turned to go up the stairs, when a call stopped him.
“I didn’t reveal anything about you being the one without a soul song! I just want to help you, Callum! I can’t help without understanding why you’re like this in the first place!” Ezran blurted, slapping a hand over his mouth, but it was too late. What was said was said.
Callum steeled himself, and looked over his shoulder with a cold frown, eyes dull and lost. “I don’t need to understand why I’m like this, Ez. Understanding would do nothing. I’m still just an oddity at the end of the day. Nothing more. I’ll never be anything more.”
“You’ve just been so distant all the time… for as long as I can remember… Aunt Amaya tells me stories sometimes, you know. About how full of life you used to be back before…” Ezran sniffled. “Back before our parents died. I just want my brother back.”
Throb. Throb. THROB.
Callum continued up the stairs without another word.
Callum hated himself, if that wasn’t clear enough just by looking at him. All he’d ever wanted to be was what he was supposed to be, just like everyone else. He wanted to have a soul song. He wanted to be normal. But he was anything but that. He was an oddity.
He used that word a lot. It was ingrained into his memory, ever since the first day he realized what he was. An abnormal human being with a slimy, invasive mental trait who lacked the one thing everything had. A Soul Song. The one thing everyone could bond together with, be proud of, something. Everyone knew who they were because of their song. It was shameful, really, that it took Callum so long to realize he was different. After living so long hearing music everywhere, he had failed to realize he never heard anything coming from himself. Not a single noise, sound, or note. Nothing. He should have known a long time ago.
He’d lied to Ezran as well- it was Friday, he had no homework. Callum just had to get out of there before he lost his temper on his baby brother, who definitely didn’t deserve that treatment. But his words had still hurt.
‘You’ve just been so distant all the time… for as long as I can remember…’
‘I just want my brother back.’
Callum felt like he wanted to cry. This day really couldn’t get any worse for him. He never asked to be different, to be abnormal. His life had never amounted to anything and it was suffocating him, the knowledge that he was nothing special. Nothing at all.
So he ran.
The forest was just as dark as he was expecting. Then again, he was assuming that this was a dream. He was running again, like usual, in the dark, the moon absent in the sky, and he was relying only on sheer luck and guessing to avoid trees that would stand in his way. Then again, dreams never really made full sense. It was dream logic that he was making it through the darkness without running smack into a tree trunk and damaging himself.
But this time it was different. The dream was different. He could hear something- which gave him pause. The trees stood still, there was no wind to shake their branches, no rustle of leaves, not even any inkling of life being out and about. And yet, he could hear something. Something rhythmic, something familiar.
Was this even a dream at all?
Callum followed it. He had to follow it, before he woke up in his bed, having fallen asleep after a hard mental beating stemming from a bad day. He didn’t want to lose this. It was a surprise, a bump on the normal routine of his daily life. He craved it. He needed to know.
He found himself panting heavily as he tore through the Midnight Forest, towards the sound that whispered taunting in his ears. The closer he got, the more he realized what he was hearing. But that… that wasn’t possible. He had his blocks up, he knew he had his blocks up. This wasn’t a song he’d heard before either, there was no reason for the person it belonged to to be consenting to share it. That person probably didn’t know he even existed! This made no sense!
Finally, at last, Callum broke through the thick darkness of the heavily wooded expanse and landed haphazardly in a clearing. As he did, he realized two important things. One, the moon had never been gone in the first place. It was just a New Moon.
And two, that there was a girl in the woods that defied all he knew.