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Microphone never liked the violin. He never did. He just picked it up last year just to be closer with his brother.
Why did his brother have to be so hard working? Despite being the older of the two, Mic never took his studies seriously. And frankly, at least to him, averaging at the score of 80 out of a 100 isn’t that bad. Mic hardly had to study for anything as a 15 year old, and he would only revise his studies every now and then.
14 year old Megaphone, however, was working harder than he should be. He spent hours in his room singing songs, playing the piano, nose buried in books all day. His perfectionism had not miss, even as a youngster, and acted as if he was the other one over Mic. Heck, even Meg was taller than Mic.
Now he finds himself standing next to the grand piano, where Megaphone stretched his hands and gently placed his fingers on the keys of the first notes. He turned to his yellow brother, a gentle smile that played on his lips. “You ready?” he said. Mic was far from ready. “It’s the last one before the big recital in the heart of Crossroads.”
It wasn’t just their last recital.
Among Microphone’s frustration boiling inside, he found his way out, just a bit of his sanity hanging on to the music sheet that no longer accompanied him. He lifted the violin to his chin, fingers pressed onto the strings, the bow prepared and ready on the first string. It was muscle memory. It’s fine. It’s fine.
As he pulled the bow to play the first note, Megaphone followed in with gentle notes, the harmonic chords on the piano tying the melody of the violin together. Every note was perfectly played, after ages of trying to get every part right. Every little bickering led up to the perfection of their final recital.
After all that, Microphone was still willing to make it their final duet.
Minutes passed as the song finally came to a stop. Megaphone gently took his hands off the keys and led it to his laps. Microphone released the violin from his chin as both the instrument and its bow was left dangling on each of his hands.
“That was wonderful!” Dom clapped, his innocent self widely smiling. His only eye — the other was patched — looked like it was smiling too. “I think we’d wow the crowd with this!”
“Yeah…” Microphone responded. His eyes tried to avoid his brother. He wanted to turn around, open the door, and just throw his violin away. He was tired. He only wanted to spend time with his brother, not actually put in effort into some random stringed instrument. “Can I excuse myself?”
“Sure,” his brother kindly responded. “We should play again, it sounded good.”
“You should’ve recorded it earlier,” Microphone said as reached the door at the end of the room and opened it. You should’ve known that this is the last time you’ll ever hear it again. He thought, but didn’t say it out loud as he closed the door behind him.
He walked through the short hallway until the long stairs waited for him. He looked at his violin, one last time.
“I won’t miss you.”
The violin clattered down the stairs, the sharp edges of each platform collided against the violin until the instrument snapped in half. The bow followed down, its now broken shape rolled over to its partner that has now died of ear piercing strings.
And oh, how he wished that the rooms were sound proof. Mic could hear Megaphone jolt up from his seat, piano keys slamming against the purple demon’s hands.
“Mic?!” he yelled from inside the room. “What was that?!”
Oh, it’s so over for him.
The handle was pushed down and the door swung open faster than it should’ve, showing a now distraught Megaphone whose eyes had darted down to Microphone’s empty hands.
“Mic,” he pressed on, his voice growing. “The violin.”
No answer came.
“Don’t tell me what I think happened.”
Silence filled in the gaps.
“You ungrateful bitc- DEMON!” Megaphone yelled. Microphone had never heard so much rage from the other. “We’ve worked on this for so long! Everyone helped you just to get that violin — Skateboard, Rocket, Sword, even Boombox! And you-“
Microphone was about to dash down the stairs, but his brother was quicker as Megaphone blocked the stairs with his (clearly bigger) body.
“Why would you?” his voice filled with sorrow and slow boiling hatred. “Please, just explain yourself. You-“
Sanity no longer held his hands back as Microphone pushed his brother out of a state of panic. Megaphone felt himself fall, and fall, and fall. Until his death. His two large protruding horns shattered, his only wing being ripped with every platform he falls off from. He tries, he tries to find a grip, but nothing came except the stare of his yellow brother, the one he trusted so well ever since he opened his eyes to the world, now betraying him.
The violin did the last killing move. Its sharp edges of its broken body now stabbed into the heart of the silent demon. His body slumped down the final steps, and as the unbalanced rhythm came to a ritardando, it marked the end of their final duet.
Microphone’s hands were shaking. God knows what he just did. He slowly inched down the steps, specks of blood now covering the stairs until he reached the body, where a puddle of red liquid embraced the body in its twisted hell. He didn’t know what to do. All his friends would be mad if they knew what happened, unless…
Unless…
He suddenly heard a gasp and shifting behind a column of wall. A green horn peeked from the side, as well as an LED screen that covered a certain demon’s face. A polaroid camera peeked as well, watching Microphone.
“Oh Boombox…” he whispered out. “You- you came to visit didn’t you. It’s- it’s not what it looks like-“
“I’ve… seen it,” he replied softly, a sense of dread filling him.
“Oh dear SFOTH, dear grandfather,” Microphone pleaded to the gloomy skies above as he bent down next to the body that was once his lovely brother. “What am I going to do… please, someone execute me…”
“I might have an idea…” Boombox said, stepping out of his hiding spot. He bent down to Microphone’s level and whispered something in the other’s ear. The yellow horned demon widened his eyes in surprise.
“You with your twisted ideas,” Microphone hissed. Boombox never had any twisted ideas before.
“I mean, think about it, it’s the best way to stage it, right…?”
So there they were, carrying the body out of the sight of anyone else. They walked up to a tree in their garden. Boombox had brought a jump rope with him, to which he successfully made a noose with. He hung one end of the rope on the tree, and the other wrapped around the corpse’s neck. The blood stained corpse now hung on the rope, staging a suicide.
“You don’t usually have blood stains all over your body when you die of rope suicide,” Microphone pointed out. “Are you sure they’d believe it?”
“It’s… unfortunately the best we can do,” Boombox sighed, his LED light eyes closing itself in annoyance and guilt. “Come on, let’s head back in before anyone sees us.”
As they walked towards their home, Microphone decided to turn around and look at his brother. One last time.
“Hey Boom… uh- you… you see what I see?”
The green demon turned around, and as he faced the corpse, his eyes, despite not being visible, showed absolute fear. The corpse’s only eye, now stared at both of them.
The corpse turned into something horrid, a creature of black with a slit eye that stared at them. It morphed Megaphone’s body to something terrifying, morbid, beyond comprehension:
It was Something.
The two demons ran off. They wanted to scream, but if they did, others would know of how Megaphone died. All they knew was that: that Something would show itself, sooner or later.
It will haunt them for the rest of their lives.
***
Microphone has done this many times. It’s normal at this point.
He knows, when his head hits the pillow, he’ll find himself in a white space. The Headspace.
He opened his dreamy eyes, to see a young demon that looked like him — maybe a bit younger. The demon was black and white, monotone, wore a sleeveless shirt and some shorts. The demon looked like him. In the demon’s hand: a knife.
“Hello Microphone,” the demon spoke, his voice sounding the same as Mic’s, just much more emotionless. “I see you’ve visited again.”
Microphone found himself staring up for a while, his voice hesitating.
“Hello Valk.”