1 The last melody

She felt the weight of the tablet on her pale thighs all the more clearly as time passed. To hold it, her bony hands had to cling on to it as if her life depended on it. But it became heavier by each second, increasing in weight. She tried to ignore it, trying to concentrate on the letters in front of her eyes. Finally, she placed her crooked finger on top of the cold glass, scrolled down the pages. Her hand trembled, even this she couldn't do any more. A tension in her muscles, the trembling in the limbs, it hurts. So damn, painful. After the accident, everything had changed. Dejected, she bit her lower lip. Over and over again. It was bleeding, but she didn't even feel that any more. She didn't want to feel it, wanted to suppress it, wanted to be numb, feel nothing.

Her gaze glided instantly to her piano, and then to the white letter slumbering on top of the black polish. She wondered how long it would take, how long it would take to find it. Until she was found. Again this prick in her chest. She tried to ignore it, let herself fall back into the soft cushion.

Everything was settled. If the letter was opened... They would understand. There was nothing left to hold her. She had lost everything that day.

And she couldn't live without that. It was unbearable too long for something she could never have again. The trembling of her hand was unbearable. Too painful to bear it any longer. She had drawn a line in her own life. She had reached her end. Nothing else made sense to her. She had locked up. There was nothing left.

She was empty.

She was so damn empty. Aware that she could not go on like this any longer.

But what could she do, she stood in the front of a wall. A wall so high, impossible for her to ever reach the top, let alone get to the other side. Where her feelings were slumbering.

She was just tired. Everything felt cold, her innermost was frozen to a chilly ice landscape behind these walls. It would never be the same again. She had given up, just wanted to sleep buried under snow. The cold exhausted her. She could no longer wait for spring. Because her spring would not come anyway. She actually had never experienced a spring. Always just autumn and winter.

There was nothing left. She was empty.

Once again she pinned her attention back on the countless words in front of her eyes and tried to escape reality for the last time. In the last weeks, when she had locked herself in here and did not know what to do next, she had started to read, to read a lot. Many of these web novels. Just to forget. To forget herself. She was aware that she could not go on like this any longer.

Then she made her last decision. And stifled her last emotion.

The last thing she felt had been her eyelids, getting heavier and heavier. The letters in front of her eyes faded to a gray mush, her breath started to get more and more shallow, her limbs went numb and her body slipped deeper into the soft cushion while her tablet slipped out of her hands.

She heard something fall to the ground, loud and heavy. But she was too tired to look for it.

Once again, for the last time, her gaze glided up, caught in the black shine. It had become dull, a thick layer of dust lay on it.

How long had it been since she has had touched it. It hurts. Just the sight of it ... it frightened her ... crushed her heart.

The piano.

Now she wouldn't have to see it any more. Ever again.

She closed her eyes for the last time.

Listening to her heartbeat. What a beautiful melody. Slow and steady. Tired and lethargic. Like her.