[Bonus Chapter] 22 - In The End

After I told Ethan that I was going to teach him how to play the guitar if I bought one his size, he was very pleased and sat quietly on his bed looking at me expectantly.

I think if I were someone who was afraid of audiences, I would be embarrassed for him to see me sing, but since I've chosen this artistic career, what's an audience of one child compared to a concert of tens of thousands of people?

So I just waved at him and set my phone to record while I got ready.

The microphone I got from Quacktus wouldn't arrive for a few days, so I'd just use my phone again and if the difference in quality was too great, I'd re-record the song with the new microphone and post it again, it might even get the song out to a wider audience and get me more views.

At night, in an upscale house, a young woman lay in bed, hugging her pillow and listening to a song that had been on loop for a few hours.

This girl's face, though very pretty, was currently all red and smeared with messy makeup from her attempts to wipe away the tears that wouldn't stop flowing.

"That idiot..." She muttered angrily as she pressed the pillow even harder against her chest.

Suddenly, despite having her headphones in, she heard the sound of someone knocking on the door.

"Leave me alone!" She yelled in frustration, trying to ward off the person on the other side of the door.

"It's me..." A low, shy voice spoke from the other side of the door.

Hearing that voice, the girl was a little tempted to open the door and change the pillow she was hugging for that person, but she was in a very bad way and didn't want to make her little brother as sad as she was.

"Not now Tony..." She replied in a deep, guilty voice.

"Okay..." Her little brother's reaction made her feel even worse about the way she had spoken and she wanted to stand up to apologize, but she was so sad that even her body did not respond to her commands.

The only thing she wanted to do was to keep listening to the song on loop while she cried and tried to get rid of the bad feeling she was experiencing.

The song she was listening to was called Numb, a song by an indie artist she had recently discovered when she was curious to see what songs were on her friends' playlists on Spokify.

Surprisingly, Numb was one of the songs on one of her friend's playlists, a song she had never heard before and which had only 83 views when she discovered it.

Curious, she clicked on the song to see what it was like, because if her friend was going to put it on her playlist, it had to be at least acceptable, right?

How wrong she was, not only was the music unacceptable, but as soon as she heard the song, the first thing she did was put it on her private playlist so she could listen to it every day.

Technically, the music was good, but not as good as it should have been.

The quality of the microphone was poor, probably the artist had recorded it with a cell phone or a cheap microphone, the guitar was probably a cheap guitar too, because to trained ears like hers, it was easy to notice some imperfections in certain notes, and even the level of singing and the artist's mastery of the guitar were not high enough to please someone like her, but what touched her the most were the lyrics.

A song that sang about an abusive relationship where the person had to be perfect for the other person, without any mistakes, acting like a puppet... that was exactly what she was going through when she first heard this song.

Unfortunately, because she heard this song and realized how toxic her relationship was, she decided to confront her boyfriend with the song and instead of apologizing and trying to make things better, he just cursed her, the artist of the song, and broke up with her!

The breakup happened this morning, which is why she was crying.

The only thing she could do at the moment was cry while listening to Numb in Loop on Spokify, trying to hold on to the feelings she had for her boyfriend, or rather ex-boyfriend, from when she first heard the song.

She had listened to this song so much that from the 83 views the song had when she first met it to the 800 views the song currently had, Charlie was sure that at least 30% of that was hers alone, if not more.

But suddenly, the song she had been listening to nonstop changed!

Charlie became even more upset as she picked up her phone and prepared to see what had happened, because the app had changed songs when she had specifically set it to play Numb!

But when she looked at the screen, she saw that she had not set it to play Numb non-stop, but had actually set it to loop songs by the artist BlackVelvet, but since there was only one song, Numb was the song that had been playing on loop for the last few hours.

The reason Spokify changed the song it was listening to was because a new song had appeared on BlackVelvet's playlist!

When she saw the name of the song, she was confused as to what it meant.

[In The End - BlackVelvet]

The cover of the song was the same puppet as the cover of the song Numb, but while on the cover of Numb, the puppet was hanging from chains like a puppet, on the cover of the song In The End, the puppet was falling as it reached up, trying its best to reach the chain holding it, but failing.

"Does the name of the song mean that the puppet couldn't hold on in the end and fell?" Charlie wondered confusedly as she listened to the music playing in her headphones.

Currently, only the instrumental was playing.

As with Numb, the song was apparently recorded on the artist's cell phone while he just played his guitar and sang, but with Charlie's trained ears, she noticed that even though it was the same setup as the previous song, it was as if BlackVelvet was better now.

"Did he improve that much from the first song to the second? How long did he record them apart?" She wondered.

🎼🎶🎤

It all starts with…

One thing, don't ask me why…

No matter how hard you try…

Keep this in mind…

🎼🎶🎤

Hearing this first verse of the song sung in a rap style, Charlie was surprised that BlackVelvet sang it well! It was clear that he didn't have much experience, but from the feel of how he was singing the song and how this rap wasn't too difficult, he was delivering it very well!

But as he listened to the lyrics, Charlie began to feel a strange sensation.

"This can't be... right?" She wondered uncertainly as she listened to the music again.

🎼🎶🎤

This rhyme I designed, it'll unwind…

~All I know…

Time's a treasure we cling…

Watch it swing by, as the pendulum sings…

Counting down to the end of each day…

Life slips away…

~It feels surreal…

🎼🎶🎤

Listening to this fast but sincere rap, Charlie began to feel more and more that this was developing in a way she didn't know if she wanted it to...

Especially when she heard the vocal parts in addition to the rap parts, it added a complexity and even more emotion to the song that began to make her chest ache with the return of a feeling...

🎼🎶🎤

Didn't see the below…

Watch time flow out the window…

Trying to hold tight, they didn't know…

Wasted it all, watching you go…

I kept it bottled inside…

And though I tried…

It all fell apart…

What it once meant, now a memory, a part…

Of a time when…

🎼🎶🎤

Listening up to this point, Charlie's eyes blurred again and she knew what was coming, even though she liked BlackVelvet, at this point the only thing she wanted was for him to sing the next part of the song badly or compose it in a way that it sounded awful.

But when she heard what came next, Charlie started laughing while she cried.

🎼🎶🎤

I tried my best, went so far…

But in the end, it's just a scar…

I had to fall, to lose it all…

But in the end, I just needed a call…

🎼🎶🎤

"Fuck BV, why?!" She screamed into her pillow, crying harder and angrier.

It was as if he had written this song for her.

She tried, she tried everything, she tried her best to keep the relationship going. Even with everything going wrong, with her ex-boyfriend not caring about her at all, she still managed to make it very far.

Unfortunately, it wasn't enough... what's left is just a scar... and all she wants is a phone call...

"How did you get BV? Are you watching me now?!" She shouted angrily as she turned up the music.

Even though she was sad and angry, this song was the only thing she wanted to hear.

Numb was very good, but In The End was like a nice abusive boyfriend, telling her everything she wanted to hear, but unfortunately making her feel everything she didn't want to feel...

///NunuNote///

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