Blood+ Fan Fiction ❯ Innocent boy, meet the pure rose ❯ Singing Rose ( Chapter 2 )

At the behest of my editor (a poor sap that I suckered into helping me with writing. Oh wait, you can read this can't you?) I've decided to post another chapter, though he's pushing for yet another, since the action has not yet begun.

 

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Like always, the metropolitan opera house was so beautiful. The rich red color of the walls, ceiling, seats and floors seemed lavish and everything was always well maintained.

 

He had been here many times before and yet always the splendor of the grand old opera house got to him. It smelled different tonight though. For some reason he smelled the faint scent of flower petals. The smell didn't seem nearby. In fact, it didn't even seem to be anywhere throughout the entire audience.

 

“It smells nice though. I wonder how they managed to do that.”

 

“Dalton, do you want to be left behind?”

 

His father's rhetorical question made him shake his head and quickly follow after them.

 

“Remember now, dear, there are a few business partners of ours here. Please try not to have any accidents.”

 

The request made him remember possibly the worst near-accident he'd ever had; it was the first time he'd been to an orchestra where someone sang along with the other musicians and he had been so enthralled he wanted to be the first to give them a standing ovation.

 

Unfortunately, his lack of balance wasn't something gained in recent years. Dalton had almost fallen over the railing of the balcony and if he had there wasn't enough money in the world to keep him alive.

 

He shivered at the thought. The boy never wanted to think about anything like dying or going out with girls or anything like that. It was all just too big and scary for him.

 

His parents and he walked down the middle aisle of the balcony and looked for their seats.

 

Despite the lights amongst his feet having been placed there so people didn't trip or bump into each other he had to try his hardest to remain perfectly balanced.

 

The further they walked down the aisle the more of the rest of the opera house that was revealed; the gigantic theater didn't seem quite as big from up here but it still seemed almost monstrous.

 

“No. That's not it. Monstrous sounds too dirty. It seems very grand.”

 

Below the balcony lay red and black. The colors were the result of the red seats and the hundreds of people who were attending the performance. More specifically, the black was the hundreds of people who sat in their chairs, some patiently and some over-eager, as the lights dimmed.

 

Walter hurried them on a bit so that the family could get to where they needed to go before the lights were too dim for Dalton to walk. It wasn't that hard to find the seats; they were always the middle three in the balcony. To get such a spot wasn't very easy. To get it consecutively was often blind luck, and to always get it was just plain unheard of.

 

“That's my parents for you; they can make the impossible possible.”

 

He thought this with a smile as they walked to their seats and sat down in them. Dalton sat in the middle with his parents on either side like a protective wall. They seated themselves just in time, for the lights finished dimming to dark not seconds afterwards.

 

The boy wiggled in his seat in anticipation as the curtain began to draw up.

 

What he saw next was something he hadn't expected.

 

“Are those ruins?”

 

His thought was spoken out loud and though one of his parents might have usually scolded him for speaking when the lights were out it seemed that they were unsure about it as well.

 

He had read the information pamphlet, and it didn't say anything about any opera. Yet this did not deter the boy's thoughts from obsessing over how beautiful this girl's voice must be.

 

The “rock” walls and building ruins resembled that of burnt down castle grounds, and though the deceivably fake grass looked to be an angry forest attempting to reclaim the lands from a long uninhabited abode he saw no signs of any supposed burn marks. One could liken it to an ancient fortress of dreams, long forgotten. Nothing remained of its former image; only rubble and emptiness.

 

The depressing thoughts made Dalton shiver as he heard music start up. It was a subtle “entry” theme as the singer no doubt prepared to take her place on the stage. However, she walked onto the stage neither from the left nor right. Dalton didn't see her appear from backstage either. He looked up, and saw no one descending on wires.

 

The short introductory theme ended, and no one had appeared.

 

His smile morphed to a frown as he stared down at the stage in confused wonderment.

From the sounds that he heard of people actually speaking, a rarity in professional productions at such an illustrious theater, he obviously was not the only one who was confused. Then a sound cut short all noise and talk. It was the sound of a key turning in a lock and for the first time he noticed a scaled-down “tower” near the back of the stage.

 

Within the small constructed suggestion was certainly space for someone to stand in, but he had never heard of anyone entering stage from anywhere but from the sides or up above, with perhaps the occasional hand-operated elevator that could pull someone up from below. Yet that is what seemed to be happening and as the seconds dragged on, each extended by the tension he felt, the door slowly began to open.

 

Aside from the creaky, dungeon-door sounds that the door made as it opened there was not another sound in the theater until at last it opened all the way and he saw someone step out past it, closing the door behind her.

 

The stage was quite far away, several dozen yards at least, and the back of the stage was further away still. Yet he managed to make out a few of her features as she walked down the steps of the “tower”. She wore an outfit of black, devil-wings extended out from the back of her outfit as well as folding over her chest area, covering up what must have been a low neckline. Atop her head was a silver crown with a blue jewel in it, and around her neck was a piece of black cloth that was held together in the center by what appeared to be buttons of some sort. What caught his attention the most about her outfit was that he saw what he thought was blue rose.

 

“Aren't those just in books and stories?”

 

If he remembered correctly, roses lacked the pigment to allow them to be blue. It didn't happen occasionally. It didn't even happen rarely. It just plain didn't happen. Of course it was possible it was just a fake one. Yet he couldn't help but wonder what it would be like to smell that flower if it was real; perhaps that was the scent that he'd smelled earlier.

 

The rose's color brought out the blueness of her eyes, and he thought he saw her long mane of silky black hair reflecting with a slight bluish hue as well.

 

Her skin was pale, as if she had been in a dungeon her whole life and had just managed to find her way out through that tower.

 

Into the spotlight near the front of the stage she stepped, up behind the microphone that had been placed standing there.

 

Until now she had simply stared straight forward, seeming to not be looking at anything specifically, but now her gaze looked at the microphone.

 

“Is there something wrong with it?”

 

His question was answered by the girl silently walking past the microphone and standing in front of it.

 

Once again there was whispering amongst the audience as she closed her eyes.

 

“What is this young lady doing?”

 

For his mother to have spoken up it must have had a huge effect on the audience. It was completely understandable though. From what he'd heard she was singing with no orchestra; they were separate acts.

 

She wasn't going to sing without a microphone was she?

 

Her eyes opened again and she stared up at the ceiling. For a moment, as her beautiful blue eyes trailed up to look at the ceiling, they passed over him. It hadn't even lasted a second, and yet he was embarrassed that she had looked at him, if unintentionally.

 

Her mouth opened and her eyes closed again as she brought her hands up in front of her chest, holding them both with the other as if she were praying.

 

What came from her was neither singing nor any other kind of music. There were no words, and there was no pattern. Dalton realized, as he stared at her wide-eyed, that this was the symphony of her heart made audible.

 

Her voice splayed a sound out evenly throughout the entire theater hall and not a single dark corner could hide from it. A microphone seemed like a useless stick compared to her unbelievably immaculate lung power that allowed her feelings to reach each and every person that was lucky enough to be sitting in that theater as her arms separated and sailed through the air as if carried off by the wind.

 

The sound that she made was more mesmerizing than a day's worth of white noise, yet was far beyond being anything except a masterpiece. Her art rose and fell like chaotic waves in a turbulent sea as he was swept away by the power of the magic that reached him.

 

Delicate whispers seemed to go through his ears and slip their way into his mind.

 

“Do you like it?” They said.

 

“Yes. I- I love it. Please, sing more!”

 

The whispers purred their satisfaction at the same time that the girl's voice began to build up its energy, preparing for the finale. Dalton had absolutely no idea how the song could be over so quickly. Had she run out of strength? Had he simply gotten lost in the melody and only recently surfaced from that blissful pool of sound?

 

The boy had not so much as an inkling of what the answer was and didn't care as the girl's voice rose to a heavenly pitch that threatened to bring all who heard it to a new stage of awareness, to purify them. Then the voice faded away, and her eyes opened again, once again staring at the ceiling.

 

Half a second went by. Then the entire theater was filled with thunderous applause that almost grew louder than her song had not a moment ago. But it wasn't even in the same solar system as her voice had been.

 

Dalton sat, his eyes wide of the inability to let go of the marvelous tune he had just been a witness to.

 

Her eyes drew down, once again with the boy in her way.

 

He wanted to move. The boy wanted to depart from the theater, so that she would have no resistance returning her gaze to where she wished. Yet when her pure blue orbs gazed upon him this time they didn't lower anymore. Those beautiful eyes looked straight at him and he felt as if he was going to melt.

 

“Is she... looking at me?”

 

The thought seemed blasphemous. How could someone like him be worth even a second of her attention? The latter question was met with no answer, but he knew for a fact that she was looking at him.

 

Her mouth curved upward and for an instant he thought she would burst out in laughter; the musings of a cruel joke. That was far too harsh though. What formed on her face, which he realized was just as beautiful as her song had been, was a smile. It was not cruel, nor arrogant, nor amused.

 

This goddess was staring at him, and she was smiling.

 

Dalton was drawn out of his stupor and his face quickly became red. Then, before his embarrassment could continue on any further, she closed her eyes.

 

Still smiling, she turned about and walked away. It was all he could do to not leap off the balcony after her and Dalton found himself suddenly having difficulty breathing.

 

The applause faded from his ears as he did nothing but remember what had just happened and held his hand tightly over his heart as it threatened to pound its way out of his chest like a sledgehammer.

 

“Dalton? Are you alright?”

 

The question from his mother just barely managed to reach in through his mind's veil.

 

“I'm fine. I just… have to go to the bathroom.”

 

It was a lie, and he could not remember if he had ever done so to his mother before.

But as much as he loved his mother, everything in the whole world seemed utterly insignificant right now. The girl was all he could hear. The girl was all he could see. She was all he could smell, and all he could feel.

 

He tasted the rose petals and the scent came back to him.

 

Dalton blinked, and he didn't see her anymore. The girl, the angelic singer, had disappeared into thin air. His eyes searched frantically, scanning for any sign of her. Yet it was all in vain; the angel had departed.

 

The momentary, unsure silence was quickly replaced by even more applause at the marvelous exit. And though the applause eventually died away the chatter about how wonderful her singing had been continued on without rest.

 

“Walter, go with him to the bathroom-“

 

“N- No, I'm fine. Really I am. Can I please go alone mother?”

 

His plead caught her off-guard. Never had he denied his parents' intentions to help him before. But this was something he had to do alone.

 

“If that is really what you want, Dalton; do you remember where the bathroom is?”

 

He nodded his head quickly.

 

“Alright, don't trip on the way.”

 

The reminder was heard but barely recognized as he quickly got out of his seat and ran around his father, back down the aisle.

 

He didn't care if he got scolded later on, he had to see that girl and tell her how wonderful her singing had been.