The Drazen World: Purgatory (Kindle Worlds Novella)

didn't ask me to cook dinner.
Chapter 2
"I can't hear it!" I huffed in exasperation. There was no way of knowing how much time had passed between arriving at my suite and the moment I realized that music wasn't coming to me. Throughout all of my fucked-up childhood, disappointing adolescence, and downright unfulfilling adulthood, music was a constant. My driving force, my hiding place...my ultimate demise. It had been my sanctuary and now I couldn't hear it. It never occurred to me that with death would come complete silence.
"Maybe I just can't write it." I was reduced to talking to myself since no other sounds accompanied me in this soundproof existence. I decided to try something else. Maybe I could hear music that already existed, that I had learned and memorized. Maybe, I could reproduce.
Sitting on the gray comforter adorned with gray pillows and surrounded by gray walls, I poised my fingers as though a piano sat at their tips. My left hand caressed the invisible white key, my index finger searching the note. My middle finger grazing the black key on a G-sharp and my thumb pressing the white G.
A-minor.
G-sharp.
G.
Nothing.
Sliding further down, my index summoned the F-sharp before my middle pressed the white F.
F-sharp.
F.
Nada.
Back to the index on the G and the middle on the A.
"No. This cannot be happening." I started over, again and again only to become frustrated with my lack of success. My music was silent, my world was dead. I couldn't even play fucking Led Zepplin’s ‘Stairway to Heaven’, that’s the accepted default to every musician's fingers, how painfully ironic that it was inaccessible now.
A knock at the door pulled me from my frantic thoughts. A welcome distraction from the worst possible scenario of my existence.
"Come in!" I called out, guessing it was my Shrink/Judge coming to check on my homework.
"Hey. I just wanted to introduce myself. I live in the suite next door."
Definitely not Ernest. I sat there, on my bed, my fingers poised in mid intro, staring at the man standing at the threshold of my room. I didn't respond, I couldn't.
Without invitation, he walked in and kicked the door closed with the heel of his booted foot before walking up to my bed and making himself comfortable. My eyes followed him as he laid out beside me and propped himself up on his elbows, a wicked, sexy grin lighting up his face. I allowed my eye to do a quick scan, taking in his attire. Contrary to Ernest, who had been the only other person with whom I'd come into contact, this guy was wearing well-worn jeans that hugged his tapered waist to stunning precision. His torso was covered with a V-neck tee-shirt revealing strong, capable and most importantly, inked arms. He wasn't buffed-up but he was solid.
Still, I said nothing.
"My name's Hunter," he started, resting his weight on one elbow and extending his right hand, waiting for me to shake it. "Cat got your tongue?"
I could feel my eyebrows slanting in confusion. "Why are you on my bed?" It was obvious the concept of personal space eluded him. Hunter looked around pointedly before making eye contact with me again, his brow raised on one side questioningly. "I don't see anywhere else I can sit."
"So, you decided that sitting on a stranger's bed was the acceptable alternative?" Although, truth be told, in my living years I would have probably been already making out with him. Physically, he represented the ideal man. Tall, tatted and with a bad attitude. And by bad, I meant annoyingly forward. With hair cut short, almost shaved completely and what looked like a perfectly trimmed five o'clock shadow, he seemed too sexy to be dead.
But the eyes.
Hunter's eyes were kind, playful and soul-searching. I hated them. Hated their chocolate depths that beckoned my deepest, darkest secrets. I didn't like anyone getting too close to my soul and possibly seeing the damaged parts of me that no life or beyond could possibly ever redeem.
"You said to come in...so I did. Thanks, by the way." He winked right before he took his hand away. I never did shake it, nor had I yet told him my name.
"So, you're one of those, huh?" He asked, laying back with both arms curled under his head as he stared straight up at the gray ceiling. With every movement, the tattoos on his forearms danced like living entities, begging to be noticed.
"One of what?" My attention landed back to his expressive eyes, immediately narrowing my gaze with my question. If he thought he could just insult me and get away with it, I'd punch him in the balls to prove otherwise.
"The quiet ones. The ones who have so much guilt they feed off it." His gaze never wavered, his voice steady and sure.
It was official. I hated Hunter and his witchy ways.
"And you're one of those, huh?" Two could play the game.
"Ah, here comes the defense mechanism. Go on, Mozart, give it to me."
Arrogant prick. And Mozart? He couldn't possibly know I'm a musician, could he? Regardless, the joke was on him since music had properly written me a "Dear John" letter with a clichéd formula of "It's not you, it's me" in big bold letters.
"The judgy kind," I replied with as much snark as I could muster. "An answer for everything. Must be lonely up there on your high and mighty throne." There. I felt better.
"Nah. I'm just chatty. I like the quiet ones, it allows me to talk more." He answered, matter of factly.
I looked over at him and sighed. Maybe a constant voice would be better than deafening silence. "My name's Gabrielle. Everyone calls me...or should I say, called me, Gabby." The familiar weight of my ever-present guilt pressed against my chest, making my heart squeeze