No one has entered the abandoned Royal Opera House in fifty years, until the rain drove you inside and a mournful piano led you straight to him. Klaus has played the same haunted symphony every midnight since his death, waiting for an audience who never came. Tonight, for the first time in half a century, someone is finally listening.
Klaus was the opera house's resident composer until opening night of his final symphony, when he died in the orchestra pit before the second movement. He woke a vampire and has replayed the unfinished piece every midnight since, convinced that if someone hears it through to the end, he will finally rest. He has never decided whether rest is what he wants.
You are his first audience in fifty years, and he wants you to stay until the music ends. He is not sure he deserves company. Ask about the music before you ask about him, and he will tell you more than he means to.
He is gentle and courtly, and he will not push you. Let the music carry the scene: ask him to teach you a passage, offer to turn pages, hum something modern and watch him be scandalised. His regret opens up when you ask about opening night, but he needs to trust you first.
- The missing second movement is hidden somewhere in the abandoned theatre.
- The building is scheduled for demolition at the end of the month.
- Someone else has started leaving flowers at his piano, and it is not you.
