Suleya was running out of time. She knew this, but she would remain calm. Trying to rush the ritual would only result in failure, and she couldn't afford that right now. After all, her life hung in the balance. The Hunters and their thrice-cursed Sensors would be upon her any moment, and if she hadn't completed the ritual by then she'd be slaughtered. But she would, she told herself, and then she'd show them just how dangerous a witch could truly be.

This ritual was... strange, though. She had never attempted it before, and for good reasons. The description of it in the old tome was vague beyond irritation, but mentioned reaching for beings beyond the veil of reality and summoning them here. Suleya had only ever heard about beings from other planes once before, and it was because of that one time in particular that she hadn't tried this ritual sooner. She had heard terrible things. Things that keep you up at night. Things that she would rather not have known. But desperate times call for desperate measures, and here she was.

She could hear them, now, somewhere in the forest. Shouting, running, thrashing about through the bushes. Stealth was unnecessary at this point, they knew they had her and that escape was impossible. She forced the growing panic from her mind and, trembling slightly, lit the candles before her. All the preparations were finally complete. Now, for the incantation…

”Heleveath amerathuen! Omuleidium isindien! Nagasta! Kvaka! Kvakis!”

The candles lit up furiously for an instant, and then immediately went out. Then all was dark and silent, the features of the surrounding terrain and the surface of the pond illuminated only by the faintest of moonlight. For what seemed like eons, there was nothing, no movement of any kind. Suleya was sweating now. Had something gone wrong? Had she not followed the instructions correctly, or misunderstood one of the passages? She glanced backwards in terror and saw something moving by her house. One of the Sensors? Or perhaps a Hunter, waiting to strike? Despair gripped her heart and thrust its claws into it, ripping it to pieces. All hope was lost.

A strange noise made her look back at the pond. At first, it looked as still as ever. Or wait, no – there were ripples on the surface. Then, a bubble appeared for an instant before disintegrating with a faint pop. More bubbles surfaced, and Suleya realized that someone or something was down there. Despair turned to ecstasy as more bubbles appeared on the black surface. And then, suddenly, a shape rose from the waters.

It was, however, not what Suleya had been expecting.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, the gallant, the exceptional talent, the immense sound of the ages, the handsome, the able and capable, the one and only… Amadeus von Errhammer!’ the announcer said and the crowd went as wild as their ballroom dress robes would allow them to.

Amadeus, named after none other but Mozart himself, walked out of the side entrance of the stage and bowed deeply, just as the ethic laws of classical music intended. His blond bangs fell over his face, but he just brushed them away with a swift and easy movement of his head. After that, he turned, positioned the violin under his chin, the bow at a 45-degree angle and then… silence. Everyone had stopped breathing, waiting for the Adagio for violin and orchestra in E major by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

The silent, soft tones started spilling out of his arm and into the bow, slowly turning into melody. Everyone into the hall was speechless; the music flew all over the seats and in-between the rounded walls of the theatre. There was nothing that could have been better for Amadeus’s parents Amanda and Karl, an American and a German, than to watch all those elite guests flow as one with Amadeus’s song.

The melody was over, then the next one – Vivaldi’s Autumn, too. After three more pieces, the dramatic slow melody of Massenet’s Thais:Meditation filled the halls with its quiet cries. No Paganini in the schedule once again, although the Devils’ Violinist, as was his notorious nickname, was the player’s favourite.

‘Danke.’

Amadeus bowed once more, putting the violin and his bow in one hand and the other next to his heart, to show his own respect towards… A crowd he never liked, one which he could even say he detested. False faces made out of plastic onto heads which never really managed to learn the art of thought. He smiled, which looked more like a grin, they say, and walked away.

‘Wondrful! Wonderful presentation as always!’ exclaimed his mother, while she was fretting about him.

He took off his gloves, collected his instrument and all the accessories in the case and left the dressing room with his mother inside. He wished he was dead. The entire thing was too much for him.

Once upon a time, he had thought this was his dream – to play in front of all those people, to enjoy their ovations, applauds, the smiles they would send him and the pats on the back. Well, it just didn’t suffice. His entire body was screaming from boredom and, neither the pianist he dated nor his grandfather’s death could have saved him from this mood. His girlfriend’s constant bragging about her achievements, even if they were half the importance of his, were annoying him like never before.

He walked to his father’s car, thinking of sitting in the passenger’s seat like always, but something took control of him… The very idea of escaping this reality where he was doing all he loved, but in a way he hated… He grabbed the driver’s door and opened it; it was unlocked. Like always, the guy at the entrance had left the keys into the starter once he had driven it out of the parking lot.

Amadeus positioned the violin case next to him, buckled it, and turned the engine on. The sweet sound of his father’s 2015 Mercedes Benz SLR McLaren Edition, bought with the money from Amadeus’s performances and contracts, was sweeter than ever.

He pushed the buttons, swished his thumb through the touch screen and the car started. There was nothing this car couldn’t do on its own, even if the young violinist couldn’t drive. He just set-up the GPS to a random location and watched the autopilot swim through the evening traffic. Amadeus never even flinched when the GPS showed the location right in front of him, over the cliff and into the deep blue waters of the nearby lake.

‘Hour of death, 00:23,’ that’s it boys, we better leave this to the CSI.

‘Such a young and handsome man,’ said the assistant coroner, but her supervisor was already in the car, awaiting her to go into the morgue and look at the files before releasing the case as yet another overworked young talent’s sad suicide.
However, the violin was never found.

It was with Amadeus’s soul, travelling to another dimension, because this very instrument was like a piece of his heart, of his whole body, like a part of his very existence…

He was drowning; the water was odd and plasma-like. As he managed to get his act together and push himself onto the side of the basin, he dropped onto a hard floor, all wet and covered in something odd. An odd bubbling sound was coming from the side and in front of him stood an oddly dressed woman.

‘Whe…’ *cough cough* A lot of water came out of his mouth. ‘Where am I?’ he asked the girl and then remembered… the violin, it was supposed to be there… Where was it?! Ah, there it was, just an arm’s length away from him. He grabbed it, much calmed now and stared at the woman.