I've been looking in the mirror for so long
That I've come to believe my soul's on the other side
All the little pieces falling, shatter
Shards of me, too sharp to put back together
Too small to matter, but big enough to cut me into so many little pieces
If I try to touch her, and I bleed,
And I breathe no more

-Amy Lee

Angostura, California 2004

“Good morning!”

Aiden jumped slightly at the sudden noise, turning around in his chair to find his fresh-from-the-shower girlfriend only inches behind him, giving him a smile that was far too cheerful for this early in the morning as she ran a brush through her bubblegum pink hair. Ari Winchester was and always had been a morning person, and the fact that she could be so jolly at six AM scared him beyond all reason, especially when he was already on his third cup of coffee and still could barely keep his eyes open long enough to take a bite of his toast.

“Oh, Ari. I didn’t know you were already out of the shower,” he yawned widely and brushed a strand of silken black hair behind his shoulder. “Good morning.”

“I didn’t even think you were going to get up today!” she slid a glass of orange juice onto the table and sat down in front of it, taking a long drink before launching into their usual breakfast chatter. “So, guess who got a huge gig?”

Aiden smiled over his toast. “You did?”

“That’s right!” Ari said happily, sipping her juice. “I got the lead in a musical! The Phantom of the Opera, isn’t that great?”

“Congratulations,” Aiden gave her a wide smile and leaned across the table to hug her, accidentally dipping his elbow in butter. He managed not to curse at his own misfortune as the greasy substance soaked through his shirt. “That’s what you wanted, right?”

“Of course! It’s really acting this time. It’s not that I don’t love just singing but… it’ll be good to get into acting, too. Maybe someday I’ll be in movies,” Ari gestured madly with her hands as she talked animatedly, ranting on about dreams and the future. Aiden, who already had a successful career in singing for his band and constantly had fans falling at his feet, couldn’t help but reminisce on the days when he had dreamed of making it big and doing the things he’d always dreamed of as she was now. He almost longed for the days when it had seemed so exciting, rather than the present where he was desensitized and fame wasn’t quite as refreshing. It was surprisingly hard not to get bored with it.

“Good for you. I’m sure you can break into the movie business if you try.”

Ari beamed. “Well, if you say so, then it must be true,” she gave a tinkling laugh and placed the brush on the table. “Oh, I almost forgot, one of the other cast members is giving me a ride this morning, so you won’t have to. It’s Tiffany Streiber. You remember her, right?”

Aiden nodded slightly. Of course he remembered her; Tiffany Streiber was not easy to forget. She was loud and overly-chipper, a pop idol who sometimes did work with Ari. Aiden was not exactly fond of her, and tried to avoid her when he could. Absentmindedly fingering the cross necklace around his neck, he nodded. “Of course.”

“Where did you get that thing?” Ari leaned across the table and gave the cross a small poke. “It gives me the creeps.”

“I got it at the flea market the other day on the way home. They guy who sold it to me said it was from Mexico,” to be honest, he could not understand her reservations about it. The necklace was a large golden ornate thing with a polished red gemstone set into the center, and it was pretty in its right. It didn’t help that the man who sold it to him had mentioned that the necklace’s previous owner had died while wearing it, but Aiden was not superstitious. Being in the music industry, he couldn’t afford to be. And besides, the necklace was a wonderfully appropriate accessory for the singer of a goth rock band. “You think it’s creepy?”

“Well sure,” Ari wrinkled her nose, “Something about it just doesn’t seem right to me. But then again, I always get weird feelings off of secondhand jewelry. My mom says I’ve got an overly active imagination,” swirling the orange juice around in her cup, she scrutinized the necklace for a moment before draining her glass. Her timing was, as always, exquisite, and the moment she placed the glass on the table, the apartment’s buzzer rang. Aiden gave her a bemused look and went back to his toast as she hurried to answer the door.

“Good morning, Ari!” it was only a matter of seconds before Tiffany’s shrill voice filled the apartment, and Aiden ran a hand distractedly through his hair and tried to block out the feeling of intense irritation that built up almost immediately in his stomach. As Ari reappeared to get her purse, Tiffany followed close behind, casting Aiden a perky wave. Her bouncy golden curls were pushed back from her face with glittering barrettes , and she looked more like a giddy schoolgirl than an accomplished musical performer. “Hi, Aiden! Ari said you guys are recording a new album!”

“Good morning, Tiffany,” he buried his irritation with cornflakes. “Yeah, we start recording today.”

“Yay! That’s just great!”

“Um… yeah,” he clutched tightly at the cross and wished intensely that he didn’t have to deal with her, especially not this early in the morning. He thought offhandedly that he wouldn’t even mind having her dead if it meant she wouldn’t be in his home anymore. It was throwing off his entire mood. It was the first day of recording, and now was, if possible, the most inconvenient time imaginable for such annoyances. There were no words that could express his relief at a soft vibration against his leg, and leaped to his feet. “Sorry… I’ve got a phone call!” he hurried into the living room, kicking laundry out of the way as he moved. “Hello?”

“Aiden!” the voice cut sharply through his eardrums, and he grimaced.

“What?”

“This is Minardi! Where are you? Today is the first day of recording, and you’re not here. I told you we were starting early,” the sound of frustration in his Antonio Minardi’s voice was never a good thing. In fact, it could spell certain doom for those under the manager’s jurisdiction if kept festering for any extended period of time, and that fact alone was enough to have Aiden quickly stuffing his feet into the first pair of shoes he saw.

“Sorry, Minardi. I’ll be there in ten minutes if I hurry, and I swear I will.”

“You’d better hurry, or we’ll start without you,” Aiden knew Minardi’s threat was an empty one; the band certainly couldn’t record without their singer. But he humored him anyway, pretending to be afraid as he gave Ari a kiss on the cheek while he grabbed his jacket and hurried out to his car.

“I know you will, and I won’t make you. I promise.”

“I hope not,” Minardi told him, signifying the end of the conversation by promptly hanging up and leaving nothing but a dial tone against Aiden’s ear. Minardi never said goodbye. It was his habit and one engrained into the minds of all that knew him by now. Aiden chose not to be offended by it as others did and tried to focus on getting to the studio as quickly as possible. It was only twelve blocks away from his apartment, and in the thin traffic of early morning the commute was much quicker than usual. The bleached white marble of Palindrome Studios loomed before him in a matter of minutes, and he hunched into his jacket against the rain, hurrying into the lobby.

The tension in the air caused by the imminent recording session was palpable. As he dashed into the lobby and struggled out of his dripping jacket, he was aware of his four bandmates sitting in various seats around the lobby, obviously waiting for him. It was a rare occurrence, finding them in the lobby, and as they looked up at him as one single unit, he couldn’t help but wonder how much bodily harm they would have inflicted upon him had he been even a few more seconds late.

“Where were you?” it took Miho a grand total of three seconds to reach his side, and the moment he did he directed a firm, painful poke into Aiden’s ribs. “We’ve been waiting here for twenty minutes!”

“Calm down,” Aiden shoved the thin man who was both his friend and guitarist delicately out of his personal space and stepped toward the elevator. “I lost track of time. But I’m here now, right? Now, are we going to record or not?”

The other band members nearly killed him trying to get into the elevator.

XXX

Letting out a luxurious sigh of relief, Aiden tossed his wet jacket onto the floor as he closed the door of the apartment behind him. After a long day of recording, his muscles ached and his head throbbed, and it was a welcome treat to be able to throw himself onto his own sofa and kick off his sneakers. Rolling his neck across his shoulders to dim the soreness, he made a grab for the remote and switched on the television, glancing briefly around the apartment. It was empty; Ari most likely wouldn’t get back from her first day of rehearsal until later in the evening. She didn’t live with him officially, but she might as well have. She spent so much time in his apartment that he forgot she had her own sometimes.

Aiden gave a wanton sigh and let his tired silver eyes flick toward the screen. He had the apartment to himself for the rest of the day, and he was too exhausted to do anything but sit here and watch a rerun of Oprah. This was most definitely not monumental, and it depressed him.

He sat in a stupor for the next few minutes, doing his best to focus on the images on the screen. There was a popular actress in a revealing top with obviously fake breasts ranting about her latest movie, and he lost interest much quicker than he could have. Absentmindedly reading the red marquee of news as the bottom of the screen, he yawned widely and then suddenly froze when a particular sentence caught his eye.

“Pop idol Tiffany Streiber found dead in her apartment today at 12:30 PM.”

Eyes wide in horror, Aiden sat up on the sofa, eyes still glued to the red strip at the bottom of the screen. He watched the sentence go by once, twice, and then sat back, his body trembling uncontrollably. This was unreal. Head pounding, he couldn’t keep his breath steady. No one he had known had ever died before, and it was a horrifying concept to him. He stared hard at the marquee and waited for the news to go by again as if to reassure himself it was real.

“This can‘t be happening…” he said aloud, pulling at a loose thread on the hem of his pants. “Tiffany’s… dead?”

“Well, what did you expect?” an unfamiliar cold baritone voice cut through the air and made his blood run cold. Slowly, almost afraid to breathe, he turned his head to the left, and found himself staring straight into a pair of cold violet eyes.

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And the plot thickens…?

The story’s finally starting to get stable, and I’m not so worried about it turning out jumbled anymore. Yay! I’m excited to get going on the next chapter.

Review? Please? Advice and suggestions are welcome.