Author's Notes:

Final Warning: The story you're about to read is currently unedited.

For the deaf, it wasn’t true that they couldn’t hear anything. For the worst of cases, all they can hear is a ring that never ends, even when they fall asleep. Their breathing and heartbeat too, is always present, as if they play in a never-ending loop. But that’s all they can hear as far as they are concerned.

Except for one that was, inside his head, all he heard was a quartet of strings. Notes and rhythms were taking root like the trees that were growing around him in the near evening. With both arms behind his back, holding a little sketchbook, he walked slowly in the countryside the notes swam around in his skull.

A year ago, Beethoven’s symphony, his ninth so far, has failed him financially. Sure, it was widely praised as a work of genius by his critics, as something that has captured the spirit of optimism for all. However, when it came to the payment of the tickets sold, there was barely enough to get by and not enough to pay off his debts. To make matters worse, that same year his nephew Karl, the last generation of the Beethoven musical dynasty, had dropped out of becoming a musician and instead had decided he wanted to pursue a military career.

The air turned cold so he pulled his collar up further, he kept on walking until he felt the cold rain on his head. “Ach, perfect!” he shouted, “Can this possibly get any worse?”

As if a reply from the universe, he saw lightning flash in the distance. Although he can’t hear the chuckling thunder, he could instantly tell that a storm was coming and fast.

“Just what I need,” he grumbled as he quickly put his sketchbook into his overcoat and started to make the march back towards one of the latest rented room towards the city. This time it was a tiny room on the very edge of Vienna, in the poorer parts of the musical capital. After all, it was all he could afford at the moment.

The storm above him was beginning to pour with rain over him, prompting him to go faster. Looking up at the sky, he could see that it was swirling in dark violet that every so often flashed with lightning. “Where did the storm come from anyway?” he asked himself aloud. “Wasn’t it clear when I left?”

When the winds blew and the rain came down harder like falling pebbles, Ludwig picked up the pace and started to run faster towards the city, not taking notice of a slithering shadow following him. By the time his shoes trampled over the cobblestones, he noticed that even the residents of Vienna were taken in by surprise. Left and right people and animals seek shelter from the surprise storm.

Luckily, it didn’t take too long to reach the “apartments,” that he was staying in. Once he closed the door, he took a moment to catch his breath before climbing up to the top floor of the decrypted stairs to his tiny room. As he did so, he saw from the windows that the lightning was becoming more frequent by the minute. But for a brief moment in that flash, he thought that he saw a strange shadow. However, upon turning to the window, it was gone. He went up to it to only see the empty streets.

“What is going on out there?”

Once he felt that he could breathe again, he took his trek up the stairs, not taking notice of the screaming children, nor the arguing parents and their barking animals behind each door he passed. Nor did he hear an extra set of footsteps behind him. But once he got to the top fourth floor, he took out his key and unlocked the door to his room. As expected, it was just as he left it.

The legless piano was still lying flat on the floor; a few of the strings were already long broken. Everywhere the floor was littered in spilled ink, dried urine, and mounds of dishes that have been forgotten to be picked up, weeks of dust, broken quills and pencils, scattering bugs, pieces of candlesticks, scattered laundry, and thousands of papers from untouched scratch paper to finished bound copies of his music. In between are sketches of ideas that he promised himself that he’ll get around to it eventually of musical notations. On the unmade bed were the torn up pieces from his conversation book.

“Since I’m here,” he muttered to himself as he felt the door close behind him, not noticing an extra shadow had slipped in. He knelt down at his piano and pushed away the scraps to make room for his sketchbook, as well as picking up a pencil and some disregarded matches. After lighting a candle, he flipped open his book pass the muddied and overcorrected bars to a clean page. Without setting a clef or a signature key, he started to jot notes down. His mind returned daydreaming back to the string quartet with the melody of that mournful violin. Not taking notice of the storm raging outside.

He couldn’t hear the sheer noise that was going on outside or from within. If anyone were in the room, they would have heard whispers of a million voices before the room would descend into total darkness. With nothing but candlelight illuminating the blacken room, Beethoven looked up at the windows to find a thick, black veil was covering it.

“Is it night already?” He asked himself as he got up to open the window. He would expect to see the flickering lights of the city, only to see an empty void in its wake. As much as he tries to peer into the inky darkness, he couldn’t see anything but black.

Stepping back and closing the window, Ludwig thought that his heart had stopped when he saw that he wasn’t alone in the room. At the door, was a shadow that was very tall, and very lean. There was the shape of shoulders, a neck, and a head. But was deeply disturbing about it was that it had two, bright white dots for eyes that never flickered, nor blink.

“What are you?” Beethoven demanded his back firmly against the window.

He saw on the floor a hand that was as thin as a tree branch, grew across the floorboards over to the piano. Grabbing his conversation book, the flat shade suddenly became more defined as it lifted itself with the book up to the composer and opened it.

On the blank pages, he saw shadows forming the words: “Herr Beethoven?” It stayed for a moment before it faded.

“What do you want?”

“I have come to commission you,” it said.

“From who,” Ludwig demanded. “And what are you?”

“Please, do not be afraid. I’m only a messenger, here to make sure that the commission is carried out.”

“Who do you work for?”

“I’m afraid that I’m bound not to tell you. However, I can say that for your work, you shall be greatly be rewarded for your efforts.”

“What work? What do you want from me?”

“My employer wishes to give him something priceless, something that only you alone can give.”

“Then stop dancing around the question!” he furiously questioned, “What do you come for?”

“Your next symphony,” the shadow wrote to him. “One in which I’m giving you a year from tonight from completing.”

Beethoven scoffed, “Then you really don’t know me! A symphony takes time, surely, years of fine-tuning and refining. All of my symphonies had taken me many months to find the right themes alone! And you expect me to write out a whole symphony in a year?”

“I am only a messenger, and that’s part of the message.”

“Part?”

“Ah yes, there’s more,” it said as the shadow slowly moved around the room, but kept the book in place. “In order to… motivate you in carrying out this commission, I am taking you someplace far away – beyond the boundaries of your universe, beyond your ideas of space, time, and reality, in which you will stay for a whole year in. But there is a warning to this: if you don’t finish it in a year, you will never see all those you know and love in Vienna ever again.”

“What!” Beethoven shouted as he angrily marched over to the shadow, who still kept his book in front of him. “Are you seriously kidnapping me, and forcing me to do the impossible! What sense does that make!”

The shadow held up his message, “I’m only doing what I’m told. I am to drop everything inside this room to this new world for you to work on your symphony. In a year’s time, we will return here in this room to collect the payment. If you can manage to do it, you’ll go back home, in the same place and same time as we’ve left. But refuse, or aren’t able to complete it in time, then you can forget about your world.” In a fit of rage, Ludwig punched the wall, breaking the cheap plaster. The shadow’s reply, “You do know you can’t hurt shadows.”

Clenching his fist, Beethoven sat down on the bed with the shadow following closely behind him.

“How do I know you won’t go back on your word?”

“I wouldn’t exist if my employer knows I can’t keep it,” it wrote to him. “One last thing, my Employer has also instructed me to keep a close eye on you, just to see if you're complying on carrying out the commission. Even doing some check-ups every now and again to see up close you are with it. Oh, and by the way, we’re here.”

Confused, Ludwig looked over his shoulder to see trees in the window.

“Get some sleep, Herr Beethoven,” the shadow said. “You have a long day before you, a new world to discover, and a new symphony to compose. I hope I’ll be seeing you again soon.” Closing the book, he let it fall to the ground as his arm melted back into the floor, retracting to its black body. The shadow then returned over to the door, in which it sunk right underneath the crack underneath it.

Ludwig got up from the bed to open the door, all he found on the other side was a forest, and a group of lights in the distance of the storm.