There was the sound of plates clattering on the floor, and glass breaking. Yelling, screaming, and more shattering. Kayle covered her ears with her hand and closed her eyes, pulling her knees closer to her chest, safe within the four walls of her room. How long more would her parents fight?
She heard her stuffed toy bear drop from the bed and bent to pick it up. It was the only thing keeping her sane these days. That, and her violin. Her violin was a gift from heaven and her parents. She started out when she was three, and her current violin was a birthday present from her mother when she was ten. Just a year ago. They sent her for violin lessons with a professional ensemble player, hoping that their daughter would master this instrument. Of course, their expectations increased as she grew older, and they constantly urged her to join various competitions and audition for numerous orchestras.
Now, at eleven years old, Kayle already had multiple outstanding awards and her results from the examinations by the Associated Boards of the Royal Schools of Music (ABRSM) were consistently a Distinction, the highest grade. Her knowledge of music theory didn't disappoint as well. She had completed five out of eight grades for her music theory, and so far she had gotten all Distinctions.
As for her bear, well, it was hand-stitched by her late grandmother who had lost her fight against liver cancer. That was what Kayle's parents told her, but personally, Kayle thought that her grandmother had fought hard, and fought well. Her death was peace for her, a sort of comfort and rest, and also a victory.
Kayle was close to her grandmother. Her grandfather had died before she was born, and her paternal grandparents lived in Malaysia. They were kind enough, and often had good times together, but her maternal grandmother was the best.
The bear had been her last gift before she passed on.
Kayle could still remember seeing her grandmother in the hospital, weary and exhausted. Nevertheless, a cheerful and genuine smile was plastered on her face as she handed Kayle the stuffed bear.
The day after, her grandmother was pronounced dead.
Kayle went to the funeral. She saw her grandmother's body in the coffin, with too many people milling about, murmuring their condolences. Her parents had not been the same after that. It started with the simple things--her father working overtime more often, her mother taking on more shifts at work. Kayle herself had also spent more time alone than with her friends. And then one day, when she decided to look at her life, she found that they were all gone.
Like her parents.
All she had left was the stuffed bear which she named Mr. Bear, and her precious violin. It was a full size one, very different from the tiny one-quarter one she had when she first started out. But it was over a hundred years old, and it had a burn mark on the side of the violin, beside the fingerboard.
Now, Kayle wondered if she could escape with just those two items. If she could just go away for a few moments, collect herself, play the violin and cry herself to sleep while hugging Mr. Bear, she would feel an infinite times better.
She pulled Mr. Bear closer to her and curled up under the blanket.
~
When Kayle woke again, there was no sound, only silence. She waited a while before quietly opening the door and peeking out. Empty.
Should she go? Run? Escape? She walked around the estate often enough to know where she could go to hide. But with a violin and Mr. Bear she would be easily recognisable. Still, if she didn't go now, she didn't know when she could next go.
So she pulled on a black t-shirt and a matching hoodie, pairing it with the trackpants she had worn to her camp that year. She carried her violin haversack-style, and hugged Mr. Bear closer. She was small--standing at barely 5 feet, and she had narrow bone structure. Kayle wore her boots and then set out for somewhere she could be safe, if only for a few days.
The estate was quiet, and it was breezy. She spotted a few cats along the way, naming a grey and white tabby Pickles, and a striped torbie that sat in front of the cemetery Princess. There was also a solid white cat who seemed to be contented as it lay on its belly in between bicycles--Kayle named her Snowball.
There was almost nobody as she set her violin down on the ground in front of an abandoned house. The gate was low and fairly easy to climb over, so Kayle went to the other side, and unlocked the gate. It was the old-fashioned style of lock--sliding it to one side to open it. She picked up her violin and closed the gate, locking it. There was nobody there--as expected. She took out her violin and tuned it, before starting to warm up with simple finger exercises. Mr. Bear now sat on top of her violin case, its turquoise eyes looking warmly at her.
Kayle started playing when she was done, not recognising the tune until she played the melody. Bach's Partita no. 3 in E major, last movement, Gigue. She had learnt it along with the first five movements of the partita as requested by her teacher. It was a solo piece, and her teacher wanted her to be able to play a solo piece without any accompaniment, so that the sound of the violin could be heard, pure and clear. It wasn't a very hard piece, but neither was it a very easy piece to learn, with its many leaps of thirds.
When she was finished, she realised how much better she felt. With renewed energy, she kept her violin and left the abandoned house with Mr. Bear in her hand.
There was talk of a night market coming to town. Those markets were known as the Market Trials, for it was rumoured that a hundred years ago (give or take a few years), the Prime Minister had an executioner execute a hitman in the market. Since then, the market was demolished, but every once in a while, the government would allow it to come back, if only to reminisce about the old times.
Kayle herself had never been to one of these markets before, but she had wanted to go, badly. She remembered when she was young, she had walked past one, and she saw one stall selling these stacks of binded paper. The front and backs were colourful and unique, and when she got closer, she realised that inside they had words. Pages and pages of words.
Her father had come over then, pulling her back to the family. They had warned her never to go near the market again--it was full of dangerous things, they said. But that was last time. Now, nothing was more dangerous than her very own family.