Sometimes, his mind was a symphony even when he slept. The notes of a fugue, gentle and lilting, were his companions this night, captured in the clear glass prism of dream as undulating color-sounds, drifting across what might have been a landscape, had it contained any geographical features whatsoever. It didn’t and it wasn’t, but in the amicable embrace of sleep, he didn’t think to wonder at that, and simply accepted it. He had the vague notion that he was waiting for something, though he knew not what, and floated what may count as forward, seeking after the cause of the nameless pull in the heart that this version of him did not possess.
The music grew louder as the maestro (as he was sometimes called here, and somewhere else he could not remember) moved, but to his sensitive ears, there was an irregularity, an imperfection, something that did not belong. At first, he tried to ignore it, resolving that surely it would flee in its own time, but as the hours or seconds or years drew onward, it became only more insistent, a little niggle somewhere in the back of his mind that pressed upon his senses like warm cotton, stifling the other instruments one by one until it was distinct, the thin lines of a silver bell-chime.
But why was it here?
Hello? Can you hear me? A voice somehow broke into his sanctuary, and it was no tuneful aria. Indeed, the cadence was soft, as though distant, but the undertones of panic were clear even so. Harsh against the imminent, inexorable peace that came from the fugue, it seemed to match more closely the sibilant but discordant chiming. He did not understand, but he knew that understanding was not achieved without investigation, and so he moved again, this time seeking those things which had disturbed his internal orchestra.
Alessandro sat up suddenly, pulling in a lungful of sharply-chilled air. The abrupt motion made him dizzy, and though one gloved hand braced him against the yielding ground, the other rose to his forehead, rubbing at his temple as he blinked, trying to clear his vision and allow his eyes to adjust to the stark brightness of what appeared to be… snow? Yes, surely. A field full of newly-fallen snow. And a house a short distance away. “What… on earth?” he murmured softly, turning his head to look around further. There was a woman, gently shaking another prone form of some kind, but then she stood, and a man entered his visual field as well, speaking slowly and at volume enough even to be heard.
Deciding that this was as good a time as any, Alessandro pushed himself to his feet, gathering his long legs under him a bit awkwardly before he was able to properly stand. He still felt a bit woozy, but of greater concern was his location. Wracking his brain, he decided that the last thing he could remember was walking to the concert hall, having just exited the cab that dropped him about a block away to avoid the myriad of cars trying to park. Not for him, of course; there was a basketball game occurring in the sporting complex across the street.
How was it that he remembered a trivial detail like that, but nothing afterward? At first, he thought he might have been attacked or knocked out violently, but he was in no pain and seemed to be free of injury. He doubted he’d been dosed with chloroform or something similar, but it seemed the only plausible explanation. Either that, or he was dreaming. It was certainly surreal enough to be one of his dreams, but in this as with life it was best to go along with events and see what happened.
“A good question,” he agreed mildly. “And another: do either of you remember how it is we came to be here?” He glanced towards the small manse. Perhaps someone in there would know, though he wasn’t sure he wanted to approach it just yet.