To not clog up my blurb, I'll do it here. Quick disclaimers and stuff and for the peeps who like skipping through things like this, joke's on you.

This is part of my personal content celebration season where I go wild and bust out some ideas that have been rotting in the backdrop for a long time now. I call this cluster of works the AUXPR2023. This means "auxiliary projects of 2023". Therefore, if I want to extend it to the coming years, they can simply be known as AUXPR202X. There will be a part called The AUXPR2023 Works at the end of this book, so you can go ahead and see what else I have coming up on this celebration!

(Cae from 2024: This is released a lot later than intended, but I didn't want to change anything anymore. xD)

This is an unofficial entry to the Open Novella Contest 2023. Hence, it is based on the following prompts:

6 - Can we go back to the start when we were all strangers in the dark?

20 - You finally build enough courage to talk to that cute someone you see every day on the bus. Their face turns dark as they respond "You shouldn't be able to see me."

25 - "If he smiled at you, he'll break your heart. If she winked at you, she'll rip you apart."

44 - Music is the bridge that can join people together regardless of their differences. Connect your diverse characters through their love of music.

This is a stand-alone work but it's still under the bigger umbrella of works under the Arcane Universes. You can read this without reading all my other works. However, I would greatly appreciate it if you checked them as well. They're found at the end of this story, in a part called More From Exequinne, so watch out for that list!

This is an unedited draft. This is not line-edited so you'll see a lot of possible typos, some unflowy sentences, and most likely, some degree of bad phrasing. I see them all the time so don't worry, I'm way ahead of you there. No need to scream about it in my comments section.

This is also a reworked version of the flash fiction entry I did for DreamlandOutreach's Bottled Dreams Anthology for 2023. I felt that I have to widen its scope and...yes, a novelette will do the trick. It seems like 2023 is the year of novelettes for me. xD

So, yeah. Head on to this trainwreck of a story that oozes all the emotional damage I am known for. It's also my poetry brought to life through prose, and I'll have you see for yourself before I ramble about and spoil it in this part.

There are hidden songs in each one of us. Are you ready to let yours out?