Rain lashed against the windows of Máté's small Budapest apartment. Inside, the glow of his monitor painted his face in shifting colours. News sites, forums, social media – all displayed fragments of the same growing panic.
It had started subtly, a reported anomaly, a strange piece of music heard in disparate locations. Now, it was a global phenomenon. A simple, haunting piano melody. No discernible source. It just... appeared.
Sometimes drifting from an empty street corner, sometimes seeming to emanate from the walls of a home. First reports surfaced from coastal towns in Portugal, then remote villages in Japan, followed by incidents in sprawling cities like São Paulo and Chicago. The internet connected the dots long before official channels acknowledged the pattern.
Máté leaned closer, scrolling through a thread on a message board. Users shared frantic accounts. Someone in Toronto heard it while walking their dog; the animal had gone berserk before collapsing.
A woman in Seoul swore it came from her television, even when the set was unplugged. The accounts varied, but the melody described was always the same – melancholic, strangely beautiful, and deeply unsettling.
The consequences of hearing it were becoming clearer, and they weren't uniform, adding another layer of terror. Some listeners vanished without a trace. Others fell into catatonic states, unresponsive to any stimuli.
A few developed an obsessive compulsion, attempting to recreate the tune on any available instrument, failing repeatedly until madness or self-destruction took them. The connection was undeniable: hear the music, become a statistic.
He ran a hand through his dark hair. Twenty-two years old, working a dead-end data entry job from home, Máté felt a familiar isolation long before the world started whispering about phantom pianos.
His parents lived hours away in a rural village, blissfully unaware for now, he hoped. His few friends were scattered, mostly online acquaintances. This new threat amplified his solitude into something sharp and cold.
He clicked on a news report, a shaky phone video uploaded from Italy. The camera panned across a piazza. People were running, screaming. In the background, faint but clear, the piano notes drifted.
Máté slammed the laptop shut, his heart pounding. He couldn't listen. Not even a snippet. He knew, with a certainty that settled deep in his gut, that hearing it meant the end.
Days turned into a week. The melody, dubbed "The Sonata of Silence" by some morbid corner of the internet, continued its relentless, random appearances. Governments offered conflicting advice. Stay indoors. Avoid public spaces. Use noise-cancelling headphones.
Nothing seemed foolproof. Stories persisted of people hearing it through solid walls, through the best audio protection money could buy.
Máté stockpiled non-perishable food and water, turning his small apartment into a fortress against a threat he couldn't see or predict. He unplugged his television, his radio.
He triple-checked the seals on his windows, stuffing towels into any conceivable gap. Silence became his shield, but it was a fragile one. Every creak of the floorboards, every distant siren, every gurgle of the pipes sent jolts of adrenaline through him.
His phone buzzed. It was his mother. He hesitated, then answered, forcing his voice to sound normal.
"Szia, anyám," he began.
"Máté? Are you alright, drágám? We saw the news… this strange music…" Her voice trembled slightly.
"I'm fine, Mom. Really. Just staying inside, being careful. It's probably just mass hysteria, you know?" He lied, hating the false reassurance he offered.
"Are you sure? Your father is worried sick. He wants you to come home."
"No, I can't risk travelling. It's safer here, locked down. You and Dad just stay put, alright? Don't listen to strange things. Keep the radio off unless it's official news."
"But Máté…"
"I have to go, Mom. Work deadline. I love you. Tell Dad I love him too. Be safe." He disconnected before she could argue, guilt gnawing at him. Bringing them into his fear felt like cursing them. Staying away felt like abandonment.
He spent hours online, not looking for news anymore, but for solutions. Acoustic foam, lead lining, active noise cancellation theories – he devoured technical specifications, architectural forums, sound engineering discussions.
He needed absolute silence, a dead zone where the melody couldn't reach. His savings dwindled as he ordered materials online, paying exorbitant prices for express shipping.
The deliveries were terrifying intervals of exposure. He'd crack the door open just enough to grab the packages, heart hammering against his ribs, ears straining against the sounds of the hallway, the street below.
Was that a faint C-sharp? Did that car horn echo with a strange musicality? Paranoia became his constant companion.
He started construction on his sanctuary – the small, windowless storage closet off his main room. He lined the walls, floor, and ceiling with layers of mass-loaded vinyl, acoustic foam panels, and dense insulation.
He sealed the doorframe with thick rubber stripping, installing heavy-duty latches. It was cramped, stuffy, and claustrophobic, but it was the quietest place he had ever been.
He dragged a mattress inside, along with a battery-powered lamp, water bottles, and protein bars. This would be his final redoubt.
The world outside the closet door grew increasingly fractured. Supply chains broke down. Emergency broadcasts became sporadic, often cut short by static or, in one horrifying instance Máté read about later, replaced by the phantom piano melody itself.
Online connectivity flickered. The threads Máté followed became filled with panicked goodbyes, broken sentences, or simply stopped updating.
One evening, huddled in his makeshift bunker, Máté heard a faint tapping at his apartment door. He froze. It couldn't be. Deliveries had stopped days ago. The building was supposed to be deserted; management had fled.
The tapping came again, more insistent.
"Hello? Anyone there?" A woman's voice, thin and reedy. "Please, I saw your light earlier... I need help."
Máté remained motionless, barely breathing. Helping her meant opening the door. Opening the door meant letting the outside world in, sounds and all.
"Please," the voice sobbed. "My husband... he heard it. He's not... he's not right. I don't know what to do. I just need water, anything."
He pictured her out there, desperate. He pictured her husband, another victim. His own isolation pressed in on him, suffocating. Was survival worth becoming this inhuman?
He stayed silent. The sobbing faded, replaced by shuffling footsteps receding down the hall. The silence that followed was heavier than before, thick with his own cowardice and shame.
He didn't know if she or her husband were infected, if her plea was genuine or a lure. He couldn't risk it. He couldn't risk the music.
Sleep offered little escape. His dreams were filled with discordant notes, phantom limbs playing invisible keys, vast empty concert halls where he was the only audience member, waiting for a performance he knew would destroy him.
He woke often, drenched in sweat, the oppressive quiet of the closet his only comfort.
Days blurred. He lost track of time, measuring his existence by the depletion of his supplies. The lamp's batteries were running low. The air grew stale despite his makeshift ventilation attempts.
Doubt began to creep in. Was this working? Was he just delaying the inevitable in a self-made tomb?
Then, it happened. Not as a sound from outside, not through the layers of insulation and foam. It began inside his own head.
A single, perfect piano note. A G-minor.
It resonated not in his ears, but in the bones of his skull.
Máté gasped, scrambling back against the padded wall. No. Not like this. It wasn't possible. The room was secure, silent.
Another note joined the first. Then a third. Slow, deliberate, building the familiar, dreaded melody. It wasn't coming through the walls; it was originating within him.
The insulation, the seals, the silence – they were useless. The phenomenon wasn't just sound waves travelling through air. It was something else. Something that could take root inside a person.
He clamped his hands over his ears, pressing hard enough to make his skull ache. It did nothing. The music swelled, intricate and clear, playing directly into his consciousness.
It was beautiful, achingly so. A lament for a world falling apart, a siren song for the end of everything. He understood, in that moment, why some sought to replicate it. It felt like truth, like the universe humming its final, sorrowful tune.
Panic seized him. He thrashed in the confined space, banging against the soundproofed walls. He screamed, but his voice was swallowed by the padding, unheard by anyone, drowned out by the music in his head.
He had to make it stop. He had to silence the source. But the source was him.
His eyes fell upon a metal tool he'd used to install the door latches – a heavy-duty screwdriver. Desperation clawed at his sanity. If the music was inside his head, maybe... maybe he could dig it out. It was an insane thought, born of pure terror.
With a guttural cry, amplified in his mind by the internal orchestra, he raised the screwdriver. He didn't aim for his ears – he knew that wouldn't work.
He aimed for the source, the core of the sound resonating deep within his brain. He jammed the sharpened point against his temple, grit his teeth, and pushed.
Pain exploded behind his eyes, white-hot and blinding. He screamed again, a wet, choked sound. He felt a sickening give, a tearing sensation. Warmth spilled down his face.
He slumped against the wall, the screwdriver falling from his numb fingers, clattering softly on the padded floor.
The music didn't stop.
It intensified. The pain became part of it, a percussive counterpoint to the melancholy keys. His vision swam, darkening at the edges. He could feel his body shutting down, the systems failing. But the melody played on, clearer than ever, weaving itself into the very fabric of his dying consciousness.
He didn't die, not completely. His breathing grew shallow, his heartbeat faint, but some spark remained, trapped within the ruin of his body.
The physical damage was catastrophic, irreversible. He was paralyzed, blind in one eye, the injury profound. Yet, awareness lingered, pinned beneath layers of agony and the relentless music.
And the music had changed. It wasn't just in him anymore. It felt like it was starting to emanate from him. Not as audible sound – the closet remained deathly quiet – but as something else. A resonance.
A vibration that seemed to thrum from his very cells, reaching out, seeking to join the global chorus. He became a silent instrument in the Sonata of Silence.
Trapped in the dark, soundproofed closet, unable to move, unable to speak, unable to scream, unable even to properly die. His final act of defiance hadn't silenced the music; it had transformed him into a unique, living conduit for it.
A conscious node in the network of despair, forever playing his part in the requiem for humanity, feeling the vibrations begin to pulse outward from his broken form into the waiting silence.
His own personal, eternal, soundless concert had begun. The ending wasn't oblivion, but an awareness locked within a grotesque, unending performance. A brutally sad, unique fate crafted by his own desperate hand.