Midnight Orchestra

A Short Story By Sarah Wettberg

Excited by the howling winds, branches smacked against the window. Crashing waves, shouting “hush” to the storm. Thunder bellowed in reply—every cracking boom, followed by a quiet pause.

“Hush,” the ocean cried.

“Let us in, we beg of you,” the branches pled.

“Shut up, shut up, shut up,” Saffron Davies said through clenched teeth. Her hands covered her ears and dug into her scalp.

“Who?” called the wind.

Saffron rocked in sync with the clamoring trees.

Then came the screams, contained within the halls. Creeping closer with every passing night. Beseeching mercy. Anguishing overtures of the midnight orchestra.

Her time was coming.

They all pretended it wasn’t happening; collectively dissociated from the routine clean-up of body parts that followed the shrieking symphonies. Memories of the fallen tenants—instantly and forever forgotten.

Saffron had no idea when she stumbled upon this place, it was beckoning her home to somewhere she no longer remembered. Its soul song struck the chords of her heartstrings, harmonizing with her desire to be free. At last, a place to rest her languishing body.

The ocean’s gentle lullaby soothed her wary mind. The breeze whispered secrets through the trees, and sunlight glittered through their branches. Everything welcomed her home, with open, loving, arms. She fell, wholeheartedly into them.

She fell and continued to fall.

Her first year was blissful—tucked into the comfort of her suite. Perfectly insulated from the horrors. Then, slowly but surely, the sleepless nights crept in. The gentle love songs of nature were replaced with acrimonious hums. Distant screams she mistook as howling winds or coyotes, began to draw closer and louder. The weight of the sleeplessness made her feel like an over-ripened fruit, heavy on the branch, waiting to fall. With a gentle thud. Surrendering to softness. Succumbing to the fermenting rot. Awaiting absorption back into the earth.

They were ripe for the picking. And those who fell on their own were simply absorbed.

The beguiling lure of surrender found her, under the guise of freedom. She would be free and all she had to do was let go. Release her want for more. It was a trust fall into the possibilities with the promise of weightlessness. Just let go.

Hand over your cares, child, the walls murmured. Shadows of the evening crawled across the years, plucking her worries and cares one by one.

Each resident was relieved of their burdens. Much the same way one withdraws seeds from fruits before devouring them. Long gone were the seeds of hope and dreams, expertly extracted, well before the seeds of doubt and fear. The tedium was worth the succulent feast.

Peeling and tearing the residents apart.

A branch slapping Saffron’s window roused her from a light sleep. An incessant uttering of “no,” seeped through the walls, followed by blood-curdling screams. The midnight orchestra’s crescendo. She curled the sides of her pillow over her ears, barely muffling the shrill racket emanating from the other suite. She heard several thuds all at once—the sound of his swift and brutal dismemberment.

More screaming as his roommate was next.

Then came the deafening silence.

The blue of morning washed the ink of night from the canvas of day. Saffron mentally prepared to wash the blood from the walls. A ritual cleansing, releasing the residents once and for all.

With darkness satiated, the sun would once again shine.

A soft hush cradled the building. The walls exhaled, the last of the violence settling into silence. The midnight orchestra played its final note.

Saffron lay still, her fingers pressing lightly into the fabric of her pillow, feeling the lingering warmth her tense body left behind. She should have felt something—fear, grief—an instinct to run. But all she felt was a slow, creeping weightlessness. Like the earth itself was letting her go.

A sigh rippled through the walls. Hunger pangs of restless boredom. A low rumble of layered voices—thin like fading echoes.

The encore was imminent.

Shadows emerged from the rapturous applause. Saffron watched with bated breath as the golden light of morn was devoured by the peckish. They did not rush her. They did not lunge. They only waited.

She had spent so long dreading this moment. Clutching at her body, her thoughts, her memories, as if they were things she could keep. But hadn’t she known? Hadn’t she always known?

Saffron released her breath in a slow, steady exhale. She let her fingers uncurl and her shoulders drop. As the shadows reached for her, she did not fight.

The first touch was not a tear. Not a rip. It was an unspooling as if something within her had been wound too tightly…bound by fears that no longer mattered. Her limbs unraveled like thread slipping from its spool. The tension in her chest gave way, unwinding in long, quiet ribbons.

Her body fell away in pieces.

But she did not.

She was not being devoured…nor lost.

She was joining the music.

A final breath—barely more than a whisper…

“Hush.”

And the wind carried her away.