Chapter 1: Prologue
London, UK
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"They say there's a ghost living here." A middle-aged auntie whispered to her friend as they walked past a neglected townhouse.
The row of neat brick houses from the 19th century was spoiled by the appearance of one neglected townhouse. The front yard was a mess of overgrown grass and decomposing plants, left there to rot. Weeds lined the little path to the cracked front door. Vines covered each and every cracked window, all of which had not been cleaned in years, with moth-eaten drapes barely preventing the afternoon sun from shining in.
"Yeah, I heard that too. She's always dressed in white, stares out the window every hour or so, and every night at 1:35 am exactly, she plays a funeral march, as though mourning her own death. My landlord says she died after being jumping off the top floor of this house itself!" Her friend shuddered despite the warmth. They paused in their walk to look up and down at the townhouse itself.
"What a horrible way to die..." The lady shook her head sadly. "They should really clean this place up. Maybe that would put her soul to rest--"
"Oh look, she's back at that window again." Her friend interrupted her as they glanced up at the middle window on the second floor. "Is she looking at us? We should go. It would not do to anger a lonely ghost."
"Yes, let's head off. I want to get that bargain at the supermarket before it ends." With that, the two ladies walked off, busily chatting about supermarket deals, putting the matter to the back of their minds. Little did they know, the 'ghost' they were talking about was a living and breathing person.
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That night, at 1:35 am, the funeral march sounded, slow and sombre, yet louder than the previous playings, as though trying to tell the world of the pianist's grief.
Bang bang bang! "Stop playing so loudly! We're all trying to sleep here! It's bad enough that you're playing this every night at this ungodly hour, so tone it down or else I'll call the police." The neighbour shouted out indignantly as he pounded the front door of the townhouse.
As though in retaliation, the volume of the march increased, building up to a climax that never came to be. An eerie silence hung in the air. "A-at least you know when to stop." Stuttering, his indignant manner seemed to have disappeared, leaving behind a somewhat spooked demeanour. He ran back to his house, not unlike a dog with its tail between its legs.
After an hour or so, the silence from before still had not left, suffocating those still awake. Not even a mouse dared to make a sound, yet if one listened carefully, they would be able to hear the beginnings of Beethoven's 'Moonlight' Sonata faintly in the background. She knew tonight would be the end, the last of all her days on this earth. 'Death by fire', they had told her. Perhaps it would be for the better. Hell surely couldn't be worse than what she had been through. A smile graced her face as the pungent fragrance of petrol invaded the air around her. It was here. She would be free after this. Increasing the volume of her playing, she moved onto the more jubilant second movement and laughed maniacally, as though possessed.
One by one, the neighbours awoke. That same man ran up to her house shouting, "I thought I told you to keep it down..." His voice trailed off as the entire building went up in flames, just like a circus performance. Yet, the notes of the sonata still rang out into the night. "Someone call the firefighters!" He panicked as he ran to get something to try and put the fire out.
She could feel the warmth from the flames slowly making their way towards her. She laughed again, almost enjoying this state that she was in. Her platinum blonde hair glinted in the light emitted, making her look almost ethereal.
At last, the third movement began, almost angrily. She picked up the tempo. Her end was near. "The firefighters are 5 minutes away," she heard. Tutting, she shook her head. If they wanted her dead, there was no way mere firefighters would be able to stop her death. And finally, the flames caressed her skin, but she kept playing, insistent on playing the sonata to its completion. She could barely feel the flames on her.
Suddenly, she felt a cold end of a muffled pistol stabbing into the left side of her back. 'Was this what they meant when they told me death by fire?' The attacker was thorough, shooting a bullet straight through her heart. Blood spurted everywhere as the bullet came out of her. She collapsed on top of the grand piano, producing a cacophony of sounds, abruptly finishing the incomplete sonata. The flames continued burning. It was the end.
'I must be free.'
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
JadedCat
JadedCat Hi hi, I'm JadedCat!
This is my first webnovel and to be honest, I haven't really written anything in 2 years so yeah, my writing's going to be a bit of a mess. *sheepish smile* I will probably also be really slow with my updates as I'm in the middle of exams at the moment so please bear with me. *bows deeply*
Thank you for showing interest in my novel and I hope you like it. :)