PeaceMaker

Each and every one of her notes was intertwined to form a chilling mix of emotions. They touched the people in the audience, filling them with thoughts that were either buried deep in their minds or giving them memories they didn't even have themselves. 

The plucks of the high tones of the harp, the way it mixed into the complete organized mess of the main sound, the deep tones of the long, last string resonating in the room along with the sound. It was a very deafening, yet intriguing sound. It was setting off sirens in everyone's mind. Putting them on edge, moving them to tears as thoughts of pain and anguish resurface or filling them with thoughts of understanding as they could feel the terror in the sound of the piece, the signals, and sounds of bombs sounding over the music in a very disorganized yet in tune manner.

The feeling was absolutely surreal. 

There was no feeling of flying in the sky and no feeling of being at peace, there was only anxiety, pain, and sorrow in the mix of the notes that she played. It was this humbling emotion, one that brought their souls down to earth in mere seconds, one that reminded them of the hell they had to go through at times and how hard those times were.

All comfort that might have existed in that piece was now gone, only replaced by reality. The agonizing pain of reality. 

The memories stirred from her playing was of a mix of sorrowful, harsh memories. It was not only that of the generals that sat in the audience, their lips tightly pressed against each other as they remembered the blood-bathed battlefields and their fallen comrades. It only reached that of wives, their minds remembering a time as they would stay at home, patiently waiting for their husband's return after the war only to be met by their brooch and worse, a piece of their body when the rest couldn't be found. 

It reached those of young men as they re-lived the painful times in their childhood, whether they were training for war or facing an event in their life where they were harshly looked upon. The beady eyes of their parents and adults peering down at them. It touched those of the young women who carried the weight of their family on their shoulders as e prizes of their family. Forced to fit into the long line of rules society faces for them, squeezing into the mold premade for their future since their birth.

For the kids, it filled with a deep sense of sadness of not knowing what was to come of them as they were all aware of the expectations they have to live up to. The norms they must follow to grow into the most perfect lady or gentlemen.

Annabeth's fingers rolled up to the thin notes and this time instead of playing it cleanly, ran her finger down the string as she plucked, giving it a very raspy sound that rang into the main theme. Like fingers clawing down on a chalkboard, the people in the crowd jumped at the sound, their heads jerking up as their breath was sucked in and their waist pushed in, pulling them into an upright position. 

'War…' Annabeth thought to herself as she played, her fingers moving at an impeccable speed as she played out the complicated, ever increasing and slowing the tempo of the piece, the tension created by her fingertips filling up her mind. 'War is not just something that is fought on a battlefield.'

A mother bowed her head and covered her eyes as her injured husband pulled her close, comforting her with her hand. His eyes tightly closed and opened to reveal one blank eye, his vision robed away in war. 

'War is in families,' Annabeth thought. 

Staring intently at her was her mother, Mrs. Crowly whose eyes peered at her daughter in both admiration and fear. To her side, her husband snuck glances that her that never went unnoticed but never went replied. He tried to tap her shoulder but she feigned ignorance, the distorted harmony of Annabeth's playing filled their minds. 

Annabeth let out a little sigh and continued with her piece, her hands playing faster and faster, the corrupted sounds of the music created from her harp not only playing the concept of war, but also bringing it to the room itself. Her music brought down the horror of the word 'War' and brought the anxiety that was usually accompanied by false bravado as people attempted to face it. 

It set the room with a whirlwind of emotions that didn't seem to subside, people drowning in emotions they never knew they had or had bottled up for the longest time. 

'War was in every motion in the world, every land on earth went unspared. Where there was conflict, there was war, where there were humans, there was conflict. War was something that everyone faces one way or another in their life whether or not they believe it,' Annabeth thought.

The room was filled with sounds of sobbing and the silence of gritting teeth as people tried to hide what they felt. Some clenched their fist in anger, yet held back due to an underlying emotion that kept them pinned in their place. It was the realization of reality, The harsh truth that everyone tried to run away from by occupying themselves daily. 

The truth of how we were all suffering, how we were all fighting amongst ourselves in ways we didn't even seem to notice. To the competition merchants, to the little kids on the street that fought over a piece of stale bread that was going to be their only meal that entire day. 

'From family troubles to the remembrance of a memory that would never be able to return, to even those that lived with blandness in their lives. Those that spend their days alone, repeating the same routine again and again or those that had nothing to do and watched the grass grow,' Annabeth thought to herself, 'everyone was at war with themselves and their environment.'

She looked up, piercing yes opening to survey the room. She looked back down to her fingers that danced across the strings of the elegant harp. 'War is everywhere.'

Her fingers danced faster and faster, racing up and down the strings, brushing harshly against the strings she wanted to sound harsh, and plucking peacefully the strings she wanted to be heard clearly. 

She was climaxing, the piece was climaxing, the room was climaxing. The people were climaxing. 

She climbed and climbed to the top reaching for the ending she needed, reaching for the peak she wanted to rise to, racing to the cliff she wanted to fall from. It was close, she could feel it. So did the people in the room. 

They wanted to call out for help, scream that they were uncomfortable, that the music was dragging them along to some place that they didn't want to venture into. But they were stuck in the interwinding notes of the harp, being strung along with the music. They were beyond saving. 

At the top Annabeth reached, slapping her palm into the harp once more and then letting go of all of the strings, their song ringing out like one roar, one painful cry that rang out into the air. A cry of desperation, a cry of sorrow and pain. 

It resonated off the halls, ringing in the audience's heads like a hammer slammed into a gong. Hitting them like a loud thud and then washing over them like a tidal wave. 

Slowly the piece came to a quit stop and the room grew to a standstill. It was funny how at the break that they sought, at the break that they cried for, their breaths were held at the peak as they looked down at the steady fall in decline.

Annabeth paused for a moment, leaving them at the edge of that cliff, letting them stare down at the hell they were about to fall into. Then her fingers raised up to the strings, and with a second longer break than anticipated, they smashed into the strings, a harsh, coarse, overflowing sound emanating from the strings as her fingers danced down from the top strings to the bottom, her fingers brushing against each note on her loud arpeggio. 

It was almost like the notes were screeching. Like they were screaming as they descended down the notes of the harp, each note screaming out in pain as their lives slowly came to an end at the beginning of another. 

The audience jumped, their hearts dropping to the ground as the music from the har brought them down headfirst to the ground, pushing them to the soil faster than the speed of light itself. 

Then as abruptly as the demonic screeching of the decline of notes in the piece was born, it seeped out of existence. It ended with the same long last string of the harp as it's sound resonated off the walls. Its long deep sound melted into the same melody played at the beginning of the piece. 

The serene peace, the calmness of the piece once again flooding the room. This time it hovered in the air as the people below it basked in the pain of the agony that had been pulled over them. 

Slowly the tranquilness of the melody came to an end, Annabeth's pace slowing down significantly as she played its final notes. Her fingers lightly played the remaining notes in her piece and finally brushed against the last note, the last string of the harp. 

It's sound rang out in the room, delivering the last dose of shivers to the people that laid exhausted in its presence to receive it.