Episode 1

Prologue

One stormy night, a blood-soaked tiger ran amok. A ****** couple slept. The tiger tore their door off of its hinges. He prowled to where the couple slept, his huge paws gently stepping on the floor as he walked, and let out a low growl. The couple stirred from their peaceful slumber. “Mister Griffin, you have sinned, you took the lives of my wife and, thus, doomed my child to die, so I will just make you pay,” said the tiger, “You,” he placed his oversized paw on the man with a growl, “Will be imprisoned for the rest of your life, however, I am not heartless, I will allow you to say goodbye to your wife, even though I couldn’t to mine, and you,” he placed his paw on the terrified woman, “you married a man that took a very important life. My only heir will die… unless it has a new mother. You will finish carrying my child, as it has not been born yet, and you will take care of it until I die. If you don’t, I will kill him and the rest of this planet as well.”

As the man was dragged away, with a weeping woman, a light ascended from the ceiling, surrounding the woman and making her belly bulge. She started to scream as the pain of a 6-month pregnancy set in. Her husband was gone and she was going to have the child of a tiger. The world had forsaken this poor woman, and for only a little bit of love, no less.

Chapter 1

“Carrie! It’s been so long since I’ve seen you!” exclaimed my best friend, Charles.

“I’m glad the year of torture is finally over. We finally get to go to actual school again, instead of staring at a screen all day,” I replied. Oh, did I forget to introduce myself? I am Caroline or Carrie for short. I usually pick up on things pretty quick, but otherwise? I’m pretty much the most normal kid ever, not exceptionally beautiful, but not ugly. Not rich, but not poor. Not a genius, but not stupid, either. I like horses and music, I play the double bass, and I also got one for Christmas last year. My parents went a little over budget to get me an amazing German Pfretzschner one. They don’t look cool, but their sound is just so unique!

“Yeah, 2020 sucked. At least, we finally got the vaccine for coronavirus. Now we’re not always so holed up in our houses all freaking year again,” commented Claudia, my only other friend. We usually called her Claud, though.

“So, come on inside,” I said, we were a band. We called ourselves the Three Seas because all of our names started with C. I had known Claud and Charles for as long as I could remember. We usually practiced in my family’s music room. Charles played the guitar, and Sandy played the piano. We usually performed in parks and other public areas, but recently, our band was starting to get noticed a little more by other bands. The Two Cellos had invited us to play a song at one of their concerts in three weeks, to promote music for teens and younger. We would, of course, be playing with a whole bunch of other people, and we had two times, before the concert, where we would all play as a whole. Until then, we all would practice in groups.

“It always amazes me how you have such a big room dedicated to only music,” commented Claud.

“Well, we are pretty well off, and even though we aren’t rich, my family has always been a family of musicians. We never really had a purpose for this room. When we moved in, we put the piano here and after that, we started moving other instruments here too,” I said.

“I can’t wait for the concert,” said Charles as he started to unpack his guitar.

“Me neither, we have been so small time, but now we might actually get some attention, and I won’t have to play the keyboard at the concert, I will have a real piano there!” Exclaimed Claud.

“Yeah, the keyboard just doesn’t sound the same,” I agreed.

“I’m excited that we get to play with more people. We were all taught by our families, so we never really played with anyone else before,” said Charles.

“I just hope we do well. I hear that coordinating with that many people is hard,” I explained as Charles started checking the tuning of his guitar. At this point, Claud was setting up the music and music stands for all of us.

“I’m sure that we’ll be fine. After all, we are the Three Seas!” said Charles encouragingly, earning a couple of giggles from Claud and me, “I’m also glad that we get to play rock, after all, we have been playing it for a while. It’s kinda cool that we get to switch off with other players for different styles too.”

We then practiced for a few hours, working both on our various instruments as a group, and doing vocals. Claud had been offered the main vocals spot on the stage, while the rest of us had background vocals. Usually, we would switch off main vocals, but Claud had the voice of an angel, I could see why she was chosen for main vocals. At around noon, my mother brought us all sandwiches and carrots, as well as some fruits. She was always a good mother, and though she was on the weightier side, she worked hard to get money for the family, and she was really glad that I was working so hard for my dreams. Unfortunately, my father had died right after my brother was born. He was a year younger than me, and he hated music. He was probably out right now being a little punk, like the stereotype of teenagers suggested. Kids like him gave our age group a bad name. I hated it. Still, he was my brother, and he most certainly would be coming to the Two Cellos concert. Oh, didn’t I mention it before? The song we were playing was called “Thunderstruck.”

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The time passed incredibly quickly. As the time neared for the actual concert, the entire orchestra got riled up with excitement. Our band was up first. We were dressed like real rock stars, with our hair gel, face painting, and spiky clothing. The concert started. We were able to listen from behind the curtain, after they came backstage, the whole orchestra would go out onto the stage. We would play first, play some of the more memorable measures from Thunderstruck than the hip hop band would fade in with their song as we faded out, this would continue until everyone had gone, then we would all play a finale together. That was when we would do vocals, Thunderstruck didn’t have any vocals, so that would be when we would sing. After that, we would go to the tables in front of the stage where we would answer questions and encourage any kids who came to play music as well. We would sign autographs if they were wanted, but we weren’t famous people, so I doubted that would happen. As our turn neared, we prepared to go on the stage, checking our clothes and makeup to make sure nothing had changed.

We heard the two cello songs finish. They announced us. Then, they came back behind the curtain as us kids came onto the stage. Then, they were the ones listening to us. Claud sat at the piano. I set down my bass with the rock stops ready there. The lights came on. I was going to do the introduction because Charles (who was supposed to announce us) had gotten a scratchy throat today. I knew the intro by heart.

“Hello everyone, I am Caroline, all of us are here today to inspire the next generation to pick up music and to follow your dreams. Learning an instrument is difficult, but it is well worth it when you are the star on the stage.” We started our part, and as we did, I saw something peculiar. I saw a white tiger glowing with a tinted blue light. He was watching us. My breath caught as I watched it and it watched me. Its ribs were showing and it looked so frail that the wind could blow it away. It stared at me with a burning intensity. I continued the song, and something about the performance just seemed right. The other bands played, and I realized something I had never seen before. Every style of music was special, but they were all more similar than we believed. It was the same way with people. Animals too, and plants as well. We’re all the same. We’re all living creatures. What was wrong with me? I didn’t know. I never thought about this stuff before. Why now? The finale came and we finished off the song. We went backstage to put away our instruments.

“You alright, Carrie? You looked distracted,” asked Claud.

“I’m fine, I was just thinking about how awesome it was to be on the stage, in front of so many people. How there were so many people looking up to us, both literally and figuratively,” I lied.

“Yeah, it is awesome, isn’t it?” replied Charles.

We sat at the tables and answered questions, talked with people, etcetera. I even signed some autographs, more than I thought I would. By a lot.

After that, since it was late, I went home with my mom. As we pulled into the driveway, I saw something peculiar. On our front porch sat, like, 20 Basses. My mom stopped just outside of the garage and we all got out of the car. We walked over to the instruments. At least they were in cases. Having them out in the cold of the night would be bad for their strings. At least they had some padding. There was a card on top of the one closest to the door. It had my name on it. My mother silently picked it up and handed it to me.

I opened it. “To my dear daughter,” It said on the cover in a colorful font. My mother didn’t seem surprised as if this had happened before. My brother just walked inside and said “Bruh.”

“Mom, what the heck is going on? I thought dad died,” I inquired.

“I hate your father. Your brother is adopted, and your father took my husband and forced me to have his child. Still, I have raised you as my own, because you are not your father. You are a child that deserves everything any other child does,” she replied, with a trembling voice.

“Thank you mom,” I croaked, hugging her.

“As for the basses, I’m not sure what to do with them. Why don’t you take a look at them before we decide what to do? You know Basses better than I do, anyway,” She stated after she recovered.

“I don’t know about you, but I am going to sleep first, I’ll do it in the morning,” I said, bringing the basses into the music room.

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When I slept that night, the white tiger was there.

“Who are you?” I asked.

It tilted its head. “Why, I am your father.” He had a deep voice, one that I felt I recognized.

“You can’t be. I’m a human I can’t have a tiger father. Plus, I would prefer not to violate animal abuse laws for what my dad did to mom, also, there is no such thing as a glowing tiger,” I sneered, crossing my arms.

“Fine, then come to the park where you always play tomorrow. I will be waiting,” He bellowed, fading away.

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To check the Basses, I looked into the F-holes to see the labels of the workshops they came from. There was an ALCOA, another aluminum bass, they usually look a lot cooler than Pfretzschner and are “seamlessly welded,” but their tone isn’t as great. There are said to be only 50 ever made. There was a Master Dario Giovanni 2011 Bass as well. These were rare, last I checked, there were only 4 Dario Giovanni instruments for sale online. It was incredibly miraculous how whoever my father was was able to buy a Dario Giovanni Bass. There were other incredibly rare and incredible instruments in the area. I wrote down everything I knew about each of the Basses.

Needless to say, I went to the park. It wasn’t a long walk, I was going to see the scenery, I told myself, but I knew I was wrong. When I got there, there was more wildlife than usual, but they were also not as skittish as usual. A woodpecker even landed on my shoulder. I left him (or her) alone as I walked through the trees. I went to the clearing that I usually practiced in and laid down in the grass. The woodpecker took off as I plopped down. I closed my eyes, and when I opened them, he was there, looking down on me. I sat up and turned around to where he was facing. He was quite frail. I watched as he morphed into a human shape. He looked at me with eyes the color of the ocean, and he would have looked handsome, had it not been for the fact that he looked dead. He also was wearing clothes, thank goodness. “So, believe me yet?”

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