Infinite

Stranger

• ♫ •
Now I'm searching through our memories
Searching for ways to you and me
But no matter what I do
There's a stranger holding you
A stranger's holding you
• ♫ •

Reggie stared at the screen. He wasn't sure what he was looking at, but it didn't seem real. The only song he ever recorded had, somehow, ended up in the hands of a record label. And they actually used his voice. His voice, his song had been heard by... his finger hovered over the view count, which held an eight-figure number he didn't know could possibly exist.

Almost ninety million people had watched the official music video.

He had to give proper congratulations to the girl who recorded her voice to interlace with his—it was quite beautiful. He'd never heard of the singer and, after staring at the name for over an hour, he still didn't quite know how to pronounce it. Then again, this version was released a decade after he passed. He didn't know any of the currently famous singers.

"Reggie, you good?" He hadn't noticed that anyone else had shown up in the studio. Luke was off exploring Los Angeles or whatever it was he did during the day. Alex had Willie, and they tended to spend their days together, since Willie wasn't ever available at night.

"Huh? Oh, yeah. I'm fine." Lynn didn't believe him. She'd learned, after almost two months spent around him, that he kept way too much bottled up inside.

"Spill." She sat on the table that the computer rested on. He leaned back onto the couch, staring at her. He didn't want to talk about it with her.

She wouldn't get it.

"Just something from when I was alive. Nothing very interesting." Reggie shrugged.

"It is if you spend over an hour staring at the screen." Lynn rebutted, peering at the screen. She and Reggie had been spending a lot of time together since she got released from her charges, both in Pasadena and Los Angeles. They had to take every chance to do what they wanted. It could be taken away at any moment. "Oh, I love this song. But it's from after you died."

"This version is." Reggie bit his tongue, hoping to stop himself from telling her the full truth. "I wrote the original."

"You're the guy? They held a huge audition to see if they could find the person behind the voice. I think it lasted a good three years before they called it off." Lynn remembered the huge headlines.

Are YOU the original singer in "If Looks Could Kill"?

"I... I wrote that for fun. Nobody was ever supposed to hear it. I guess I must've dropped it just before I died, because it went with me everywhere. Nobody even knew it existed." The number of views still swirled in his mind, reminding him of the millions who loved what he wrote. A fluke chance turned into a miracle.

"It's amazing. Actually, it's my favorite song." He didn't know it could affect anyone that way, much less someone he knows personally. "That song speaks to people. It might not be perfect on its own, but having the duet and infusing two styles brought it to life. Life is about the merging of lives to create a beautiful harmony that no one can replicate."

A stellar idea struck Reggie's mind. (It wasn't often that happened.)

"Do you want me to sing the original?" Reggie offered, standing up. He didn't have the original instruments, but the piano would serve as a decent replacement for the bass and violins. He used the piano initially to dream up the song.

Lynn's smile got wider. "Yes. Please," She begged, excitement rapidly building in her. He started with the first verse, which got cut to be the second in the released duet. Reggie remembered what he felt when he wrote it initially. Admittedly, it was not about a girl. It was about a teacher and how her fierce glares made him terrified to do a single thing out of line. Eventually, he spun it differently, but that was the original inspiration.