The Half Pin

Chapter 1: The Offer

     Explosions weren't nearly as badass in real life as they were in a movie. In real life, they were downright terrifying.

     As windows detonated like shrapnel, it was a wonder how he hadn't yet been sliced to ribbons. As flames erupted in earth-shattering plumes, it was astonishing he hadn't melted where he stood. As black smoke and crimson heat consumed the entire manor like the jaws of some greedy, snarling beast, he had to wonder....

     How the hell did it come to this?

     His hiding spot wasn't a very good one. Far enough to feign some kind of innocence from the burning shit-show before him, maybe. But intimate enough to raise a few eyebrows. Close enough to where the almost-adult couldn't look away. Perhaps close enough to remind him he shouldn't look away. That he didn't deserve to.

     Because he had to debate how much of this was his fault.

     And so, he sat in those bushes. Sat and watched clouds of inky smoke and scarlet flame rage over two stories of cracking wood, fragmenting glass, and a broken future now overpowering the autumn night sky. And by the time the sirens blared through the air to signal the coming of help, he just closed his eyes.

     It was probably already too late.

                                                                 *************************

     Mo was no Nat King Cole or Keith Jarret.

    But he'd be damned if every moment in front of a piano didn't make him feel otherwise. There was just something about the sensation of ivory keys beneath his fingers; the musical plunk of hammer and string and the flow of melody that followed that just dragged him under, like the undertow of the ocean.

     To be fair, Mo's expertise fell more towards something classical, like a good Mozart or a nice Chopin. But since nobody ever came to a piano bar to drink themselves stupid to Piano Sonata No. 1 in C Major, the polar bear didn't mind making the air feel more like a speakeasy and less like a concerto. It worked for him either way. It made him light. It made him forget things.

     Things like how he was spending his Friday night in the hum of a local bar on a double shift. Or the drunken ruckus of customers flitting in and out of the winter cold outside. Or the stench of cheap cologne fighting for supremacy over deeply fried foods and harsh booze.

     No flames and smoke. No buildings that burned and lawns that blazed with crimson hues. No heat pressing in on places he didn't even know it could—

      "Achoo!"

      Mo sneezed. And just like that, the song ended.

     Reality crashed into him alongside dim orange lighting and a headache from hell with the roar of applause behind him. The bar wasn't very large. Just a wide square cut out in the middle of a shopping district that made it all the more cramped on a Friday night. The piano stage was just slightly raised over the rest of the bar, allowing the mud-and-charcoal hues to hit Mo's senses with the aggression of a drive-by as he wobbled to stand while shaking it off.

     It was more packed now than before. Part of the reason why the ursine's boss plopped him on the piano during his shift anyway—pure crowd bait. And he sighed—he was going to need a moment to handle them after. So, Mo took a curt bow and bravado-ed himself to the restroom before another wave of dizziness had him clutching the sink for dear life.

     "You're clearly sickies." A high-pitched voice sang at the bathroom door, "And I'm gonna' tattle."

      "Aye—this is a boy's bathroom." Mo huffed at his coworker, waited to hear her flit away, then sighed. Whoever said polar bears didn't catch colds deserved a good tar and feathering. Sweat made Mo's curtain of ice blue hair stick to his snowy fur. The sugar-cookie parts on his face were just as frazzled, and he splashed water on himself to try and perk up.