Chapter 10: The Final Verse

The studio had never been this still.

No phantom harmonies. No glowing meters. No ghost-written melodies.

Just Leah, sitting at the keyboard, Miles flickering beside her in half-light. The Playlist was gone — sealed behind chord-locked doors.

All that remained was the final song.

His.

Not the half-formed verses of the lost, not echoes borrowed from Leah’s heart.

His.

Miles had spent lifetimes absorbing everyone else’s unfinished work — stitching grief and longing into haunting ballads and spectral duets. But this time, he would leave something wholly his own.

A signature.

A release.

Leah leaned forward. “You know what it sounds like yet?”

Miles hovered his fingers above the keyboard. “Not quite. But I think I know what it feels like.”

She nodded.

They started slow.

A single note.

Then another.

No loops. No overlays. Just truth.

And truth, it turned out, sounded like absence and acceptance at the same time.

It sounded like the first time his brother sang with him. The first time he choked on stage. The last voicemail his mother left before she passed.

It sounded like Leah’s laugh when she thought no one could hear.

It sounded like him.

Cassiel watched from the veil’s edge, unmoving.

The rules were clear: once the final song began, interference was forbidden.

All Miles had now was his voice.

And her.

The middle of the song came in waves — one verse led to a key change, then a sudden tempo drop.

Leah didn’t question it. She trusted the current.

Miles sang over her chords, his voice woven with light.

It filled the studio — a quiet eruption. Grief turning into clarity. Loss melting into memory.

Then silence.

They reached the final line.

It hovered between them, unspoken.

Miles hesitated.

“What if… when I finish it, I disappear?”

Leah blinked back tears. “Then you’ll finally be free.”

He shook his head. “But I’ve just found my voice. Just found you.”

Leah set her hand on the keyboard.

“And if you stay, you’ll fade into someone else’s echo. Again. You wrote this song to end.”

He looked down. The silence between them deepened.

Then, softly, he smiled.

“You’re right.”

Miles took a breath that didn’t come from lungs.

He sang the final line.

“I was never lost — I was just unfinished.”

The chord rang out, suspended in golden light.

Then:

A shimmer.

A dissolve.

Like fog caught in morning sun.

Miles smiled at her one last time.

And vanished.

Falling Action:

Leah sat alone in the studio.

The air was warm. Still.

The keyboard glowed for a moment, then went dark.

She wiped her eyes.

Opened a new file.

And titled it: The Final Verse – by Miles Raines.

She uploaded it anonymously.

No credits. No royalties.

Just a note in the description: “For those who thought their stories would never end.”

Cassiel stood in the Field Between.

Behind him, the Playlist pulsed softly — no longer screaming.

He turned toward the horizon and saw a new light rising — not spectral, not divine.

Creative.

Miles stood beside him, fully formed now. No glitches. No echo.

Cassiel nodded. “Ready?”

Miles looked back at Earth once.

“No regrets.”

And stepped forward into soundless brilliance.

Leah stood onstage weeks later, opening for a rising indie act.

Her final encore was a stripped-down acoustic track she never advertised.

She played one chord.

And the crowd went silent.

No one had heard it before — not really.

But everyone felt it.

A song about closure, forgiveness, and the ghost of a voice that finally found its ending.

The applause was thunderous.

As she took a bow, she whispered to the spotlight:

“Thank you, Miles.”