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A Walkman with a black cassette tape filled with songs someone had randomly put together. Plus black headphones. That was it. There was nothing else in the box. No letter, no explanatory note. Nothing. Not even the messy black marker handwriting on the only white area of the cassette tape looked familiar to me.

Happy Birthday. Play me.

With growing confusion, I scanned the list of songs I had been listening to for the past hour once again.

The Wreck of Our Hearts – Sleeping Wolf

Light A Fire – Rachel Taylor

Until We Bleed (feat. Lykke Li) – Kleerup, Lykke Li

All Through the Night – Sleeping At Least

Fire Breather – LAUREL

You – Keaton Henson

Medicine – Daughter

Enjoy the Silence – Depeche Mode

Renegades – X Ambassadors

Under – Alex Hepburn

One More Light – Linkin Park

Your Heart Is an Empty Room – Death Cab for Cutie

The last time I had held a cassette tape in my hand had been ten years ago, when Dad had given me his old cassette player so I could listen to music while falling asleep. After his death, I hadn't been able to look at the thing anymore, and it had ended up in a box in the basement, just like his old cassettes from the 80s and 90s.

I hated that every time I found something in my surroundings that reminded me of my family, that painful hope flared up in my chest.

They were dead. They were gone. Forever.

But who could have brought me this cassette? And why didn't this person want to reveal themselves to me? Was it someone from my past who felt sorry for me and knew how much I loved music?

The thought nearly crushed me, because there was only one person from my past who knew me better than anyone in this town ever had. And I was more than glad that this person had left town.

Hastily, I pushed aside all the thoughts I had buried along with my parents and was about to put on my headphones to look for commonalities in the songs – anything that could tell me who wanted me to hear these songs – when suddenly a loud ringing tore through the ground floor and I flinched.

Nimb

Jay Varton

Immediately, I jumped up, certain that it could only be the person who had left me the box with the Walkman, and hurried through the ground floor to the front door.

Full of anticipation and with far too much force, I threw the door open and... froze in my tracks.

My heartbeat was the only sound hanging in the rain-scented evening air, audible to me and me alone. Not even the ravens of this town dared to make a sound.

It was as if a ghost was standing in front of me. A ghost that should no longer exist. But there he stood, a smirk on his lips.

It was really him.

He was alive...

four years earlier