Brittani had once believed in magic.
In childhood, she imagined realms beyond this one, secret kingdoms where hope never died. But as the years passed, those dreams faded—buried under bills, exhaustion, and a love that had curdled into cruelty.
She lived with Adam in a tiny, drafty cottage at the edge of a nowhere town. The walls seemed to close in tighter every day, matching the way Adam’s words cut sharper with each passing month.
“You’re delusional,” he told her one night, slamming a cupboard shut.
“No one wants to see a middle-aged woman make music. That time in your life is over.
You’ll never make a comeback.”
Brittani didn’t respond. She just stared into her teacup, her hands trembling. Her health had been failing for months, her body heavy and weak. The more she hurt, the more Adam seemed to resent her. His laughter no longer held love—only contempt.
But deep inside, a spark flickered. A whisper. A memory.
The Pull of the Manor
Strange dreams began to haunt her.
A towering Victorian house, a beacon calling to her. A spider web glowing green in the night mist.
A voice calling her name—not Adam’s voice, not even her own, yet part of her.
When she found the listing for an old manor in tiny village, Ohio, something inside her leapt. She’d never been there, yet she knew it.
“This place,” she told Adam, eyes shining. “I need to see it.”
Adam scoffed.
“Need? What you need is to stop chasing ghosts.”
But Brittani couldn’t explain it. She just knew this house—this Zarlequan Manor—was hers, though not in this life. Not in this realm.
The Woman in the Glass
The first night in the manor, Brittani stood in front of a tall, dust-covered mirror.
And there she was.
A woman who looked exactly like her, yet not.
Older. Stronger. Crowned.
The reflection moved its lips without sound, but somehow, Brittani understood.
“You are more than you’ve been told,” the woman said.
“I am Bryndella, Empress of Zarlequan.
You are my reflection in this world. It’s time to remember.”
Brittani staggered back, heart racing.
“I’m losing my mind,” she whispered.
“No,” Bryndella replied, her voice calm and unshakable. “You are finding it.”
Adam never saw the figure in the glass.
No one did—unless they, too, were from the other realm.
Lilith and the First Song
Days later, Brittani met her neighbor, Lilith.
Lilith had a haunting voice, and one evening, Brittani heard her singing an unfamiliar melody in the garden. The song sent chills racing up her spine. She knew it, though she had never heard it before.
“What’s it called?” Brittani asked breathlessly.
Lilith tilted her head. “Barbelo. It’s an old song from long before this place. You used to sing it, once.”
That night, Brittani sat at the piano for the first time in years.
The music poured out of her like a confession.
Barbelo was born—a song about suffocation and despair, and the fragile, stubborn hope that refuses to die.
Monster – The Darkness We Choose
The day Brittani began writing Monster wasn’t born out of anger—it was born out of grief.
She had been scrolling through the noise of the modern world, reading post after post filled with cheers over someone’s death. It didn’t matter that the man had been controversial, or that his beliefs clashed with others.
The celebration of death pierced her like a knife.
“When did we forget how to be human?” she whispered into the empty music room.
As she sat in silence, the weight of it all pressed down on her.
Politics, sides, labels—it felt like a game designed to turn neighbors into enemies.
And people were playing it so well they didn’t even notice they’d become what they hated.
That night, she began to write.
Her hands shook, tears falling onto the keys of the piano, but the words came clear and strong.
Monster wasn’t about Adam’s cruelty anymore.
It was about all of us—the danger of letting our hurt and anger twist us into something unrecognizable.
Lyric Excerpt:
“Don’t be the monster you’ve warned me about,
Don’t be the scream in an angry crowd
We can build a bridge or burn it down
The better truth is what should win — not who shouts the loudest sound.”
When the song was released, the mist around Zarlequan Manor swirled like a storm.
The realm on the other side stirred restlessly, as if responding to her plea.
Some shadows were drawn to her compassion.
Others were drawn to the chaos.
Monster became a warning and a mirror, reflecting the truth:
We each have a choice.
To feed the darkness… or to rise above it.
The third song came softly, like a memory drifting down from the stars.
Brittani had been walking through the misty grounds of the manor late one night when she felt as though she wasn’t alone.
The moon was full, its silver light broken by clouds.
She thought of all the fragments of herself she had lost—her dreams, her voice, her joy.
That night, she wrote Pieces of the Moon, a song about gathering those scattered fragments and becoming whole again.
“Pieces of the moon,” she sang,
“Dance begin soon.”
The Awakening
When Brittani released her three songs into the world, the manor responded.
The mirrors shimmered.
The air thrummed with unseen energy.
And in the corner of her eye, she saw shadowy figures moving through the mist.
By daring to create again, Brittani had unknowingly opened a portal to Zarlequan, the realm she once thought was only fantasy.
In that other world, Adam was not cruel. There, he was Baaklarm, a protector and ally.
And Brittani was not merely a singer or a wife.
She was Empress Bryndella, protector of the realms, the voice that calls the lost home.
The line between worlds was thinning.
And Brittani’s music… was the key
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