Page 27 of Discordant Cultivation

“There,” Vale’s voice came muffled through fabric, still behind him. “Now you can’t see anything except what’s inside your own mind. No distractions. Just the darkness.”

The drawstring pulled snug around his neck.

Not choking, but tight enough to feel suffocating. The canvas sucked against his mouth when he inhaled and pushed away when he exhaled. His own breathing was suddenly too loud, too ragged, too fast. He felt like he was boiling alive, then freezing, as sweat made his scalp itch and his neck feel damp.

“Breathe,” Vale said softly. “Slow down. You’re hyperventilating.”

Kieran tried to obey, tried to force his breathing into something resembling a normal rhythm. But panic clawed at his throat, screaming that he couldn’t get enough air, that the darkness was going to swallow him whole.

“Count your breaths. In for four, hold for four, out for four.”

Kieran focused on the numbers, on the mechanical act of controlling his breathing.In—two, three, four. Hold—two, three, four. Out—two, three, four.

Gradually, his heart rate began to slow. The panic receded slightly, enough that he could think beyond the immediate terror of suffocation.

“Good,” Vale said, and Kieran could hear the satisfaction in his voice. “Now. Play something. Anything. Just find one note and let it ring.”

Kieran’s fingers found the low E string and pressed down on the third fret.

The note rang out in the basement’s perfect acoustics, clear and resonant. Without sight to distract him, Kieran could hear overtones he’d never noticed before—the way the note vibrated not just in the guitar but in the air itself, in the stone walls, in his own chest.

“Another,” Vale said.

Kieran found a second note, minor third above the first. Let them ring together, dissonant, but somehow right.

“Keep going. Find the melody.”

But there was no melody. Just fear and darkness and the sound of his own breathing through canvas. Kieran’s fingers moved randomly across the fretboard, hitting notes that clashed and jarred, that sounded like what panic felt like.

“Stop,” Vale said, grabbing the neck of the guitar and muting the notes. “That’s noise, not music. Start over. Find something real.”

Kieran tried again, but his hands shook too badly. Every note came out wrong, buzzing against the frets or missing entirely. His fingers felt disconnected from conscious thought, refusing to execute even basic chord progressions.

Minutes passed. Five, maybe ten. Kieran kept trying to find something that might satisfy Vale, but terror made his playing worse with each attempt.

“Breathe,” Vale said from somewhere behind him. “You’re thinking too much. Let your hands move without planning. Trust your instincts.”

Kieran closed his eyes behind the hood, though it made no difference in the absolute black. He forced himself to stop thinking about what Vale wanted, about what would happen if he failed or what consequences waited in the darkness.

Just the guitar. Just the music.

His fingers found a single note—A minor, open string. He let it ring out long enough that he could hear it fade into silence.

Then another note. And another. A melody started to emerge, slow and sparse, with spaces between notes that felt like held breath.

“Better,” Vale said. “Much better. Keep going.”

Kieran built on the melody, letting each note inform the next one. Without sight, he had to rely entirely on sound—the way each note resonated, the quality of the tone, the feeling of the strings under his fingers.

The melody took shape gradually. Something about isolation, about being alone in the dark, about the specific terror of not knowing when the light would return. About being trapped inside his own head with no escape.

More time passed. The darkness that terrified him at first became almost familiar, a space where nothing existed except sound.

The melody grew more complex, harmonies emerging as he found chord progressions that captured the feeling of being buried while still conscious, still aware, still desperately seeking escape that wouldn’t come.

“Yes,” Vale said, and his voice was closer now. Not right behind the chair, but moving. “That’s it. That’s what I wanted to hear.”

Kieran kept playing, fingers moving with increasing confidence across the fretboard. The melody found its center in a phrase that kept returning—four notes, descending, with a rhythm that sounded like a heartbeat slowing down.