Ling Ling Deep Ling -

He raised his bow to the strings of his violin. He was attempting Paganini’s 24th Caprice for the thousandth time that night.

Driven by a sudden, desperate surge of manic energy, Elias lifted his violin. He didn't think. He didn't read notes. He simply let himself fall completely into the Deep Ling. Ling Ling Deep Ling

Elias opened his eyes. The walls of his practice room had dissolved. He was standing on a floating platform of pure, polished resin. Surrounding him was an endless, bottomless void of swirling sheet music. Tonalities and polyrhythms drifted past him like cosmic dust. He raised his bow to the strings of his violin

He played. His fingers moved so quickly they became a blur. He found the gaps between the seconds that Ling Ling spoke of. He discovered hour twenty-five, then twenty-six. He watched his fingers bleed, but the pain was distant, replaced by a pure, terrifying euphoria. He was playing the unplayable. He was touching godhood. He didn't think

The air in the room grew thick, vibrating at a frequency that didn't belong to any known musical scale. The ticking of the clock slowed down, ground to a halt, and then began to spin backward.

The entity began to play. It was a sound so complex, so impossibly fast, that Elias’s brain could barely process it. It was flight of the bumblebee played at Mach 5, layered with Bach's Chaconne, transposed into fifteen different keys simultaneously. It was beautiful. It was terrifying. "Match me," Ling Ling commanded.