The arc bends, but not toward relief. For a moment, there was light, the faint promise of other futures, the whispered possibility of joy not yet known. But reality settles like dust: unchangeable, familiar, and quietly cruel. No matter the paths imagined, no matter the days dreamed up or the possibilities stacked like cards, what you wanted, truly and deeply, is gone. And that life will never come.

"Heartache" breaks the shape of what came before. Where the previous songs tried to stand tall or hopeful, this one lets itself collapse. A guitar speaks alone in the beginning, improvising freely, not searching for answers, just expressing what the heart can't contain in silence. Then, without warning or resistance, a melody returns, never reshaped, each time unmistakably belonging to one person. It plays again, not because anything has changed, but because nothing has.

Twenty-Sixth Shade (Heartache)

Claire's Prelude