I remember exactly when it started. It was the 4th line, 27th bar, last chord, the position a second inversion, of the piece Midnight. I could hear his footsteps as he came near me, the faint and steady rhyme that I knew even better than a C major scale. I whipped around, my bow slashed through the air, still maintaining the position of the chord, but there was nothing, no creepy sensation of an approaching hunter, nothing.

I try not to let it bother me too much as I played on. This piece is extremely difficult, and my performance is tomorrow. It’s somber and melancholy, the notes are hence low and rumbly, depicting the running clouds of midnight, the vast and lonely sky sank in its ruminations, only to be disrupted by the hooooos of an owl – i.e., the chord positioned in the second inversion. Here comes another nightbird…singing its song with a major chord and a high pitc…My fingers stopped short as an icy feeling started to creep up my back. I’m being watched, I’m being followed, I’m terrified. The nightbird’s song stopped mid-note as I inched my head to look back, pupils dilated and sweat accumulating from my forehead. Again, nothing. The only movement were from my fingers, quivering on the neck of the instrument, its strings cutting into my flesh.

Taking a few deep breaths, I glanced at the clock, 00:26, oct 31. Nearly 30 minutes past midnight, no progress practicing this late into the night. Reading A Christmas Carol probably made me paranoid, all these ghosts. I rested the fiddle and went to bed.

The examination starts sharply at 19:00, oct 31. I took a deep breath and positioned the violin on my shoulder, the sheet scripting Midnight before my eyes. First line. Second line. Third line. Fourth line…The owl stirred…A cold started to creep up my spine as the owl hoos. A pair of eyes seemed to penetrate me, but I know it’s just stress on my conscious, it must be. It’s coming nearer, I could feel it. His footsteps synchronizing with the notes of my music. But I can’t stop, this is important, I can’t, my brain is just playing a joke on me. It’s coming, I can feel it, It’s coming for me…No, No, NO, take a breath, steady your hands, no need to worry, no need to worry, no need to wor-