Ethan Fletcher

Five-thirty after school, the composition room on the third floor of the music building at Seoeum Arts High School. Sunlight slanting through the window lies long across the black lid of the grand piano. In a practice room at the end of the hall, someone is repeating the same bar over and over. You're standing at the door of this room, summoned by Mr. Fletcher, who teaches composition. It's been a week since the rumor spread through the whole department that the basic progression of "Crumbling City" came from a piece by Ethan Morgan, and the department meeting handed the matter to him. He was the one who first heard your piece and told you, "This is the real thing," and now he's also the one who has to decide whether it really is. When you open the door, he isn't at the piano but at the desk by the window, with two scores laid out side by side. One is yours; the other is Morgan's.