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Finally! After three days of procrastination, it's finished - my synopsis. I'm afraid that it's rather long.

...sorry. Ahem. I was just trying to fit it all in.

EDIT: Added some links to pictures. You know. In case you wanted to see what a feliss is, etc.

EDIT 2: For the record, I intend it to be a novel. It's only in four acts because the absolute best thing I'd like is for the outside of the book to look like the play the main character carries around.

The Red Matinee is Sphinx’s story. There are two stories, actually – one leading up to the Sphinx-ness and the other one after it, but the first is the most developed so far, and that will be the one I’m covering here.

It’s set in Janothor, which is a huge, artistic city – think of places like Venice or Paris, by reputation. It’s inhabited mainly by feliss, which are those cat people I have around the place, often in supporting roles. This is the story where they come into their own, however.

In Janothor it’s established that there’s the JPAC – the Janothor Performing Arts Centre. It’s the biggest theatre in the world, and home to the biggest pipe organ in the world, which is built into the back of the main stage (there are four stages). As well as performing ‘classics’ and the work of established composters/playwrights, the JPAC is famous for accepting submissions from unknown composers once every few years and performing the one they decide is best. This decision is made by a board of governors, based on many factors, not the least being the audiences they will attract.

Commence – ACT I!

ACT I
Hopefuls have already submitted their works several months ago, and they’re down to the best two in the judging process. These two unknowns – musical composer Monty-Gray Michael and the organist, part-time conductor and music teacher at the JPAC, Gerard Damián – are called to talk to the board about their decision. This is where they meet, waiting in the lobby for the final decision to be made. When they’re called in to hear the final decision, they get to see the board for the first time.

The Council (I am listing these so you know who they are when they’re mentioned again)
Queenie Whiskas – owner of JPAC
Frood Whiskas – Queenie’s son
Sullivan Singh – representative of the Singh family, who fund the JPAC
Thomas Cratchett – stage director
Elizabeth Ratsnatch - singer

Favour is already against Gerard – he’s a human, while all of the board (and Monty) are feliss. The only one there who would possibly show any preference towards him is Sullivan, who’s family has been contesting with Monty’s for business for many years.

As expected, the board have chosen Monty’s musical, Invasion, which is (bizarrely) about an alien invasion. Gerard’s opera, The Red Matinee is rewarded in words by the judges as being genius and wonderful etc etc, but there is no way they can perform it. It just wouldn’t make them any money, not in today’s thearetical atmosphere.
So, Monty goes off with his friends to celebrate.

Monty’s Friends
Elizabeth Ratsnatch
Trapple Door
Tripple Switch
Tobias Rodah

Gerard, however, is left in a foul mood – a very foul mood indeed. He skulks angrily around the empty JPAC all night, cursing everything and everyone in the world to hell. His old friend, another music teacher at the JPAC by the name of Marie Von Helson and quite an obsessive, batty woman, tries to calm him down and recommends that he looks to other methods of ‘revenge’ than killing Monty (as he is swearing loudly to do). Finally despairing, he prays to the old god carved into the pipe organ, Israfel (god of music) to give him the ability to write the best music he can, the best in the world, something they can’t reject.

Israfel, lurking in the edge of reality (I imagine them as shadows – Gerard cannot see them), is about to bless the desperate Gerard with ‘Israfel’s Gift’, a sort of Pandora’s Box of music. However, he’s not alone – another old god, Myrmx, is waiting in the wings. The thing about the old gods is that they only exist while people believe in them, and Myrmx is on the verge of evaporating into nothing. Fearing for his existence and seeing an opportunity here, Myrmx (who appears as a large black lion) attacks the other god and kills it. He takes Israfel’s Gift, and poses as Israfel in communicating with Gerard. Gerard, who can only hear his voice, agrees to exchange his will for the Gift (he’s… still very angry). Myrmx is an idiot, so he empties the entire box into Gerard’s head. End of Act I.

ACT II
Rehearsals of Monty’s musical begin in this section – the cast aren’t really notable except that Elizabeth is in the lead female role. In an attempt to cheer up the still-sulking Gerard, the theatre put him in the role of conductor, which only serves to rub salt into his wounds.

However, it’s while he’s grudgingly attempting to do his job that Israfel’s Gift kicks in – it creates music in his head, powerful music, moving music, so loud that he can’t concentrate on anything else. He tries, he really does; he ends up breaking his baton and running off screaming, while everyone else is sort of, “…that was odd…”

Gerard locks himself in his room, and nobody can get him out. He doesn’t eat, he doesn’t drink – in fact, nobody hears a peep out of him for several days until Marie forces her way into the room with food and confronts him. His room looks like a bomb filled with pages of music has gone off in it, and he’s still fiercely writing music as she tries to convince him to eat. He has also acquired a strange, bottle-green glass orb, about the size of a small basket ball with a dark mass of question mark swirling inside it like smoke, which is sitting in a make-shift holder on his desk. When Marie asks about it, he explains that he found it under his bed, and having it close makes the music quieter. Marie then leaves him, warning him that if he keeps this up, he’s in danger of losing his job and the students he teaches, including Penny Rose, a lovely young feliss girl.

This is enough to snap Gerard out of his isolation, at least a little, as he is infatuated with the dear Penny Rose. Instead of giving in to the music, he tries to fight it again, but this ends up causing him more pain as he pays more attention to it. One night, driven to the point of insanity with the incessant music, he curls up on his bed clutching the orb until his knuckles turn white and he’s in a cold sweat. The music swells to ear-drum bursting volume, and then cuts off entirely...

And Gerard is left in Myrmx’s physical form, i.e. he’s shape-shifted into a large black lion. Feeling empowered, he goes off stalking, and comes across Elizabeth’s room. With Myrmx urging him towards revenge, Gerard breaks in and… and we only see him later, transformed back to his human form and absolutely dripping with blood. He runs off to wash, rather creepily happy with himself. He’s found a way to get back at them, and he quite likes it. He’s lovely like that…

ACT III
Poor Sullivan is the one who finds Elizabeth. He’s looking for Gerard at the time, as he had neglected to pick up The Red Matinee and Sullivan is the kind of person who loves trotting around going “Have you forgotten something, maybe likely~? Mister Daymon, you left it~”. He happens to smell something strange in the corridor, and thinks what he’s found is stage blood and wonders why it’s there. He follows it, and finds Elizabeth, making him essentially go into hysterics, quite understandably.

The JPAC does the sensible thing and calls in the police, who confirm that OH LORD THAT’S NOT NORMAL. That’s probably the best way to describe the reaction, anyway. They send in the NJSD – New Jathor Supernatural Department – who specialise in crimes involving demons, monsters, etc.

Gerard, meanwhile, is swanning around being rather proud of himself. When the police are called in he quickly stops this, but this is as much because the music is coming back again as anything else.

Suspects are marked down as Monty (there was a little rather unimportant love triangle going on with him, Elizabeth and Tobias), Tobias, Gerard and Sullivan, and these people are investigated. However, the police are also searching for demon summoning things, an actual big cat, etc etc.

Another murder happens – I’m not at a decision of exactly who, but I need another murder in there. Please don’t bother suggesting anyone; there’s a lot more to all of the characters than I can actually fit in here and still have it readable, so it’s probably a waste of your time and brain power. Anyway. People are starting to get scared, now, and Elizabeth’s place has been replaced by Penny Rose.

The New Years Ball is coming up – Gerard was chosen to conduct the house band/orchestra, but he doesn’t turn up at all. People put this down to what is now being called his ‘migraines’ and leave him locked in his room. A surprise attack at the ball gives everyone a full view of exactly what is making the killings, and Monty is left wounded as the beast is chased off with several bullet wounds. Afterwards, people talking to the now recovered Gerard congratulate him on his extraordinary luck in not being present (*facepalm*). For the record, they can’t tell it’s him at this point because he fully regenerates when changing forms – so no bullet wounds.

The bullets, however, are found in his room by the police investigating, along with the orb and curious music. When he returns to find things moved, Gerard realises he’s in big trouble, and Myrmx encourages him to attack himself to throw them off the trail. Gerard, who’s missing more than a few marbles by this point, agrees and takes to himself with a knife he lifted from the lobby café. Marie is the one who finds him, and he’s rushed to hospital.

Penny visits him there with Marie by her side, and on Gerard’s request, Marie brings the orb. It’s noted by her that there’s less question mark in it now. This leads to – you guessed it – a nice big nasty rampage by Gerard that night. He discovers after attacking that the person he was clawing at was Penny (she’s not dead!) and, horrified, runs away with the orb.

ACT IV
We return to Gerard, and find that the place he’s run to is the highest room of the JPAC, the belfry of the old bell tower (the bells have been since removed, and it is left totally empty). He has the orb, and a gun which belonged to his father, loaded. He waits for Myrmx to contact him, and then they start to argue.

Gerard has realised (finally) that Myrmx is not a good thing to exist in his brain. He threatens him (i.e. the orb) with the gun, and Myrmx remains jovial. He seems to think that it won’t harm him, and the furious Gerard shoots it anyway in frustration.
It does, indeed, nothing – nothing to his benefit, anyway. The smug and horrible Myrmx explains that he only started in the orb, and with every transformation was brought further and further into Gerard’s mind. In order to prove this he triggers a transformation without the aid of the orb, which Gerard fights with all his will power. Eventually, they reach equilibrium between both their personalities and their forms – and so the character known as Sphinx by the second story is created.

Desperately frightened, hopelessly mad and racked with guilt, Gerard/Myrmx bolts back down to the main stage of the JPAC (empty except for some officers having coffee and cleaners), confesses his guilt and shoots himself in the head. And on this cheery note, we end.

Well, maybe. There might be a funeral. But whatever.
Of course, things that regenerate… tend not to stay as dead as people would like them too… and I will type out the sequel’s synopsis when I have figured it out in more complexity.

So. That’s it. =D Now you know. I’d like to hear your comments, your questions, and pleasepleaseplease tell me if you spot a plot hole. After three/four years, I’d like to think I’ve worked it all out, but you never know.

*gasp* I know what this makes me think of! Music-crazed Gerard reminds me of Mozart! Of course, Mozart's "demon" never actually manifested... Anyway, the story looks interesting. 3nodding