Mel's POV

The Collins Children's Home

For the first six years of my life, you would find me at the children's home in Denver. Nobody wanted a child who told your biggest secrets. I was miserable, alone and scared, until the next chapter of my life came to light. A children's home in Texas had heard of the infamous six year old, who knew everything that she shouldn't. It was a home for orphan savants, and they had wanted to take me in. Suddenly everything fell into place. I wasn't alone, or scared anymore, I was surrounded by people like me. People who understood what I was going through, people with amazing abilities, because believe me when I say we had them all. People who spoke to animals, people who controlled the elements, sent pictures to the mind, controlled feelings, control the mind, even one person who could find things that were lost! It was amazing being surrounded by so many people who just got it. Who understood, that we would never be anything less than what we were. And so for the first six years of my life, you would find me at the children's home in Denver, the girl you would find thought she was a freak, she was a shadow of what she could be, but the next ten years of her life you could find her at home, embracing her life and accepting what she truly was.

I broke my line of thought and continue to fuss with my appearance in the mirror. Today was the day. I was finally sixteen. In the Collins children home they had a rule.
On your sixteenth birthday, they would reveal you past, and give you insight into why your parents put you into this place. The reason this rule was put in pace was due to the high amount of parents who placed their children here for their own protection, requesting the children be told where to find them when they are old enough. This was for a number of reasons only for savants.
Most of the time the parents didn't even have a choice in the matter. The net often made savants with a particularly high status put their children up for adoption due to fear for their information being sacrificed for the child's safety. I guess it must have happened once or twice before.
You didn't know what kind of child you were until your sixteenth birthday. Parents who place their children here had to write a letter explaining why the child was paced into the care home and if the child was allowed to contract them before they turned eighteen. I was found in another Children's Home, for normal human beings, so I knew I was not going to have such a letter. But maybe they had my birth parents names?

The children here didn't have last names, in case they were able to find their parents through them. When we got here we had a name or we didn't and in that case they gave us one. Last year a baby from Norway came here and they called her Nori Collins.
Collins is the last name of the savant family taking care of us. The family is seven siblings and a grandmother. All of the siblings have their soulfinder's with them still.

I looked down at myself. I was wearing black shorts and a grey tank top. I had bought these black alligator sandals about a week ago and I loved them. They had black rimes and didn't look too girlish. They were my first sandals, I usually only wore sneakers and boots. I had a million of sneakers. I didn't any high heels because I was already 6ft, I didn't need to be any taller.
I push my hair back, I had been experimenting a lot with it lately. It had ended up with me braiding my inner hair in tiny small braids. It looked amazing, in my opinion.

The mirror across the room shoved me my reflection. I was sitting in a wooden chair, my long legs were eating the floor and my long black hair eating my shoulders, arms, ribs, the chairs armrests and most of my shorts. I should seriously cut it. The waves flew around my face in soft snake-like-curls. My braids fell straight around my arms and back. My skin was a olive brown and my eyes were big and a dark green colour. I had the weirdest dimples. I would say I had a Hispanic look.

"Mel it's your turn now." Maria, one of my mother's said. We all had seven mothers and seven fathers and one grandmother.
We didn't call the Collins by their names, most of us just called them Mum, Dad and Grandma. My hands were sweaty and I was shaking. This was the moment I had been waiting for the last teen years! I was so scared that this moment was going to say that I really didn't have parents, or that I had a Mum or Dad who would never like me to contract them (if that was possible) or that my parents had died before this day. Shaking of fear I opened the door into the office.

I sat down in the chair. My Grandmother was the one handing out the letters to the Children. Last week Shirley got a letter saying that her parents were looking forward to meet her, and a ticket to Hawaii! She was leaving in a month. I was going to miss her a lot, she was one of my best friends.

"Hello Melodia." My Grandmother said. My Grandmother was the only one who called me Melodia. Everyone else called me Mel. I was more than happy about my nickname Mel, I didn't really like the name Melodia. I mean yeah it was okay but Mel was more me. I was just Mel.

"Hi Grandma." I said and smiled at her. She looked into my file.
"I think that you should read all of it yourself honey." She gave me the file and I looked at her in confused. But only a second, I couldn't keep my eyes of the file for half a second longer than that. My eyes scanned the file, there was pictures, hospital bills and the story I had been waiting all teen years to read.

M.N.B. placed in Denver's Children's Home by mother (16). Father never in the picture.

Was that all? Nothing else? I felt disappointment roll through me.
Then I saw it.

Melodia Noel Benedict

Birth 1st of August 1998

Craig Medical Centre, Denver

Birth Mother: Lisa Noel
Birth Father: Trace Benedict

AN: So Melodia is Trace' daughter.
This story is three years after Seeking Crystal