Disclaimer: I am simply a curious teenager who likes to write. I always liked the concept of how Melissa and Rex met for the first time, so I decided to write something about it. Scott Westerfield wrote the Midnighters books; he therefore owns all the characters and the premise. I own nothing except the words themselves.
You Saved Me
You count down the seconds until the storm of voices will recede from your mind. Once every night, just for one hour, you will be free of the stampede of other people's fears and dreams, left to hear with perfect clarity all the troubles that worry your own mind. At the stroke of midnight, in five, four, three, two one—
--
You awake with a start, and glance at your clock. The numbers glow eerily in the darkness, flashing 11:59 p.m. A second later, an ocean of blue washes over the town where you have lived all your life, and suddenly, all is quiet.
--
Sitting up in bed, you concentrate. As usual, the voices in your head have disappeared - smothered in the blue – but you know that he is out there, somewhere. You have heard him before – the young boy, tossing and turning in bed, chased by nightmares that he can never escape…
--
You sit up, hugging your knees. As much as you would like to escape this terrifying, unexplainable time, you know that sleep is impossible. You simply must endure it, night after night. Even if you could fall asleep again, every time you succumb to slumber, the images that crawl across the insides of your eyelids are worse than anything the blue midnight could conjure up.
--
Finally, you find him. He is quieter tonight, but his mind is still ever present, a pulsing reminder of humanity in the midst of this land full of monsters. You taste the fear and loneliness emitting from him, like a mixture of burning rubber tires and soggy Cheerios, swirling in your mouth, coating your taste buds with its foul flavor.
--
In the darkness, your mind is free to wander, free to ponder all the possibilities of what horrors your father has in store for you tomorrow. You know that tomorrow night it will be the same as always. Your parents will scream at each other until your mother finally drives off in disgust, gone for the night to who-knows-where, and your father will turn to you, being the only person left for him to take his rage out on. The beatings, you can handle – all you have to do is close your eyes and wait for it to be over. But the tarantulas...
--
This is it, you decide, this is the time. You creep out of bed, tiptoe past your frozen parents' door, and venture out into the night, wearing only your cowgirl pajamas. Following the taste of solitude, you run silently through the stagnant streets of Bixby…
--
Curled up in a raggedy blanket, you try desperately to think about happy things, and fail miserably. All your mind keeps coming back to is that you are alone, utterly alone and friendless. You are a freak, the only human conscious during this strange interstice in the middle of midnight. No one is out there; no one is coming to get you. The world will never understand you, and the feeling is mutual. The only purpose you will ever have is to be your father's punching bag.
--
Your barefoot feet hurry down the dark path, unsure of where to go, with only the faint voice in your head for direction. This is the most bizarre thing you have ever tried to do, but you did not really have a choice. There is another person out here, and you are going to find him.
--
You feel like you should be crying, but you are beyond tears – you have reached a sad acceptance. All your life, you have had dreams of another midnight child coming to find you, coming to save you from this nightmare… but you must come to reality now. No one is coming for you. No one is going to save you.
--
The tastes of the boy's thoughts begin to overwhelm you, giving you a splitting headache, so you are sure you must be getting close. Finally, you reach a small, rundown house with paint peeling off the sides. This is it, you are sure of it. You tiptoe up to the front step (although you know this is foolish – no one except the one you are trying to reach can hear you), and knock on the old, wooden door.
--
Thump. You hear a rapping on your door, and you give a start. Is it possible? You throw your blanket off yourself and run downstairs, hardly daring to believe it. Part of you knows that it is probably a trap, but the hopeful part of you is stronger – after all these years, could there truly be another like yourself?
--
The taste of stale loneliness instantly morphs into a mess of held back anticipation and many other emotions that you cannot pinpoint. You hear the patter of feet not unlike your own, and the door is thrown open to reveal a small boy, a little shorter than you and very thin. A look of wonder comes over his face. "My dream came true!" he whispers. "Someone finally came for me."
You look back at him with raised eyebrows, concealing the fact that you are just as overjoyed to find another person alive in the frozen midnight as he is.
He stares back at you in wonder, and finally murmurs, "You saved me."