Disclaimer: I don't own Midnighters or Melissa or Rex. Scott Westerfeld does because he's amazing. :)
The Run
Summary: Melissa's Run to find Rex when she was eight-years-old and wearing cowgirl pajamas. From Melissa's POV and no dialogue whatsoever!
By: Mella
For only a small time every night, the noise in my head nearly stops. I've noticed this for a while now, yet at first, I could barely believe it myself. These words that plague my mind are thoughts, human thoughts. But why do I always hear them yet no one else does? I've asked my mother and father about them, but they never tell me anything different. All they do is laugh and tell me to stop joking around or at serious times, even consider sending me to something called a therapist whatever that is. The first time they tried though, I refused and somehow, they never forced me. Out of fear, probably.
There's another thing I noticed. Touching someone tortures me; a person's thoughts are amplified a million times with a slight brush. When my parents held me as a naked child, I bawled. Then, they only held me in blankets. They always knew something was wrong, but I never told them of that one time of the night.
This time is my own, shared with just my thoughts. It's the time when midnight is and everything turns blue. I'm not sure how long it lasts, but the world stops for that moment. At exactly 12:00 midnight.
Only one other's thoughts are in this time with my own. At first, I thought them to be my imagination, just a figment to keep me sane. But I refuse to be alone in this blue world any longer. That's why tonight I'm running off to find that voice, the one taste in my mouth after all others have fallen.
It's only minutes before the midnight blue world and my stomach does somersaults. Maybe I should just back out now... But then I'll be alone again. No, I refuse to be alone. If this isn't real, then perhaps I'll just wake up in my bed like it was all a bad dream. A bad dream...
One more minute remaining and my eyes close while I lay on my bed. My parents are talking together in their bedroom, I can taste them along with other random thoughts pushing themselves around throughout my mind. I open my eyes again, knowing that with them open, the thoughts aren't as strong, not as concentrated. Yet they're still alive in my mind.
Until all sounds cease. My body sits up, rigid. Tonight I'm going to find him, my voice. Scrambling, I realize I don't have much time. I should have prepared myself for this. It's too late now. I have to leave.
My legs carry me down the stairs and I hurriedly slip my shoes on, not noticing my socks had been left strewn across my floor. The moment my door opened, my feet took off down the street following the taste in my mind...the taste of an old friend somehow.
Only after passing a few houses, my breath started getting ragged, but I continued. My legs told me to stop, but the taste...it wanted me to continue. I wanted to continue, to find that long lost friend I'd been listening to for so long. Somehow I didn't mind if it was living or breathing, just as long as I reached it.
Everything around me twisted, distorted itself into odd shapes and figures. My eyesight started to fade. Inside, my lungs burned and my heart raced. Yet none of this bothered me. My mind was in a dream-like trance unlike anything I'd ever felt before. It was set on reaching the taste, the only taste in the world for me.
After eight years of living with panicky, selfish, and disdainful thoughts in my head, I wanted someone stable, someone who wouldn't look at me as a freak. For eight years, those are the thoughts I've put up with. Everyone around me avoided me because I frightened them, knowing what they felt even without words. For me, being alone was a normal ordeal, yet I despised it. I wanted to be with someone, anyone who would believe me and not be frightened.
Finally, I realized it. No normal human would ever look at me as a friend unless they had a gift like mine. A normal being wouldn't see me as a gift but a menace. I barely believe myself to be a gift, maybe these thoughts are my curse. But why then does this one taste, this one thought, make me feel as if I really am purposeful? Maybe this taste is what I live for... I have to find it.
When my mind sets itself again into finding the taste's location, I notice my eyes are no longer focused on anything around me. Everything from faraway to near is blurred, blue is the only color I see. The world glistens in a blue mist, yet I never run into anything, not once. My legs take me exactly where I need to go without guidance. The taste leads me straight to it.
Then, my legs stop. My breath escapes in short heaves. My world is filled with the same blue mist. My one goal of the blue world time has been completed. The taste is merely feet away from me. My eyes slowly clear and for the first time, they lay themselves upon the taste I've been searching for, a boy only slightly taller than myself. My heart nearly stops as I realize the run really happened, my mind didn't just produce an illusion in order to keep me sane.
It gave me reality.
It gave me a friend.
It gave me Rex.