Going onto another list since the last one was finished and I find this kinda fun. Okay, really fun. Melatonin is a real medicine for sleep; it's a natural hormone-extract-thingy. I should know, I take one at least once a week. I don't know if insomniacs use it (I just have trouble GETTING asleep sometimes) but I suppose it probably would help them if they did. Major Montona Max is the Major's semi-official nickname/name, his prototype manga character was named that and I suppose it just kinda stuck. (Although it is not his OFFICIAL name. Just like the Captain's official name is never shown or told, but he's labeled Hans Gunsche because HIS prototype character was named the same.)
Prompt: Violinist. (Or violin)
Maxwell, age nine, sat absolutely still as the music rose and fell all around him.
Father Anderson had taken the older orphans to an opera.
The violins were striking a chord in the young boy, and he leaned over his seat to try and glimpse the violinists, not caring what was happening on the stage.
No matter what the orchestra played, the violins were always part of it, always distinguishable from the rest.
They played rapid and difficult sequences all throughout the songs, higher and lower.
He slowly blinked his empty violet eyes.
If I was an instrument, I would like to be a violin.
They stand out without becoming unnecessarily loud and repetitive.
They blend in without becoming part of the background music.
They are elegant and can be played in many different ranges.
He hardly noticed when the opera ended and they were dragged away.
He looked up coldly at his guardian and waited to be acknowledged.
"Father Anderson, may I learn to play the violin?"
He would become great.
No one would look down on him.
He would be more than the abandoned bastard son.
But in the meantime, he would play the violin.
Prompt: Insomniac.
"Integra? What are you doing up?"
Integra blinked guiltily and lowered herself from the stool.
"I'm trying to get the melatonin father. I can't sleep…again."
She looked down and scuffed a bare foot across the kitchen tiles as her father laughed and strode to the cabinet she had been trying to reach.
"See this?"
He held out the bottle and she squinted in confusion.
"It's the melatonin father. It helps me sleep when I can't."
"Yes, its medicine. Do you know why you take this instead of any other kind?"
She rubbed her forehead under her thick new glasses.
"Because it doesn't taste nasty like the others?"
"That too."
There was amusement in his voice.
"The reason why you have melatonin is because it's not addictive. Some medicines work wonders, but those ones are also dangerous. Because once you taste them, you crave them. You'll do anything to get them."
The amusement slowly dropped from his tone as she straightened, knowing it was his "teaching voice" that she was listening to now and she must pay attention.
Then she frowned.
"Then why are all those doctors giving you medicine if it's addictive?"
He reached down and ruffled her hair.
"Because sometimes you need the addictive medicine to live, like a drunk needs liquor. I certainly do."
Her blue eyes widened.
"You're dying?!"
He waved his hands with his usual booming laugh.
"Of course not, I'm just a little under the weather. Think of me as an auto. I just need a little fine-tuning or I'm going to break down."
She took the pill he handed to her and made a face before gulping it down.
"So the doctors will go away soon?"
He nodded, shaking his own pill onto his broad palm.
"Besides, sometimes you can shake off the addiction. I already locked my liquor away in a place where I can find it if I need it, but far enough away to avoid temptation."
She yawned silently, waving goodbye to him as she trudged off to her room.
She could think about it tomorrow.
Tonight she needed to sleep.
Paper aeroplane.
Max carried his new paper aeroplane to the water's edge.
He had saved up for three weeks to buy the paper and instruction manual.
But he suddenly stopped in the shadow of a weeping willow for a moment, seeing movement where none should be.
He was going to fly his paper aeroplane in an abandoned field where no trees and no people could catch or steal it.
So what was this?
His yellow eyes blinked curiously as they saw a butterfly hovering over a white flower.
The butterfly was a kind he had never seen before, crimson red with faint flashes and glints of sulfur yellow and darkest black on its widespread wings.
He shrugged and turned away, drawing his arm back to fly the aeroplane.
A sudden gust of wind snatched it from his hand, and he whirled, going off like a shot to catch the precious toy before it could be sodden with water from the dew-damp ground.
He slowed and stopped, seeing it had been caught in some bushes and was hanging safely off the wet ground.
As he bent to pick it up, the butterfly suddenly exploded from the bush, hitting his face and blinding him with its colors.
He froze.
Gunfire.
Screams.
Flashes of yellow and red and black.
Burning city.
Dead.
Bloody ground.
Mother.
Father.
The cold, dead gun that had fired the shots clutched tightly in his five-year old hands as he stared up at the blood-streaked sky, tears running down his face.
Mother and Father…
Traitors.
They had betrayed Germany to bring "peace".
To surrender.
The kickback from the gun hurt no more than the hole in his heart.
He had been whelped by such betrayers.
He was the get of filthy traitors.
He looked at their dead, shocked faces, and spat in them.
He was loyal to the Fatherland.
That was his first time to doubt the worth of peace.
Max's eyes shot open, and he put a hand to his cheek mechanically.
He had been crying at the memory.
Callously, he wiped the fallen tears away with the back of his hand and retrieved his aeroplane.
He had just enough time to fly it before he went back home.