all_the_gifts | (no subject)

Entry tags:

darrow debut,
sara

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Melanie likes to explore the suburbs. Sometimes she looks for food for Miss Justineau; sometimes she looks for books for everyone. And sometimes, she just looks: at the furniture, at the family photos, at all the pieces of the way things used to be.

Clean, mostly. That's how it looks in the pictures. It makes her remember the bunker, and how tidy things were there. Messy is more interesting, but the value of tidiness hasn't been entirely drummed out of her. She thinks it would be good to have a safe, dry place to keep all the books she's been collecting. And though none of the houses are hers, none of them are anyone else's either. There is no one else to claim them.

She likes staying close to Miss Justineau, but maybe later, she should pick a house and make it tidy -- a place to keep the things she needs.

There's no hurry, and these are idle thoughts. Melanie's only half-thinking them when she steps out of someone's house and into their overgrown back garden. That's when everything shifts: the angle of the sun in the sky, the pitch of the droning insects. Melanie goes still as the world resettles around her into something new, and different, and wrong.

She's in a field. There are a few distant houses in one direction. She pivots on unsteady legs, feeling that same dizziness she did when she bolted out of the truck and the whole world was out there, stretching out to distances her eyes had never measured before. But this isn't all new: she knows forest and trees and field. She knows building and skyscraper, though the skyline doesn't look like any part of London she's seen before.

"Greater London has thirty-two boroughs," she reminds herself, "and an area of 1,572 square kilometers." She remembers that from her lessons. It means that London is big, and she might not be as lost as she feels.

... How did she get here, though? Sometimes she loses herself a little when she's hunting, but she's never run so far without realizing it. And if she was hunting, she didn't catch anything. Her chin is clean and dry, and she doesn't feel that sleepy-satisfied way she does after she's eaten.

She looks back to the houses. Houses have carports, and carport have cars, and cars have maps. Maps are important, and Miss Justineau has already taught her how to find where Rosie is parked. If Melanie can find a map, maybe she can figure out which borough she's in, and how to get back. Melanie doesn't see any Hungries, but she starts toward the nearest house slowly, anyway, not wanting to wake any that she might come across.

It's because she's moving carefully that she sees the mask before she steps on it. It's just like hers: elastic straps and plastic buckles clinging to a piece of clear plastic, with holes at eyes, nose, and mouth. Enough to breathe, not enough to bite through. Melanie picks it up, turning it over and wondering how it got out here. It looks the way nothing else really looks anymore: clean. Like it just fell out of a convoy, except those shouldn't be happening anymore.

Melanie frowns, then continues toward the house even more cautiously, the mask clutched in her hands.

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The house is still a work in progress, but it's nearly finished. Sara's pretty pleased with her work. She's just about ready to pack up for the day, though, when she spots the girl through the window.

She looks lost, confused, and Sara wonders if her own face had looked like that when Greta found her. Wiping her hands on a rag, Sara steps outside, onto the small porch.

"Hey," she calls. "You alright?"

The door swings open, and Melanie stills like a startled animal. An animal is what she expects to see, like a dog that's been left behind. But it's a woman who steps out, too old to be a hungry child and too alive to be a Hungry. She could be Miss Justineau, or one of the soldiers in the bunker.

But there's only one Miss Justineau, and all of the soldiers are gone, now. This shouldn't be happening.

Melanie stares, openly bewildered. It takes her a longer time than usual to really hear what the woman is saying. Some of it might be because she has an accent like nothing Melanie's heard before, but most of it is because this all feels like a very strange dream.

She looks down at her mask, as if to check and see if it's become a radio, or a baseball bat, or some other thing. It's still a mask.

She looks back up at the strange woman, and the good student in her squirms at the thought of leaving a direct question unanswered. "... No, miss," she finally says. "I think I'm lost."

This is Sara's first time with a new arrival. She's not sure how Greta did it with her, but she needs to try. She presses her lips into a thin line and moves out of the house entirely.

"Where're you supposed to he, Hon?" she asks. That seems like a good place to start, anyway.

None of this makes sense. The woman shouldn't be here, and they shouldn't be talking. Melanie wants to ask what 'hun' means, but she also just wants to go home, to be back where things make sense.

This must be what Alice felt like when she went to Wonderland.

"London, miss." The woman doesn't look like a soldier, so Melanie defaults to treating her like a teacher. It doesn't occur to her to lie until after she's told the truth, but she doesn't think lying would help, anyway. If this is Beacon -- if there's anyplace that knows about the cordyceps enough to hold it off -- how did she stumble in? This might as well be Wonderland, and Alice didn't have to lie there, so Melanie shouldn't need to, either.

She looks around again, as if to make sure that her surroundings haven't changed back to a more familiar configuration, then peers back up at the woman. "Am I in Wonderland?"

It's the oddest question Sara thinks she's been asked — and she's been asked why she's not Greta. But it's still not so very far from the truth. Sara hasn't met any talking caterpillars, yet, but she's not holding it above this place.

Even still, she can't help a little laugh.

"Not really," she says. "But it can be as weird as it." She offers the girl a kind smile, one she might not share with an adult. "This place is called Darrow."

People don't smile at Melanie very often. Miss Justineau does, but this woman's smile is different. It's hard to say just how it's different, but it doesn't unsettle her. In fact, Melanie finds herself reflecting the smile back automatically.

She tries to remember if she's ever heard of Darrow before, like in a geography lesson. But the questions she uses to prompt her memory -- The population of Darrow is...? Darrow is located...? -- don't turn up anything.

"I don't think I've heard of Darrow," she admits. "Is it a borough?" Sometimes they don't learn all the boroughs, and sometimes people have names for things that don't make it into lesson books.

"Well, people don't really know," she admits. She doesn't feel the need to lie or mislead children. She never did for Cid — except for how she's never actually talked to him about her sister — and she's not going to start now. "See, Darrow is sort of all in its own. No one really knows how they got here, or how to leave." She moves a few steps closer, slowly, casually. "What's your name, anyway? I'm Sara."

She makes it sound like Wonderland. That was a place all on its own, too. Except Alice got there by going down a rabbit hole, and it sounds like no one knows how they got here. Melanie had just stepped outside, and she's done that lots of times without ending up anyplace strange or unexpected.

Sara steps closer, and Melanie loses her smile. "You shouldn't do that," she says, taking a few steps backward. This still feels like a dream, like it has to be fake, so she isn't afraid. But if she's the only hungry child here, she should be careful. She doesn't want it to turn into a bad dream. "It's not safe."

"Not safe?" she echoes. It's an odd thing to say, especially for a little kid. She tries to imagine Cid saying it, but can't. "Hon, nothing's gonna happen to you. I'm not gonna hurt you, okay? I just want to make sure you're alright."

"I'm well, thank you," Melanie says, fumbling a little for the best way to explain things. This is something other people have had to explain to her, and they hadn't been very nice about it. There's no way to recreate Sergeant Parks' demonstration, because there's no chair to strap her in. All she has is the mask.

"I might hurt you," she admits, holding up the mask for emphasis. "It's why I have this, I think." That's a little less certain. The mask was just here, not something she brought on purpose. But maybe Darrow gave it to her because it knew she would need it. Like finding the little cake that said 'eat me,' or the bottle that said 'drink me,' except the mask says 'don't hurt anyone.'

Melanie smiles once, encouraging, then puts the mask on to demonstrate how it works. "See?" she says, her voice not even muffled, thanks to the air holes. "I've worn it before."

"What sort of world are you from?" The words are out of Sara's mouth before she can decide if she even wants the answer. Why would she need to wear a mask like that? Why is she so calm about it? She knows, distantly, that she must seem a little annoyed, but it's only because she's indignant on behalf of this little girl she doesn't even know, who seems to be wearing some kind of muzzle.

It's such a big question that Melanie doesn't know how to begin to answer it. She frowns beneath the mask, bewildered both by the question and the way Sara asks it, as if she's angry. She's had soldiers snap angry questions at her before, but that's just how soldiers are. It doesn't mean anything, not the way Miss Justineau getting angry had meant something.

She doesn't know what Sara's anger means, or if it means anything at all.

"It's different," she says at length. "There are Hungries." Has Sara even heard of Hungries? Melanie hadn't known about them until she left the bunker, but only because the soldiers and teachers and Dr. Caldwell had kept it secret from her.

She says it with weight, like it means something where she's from. Like it's not just a state of being when you need food. She frowns a little, more in puzzlement this time. The girl still hasn't shared her name, and Sara feels like this is a serious discussion waiting to happen, so she says again, "What's your name, Sweetheart?"

Melanie watches Sara's reaction, looking for recognition, but she doesn't see any. Sara doesn't know what Hungries are. Granted, Melanie doesn't really look like one. She's seen herself in reflections, and she's seen photographs of children from before the breakdown. Someone from a different world wouldn't guess what she is.

This is the second time Sara's had to ask her name, Melanie realizes with a little jolt of guilt and embarrassment. But that's all swept aside by a warm rush of surprise at being called sweetheart. Melanie has been called a lot of things besides her name: frigging abortion and animal and Cujo, things that weren't nice. Sweetheart is a new one, and a bashful smile flickers across her face.

"It's Melanie, miss."

"Melanie," she echoes, taking a step closer. "It's nice to meet you. Now, I don't know what Hungries are, but I'm almost certain we don't have any here. Darrow is a safe place." She pauses, shrugs her head a little, and adds, "More or less. Sometimes weird things happen."

Darrow is a safe place.

It's what Melanie had half-expected: Sara doesn't know what Hungries are, and there aren't any here. It should be a good thing. It is a good thing for Sara and anyone else like her, which might be everyone.

But it means that this is the wrong place for Melanie. She doesn't fit here, not like she did in London. Her world was broken down enough that no one could put it back together, not to the way it was. There was nothing for Melanie to ruin, even if that's what Sergeant Parks thought she was doing when she set the fire.

She could ruin Darrow.

Her face falls, and she stumbles back a pace or two. "I'm not safe," she says, more insistently than last time. Are there bunkers here? Where can they put her? "You have to lock me up."

"Lock you— I'm not locking you up!" Sara is taken aback by how fervent Melanie is about this, but she's not going to lock up a child. She'd never locked up Cid, either.

Slowly, pieces click into place. The mask. Calling herself unsafe.

"Melanie, are you telling me that you're one of these Hungries?"

"You have to!" Someone has to -- Melanie should avoid as many people as possible, so if Sara can help make her safe, or safer, that's the smartest way to do it. "Or tie me up, or something, so I can't hurt anyone."

She watches Sara slowly start to understand, but winces at the question. "No. Not exactly." There are times, when the lessons are going well, that she wonders how Dr. Caldwell didn't decide they were alive sooner. They're so different from normal Hungries.

Not different enough, though. Not to people like Sara.

"Sort of," she amends. "I--I get hungry. I'm not hungry all the time." She shifts anxiously, then holds her hands out, wrists together, fists curled. "But it doesn't matter. You have to help me!"

"Melanie, I'm not tying you up," Sara insists. "You're fine, okay? Why don't you come inside, get some water? Try to calm down, or somethin'." She reaches for her, but it's more of a gesture. She's too far away, still, to actually grab her.

Melanie shakes her head. She understands Sara's confusion, and she understands why someone wouldn't believe what she has to say. But this is important, and they don't have much time.

She hasn't eaten today.

It hasn't been something she's needed to think about over the past few weeks. She hunts when she's hungry, and with Miss Justineau safe inside Rosie, there have been no human scents to tempt her. She is dangerous to animals, and dangerous towards the other children when she has to be (or has to pretend to be), but she hasn't been dangerous like she is here -- not for ages. So she hasn't been careful.

When Sara lifts her arm, even though she isn't close enough to touch, she's close enough to smell.

Melanie's jaw starts to ache. Oh, no. She steps back, reeling a little. "You have to go," she grits out as something wild and uncompromising starts to yawn open inside of her. "Go inside! Now!"

There's something familiar in the way her eyes shift. Something is changing, but Sara isn't sure what. It's nothing like Cid losing his temper. That's always loud and trembling, and she knows what to do. But she doesn't know Melanie, and she has no idea what's happening to her.

She wants to help.

She steps forward, instead of back.

"Melanie, what's happening? Are you okay?"

No no no. Sara might still be all right if she would just go inside and barricade the door. The hunger would tire of throwing itself against the outside eventually, just as it tired of beating against the door of her cell in the bunker. Sara would be scared and sorry, like Miss Justineau, but she'd be safe, too.

But she doesn't run inside. She comes closer. Melanie lets out a growl that starts out human, childish, petulant, and then twists into something else. "GO!" she shouts as the hunger fights her for the reins.

There's one fraught moment of tenuous balance, in which Melanie simultaneously tries to leap forward and scramble back, the end result being an ungainly fall to the ground. But the jarring sensation of hitting the dirt loosens her hold on herself, and it's the hunger that digs its fingers into the dirt and drags itself toward Sara, all four limbs scrabbling for purchase as it hurls itself at food, the only thing it wants.

Self preservation has never exactly been one of Sara's strong suits. She watches Melanie change with a sort of morbid fascination. It's nothing overtly physical, like she'd expected from Melanie's insistence to be locked away. It's all in her eyes, in the set of her shoulders and jaw. Suddenly, she's not Melanie.

And this isn't like one of Cid's temper tantrums. No matter how angry Cid had gotten, he'd always been Cid. Sara doesn't know Melanie, but she knows that whatever is rushing her right now, it's not the sweet little girl she'd seen through her window.

These thoughts race through Sara's mind just as Melanie crashes into her. For someone so small, she's so strong. Sara hadn't expected that.

Yes yes yes yes--

The hunger is a lot of things, the hunger is a lot, but it's not clever. It doesn't remember the mask, and doesn't think to remove it. It just pushes against Sara's neck, jaw snapping mindlessly against the sturdy plastic barrier as it endeavors to wrap its arms and legs around her.

Sara gasps, gritting her teeth as she struggles. The plastic bears into her skin, sharp enough that she thinks it might cut her. She manages to get a grasp on Melanie's shoulders; she's not as small as Cid, but she's still small.

With a grunt of effort, she draws up as much TK as she can muster and uses it to push Melanie back. For a moment, she only manages an inch or two. Her arms are shaking with effort, jaw clenched so tight she's sure to have a headache later.

"Melanie! I need you to stop! Can you hear me?" She has no idea if Melanie is even mentally present at this point.

Somewhere, deep down, Melanie is astonished to find herself moving backward. It doesn't make sense. Sara pushing her had made sense, and she still feels that push, but Sara isn't even touching her anymore.

She doesn't know how to feel when Sara yells at her. No, not at her, for her. For her help in fighting the hunger. Melanie has held it back before, bought time, but she's never been able to wrestle control back when it's like this, in control and in a frenzy.

Then again, she isn't sure she's ever really tried.

There's still a force pushing her back, and Melanie tries to let it. Her legs are still scrabbling for purchase in the dirt, and her jaw is still snapping, but with a growl of effort, she manages to arch her head back and away.

Sara feels a headache coming on, but she can't stop. She doesn't know how or why this is happening, but she can't stop.

"Melanie! I know you gotta be in there. I need you to listen to me! Melanie!"

It's so hard to move away, even with Sara pushing her. Even with Sara asking her. No other adult Melanie knows would try to talk to her when she's like this. Sergeant Parks would think Sara was mad for trying.

But Sergeant Parks hadn't been right about everything. Melanie remembers confronting the other hungry children, holding them off, because they could be held off. She could make them understand what they couldn't have. They weren't mindless, and neither is she.

Melanie reels back, pivoting on her heel, then stumbles a few paces away. Nothing stops her, nothing but the pull of Sara's scent, and she makes her legs keep moving. It's not as hard as it could be; the hunger wants to go, not strain against some invisible boundary. They can go to the forest. Something will be there. Something she can kill without consequence. Melanie closes her ears to anything else Sara might say, and runs.

Sara doesn't know what works, but suddenly Melanie is reeling back, pulling away. She watches, letting her TK back off and her arms fall to the ground. It isn't until Melanie vanishes in the trees that she realizes: this little girl has just tried to eat her, and now she's running off into the woods.

"Melanie!" she calls, but before the sound even fades from her ears, she knows there's no point. She pushes to her feet and dares to try to follow. But she's not a tracker, not a gat man. She can't hear her making a ruckus in the woods, and that would be her only anchor. With nothing to follow, Sara stands there, helplessly staring into the trees.

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