Path of the Vampire forum

She woke up with the sun shining in her face. An old part of her seemed to awaken first, her brain was still full of cobwebs and as it stirred awake like a machine she felt a familiar weight on her body: a soft feather blanket. The scent of frying eggs and freshly squeezed orange juice sang from three rooms to the west. She was in a bed. Her bed. She had been dead for months, but she could still remember the sweet crisp scent of it, and the soft down pillow. Had it all been a dream? A delusion? The redhead sat up and glanced around her old bedroom. It had been turned into a storage room, boxes of her mom's junk were piled like pillars all around.

Melody wasn't the lay down and commit suicide type. Sure, it seemed suspicious, Silver Argent ((Now Liam Goodryke)) had just broken up with her, but she'd had worse and didn't actually feel that bad. She wished she could help him, but he didn't want her getting killed with him. What can you say to that? She had gone for her moonlit walk, reflected, killed a stripper with Mr. Scratch. It was one of those rough nights. Loud music, loud people. Fake ID's and cigars. She was sixteen and she had the weight of the world on her shoulders. Melody had strong shoulders. So what was she doing in her own bedroom with the window open? And why did she not have sunburn?

She should have snuck out, but she wasn't sure of what would happen. She didn't want to burn up and die. So for a while she sat still and listened to her biological family. Dad was frying bacon. Mom was trying to get Melody's baby brother to "go" in the toilet like a big boy. Their foster daughter was sitting quietly watching cartoons. Life had gone on without her, and she couldn't help sitting there and reflecting on it. How different things were now! Melody glanced at herself. She was still wearing that blood-spattered dress from last night. One of her shoes was gone. She smelled like bourbon and cigars, and a little bit like death itself.

"What the hell am I doing here?" Melody whispered and looked at the window. "And okay, why aren't I burned up?"

Sure, she could have gone home, but where is that? She didn't want to go to Argent Manor, she didn't want to see if Perry's old apartment was still around or if it had been sold. And for a minute everything actually felt like she could be a part of normal life again. Not kill-gangsters-and-drink-blood-and-socialize-with-creatures-who-might-kill-you-someday life, but normal, boring, mediocre human life!

How she longed to hear her mother's voice again, and to see her worried smile, and to reject her help again! How she missed wrinkling her nose at her baby brother and calling him names! Just one last time she wanted to see her stepdad wince when she called him Fred instead of his real name: Frank! So Melody took off her bloody dress and hid it in her purse. She tiptoed in her underwear to the family's bathroom where Mom was trying to get baby Cecil to use the potty.

They were so picturesque that Melody stopped a few feet short of the doorway to stare. Her baby brother, once an annoying pink firetruck siren with no teeth, had gotten plump and more alert. And her mother was just as Melody had remembered her, too thin, with a determined gleam in her green eyes and a tiny frown. It had only been a few months since they last spoke-- over the phone of course-- and Melody was now taller than the woman who had raised her and tried to help her.

I could turn her, the teenager realized as she lurked and watched a world apart from her mother. She'd never leave me. She'd know what to do about Liam, about everything. But just then the woman turned and, stunned, stared at Melody as if she'd seen a ghost.

The redhead stumbled back, realizing how out of place she must look standing there in her underwear, with her Dragomir snake pupils, smelling like she had spent the night in a seedy club with a wicked old man. Before she could stammer an explanation, her mother swooped forward with impressive speed and wrapped her arms around her. "Melody!" Her voice wasn't angry like Rabies was expecting, but rather filled with relief. Her embrace was like a vice. "Welcome home! Why don't you run a bath and eat breakfast with us?"

"I don't eat...breakfast, mom," Rabies muttered. The familiar smell of the woman's perfume made the teen relax instinctively and she wanted to be smothered by her mother forever. "But I'll take the bath. Just get that kid out of here, I am NOT taking a bath while he poops."

While she soaked in the warm fragrant bath and washed away her sorrows, Rabies's mother talked to her. She always spoke carefully around Rabies, not because she was stupid by any means, but because the teenager had been mentally disturbed and, as far as her mother knew, she still had an aggressive antisocial disorder. "So honey, how are things at the home...?" asked Mom, and it took a second for Rabies to remember what she was talking about. The group home was Melody's excuse for being gone after she had been turned. It was a community she made up that was meant to help her get over her problems and become a fully functional member of society.

"Oh, they're okay I guess. Actually no, they're not okay. My boyfriend totally ditched me cause the people who are mean to him were starting to be mean to me too! You know what, I could have kicked their butts mom, but like of course he doesn't believe me. I give up. Boys are stupid." Melody rubbed her eyes and glanced at her mother, who was holding the baby on her lap and, to the vampire's annoyance, smiling. "Mom! I'm being serious here. Geez."

"I'm sorry, honey, it's just that I never thought you would ever have normal- I mean boy problems, with your disorder."

Melody got out of the tub, dried off and put on some of her old clothes. "Thanks," she grumbled and followed her mom to the breakfast table. "Hi Fred," she said to her stepfather.