Melody: Narrative Who: Melody Blake What: Trying to fix a problem Where: Abandoned house in the woods When: Today Warnings/Rating:
tick tock
The conversation with Cris had left Melody with a sour taste in the back of her mouth. This was all on her, when it came down to it, and even if it was her father behind all the mayhem with the computers, it was up to her to figure out a way to fix it. There was no one else to lean on, no one around to give her support, but Melody wasn't confident that she had it in her to stand up on her own to fix this.
But it's not as if anyone else would be able to for her, was there?
The phone wasn't much, not what she was used to using. No, that was the laptop back in the carnival, the place that seemed ruined for her with all that had happened to Eddie. Because that was her fault, too, wasn't it? Even if she couldn't remember anything happening, even if she wracked her brain for the why that wasn't there, it was still her fault.
Maybe she couldn't fix him, but she could at least try to fix everything in town.
The house she had found was old and crumbling, the roof more hole than structure. But it was a place to hide and better than staying out in the trees. So she squirreled herself away in the corner of one of the rooms downstairs and tucked in with her phone that was dying a slow life with battery drain. Only 25% remaining, and no way to charge that she knew of. Not without asking, and frankly, Melody was afraid to ask for anything just then. So she had to make this count, somehow.
She should have been the one who had the best understanding of her powers, but when it came down to it, Melody had no clue how she did what she did. It just came as naturally to her as the beating of her own heart or breathing. It was part of who and what she was, so integral to her that it was beyond explanation. Scientists had tried to get her to explain in the past, but words always failed her. It was simpler to do than describe.
So Melody, she tried to do just that. Eyes closed, she focused, reaching out to try and catch hold, to let it sweep her in to the world that was more home for her than reality was. It took effort, reaching out like this, with a connection that was spotty at best. She still had to have a line to the internet, to the networks that spanned the city, in order to do anything, and that's what was hard. Wired was easier, always easier. This was more akin to catching a dragonfly, fluttering and flitting and flying just out of reach.
But finally, she was there.
She snagged hold and let it sweep her in, and once she was in she could see the problem.
He was everywhere.
It was hard to try and wipe him from every nook and cranny, to bring order to the chaos, especially when he cried out to her, tempted and bribed her to stop. Kind words and lying lips and she tried to ignore it all, to focus on the problem at hand.
She had to fix this, one way or another.
Seconds bled into minutes into hours and Melody continued to work, to right what had gone wrong. It took more effort than she was prepared for, but by the time the clock struck ten on Thursday night, the hold daddy had attempted to create on the people of Repose was gone.
Computers were back to normal, at least those that had not been victim of fried electrical circuits. They ran swiftly, perhaps even a little better than they had before (though how that was possible was anyone's guess).
But plastered everywhere was an apology.
A single word.
Sorry.
It showed up on backgrounds, in new text documents, in the address bar of web pages. The word caused no harm, no more inconvenience than an errant pop-up. But it was there, everywhere it could possibly be.
As for Melody…
She was curled up in the corner of the room she had squirreled her way into, quiet and still after all that had been done.