「𝙉𝙀𝙒𝙏」

𝘓𝘌𝘛 𝘔𝘌 𝘚𝘏𝘖𝘞 𝘠𝘖𝘜 𝘏𝘖𝘞 𝘚𝘈𝘋𝘕𝘌𝘚𝘚 𝘊𝘈𝘕 𝘛𝘜𝘙𝘕 𝘐𝘕𝘛𝘖 𝘏𝘈𝘗𝘗𝘐𝘕𝘌𝘚𝘚 

𝘐 𝘊𝘈𝘕 𝘛𝘜𝘙𝘕 𝘉𝘓𝘜𝘌 𝘐𝘕𝘛𝘖 𝘚𝘖𝘔𝘌𝘛𝘏𝘐𝘕𝘎

𝘉𝘌𝘈𝘜𝘛𝘐𝘍𝘜𝘓, 𝘉𝘌𝘈𝘜𝘛𝘐𝘍𝘜𝘓

𝘉𝘌𝘈𝘜𝘛𝘐𝘍𝘜𝘓 𝘓𝘐𝘒𝘌 𝘠𝘖𝘜

- 𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘢 𝘥𝘦𝘭 𝘳𝘦𝘺, 𝘣𝘦𝘢𝘶𝘵𝘪𝘧𝘶𝘭

-ˋˏ ༻❁༺ ˎˊ-

THE yellow sun that seemed to smile so happily was high on the horizon. It was warm. Not unbearably hot. A cozy warmth that you could only appreciate on good days.

I knelt down on the meadow in front of me and started working on a little something, like I planned for Melanie. I think of her often. About her simple nature, her timid appearance and how beautiful she looks with her hazel brown hair and light eyes. As soon as she came upstairs with the box, like everyone else before her - including me - a feeling crept into me that I couldn't let go of. It had been so family-like.

Still, it took me almost too long to realize that it wasn't a good similarity circling around me. Not the coincidence of having the same laugh or dreams that you shouldn't have. There were things in her that I knew about myself.

Working constantly but maintaining a calm atmosphere, doing something even though you don't want to; I hate my role as second-in-command. But I'm happy to do it for Alby and everyone else, to do my part.

An act as selfless as could only be done by someone who didn't care about anything.

Someone who no longer felt his life was worth living.

It literally tore my organs apart. To see so clearly before my eyes how she vegetated every day and there was nothing that seemed to help her. How powerless I felt because my heart became so heavy whenever I noticed when her smile fell from her lips again. Damn shit if you can't like life for someone else.

Everyone has to make their own experiences. And sometimes, very rarely, things happen that are truly lasting and so full of light that the paths you were on before change.

How could I ever put into words that she saved me too?

That although I was feeling better, I still felt lonely despite everything. Until I continued to recognize in her a still veiled version of a reflection of myself.

Sometimes I thought her nightmares had been implanted in her. All the self-destructive thoughts and an emotionless view of the world. Perhaps it was planted in her so that we could see whether the rest of us would let her die like a flower dries up without water.

A test for the rest of us and a test for her to see if she can survive. This made me even angrier than I was mad at myself for jumping too.

I wasn't angry because I did it. Through all the pain, I had been angry with negativity because I had survived and was living with the consequences of it. The constant limp that sits like background noise on the back of your neck to remind you that it's real.

That what happened matters and that it is so real that it has affected your future. I was so lost in myself that I can't say if I would have even noticed if someone had wanted to help me. If anyone had looked for a second too long to notice that my facial expressions are no longer as steady as they are on other days.

So if there was one thing I knew how to prevent, it was that Melanie would end up like me. That she even had to feel the way I did.

I imagine how many times she must have lain in her hammock for hours, with unstoppable tears rolling down her pale cheeks that no one felt responsible to catch.

I didn't just want to catch them, I didn't want them to even start flowing. How often I looked at her, how she could hardly swallow while eating and her sighs didn't go unnoticed by me, that I tried to imagine what it would be like when she was in my arms.

Would she feel safe? Did she also feel the need to cry?

So silent that there was no greater cry for help than this. Seeing the changes that have taken place within her are so immense that I believe I have found my own peace.

Away in the new gardens, in a safe haven, I found her. She was just watering the plants and the closer I got, I thought I could hear her talking to them. It made me smile involuntarily. Maybe she told them everything because she had learned to let it out instead of keeping it inside.

“Melanie?” She jumped a little in shock, and there was a look of embarrassment on her face.
But as soon as she recognizes me, she stands up and puts her hands on her beige linen trousers. "Yes, Newt?"

"I need your help," I begin in a very normal voice so that there are no assumptions on her part. "Would you come with me for a moment, love?"

"Of course. Always," she said gently and my heart beat a little faster. Melanie trusted me so much that she would follow me anywhere. No matter how I do. And I hoped that if we didn't go down the same path, they would at least be parallel to each other.

She hastily put down the watering can and I took her hand with the long, slender fingers that wrapped so warmly around my rougher ones. It didn't take long for us to reach the location of my destination.

In front of us there is a large meadow that has newly grown with grass so fresh that it smells wonderful. The first daisies have been on it for a few days. One prettier than the other.

Melanie stared at me in fascination for a fraction, blinked a little and then she walked a little faster with me holding her hand until we reached the center of the meadow. She sits down surrounded by flowers, and because I don't want to break our touch, I do the same.

"It's so beautiful here," she says, and all I can think about is that it's only beautiful when she's in my presence. I haven't stopped looking at her.

As soon as she turns her head towards me, I lean in and kiss her. It may be a surprising kiss, but my thoughts wander from the topic before I can feel her smiling.

She smiles so honestly against my lips that I don't know what to like better: being able to kiss her or her being so free from everything that held her captive.

Her response is firmer, more persistent, and she places her hand on my cheek, running her thumb along my jawbone. Then she pulls away, wrinkles her snub nose awkwardly and takes her hand out of mine.

Without further ado, I stroke my face, capture the taste of Melanie and look around before I start picking a few flowers. “Will you help me until I get a few together?” I ask.

Delighted, she hums in agreement and doesn't hesitate for long. She works quickly and concentratedly, but carefully, as I observe. She seems to know exactly which flowers are the right ones and which are not. It's impressive what new things I notice about her that I thought I already knew everything about.

The daisies she picks are all different. Some have already turned pink, others hardly have any leaves left. She also picked other stalks that grew next to it and despite my work as a Track-hoe, I haven't the slightest idea what I should correctly call it.

Most of the ones she holds in their hands would no longer be considered what I intended. Why did she pick old flowers?

The ones I would have taken are all still connected to their roots on the ground. “What about the others?” I ask carefully, pointing at her questionable look with my head at more flowers.

"What should be with them?” And her look is starting to look very pitiful. Not because of me or because of herself. I think her heart is so big and full of love that she realizes that plants are just as important as animals and us humans. Empathy is towards them. All the beautiful flowers that have probably been noticed by no one more than by Melanie herself.

She pauses briefly in her movement, her left hand full of the flowers she has picked. The other just rests on her lap. “Everyone deserves a chance, Newt. Just like you had one and I did too. Why shouldn't they have one? Flowers that are trampled on so carelessly?" she begins and I realize that her head is drifting off, that she is getting into something because she feels a passion, "It's like here. Just that flowers bloom without worrying about whether they can keep up with the flower next to them. It is irrelevant that the other one might have nicer leaves or a longer stem. No, she has much more important things to deal with. For example, whether it receives enough water and sunlight. When maybe a child comes trotting onto the meadow and decides that now is their time to go. They're all blooming nonetheless.”

A light sigh creeps over the corners of her mouth and my chest immediately feels tight. "The pretty flowers still have their lives ahead of them. The others have fulfilled their service and I redeem them by taking them for a special purpose. I know anyone else would pick the fresh ones. The ones that still look good. You too, Newt. I know it, I just can't look away like everyone else."

In the meantime I believed that she was speaking in metaphors and that the flowers represented herself. Everything about her felt more understandable. So closer and more tangible, as if I knew that if I stretched out my hand now, she would also take it.

Still, her words are more honest than ever. When you decide to pick flowers, you stoop down with the intention of getting the most beautiful ones of all.

They should be the most beautiful for the person who received them. Such selfish actions filled with love. Are they good or bad if it makes you so blind but active?

In general, like some kind of divine being decides what is beautiful and what is corrupt. A right that does not belong to us. We are not worthy of it if so much monster arises from it.

So much hate and again admiration. A flower remains a flower, regardless of its color, shape or direction of growth. So no distinction is made between human and human based on their appearance.

But there are whole multiverses of differences in what goes on in the inner world. The moral orientations, beliefs, ego and needs that cannot be controlled. All of this can be divided into red and green, good or bad, healthy and sick. Sufficient and inadequate.

When is something human and when is it inhuman?

As we remain peacefully silent for a moment, she hands me the flowers and I start putting them together. I can't remember where I learned something like that. But something tells me that in my childhood I often helped someone my age do this.

This time Melanie watches me, how hard my fingers are working for her and she probably doesn't have a clue yet. It takes me a while to finish the flower wreath for her and I feel her radiance growing brighter with every passing second. It finally dawns on her that this is a gift just for her!

I look at my work with satisfaction, hold it up in the air in front of me and check whether it is finished. “Come here,” I then say. Without a word she slides closer, bends her head slightly towards me and I place the flower wreath on her.

It looks so flawlessly perfect that I don't even have to adjust it. "Keep it." She doesn't even try to protest because she loves it as much as I probably love her.

“Thanks, Newt.”

“Anything for you, love,” I let her know, waving me off. It's the least. The least I can do is show her that I can give all things a chance like she does.

That I want to give her all the opportunities at all times so that she never feels as broken again as she once did in the Glade.

She is here.

Here with me.

I think that's reason enough that everything will be fine. For some time, I always wondered what my reason for living was. Why Alby found me back then and why Thomas was still able to save me from the fire virus.

But now, when I'm so close to Melanie - breathing the same air as she breathes, feeling her skin when I touch it with perfect love and she touching my rough fingers - that it's because of her.

So unstoppable
all the time
right in front of me:

M-e-l-a-n-i-e.