𝑊𝐸 𝐾𝐸𝐸𝑃 𝑇𝑅𝑌𝐼𝑁' 𝑇𝑂 𝑇𝐴𝐿𝐾 𝐴𝐵𝑂𝑈𝑇 𝑈𝑆

𝐼'𝑀 𝑆𝑂𝑀𝐸𝑂𝑁𝐸, 𝑌𝑂𝑈 𝑀𝐴𝑌 𝐵𝐸 𝑀𝑌 𝐿𝑂𝑉𝐸

𝐼'𝐼𝐼 𝐵𝐸 𝑌𝑂𝑈𝑅 𝑄𝑈𝐼𝐸𝑇 𝐴𝐹𝑇𝐸𝑅𝑁𝑂𝑂𝑁 𝐶𝑅𝑈𝑆𝐻

𝐵𝐸 𝑌𝑂𝑈𝑅 𝑉𝐼𝑂𝐿𝐸𝑁𝑇 𝑂𝑉𝐸𝑅𝑁𝐼𝐺𝐻𝑇 𝑅𝑈𝑆𝐻

𝑀𝐴𝐾𝐸 𝑌𝑂𝑈 𝐶𝑅𝐴𝑍𝑌 𝑂𝑉𝐸𝑅 𝑀𝑌 𝑇𝑂𝑈𝐶𝐻

- 𝑙𝑜𝑟𝑑𝑒, 𝑠𝑢𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑐𝑢𝑡

══✿══╡°˖✧✿✧˖°╞══✿══

FROM Alby, Melanie had been given the task of hollowing out a hole in the ground so that they could bury the dead animals that were sick and could no longer be benefited from. Especially with her understanding of empathy, she was happy to be able to take on such an honor and give them the final blessing. Although she worked all alone because Thomas had recently joined the runners and Newt was busy with other stuff, she really liked it, which is why she didn't complain too much.

She stared contentedly down at the deep hole in the ground that had taken her all morning to make, careful not to fall. But what her eyes recognized, the longer she looked at the brown earth, took her breath away.

A scream escaped her lungs, so horrified and so panicked that the blonde rushed over to her. Besides the fact that he was nearby anyway, he would identifiy her voice even in a scream. And most others didn't seem to react. Rushing to help, he pushed her backwards slightly, his hands placed behind her on her shoulders, and then stood in front of her worriedly.

Melanie couldn't take it anymore, felt her heart burst with excitement so she couldn't breathe any longer. With her strength fading, she fell to her knees. Newt soothed her serve by always holding her and squatted forward. He was in shock, carrying his own fear as he tried to determine what could have happened to his girl. “Hey, what the hell did you saw, Mel?,” he asked with a searching look.

When she couldn't manage an answer, but her lips parted without hesitation and she then pressed her hand to her mouth, he became more urgent. "You need to tell me what you saw!," he said seriously, took a deep breath and didn't know why he lost his composure. Why he lost his composure, which he had always been able to maintain better than others.

Was it her fault? Because he liked her so much? Or because she still wouldn't let him get close to her?

She pointed silently at the hole, running her tongue over her lips so that she could find the right words and explanations for the supernatural thing that had happened so physically before her own eyes.

The blonde stood up and took a long look down. But apart from a pile of dirt, he couldn't see anything inside. Not even a small stone. Just an ordinary hole. Melanie, on the other hand ... Melanie had seen herself lying there at that moment. A true version of herself and her death, which seemed as if it was not just on her doorstep, but right inside her.

As if he was crawling through her veins, pushing through because he needed more space than every inch of her lost body. There were dozens of maggots and beetles crawling all over her, and her skin was completely eaten away, leaving her jaw protruding. Nothing at all, apart from her once perfect brown hair, pointed to Melanie at all.

Otherwise, identifying this skeleton would be a mystery. And even her hair had been eaten away almost to the top in such a nightmarish appearance. Frozen, she gasped.

Especially because tiny snakes crawled out of their unusually colored eyes down there. Their pink tongues hissed almost in sync, making their way over her remains. As if they were here to help themselves and feed their hungry mouths. There was no doubt that she would keep the unforgettable sight in her head for a long time.

Then there was Newt's caressing voice next to her again and all the ugly presence around her. "Please tell me, Mel." All he wanted was to help her. To show that she didn't have to deal with this burden of suffering alone.

However, stubborn as ever, she immediately shook her tired head. "I can't. There are no words for it.”

I would get concidered as crazy. As if I had lost my mind and therefore had to be thrown into the burrow. Newt wouldn't have believed me. He wouldn't have believed me. I just assume that, and it feels like I'm fighting battles that are against myself.

The fact that Melanie had nightmares was one of the characteristics she would use to describe herself. Only her fear increased with each passing hour, as having such traumatic visions during the day had caused such horror in her. The nightmares seemed to have been erased and something much worse was about to happen. With such a hopeless ending.

-'๑'-

"I'm sorry you saw me like that." A serious chasm had opened up inside her. A guilt so great that the corners of her mouth drooped, the sun turned away from her, and animals appeared vicious.

Maybe because she thought she deserved all of it.

Newt just shook his head in understanding. For a pain that sticks to you, that has been imposed on you, there is no explanation you can give yourself to make up for it. This sadness wasn't something you wanted. What other people did to you was not something you wanted. And yet you have to heal from it. But not by making yourself into something you are not. To a perpetrator, a guilty person. You are not a victim, just a survivor of what no one seems to realize.

About those moments when you thought you were groping alone in the dark - because you had to for a while.

“If you think that makes me look at you differently for some reason; I'm not doing that, okay? Just being in this Glade shouldn't be possible." Melanie let her legs hang down the observation tower, keeping an eye on the sunset.

Newt smiled at her from the side. And despite noticing it, she didn't say it back. There was so much denial within her. Such immense resistance, like waves that washed over everything. It's actually quite nice here. Not in the Glade, but on this observation tower where you seem to have an overview. An overview of all the little things that seem so aptly profound at that moment.

After the yellow ball of the sun, it then gives way to the moon and with it all the thousands of stars that should no longer be visible.

They died light years ago and it is their remains that we humans can still see because time passes by so much more slowly on Earth than in space. So if they died a hundred light years ago, a hundred years must pass before we even notice their absence in the night sky.

Why does it still take people far too long to see what has been lost in other people when there is no time difference in-between?

Newt could clearly see what unusual things were happening inside Melanie. But he would never understand her to the same extent as she experienced it if she didn't share it with him. When she pushed him away and he could do nothing but watch helplessly.

There was no trust in her, no joy, no acceptance and no unwavering devotion. A mutated fear that had escalated into panic and she was trying to keep track of all the chaos. Because all her trust and everything she believed in was lost because of her fear, which steered her further and further down an illusion-like path.

The blonde couldn't bring it over him to give up on her the same way he had once given up on himself. “What did you see?,” he asked again, and the girl looked him straight in the eyes for the first time, whereupon he thought he could finally see a glimmer of hope.

Until her next words caused the carefully constructed house of cards to collapse.

“Why do you care so much?,” she grumbled, with an annoyance that he could hear all her repressions. "Can't you just not care, like the others?"

No, because he didn't want the same fate overcoming her as it did with him. However, if he said it and had to open up a little as much as she did, he was afraid that she would close herself down even more. And he didn't want her image of him to change either.

Because they both maintained the same thought patterns, independently of each other, but failed to offer them a space in reality.

“You know I care about you. And so does Thomas. But I don't know what else I can do to make you believe me, Melanie."

And I want to believe you, Newt. But I don't know why I was deprived of its ability.

"I'm sorry," she said with a shattering seriousness that made her tears press with sharp-edged misery behind her eyelids to find a corner from which to well up. "I just feel so unfixably alone in all the never-ending hours of the day."

He had so many answers to her statement that there was silence for a moment before he responded. "If you never notice me, you'll always feel like this."

How many times he had tried to talk about both of them. How he tried hard to give her her space, but at the same time found out why there was always an area that only existed for both of them.

And why he was always there while she wasn't.

That Newt also walked in pain when she was near him, but that closeness was meaningless if she didn't seem to see him. So somewhere deep inside feared that this would result in him having to let go of her.

That he had to let Melanie go because she had been so one-sided in his heart for far too long.

Like a ghost whose facade was simply intangible in the physical world.