Attanya

Melody               Her eyes were fixated on the water mark stained into the white tiled ceiling not two feet from her desk, a frown creased Melody’s brow from her intense struggle to grasp a forgotten word. Quickly she realized her frustration Melody distracted herself with the book she had been reading, the folded pages beckoned her to read more. The burden of the elusive words continued to trouble her as her hand found the bent pen lying on the abused table.             Hand flew across the paper as she attempted to capture the words before they eluded her again. “Have you ever tried to imagine the world in a different time? A future different than now?” Her topic: “A perfect world”, the bubbly words sprawled across the top of her crumpled paper with just four sentences scribbled underneath it. “To hope and strive for a world where we are happy, a place that we get our perfect ending. This time and place has never existed, and never will.” Melody sighed then scratched out some of the sentences, chided herself. That would be a great start to the essay, if only she could make it sound less cynical.             Melody looked up, and around, Mrs. Rommins, her English teacher, stood at the front of the room while she read the bulletin, her tightly spun brown hair pulled tightly against her scalp. Her thick glasses lowered slightly as she continued to read to an uninterested class, vacant eyes share the truth about the attention of other students and none was directed at her.             Even I’m not listening, the good student who passes all her classes; she thought to herself, snickered internally. Melody stole a peak at her secreted book, Arrows of the Queen, by Mercedes Lackey, ticked into her lap out of sight from her teachers view. The teenager knew she should pay attention but she neared the final pages of the book, the temptation just too strong to ignore.             If Melody could, she would have skipped school all together, after all she was ahead of the class by years. Her room was more of a library than a room; it wasn’t uncommon for her to have the entire syllabus finished in the first month of school. But the teachers didn’t know that, nor was she going to tell them.             Focus Mel! She forced herself to set the book down for a moment to look again at the lifeless essay before her. Shamefully, Melody admitted defeat, slowly tilted the book so the words spoke to her again.             The droll of the teacher and the whispers around her faded away, only the land she read about existed now. She slipped into images of magic and Companions, and barely noticed when the bell rang and the teens stirred from their lethargy and began to lumber out of the room.             Mrs. Rommins hurried her speech before she lost her class to the beckoning hallway. “Don’t forget, your essay is due next week, it’s worth a bundle of points!” Mel tensed, how could she forget? That’s all she could think about besides her books. Just a couple more pages and she reverently put the book away in worn black back pack. The final words hung in the air as she stood, and followed her classmates out into the echoing concrete hall.             Clash of metal rang through the hall from locker being shut distracted her from her thoughts just as Grey, her freshman year crush, bumped into her. Her feet slid over the concrete, as she almost crashed to the ground. Grey’s strong hands slip around her lean waist, saved her from the fall. Frozen she held breath; she stared at the ground as he gently balanced her.             The storybook reaction almost had her snort, but she managed to hold back her comical reaction.             “Hey. You in there?” Grey waved his hand in front of her face. She blankly looked at him until the flustered teen realized who he was. First his eyes, blacker than a night with no moon, then hair that matched his eyes and complete with a face that makes a teenage girl’s knees knock. I shouldn’t be admiring him.             Melody felt blood rush to her face as she stammered a reply. “Uh, hi. What’s up?” Melody took step back so even if she slipped on the wet concrete floor, he wouldn’t be able to do that again.             Grey brushed a hand over his hair, his fingers got lost in it momentarily. “Nothing much. What about you?”             Melody unconsciously copied him and brushed some of her long blond locks out of her face before she answered. “Same, all is boring.” What the hell do I do?             As they walked by the shack’s lunch line, for some odd reason he kept walking with her. This was the first time he had directly spoken to her since their math class they shared last year; it made her one of the most awkward girls imaginable. “So, what are you doing during lunch?” They had almost made it to the café when she finally answered his question.             “Nothing really, just sitting around with some friends. Probably c***k a few jokes. You?” The cobble stone turned to concrete just before the tall glass doors to the lunch room. Above the door was a balcony that kept the rain out of the main building. Grey reached out and pulled the door open with a sharp tug, turned to her; he motioned her in with a slight smile.             “Hey, if you don’t mind Im’a hang with you.” Her feet instinctively found the indented wall, familiarity lead her to sit at one of the tables. She breathed with relief from her habit because if it hadn’t taken over she doubted that she could keep moving for as long as she needed to. Melody was a bundle of nerves that no test in the world could make her, but this boy could. No one was at the round lunch tables yet so she kicked up her feet up, the cafeteria people didn’t really care anymore.             “Aren’t you gonna get lunch?” He inquired invitingly.             “No. I don’t eat at lunch break. I eat at home.” She set her bag on the table and claimed it. It slumped there; the black seams bulged from the ridiculous amount of library books she stuffed into its body. “I’ll go stand in line with you if you want.” She struggled to say the right thing, Melody desperately tried to keep her words from tumbling out in a confused jumble.             Grey put his near empty back pack down with hers before he walked out in front of her. “Why not?” The line was already long and was got longer by the moment. There was a lapse of excruciatingly awkward moments before they made it back to the table with his food, a plate of grease with a bit of pizza on the side.             When they return to the table, Everly was already there along with both Elizabeth’s, though they all called one of them Ellie. Abby showed up a few minutes later, C.J. close behind her with a couple of her odd friends too. They were an odd bunch; each had their own odd humor that tied them together. It was a good thing they had it too, for they immediately started joking with Grey, like he had been in the group all along. They enjoyed their lunch hour. Melody’s nervousness all but disappeared.              I’m just glad it didn’t turn into a hell of torture that I feared it to be.             Momentarily, while the others talked about their dream future Grey leaned over. Grey smiled then motioned to Melody to do the same. With a wicked grin of bright whites he said, “My future is going to be pretty predictable but if I had the choice, I would be a wizard. Having awesome powers like that, there are millions of things I could do.” Turned his head to the side Grey pointed his chin at her. “What’s your future looking like?”             Melody closed her eyes, she tried to imagine it. Nothing out of the ordinary came to mind. College, friends and eventually travel the world with the person she held dear. Melody wrinkled her nose; she smiled and grabbed his forearm. “Well, I see another two hours of class then a very loud bus ride home.”             He laughed and punched her arm lightly. “You’re funny and very sarcastic.” Grey turned back to the group with a smile. Melody barely caught the whisper of his last words. “I didn’t know that.”             They lost track of time and it wasn’t until C.J. looked at her phone, and told them the bell already rang. Melody grabbed her back and smiled, waved good bye while she said really stupid things to make the others laugh. The teen finally made her escape out the side door with a half laugh good bye, got about ten steps before Grey caught up with her.             “You’ve got some unusual friends. Do they always act like that?” He glanced back over his shoulder, smiled when he caught her watching him.             “Yeah, they’re a great bunch aren’t they?” They walk by a couple playing tonsil hockey, it forced her to look away for them. “Actually, they’re usually weirder. They aren’t really used to others in our little group. I think they were being a little shy.”             “Wow, I never thought that I would make a whole table of girls hot for me.” Grey had this sneaky smile on and his eye brow rose. It looked like a little caterpillar arched its back.             Melody lightly slapped him on the arm. “Stop joking around, they’re nice.” Melody stopped mid step. A thumping sound beat at her ears. At first she thought it was just in her head, but it got louder and more real. “Ok, are you hearing that or am I just going insane?” She shook her head as if the motion would clear her head.             Grey stopped walking and turned to listen to where the noise originated from. “No, I hear it too. What is that?”             Melody c****d her head to the side and listened as it got louder. “I don’t know. It sounds sort of like a big bird but that would have to be a really large bird.” They stood in the center of the quad now, a square hole in the center of the buildings that was sectioned off by triangle planter boxes. From here they would have to travel half way across the school before they arrived to their classes. “It’s probably just a helicopter.” Although Melody knew that it could not be true, helicopters had a constant and thrusting sound, this sounded like a heart. In between each pound was a good second or two before the next thrust.             He nodded and followed her as she passed under an arc in the hall; their footfalls echoed lightly back at them. They hear something hit the ground somewhere to the left, crunching, scraping and thumping. Melody had to breathe deep to resist the urge to follow the eyes of the people. It was hard to resist, curiosity burned in her gut.             Grey stopped when they passed from under the hallway and like everyone else, stared at the parking lot. Grey grabbed her arm and turned her to the parking lot. Melody slammed her eyes shut with fear of what she might see; she almost flinched from Grey’s touch. It wasn’t what she would see that scared her but the fact that she would be just like everyone else; she would be another sheep in the herd. “Melody, you’re not going to believe this unless you see it yourself.”             He just barely finished speaking when a huge roar filled the silence; it echoed off the red brick walls and fell onto her hidden ears. Melody’s eyes flew open to see something that hadn’t been on the planet in many years. A sparkling and beautifully-fierce Dragon stood in the aging parking lot; cars were precariously parked all around her. When she let out her roar, everyone that came to see backed away. It resonated through the air; the heat of the bellow became almost visible in the autumn air.             The Dragon crouched; shoulders leaned forward in a sort of stance that said she looked for something. The beast looked nothing like what Melody thought a Dragon would look like. She had four legs instead of two, and reflective white scales that made patterns down her sides. Her face was lean and sharp while her wings were arched in well-defined patterns from the veins that ran through the thick leather looking canvases. They were raised slightly, as if she was prepared to take off again. Melody’s eyes drift over the Dragon’s body and caught on the crown of thorns that point backward. They almost glowed. Those thorns go all the way down her spine and almost looked like teeth pierced her from the inside.             Like a car accident, Melody couldn’t look away and walked toward the glowing beast, her feet took control while her mind made thousands of speculations of what the Dragon might do. Grey stood close behind Melody, Grey reached out he tried to pull her back. “Melody, stop I think it may eat you.” All humor was gone from his face.             What are you doing? Melody pleaded with herself. Yet, a strange peace enveloped her; a presence pressed against her mind, almost a gentle nudge as an idea formed in her head.             Those thoughts felt like something that could never be described in words. Melody didn’t break eye contact with the Dragon, Melody spoke. “I don’t think she will eat me, I don’t know how to explain it but I feel her somehow.” A smile formed on the girl’s lips when Melody was finally able to break eye contact with the amused beast. “I think she’s here for me.” By now the quad had filled with staff and students. Sirens screamed loudly as police cars neared the campus.