Participants:
| Scene Title | Fire and Ice |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Melissa dreams, and her unconscious mind gives her a nudge. |
| Date | April 14, 2010 |
???
The flames are ravaging the building. Licking at every surface they can find, feasting greedily, trying to consume it whole. Smoke is thick in every corner, black and heavy, choking. But everyone is out. No one remains in the building. Except for the fourth floor.
Melissa coughs as she crawls along the floor, blindly trying to find a wall, a window. It’s slow going as she has to move around furniture that she can’t see, and the heat of the flames all around her is painful, though the fire has yet to touch her directly.
Finally she runs into a wall, headfirst, and winces at the light impact. She reaches up, feeling, and hope wells as she feels the smooth glass of a window. She rises, fingers gripping the window, to pull it open and open, desperate for fresh air, the chance to call for help. Except the window won’t move.
Panic begins to grow as Mel tugs and pushes at the window, desperate for it to open, even an inch, but still, it doesn’t budge. But as she fights with it, she gets a glimpse of the outside world. People. There are people standing there. Just standing there, doing nothing more than looking up at the building. Looking up at her window.
She starts beating on the window with her fists, trying to break it as she screams for help. Screams for one of those people to help her, to do something.
It’s then that she begins to recognize those faces. Those who took her to Moab, they’re down there, watching her struggle for life. The guards from Moab, they stare as well, their faces expressionless, their bodies motionless. As if her fight were something that bored her.
But she expects that. They wanted to lock her in a box, they don’t want to help her. They’re not the ones who have her eyes stinging with tears, even as she struggles to take a breath. It’s the faces of people from New York, people she likes and trusts, that’s what hurts her and has her fists pausing, resting on the hot glass until it blisters her skin.
Abby stands there, next to one of the guards, staring. And beside her is Odessa. There, beside one of the men who took her to Moab, that’s Kendall, and on the other side, Liette. But more and more faces of her friends stand out. Magnes, Peter, Helena…Even those she doesn’t know as well. Ash, Luke, Tony. They’re all there. People she thought would save her, people she thought would care.
“No! No, you can’t do this to me! You were supposed to give a damn! Help me!” Melissa screams, loud enough to make her smoke-irritated throat protest at the effort. “Damn you, help me!” And on the last word, her fists pound against the window again.
This time, it shatters.
The force, the way she put her whole body into it has her falling out the window, the shock of the cold air stealing the breath from her lungs. But she doesn’t plummet to the ground. The faces below don’t get bigger, clearer. Rather, they begin to grow tiny, and it takes Melissa a minute before she realizes that she’s flying.
Flying.
She doesn’t question how it is that a pain manipulator is flying. To do so doesn’t even enter her mind. Not now. Instead she’s filled with relief, and lets her eyes close, lets the cool air sooth her scorched body.
When she opens them, she’s sitting on a bench, dressed for the weather. Her hands are folded in her lap, and she’s looking out over the frozen pond at Central Park. It’s not abandoned this time though.
She watches as numerous couples move gracefully over the ice, laughing and talking, holding each other close. Her chest tightens with loneliness as she sees some simply holding hands, or wrapping arms around their partners. But as much as she wants to look away, she can’t.
These are her friends. Each couple on the ice has at least one person she’s friends with. There, it’s Abby, skating with the man from Pause. And there, it’s Helena skating with Anders.
The sky darkens quickly, moving from afternoon to midnight in just a few heartbeats, and still they skate.
“Won’t you skate with us?” comes a voice from her left, and Melissa looks over, to see a dozen shadowy figures, standing at the edge of the ice.
“What?” Mel asks, brow furrowing in confusion.
“Won’t you skate with us?” is repeated, though she can’t tell which of the figures spoke. They’re little more than silhouettes, faceless men, strangers. But she’s so lonely that she rises, to find that there are skates on her feet.
Rather than move towards the group to choose, she moves out onto the ice, which is suddenly empty. Her eyes close as she lets herself drift towards the center of the pond, her face turned upward towards the sky, bathing in the moonlight.
A hand rests on her back, one of the figures skating with her, whispering in her ear. “Is this what you really want, Melissa?” he asks, before giving her a little push forward, sending her towards another figure.
He catches her in a dance pose, hand on her waist, other hand in hers. “You could have so much more, you know,” this one whispers, before releasing her and letting himself drift back.
Another one takes her hand, draws her along as he skates backwards. “You could be great. A hero to the minority masses.”
Again she’s released, only to feel a hand at her back, and one at her shoulder, gently pushing her along. “What do you really want, Melissa?”
She’s spun, unable to stop herself, and she feels herself getting dizzier and dizzier, until she’s caught, two strong arms sliding around her, holding her close, close enough to feel the beat of the heart of the faceless man pressed against her.
He leans down as though to kiss her, but instead, he whispers like all the others. “Whatever it is…Fight for it.” Then lips press against hers, a kiss filled with wild, electric heat that’s nearly painful. And as if the kiss summoned it, lightning flashes in the sky, illuminating the face of the man.
And showing her what it is that she really wants.
Melissa’s eyes open and she gasps as she wakes, laying on the couch at the Brick House, where she’d fallen asleep.
Her mind races as she replays the dream in her mind, her body tense, breathing rapid. But the more she thinks, the more she relaxes, until her eyes drift closed again and a smile plays over her lips.
It may not have been the plan that she was expecting, but she knows what she wants.
More importantly, she knows what to do.