Melody Swan

Chapter 1 - Living A Lie

Earl grey macaróns and chocolat chaud.

Melody calmly masticated the delicate pastry before she sipped the creamy drink at her dining table, laden with silk. It was her fourteenth birthday today, so her interactive mansion spoilt her with treats. Melody ruffled her silky flaxen hair, her periwinkle eyes glancing from here to there.

Melody had been locked in a colossal mansion for as long as she could remember. But it wasn't so dreadful. Her residence was interactive and waited on Melody hand and foot. The manor was all Melody needed. It even coaxed Melody into reading her Life Book, her starter pack at life. It wasn't really a book because it had tutorials in videos on some of the pages, like on how to talk and read. The very title of the book was sewn into the brown leather cover with golden thread:

Life Book

Book Belonging To: Melody Kepliza Swan

The book also taught her how to speak and do math. The other subjects it contained was her daily routine and information on objects. She could remember the first day she bothered to open the book, which was when she was four. The first page was a video that taught her how to read, the French language unknown to her, with abstract squiggles which she now knew to be letters and numbers. The video was narrated by a woman with a very fake enthusiastic voice.

According to her book, Melody, like all humans, lived alone in a self-functioning interactive mansion. When a residence was ready, a baby would just spawn there and the mansion would raise it and wait on it hand and foot. She'd glanced to the door a couple of times and even tried opening it, but failed. Apparently, according to her life book, there indeed was a world outside, but an evil one. One that would rip you apart.

Melody had a pet German Shepherd named Ajax, whom she loved with all her heart. Ajax was now twelve years old, according to the mansion. So basically the girl and her dog grew together. She bent down to ruffle his fur, which was softer than her pillow's stuffing. The massive dog licked Melody's arm, his furry body snuggling against Melody. Ajax was Melody's only companion in this mansion, and would literally die if anything happened to him. Melody was fortunate, as only a few humans spawned with a pet in their mansion.

"Happy birthday, ma cherie!" asked the female mansion interface or her mother, "What would you like for lunch today?"

Melody scratched her chin. "Hmm... I'd kill for some seafood bouillabaisse today. I'm going to take a bath, however."

"Of course, ma cherie. Food will be ready by then, my birthday baby." the interface sounded off.

"Thanks, Maman!" Melody jovially thanked as she floated upstairs.

Her bathroom was really the only place she had privacy from her mother, as the interface could not get past the bathroom door. It was gargantuan, and oh so luxurious. Melody had hundreds of different kinds of soaps to choose from, whether it be rose water or vanilla sugar, or liquid soap, a bath bomb, or a bar of soap. Melody stripped her pajamas, chose a chamomile bath bomb and took a nice, long soak. After she was finished, she wrapped herself in a hot towel and walked into her walk-in closet in her bathroom.

Melody scratched her head as she decided what to wear. A ruffled cream top? A baby-blue blouse? A flowy floral dress? She decided to ditch all of them and go with a red and black hoodie and blue capris. Melody literally flew down the stairs.

"Lunch is ready!" singsonged the interface.

On cue, the aromatic, buttery smell of bouillabaisse wafted from the kitchen, tickling Melody's nostrils. She ran back to the dining table and snarfed everything down, rouille and all. The hearty taste of the soup and texture of the crab legs warmed her soul as always. She washed everything down with warm water.

"Not so fast, ma cherie!" giggled Maman from within the walls.

"What?" Melody playfully countered. "It was so good!"

"Alright, off you go and play with something." Maman said.

After she finished her lunch, Melody then went to lounge on the most luxurious couch in the mansion, made with fine velvet. Sometimes when bored, she used to analyze things within her mansion. She thought about the paintings on the walls and the long and weird string of random letters under the painting marked: Melinda S. & Mercury S. Detrectro 15, 3050. It read: "Ounzx Mil au Pil awecomdp Selopinaquet. Qwueir xusows hesoap kaisne mdo heueueu n quiee sjsos Rion ausi Lysina Kahaiakm. Ahsusysb a, uqiana laoaaises."

Melody had been aware of this weird series of letters formatted in a pretty font for a while, and entertained herself by attempting to decode it. She had no idea what Detrectro meant, but she presumed that because of the context, it meant December in another language. None of the trials succeeded, yet she tried again and again. Like perhaps, this time. Did all mansions have foreign paintings like this? She tried reading the words and letters backwards, and even upside down. She even used her computer and put the series of letters into Google Translate. Nothing. She wasn't frustrated because she didn't expect anything to happen.

Melody took out her journal, a hard, brown leatherback book with a tail attached to it as her bookmark, and took it out, which she wrote in ever since she was seven, ever so often.

Here we go, Melody breathed, and picked up her pencil, which waited in the pocket of the leatherback journal. This was the last page of her boring diary, and Melody was done with it. She had no care.

Cher journal,

It's my birthday, but no surprise. I'm 14 now. Even though my mansion keeps me happy everyday, it's so boring to just roam around in the same few walls. Even though this hope is another hope wasted, I wish that I don't have to waste more wishes to see the outside world, now that 12 wishes are gone. It's so boring and feel empty. Even though I love my interactive mansion and am content with staying here forever, I just want to see the world outside, and wonder why it's so dangerous. It doesn't matter if I die going outside. I have no diaries left, so this is the last one, before all my thoughts have to be restricted to my mind—or my computer. Bon voyage, cher journal.

September 2, 3066—Melody Swan

Melody shut her journal, setting the completed diary aside, and lodged her pencil into it. She longed to go outside for exactly a decade, over 3,650 times. She'd tried several ways of going outdoors, but this mansion had exactly zero windows, and the door wouldn't budge. The floor couldn't be dug through, and the walls were so strong that a battering ram wouldn't work. And a battering ram would hurt Maman. None of those times succeeded, so why would this one? She decided to nap in the first floor bedroom, because she was too tired to go all the way to her favorite bedroom, the one on the fourth floor. The one she was in was the one that she used until she learned how to climb the stairs, thanks to her cheesy life coach within her book, a female with a high-pitched, irregularly peppy voice.

From her soft velvet bed, Melody stared at the boring analog clock ticking, ticking, ticking. Before she knew it, she fell asleep.

"BOOM! THUD!" something exploded.

Melody woke up instantaneously. What was that noise? Was Maman okay? Her mansion rarely had any peculiar noises; only the sounds she or Ajax made, or if something spontaneously fell. She walked out of the bedroom, with her adrenaline levels spiking. The crash was a picture of a boy named Miles S., A boy with flaxen hair and periwinkle eyes that sat in the sunlight. She heard the other noise expel from the door. She looked at the clock—this time, a digital one. It was 2:00 PM, September 2, 3066. It was her fourteenth birthday. But that didn't matter, only the sound did.

She started walking. The walk felt endless, even though she was only about twenty feet away and she was walking at a faster pace than usual. Fifteen feet. Five feet. Two feet. Too scared to look up, she kept her eyes glued onto the impressively hard hardwood floor.

She looked up, and the door was brought down.