"Melanie..."
The little girl was shaken awake that morning, her eyes slowly opening to the sight of her lion-haired father kneeling at her bedside. He was not fully dressed, in fact he had just rolled out of bed himself. He lightly shook her, and she rose from the twin-sized bed put especially for her in the suite reserved for them.
"Hm? It's morning?" Of course, she thought, I can never tell. These outposts are so dark.
"Yes. Remember, you're helping me with the selections again," he reminded her. "You need to go in the closet. Use your talents to read their souls. You know the drill."
"I hate closets," she groaned.
"I can only see the dark parts of their souls, that which they desperately try to hide," he said. "You can see anything in someone's soul."
Melanie immediately thought of the blonde-haired crude woman, the African-American woman, and the Gray servant she encountered when first arriving. They all were so peculiar, but she could not put her finger on why: "dad?"
"Yes, darling?" He stood up and went to comb his golden tresses before putting on his red scarf to compliment his black suit jacket. She pulled back the covers and her bare feet hit the floor from the rather high bed.
"Did you notice anything..." She thought for a moment, and he looked back at her, "uh, weird, with any of the survivors here?"
Michael thought for a moment and chuckled: "all of them are weird. We've established this."
"No, no," Melanie disagreed. "I mean... I noticed something with... three girls here."
"Who?"
"Uh... one has blonde hair. Yeah, the one who was a jerk last night," Melanie recalled. "One of the Gray servants. Another was that black woman. They all seemed... I don't know. I just... sensed something strange."
He smiled curtly and nodded; "we will figure it out. Everyone will be interviewed here. I will review the files myself. You know the drill, that in between each interview, you are to tell me exactly what you sense in their souls. Hold nothing back. You are playing a big role, after all."
Melanie nodded rapidly and obediently: "yes, dad."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
As promised, the man with bleach-blond hair and sunglasses was interviewed first. He was known simply as Mr. Gallant, a thirty-something-year-old former hair stylist from Santa Monica who lived with his affluent grandmother, Evie, who also resided at the outpost. Melanie was in the closet as she heard the interview between he and her father in full. He's a coward, she thought to herself, I saw it on him when I first encountered him.
"So, how does this work?" Mr. Gallant questioned.
"I'm not disclosing how you are being graded. There is no rubric," Michael answered, sounding authoritative. "However, anything you may feel will compel rejection may be exactly what I seek, and whatever you may think I am looking for, may not be what I am looking for."
"So... can I curb the system?" He takes the easy way out, Melanie sensed as she heard Mr. Gallant through the closet door, my dad will kill you, are you crazy?
Michael's tone sounded more indignant and firmer: "if you lie, try to trick me, or hedge, I will know. The interview will end right then, and I will kill you here myself, painfully." Dad, are you really going to, though? You haven't killed anyone yet in an interview for such things, Melanie thought to herself.
"Understood, sir."
"What is your sexual orientation, Mr. Gallant?" Michael asked, getting a pen with paper ready to take some notes.
"I'm gay, but I did fuck one girl in high school," he answered. "I finished. She did, too. I think she did. Hm..." Melanie could sense him thinking for a moment, "It's harder to tell with them. I am telling you because if you need me to procreate, I can."
"We have techniques of harvesting genetic material from organisms like humans, but we do need a healthy womb to incubate the fetus," Michael informed him, "so your ability to impregnate some poor girl isn't needed, quite frankly."
"Okay..."
"Tell me about the anger inside you," Michael insisted. "Your grandmother."
"Why are you putting those together?"
There was a moment of silence – Melanie even got nervous just thinking whether her father did detect something and have reason to kill him and carry out his threat to make him comply.
"I hate her fucking guts," Mr. Gallant said spitefully. "She wants me to be the 'perfect gay', married with a few Yorkies and a set of Wedgewood dining ware. A goddamn eunuch. That isn't what I am. I'm not even that old, but I am old enough to remember that sucking dick was not just a way to get off, but an act of political rebellion."
"Good," Michael praised. "She has shamed you in the past."
"What do you know?"
"Maybe I have a file with everything there is to know about you, or maybe I am just fishing, but tell me... who are you really?"
Mr. Gallant was silent: "are you looking for a confession of sorts?" Melanie nearly laughed but knew she needed to keep her mouth shut to not blow her cover.
"I'm not a priest. Hell, I don't even think there is a God. If there was, why would he destroy the world like this?" Michael asked rhetorically. "The concept of sin does seem a bit outdated. They are merely rules for keeping chaos at bay, yet... in this world, now, chaos has won."
Melanie struggled to listen to Mr. Gallant talking about suburban gay lunches held by his grandmother to meet other wealthy gay men. She listened to how he had a preference for leather, and even had a vision from the past of him walking into a grand dining room with nothing but leather chaps and a matching pageboy cap with a boombox that blared heavy techno music. She almost laughed, but then suddenly, she was distracted and heard slithering. She looked down and felt something long, scaly, and cool wrap itself up on her leg.
"AHHHHH!"
As she screamed, she found herself behind Gallant rather than in the closet, and the slithering thing on her leg was gone. Michael's eyes widened at what he had just witnessed. His daughter literally went from being behind the closet door, obscured from Mr. Gallant's view, to being right behind the interviewee, screaming at the top of her lungs in fear.
"Melanie!" he exclaimed. Mr. Gallant, in shock, turned around and watched Michael rush to get on his knees to be at eye level with his daughter, who was crying and shaking fearfully. "What the hell are you doing? Don't you see I'm busy?!"
"I know, but I saw a snake, it went up my leg!" she whined. "I HATE SNAKES!"
Her father sighed and shook his head, looking at Mr. Gallant and pointing toward the door; "we will continue this interview another time."
"D-Did I make it?"
"I haven't decided that yet," Michael said. "Please, leave. Thank you for your cooperation."
As Mr. Gallant rushed out of the office, Michael sighed and looked down at Melanie with a mixture of astonishment and disappointment. He gestured to the chair the interviewee was just in, and she took it as a sign to sit down. She looked at the skirt of her silk black dress and played with her fingers as she felt her father kneel in front of her and meet her at eye level. He raised her chin up so he could look into his daughter's eyes; she began to cry, still scared from what happened.
"I'm sorry, dad. I really am..."
"We need to have a talk," he said.
Her eyes widened slightly – "p-please don't punish me! I didn't mean to! I didn't know I could do that! A thing slithered on me and I got scared! Please dad!"
"I won't punish you. In fact, this isn't about you interrupting the interview," he said. "Your powers are growing."
Powers? What powers, Melanie thought as she sniffled and looked at her father with confusion. She knew that her father had some advanced capabilities, but to her, they were like normal people. To her, being able to read and sense people's thoughts and what they harbored in their souls was normal; yet her father called it "her talent". She sat and listened to him with open ears.
"You were right when we arrived yesterday. You read my mind. You are not fully human," he affirmed. "That is because I am not human."
"I don't get it."
"Satan is my father," Michael said. "I had a human mother as a host and a ghost as a father. I am the Antichrist. I have powers just like you do. Your mother did, as well."
"Was she human?" Melanie questioned.
"Yes, through and through, but she was special in her own way," Michael answered openly. "What you just did? That is called transmutation. I learned it as salire per spatium... in this place... this was a boarding school. Did you know that?"
Melanie, somewhat familiar with the history of each outpost, Outpost 3 included, nodded slowly, keeping eye contact with her father. His intense, piercing blue-green eyes looked so pleased that she was taking this so well.
"The Hawthorn Academy for Exceptional Young Men," Michael continued. "They took me in, taught me to control and improve my powers. They set me up to become something great... sure enough, I am."
"Where are they now?" Melanie questioned.
"Gone."
"Oh." She paused for a moment. "I can sense people and their thoughts and stuff... that is a power?"
"Yes," Michael said. "Divination. There are many kinds of it. What you have is a type of clairvoyance. I read once that it is called lectio animo."
"Lectio... animo?" Melanie repeated.
"Yes. The ability to see into someone's soul. Not just the variant I have, where I see into what makes someone tick or what triggers their inner madness."
"Will I get more... uh, powers?" Melanie asked shyly, crossing her legs at the ankles and sighing. Michael nodded.
"Yes. It's extremely likely," he said. "I know I said I would explain it when you were older, but... you are developing so much so fast. When I developed, I was physically much older than you, while you, you are so young. I never expected you to develop any more than just the clairvoyance at this point." He paused. "The point is, you need to learn how to control them, so that things like what happened just now don't happen again."
"How old are you, dad?"
"I am ten years old in human years," Michael chuckled. "That's the other thing. We age differently, too."
"You mean..."
"Yes, as in, differently than humans," Michael said. "I am physically in my early thirties. If I was a human, I'd be closer to your age, physically. You are two years old but look like you are six to eight years old. Alas, demons and satanic spawn age differently, more rapidly."
"What age do I tell people if they ask me how old I am?" Melanie questioned with confusion.
"Tell them you are six, seven, or eight. They'll believe you. By the looks of your current growth rate, you will age twice to three times as much as a normal human. So..." He thought for a moment. "Take into account your actual age and multiply it by three."
"Did you age the same way?"
"Not quite," Michael said to his daughter. "When I was about four or five years old, I aged ten years overnight."
"Weird," Melanie said with a bewildered tone to accompany it.
"If you are ever curious, please... ask me questions. As for your powers, I will help you in that department as well."
He held her hands in his, giving them a gentle squeeze. Melanie felt a sense of comfort knowing her father would be there to guide her and help her understand her state of being over the course of her life for as long as he was around. She smiled earnestly and nodded.
"Thank you, dad. Very much."
"Changing the subject," Michael said, "what did you sense from Mr. Gallant?"
He could tell Melanie was not very keen on him by her facial expression. Her thin, pale eyebrows were raised, and her brow was wrinkled and furrowed. Shaking her head, she simply said: "Dad, he's a coward. Why didn't he just leave that life behind if it was so bad and he hated his grandma so much? He is a grown man. Don't even get me started on her, the grandma. I may not like that blonde woman much already, but I agree, she isn't fit to procreate in the sanctuary. Her time on earth is up."
Michael was extremely pleased with her insights. As they flowed from her lips, he nodded and smiled a big, toothy grin. He agreed with every word, especially about the grandmother, Evie Gallant.
"I haven't interviewed her yet, but I do agree with you wholeheartedly," her father said, gently patting her head as he rose to his feet. "I am very pleased, Melanie. Thank you."
"Oh," she added, "let's not forget. He literally asked you if he could take the easy way out. Think about that before you decide to let him join us."
My daughter is my daughter, he thought to himself.
"I was thinking the exact same, Melanie," Michael smiled, patting her head again with praise before he reached into his suit jacket pocket and pulled out a few pieces of peach-flavored image candy. Melanie's eyes widened, and she smiled at her reward. She took a piece in her mouth and sucked on it a bit before biting it and swallowing the pieces she chewed.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The interviews went on until roughly two days later. In that time, she had learned the names of all the inhabitants of the outpost. Timothy was the name of the young man with brown hair and eyes often seen with Emily, the girl of about the same age who was of mixed race. Melanie, through her senses, knew that they should be approved by her father to join them in the sanctuaries. From what she heard in their interviews, they had gotten in trouble for having relations and were nearly executed, as Venable dictated in her rules which she claimed came from the Cooperative. However, it turned out this was fabricated by her, and Michael had interviewed her personally for this matter. Evie was never interviewed – Melanie wondered why exactly but didn't pay it any mind. Coco, the blonde woman in her early forties, was also interviewed, but Michael made the quick judgement that she lacked any depth of character; Melanie was indecisive about her case aside from personal biases stemming from her dislike of Coco. Andre, the black man, had expressed hatred toward his mother, Dinah Stevens, one of the woman Melanie felt that strange familiarity with at the outpost. When she sat for her interview, Michael had a sense of knowing her before as well.
Though she was instructed to not make any friends with the survivors, she still ended up socializing with Emily and Timothy. She formally met Emily first, after the Purple-class young woman heard music blaring from the suite she shared with her father. The girl, dressed in full attire before dinner, had come out of her private suite and heard a loud bass through the walls. Curiously, she peeked in and witnessed the young girl dancing rapidly to the now-antiquated Lose Control by Missy Elliot. The girl was dressed in a black pinafore with short puffy sleeves and a white lace collar, complete with a black hair ribbon in the style of headband, and black tights. Her shoes were not on yet for dinner, and her golden curls were getting messy from how she was dancing. Emily, feeling the beat, was reminded of a more expressive time in her life, before the nuclear holocaust, and bopped her head. Melanie, sensing someone there, saw Emily and smiled before turning down the radio's volume dial.
"Great song," she said.
"Yeah... I know it. Missy Elliot," Emily said back.
"Missy... what?"
"That's who sings it, with... Fatboy Slim and Ciara," the young woman reminded the little girl.
"Oh," Melanie smirked. "Yeah, my dad doesn't like when I listen to this music so loud. He's down in the office, so... I won't bother him."
"Has he picked anyone yet?" Emily asked bluntly.
Taken aback, Melanie neither shook her head nor nodded; "I cannot tell you. It is classified." She sighed. "Is that why you came here?"
"No, not really," Emily said nervously. "I...I was drawn by the music... it reminded me of before all of this, all of the bombs."
She's his daughter, she's got to know something. Melanie grunted as she read Emily's mind clear as day.
"I'm not dumb, you know," the little girl said. "I am not just going to give you classified information. My dad would have my head, and for someone my age, that's saying a lot. Trust me."
"I didn't..."
"Emily, don't play that game with me," Melanie said firmly. "Again..." She walked up to her, closer, and her voice seemed to echo in her mind like a silent scream. "I am not stupid."
The girl could sense the fear and apprehension all over Emily, who quickly shoved the idea she had into the back of her mind and cleared her throat. "Are you coming down to dinner?"
"I will."
"Want to... come down with me?"
"Maybe... what's it to you?" Melanie joked.
"I'm just trying to be nice," Emily said. "God only knows, you're the type who needs a friend."
Melanie nodded; "correct. This whole thing has been so lonely for me. I don't get to talk to people. Nice people, or people my age."
"I'm nice," the older girl smiled. "I try to be."
Melanie sat on the floor and put her shoes on, fastening the straps at went across her feet as she walked out of the room, locking the door sharply and double-checking to make sure it was secure. She looked up at Emily, sizing her up even though she herself only stood roughly three-foot-seven. She was of mixed white and black ancestry, possibly with some Hispanic in there. Her long, black kinky curls were loose but held back from her face in silver hairclips. She had large black eyes, was thin-figured, stood about five-foot-two, and was clad in a lilac-colored evening gown made of silk and taffeta with embroidery on the neckline and hem of the dress. On her hands were white lace fingerless gloves, and Melanie noticed a purple velvet choker adorning her neck with a cameo on the front. The little girl curiously tugged at the skirt, feeling the fabric and smiling.
"I like this," she remarked.
"It's all they had in my closet in my suite," Emily said. "Sucks we have to wear this."
"I don't like wearing all black but I have to," Melanie chuckled. "Want to know a secret?"
Emily eagerly crouched down to meet her height and let the little girl cup over her ear with both hands, listening to her whisper: "I don't like Miss Venable."
Agreeing, the young woman nodded: "who does?"
The two went downstairs and made it in time for dinner with just three minutes to spare before Venable were to say anything about them being late. Everyone was already seated at a long table, where she was at the head of it, staring at Emily and Melanie as they entered. The little girl could feel a dozen pairs of eyes on her, and while she met the gazes of Dinah, Coco, and Mr. Gallant, she ignored the rest and sat at the other end of the table, meeting everyone's curious gazes with a silencing smile.
"Ah, Melanie," Venable said facetiously, placing a cloth napkin on her lap. "I didn't think you would be joining us. Does your father know?"
Don't talk to me about my father with that sarcastic tone, you grump. You're just sad because he rejected you from joining us in the sanctuary because you made up your own rules in this roost, she thought to herself, reading Venable at the same time and resisting the temptation to speak her mind aloud, without my father, you would not even be in your position, he can take it from you just as fast as you can wrap with your cane.
"Melanie?"
The little girl snapped out of her silent rant in her head. "Yeah?"
"Did your father allow you to dine with us?"
"Uh... what's the harm?"
"You're a Black," Venable said, "dining amongst Purples."
Melanie heard a whisper come from Andre, the effeminate black man with a lisp: "segregation all over again." She took it into account and formulated her reply based on it.
"We are the last humans on earth," she said. "Why does it matter who eats with who? It's only clothing that separates us by rank."
"It's more than that," Venable challenged. "It is the foundation for a functioning society."
"It's the foundation for conflict," the little girl retorted vehemently.
I refuse to argue with this girl right now, Venable thought as sensed by the little girl.
Soon, the Grays each carried individual silver plates complete with domes to the ones at the dining table. Melanie could not smell the familiar scent of something hot and savory, but instead something stale and cool to the touch. She watched as everyone was served from Venable's end of the table all the way down to hers, the last to be presented. She curiously picked up the silver dome and furrowed her brow at the sight of nothing – nothing but a gel-like substance in cube form. She prodded it with her fork and looked at Venable.
"What... is this?"
"That contains every mineral and vitamin your body needs to survive," said Venable.
"In this thing?" Melanie chuckled, looking at everyone seated. "At this point, I am shocked you haven't resorted to eating each other."
There was a dead silence. Led by her senses, the little girl was drawn to turn her head to Andre, whose tearful gaze met hers. She sighed and sensed something from him. The residents at Outpost 3 indeed had eaten one of theirs at one point in time, a man named Stu, who also happened to be Andre's boyfriend. He was killed under the false pretenses that he was a contamination risk, being scrubbed raw with wet brooms and disinfectant alongside Mr. Gallant, who she took a glance at before returning Andre's gaze at the table.
"I'm sorry about Stu," she muttered.
"Don't you mention him! You don't..." Andre stopped himself, taking the finger he pointed toward her aback, "wait... how do you know his name? You weren't there!"
She shrugged, but it was this moment that Mr. Gallant stood up and pointed a finger at the mysterious little girl at the end of the table who did nothing but prod at the jelly cube she was given.
"This little girl is creepy!" he exclaimed. "She knows things! I don't know what the hell I saw a few days ago-"
"Shut up! She's like, six years old!" Emily yelled back at the man across the table from her. "She's just a savant or something like that!"
"Silence!" Venable snapped loudly, tapping her cane against the floor next to her seat. "Sit down, Mr. Gallant, and eat your ration!" She turned to Melanie, who remained cool as a cucumber. "And you, if you say one more word, you are excused from this dinner table never to return."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
After an extremely boring, silent dinner with the Purples and Venable, Melanie retired to the common room and started to look at the bookshelves. She was by her lonesome, and there were a lot of the typical classics of literature, books on philosophy beyond even her comprehension, even instructional manuals on how to repair machinery and appliances. However, there was one book that peaked her interest on the top shelf, entitled Lexicon; it was thick but medium-sized, leather-bound in brown cowhide. She fixed her eyes on the book and tried a few times to reach for it with her small self but failed. Then, without any warning, the book fell from the shelf, nearly smacking the girl's face with all its weight. It hit her foot, and she resisted the urge to yelp aloud. She sat down and opened the book, rubbing her shoe-covered foot roughly to ease the pain of the impact as her eyes scanned the pages with pure intrigue.
In the book, she saw peculiar patterns in circles with strange inscriptions off to the side of the page written as notes. Melanie also feasted her eyes on strange diagrams of personified plants and roots, as well as pictures of bones, both animal and human, in relation to whatever was written on the page. She turned to a specific page in the middle of the book that was more like a centerfold, depicting a strange image of a creature with two large, curved horns, deep black eyes, two rows of teeth filed to a point, hooved feet, and wings that were like those of a bat. Melanie peered down at the peculiar drawing, feeling drawn to it. Yet she was confused when she began to hear voices:
"Father! Open my eyes!"
Sounds a lot like dad, she thought to herself.
"I beg for your wisdom!"
Melanie closed the book she had been looking into on the floor and carried it with her, feeling the weight of it nearly drag her arm down. She rushed upstairs to the suite she shared with her father, but the first thing she did was put the mysterious Lexicon under her bed. The voice of her father was even clearer now that she was in the vicinity.
"May you rise from the void! Help me to overcome my weaknesses! I evoke power in your name to be strong within! FATHER! OPEN MY EYES!"
She took off her shoes to help her walk more quietly, letting the sounds of her father's voice lead her to where he was. Curious, she took a peek into their shared bathroom and was immediately horrified at the sight. For one, Michael was naked, kneeling on the floor in what looked to be a circle of his own blood. She noticed that his arms were cut from the wrists all the way up to the middle of his biceps, and it continued to spill out as he lathered his chest and groin with the sanguine fluid. She gasped at what she witnessed next – near the candles on the floor, black snakes manifested themselves and slithered about, nearly giving the ophidiophobic girl a heart attack. However, that was the least of her worries. Her father seemed to stare off into space in her direction, his eyes turning the same shade of black as he had looked at her before when being authoritative or if he was reprimanding her and meant business.
She heard him say: "ave satanas."
That did it – she backed away in fear, running away from the scene she just saw. She wondered to herself if her father would die with such wounds. She wondered why he was calling on Satan at this time, and an even bigger question, why was he doing it? She ran out of the suite and down the hall, looking back to glance and see if what Michael conjured took notice of her presence and was chasing her, but she bumped into someone. Her heart beat so fast she thought it would burst, but she was surprised to see Mallory, one of the girls that her father had interviewed. Her bright blue eyes widened at the Gray servant with the top antenna-style bun on her head in dead center, dressed in an apron over a calf-length dress complete with black stockings and button-up boots. Her black eyeglasses framed her warm brown eyes, ones that were distinctive to her for some reason she could not quite figure out yet.
"You... y-you're..."
"Miss Melanie," she said. "I am so sorry."
"No, it's my fault," Melanie answered. "Don't say sorry."
"What are you doing, may I ask? Are you okay?" Mallory crouched to eye level to meet Melanie's gaze.
"I... uh," the little girl looked around for a moment before giving a definite answer. "Yes... I am fine."
"Do you need anything? That is what I am here for," Mallory asked, her hands on Melanie's upper arms.
"What I need," she began, speaking quietly and leaning in, "is to tell you that you are different."
"Huh?"
"You and two others here, I know you are different. You are kind of like me," Melanie spoke rapidly. "I know it. I don't know how, but I do..." She took a breath, taking note of the confusion on the Gray's face. "That is what I needed."
"Oh..." Mallory looked down and licked her lips subtly. She knows, doesn't she. She's like him.
"I'm not like my father in the sense that you think," Melanie corrected, responding to what she read in her mind.
"How did you..."
"Look, I'm like him, but not like him," she said, letting her thoughts flow freely as she gazed into her dark eyes. "I hate death and dying, but it's part of this twisted world I was born into. I don't want to hurt people unless they step on me. I have the strangest family dynamic the world at present has ever known. I've never met my mother, I don't know where my grandma is. My father said she was a guard here, but I have not seen her. I hate not being able to socialize with people." She paused, and Mallory listened. "I traveled around the world this past year or so... if you were me, you'd kill yourself or wish you died in the blasts. I hate wearing these... these..." She tugged at her skirt, "clothes, I also can't believe they're feeding you jelly!"
"I-I'm listening," Mallory said in an almost compliant manner, nodding without breaking eye contact. Then she stood up, looking down into her eyes and taking her by the hand as if to lead her down the hallway.
"Are you taking me to your room?" the little girl asked, a little calmer.
"Yes. I am here for you, Miss Melanie," she said.
"We won't be caught? I'm actually not supposed to even associate with you Grays."
"I won't tell if you won't," Mallory said gravely.
"I'm glad you won't. You better not," the little girl said.
"Yes, Miss Melanie."