The Golden Rule

Chapter 2- Escape

“Have you ever tried taking off the brace?”

These words kept playing over and over in Melody’s head. She laid in her bed, staring up at the ceiling. She looked at the ankle that the brace was usually clasped onto. It was scarred and had cuts on it, with additional burns from being shocked continuously over the years. She sat up and took a drink of water. Making her way through the darkness of her room, she turned on the light. She leaned back and slumped down the wall, her hands covering her face.
“Why does this bother me much? Why can’t I just let it go? It was one sentence. A suggestion at that. Take off the brace? Was she saying that I should try to escape? Is she crazy? I couldn’t even if I tried. I can’t even figure out how to use the powers that everyone here says I have.” Melody uncovered her eyes and looked down at her glinting ankle brace, the red light that flickered on it occasionally seemed to be taunting her. The light had been red for at least two hours to her estimate.
“This thing has to die at some point, right? A security guard should’ve been here ages ago to charge it, though. Maybe it’s a holiday and I just don’t know it?” It was usually green, but sometimes it would blink red, indicating that the battery was dying. She continued to stare at it until the light turned off. Melody scanned the area of her room. There had to be something that she could use, anything at all. She continued to look around her room, but stopped once she realized that it didn’t matter if the brace was on her or not. As long as the battery was dead, they had no way of shocking or tracking her.
She looked up and then at her back. She wondered if she could really activate her powers herself to escape the Vallay. She had seen movies of people gaining superpowers they didn’t even know that they had. In her case, she figured it was a pair of wings and horns. Her upper back and head would feel as though someone had carved out holes into them and those were the only examples she’d seen in the rare occasion that the employees would let her read a book or watch a movie. When they figured out they had them, they would concentrate hard on what they wanted to appear. Sometimes it worked right on the spot. Other times it took a lot of trial and error. It was worth a shot.
“Okay, Melody.” She told herself. “You can do this. All you have to do is concentrate on what you want to appear.”
As she concentrated on horns growing out of her head and wings growing on her back, she thought she felt something. Excited, she looked over her shoulder and saw nothing. She attempted to try and grow a pair of wings and horns several times more but got the same result of nothing. Each time she failed, she progressively grew angrier. After what seemed to her like her tenth attempt, she became squeezed her eyes shut and had tears starting to flow out of them. She planted her feet firmly on the ground and clenched her fists tight.

“Why won’t this work! UGH!” She yelled as she punched the back wall of her room with as much force as she could. Her anger had festered enough that it had awakened an abundance of strength within her. It was something that was very common for demons to have, but Melody was unaware of this fact. She ended up punching the wall so hard, that she made a massive hole. She coughed and hacked as the dust from the aging concrete wall settled. Debris was scattered everywhere. Boulders had flung outside as much as seventy-five feet away from the wall. Some had landed behind her and had blocked the safe-like door of her room.
“OPEN THE DOOR! NOW!” A security guard shouted. Melody looked at the door and then back at the hole. She stared at the outside world that she had never seen. Alarms went off and streams of light circled around the spacious field. She continued to stare at it for another moment before she was blinded by spotlights shining down on her. Once she adjusted from the shock, she looked out to the field and ran.

She sprinted across the large field as fast as her legs could carry her. Narrowly missing tranquilizer bullets and stun guns, she made large strides and bounds towards the electric fence that separated the Vallay from the outside world. She was about to stop to prevent herself from running into the fence and getting electrocuted, but the fence was surprisingly disarmed. She looked around her and saw several others making an escape attempt as well. The person who had disarmed the fence was also an escapee.
She continued to run ahead but saw guards making their way around the perimeter. They started to shoot but didn’t get very far as the escapees started fighting back. Those who knew how to control their powers and advanced abilities used them in any way them in they possibly could. Some spewed out fire from their mouths or threw balls of flame at the guards. Others were forming deadly spears of water from pipes or bullet-like water droplets. A few could form spheres of pure power in the palms of their hands. Those were just some of the people that Melody was able to glance at. There were more people than Melody had ever seen in her entire life combined. It was a crazy sight. She had never thought about how big the Vallay really was or even that there were other people like her. Trapped for years in a tortuous facility and having to go through the same mind-numbing experiments day after day. Seeing a rebellion like this, was a beautiful sight that she had thought about long ago. Her escaping this awful place, -minus the other prisoners of course-, having a normal life and being just like everyone else. She knew there was life outside the Vallay from stories she’d overheard from the security guards, she just didn’t know where.
Melody quickly surveyed the battle zone to find a possible escape route. She spotted one to the far right of the field and ran as fast as she could into it. A couple of guards spotted her and rushed over. They started to shoot at her, but she continued to head straight for them. She didn’t intend to look for another route to escape, not when she was already so close to freedom. A bullet shot through her arm and she slowed down as she gripped it in pain, but still kept on running. One of the prisoners saw what was happening and aimed massive bursts of explosive flame at them. It hit both of the guards on contact, burning them alive. Melody looked over at her mysterious savior. She waved and smiled at them, then took bounding leaps and sprints past the border and far out into the distance.

Melody had been running for hours on end. She had gone through at least five fields and several forests and once again had found herself stopping in a wooded area. On top of that, she was tired, thirsty, hungry, her right arm and left hand were caked with dry blood and every last part of her ached and burned.

But she was free.
    She uncovered her hand from her arm and looked at it to assess the intensity of the wound and if was infected or not. To her utter astonishment, it was completely healed. It was as if the bullet had never even touched her skin. The only evidence that there had been any sign of injury was the blood that covered her.
    Melody wandered aimlessly through the forest as she tried to find a good place to rest. Peering through the endless rows of trees, she saw a fairly large clearing up ahead. She slowly made her way through the trees and found a freshwater stream. She took in several large helpings of the cool liquid before noticing what laid ahead of her.
   
    In the middle of the clearing there appeared to be a small, abandoned shack. It was very run down and looked like nobody had lived in it for a long time.
    To Melody, it was absolutely perfect.
She cautiously walked towards the house and took each step with care as she slowly climbed up the steps of the front porch. She hesitated for a moment but summed up the courage to knock on the door.
The first knock cracked open the door a bit, indicating that it was open. She pushed the door and took a step inside.

A second later, she felt like her head had been smashed into a million pieces. She fell to the floor and blacked out.