There will probably be errors in this story, due to the fact that I don't have time to proof read it. I apologise.8964 copyright protection658PENANADyw3RVrvBn 維尼
It wasn’t until the day her father died she thought about heritage. Never had the thought even crossed her mind. She was dazed and confused as the phone called that afternoon. It was from the hospital, and her father was dead. She never had a close relationship to her father, so it didn’t really bother her, put it definitely made her think. She thought about those things she’d never thought about before. Like where she came from. Melody’s mind was filling up with all these questions. Questions she had never even thought existed. She got out of her fluffy, pink dress and got into the bathtub. She overweighed whether she would call her mom or not. She’d probably heard the news and she couldn’t be too thrilled. Melody’s mother didn’t care much about her ex-husband but his demise would hurt her. She wasn’t a very strong person. That much Melody had known ever since her play date with Eric. She had found her mother in bed with Eric’s dad. That quickly put an end to the play dates, which made Mel very sad. She had always been fond of Eric, and now that they couldn’t hang out anymore, she felt like she would cry.8964 copyright protection658PENANAX561EuGukJ 維尼
When Mel got out of the hot tub she quickly got on her computer. It was pink like everything else in her house. Mel liked pastel colours, even though they gave her migraines. Or at least she pretended she got migraines. Her kind didn't really get those. On the table there were cupcakes and cookies. She had baked all night and was quite tired.8964 copyright protection658PENANA328s5k6sIX 維尼
She sat down and started typing in her name and password. Melody closed all her tabs and opened a new one. In this one she typed Samuel Halley. Her father’s name was a glorious one.8964 copyright protection658PENANA24OxCrmRhY 維尼
She opened the first site and read it up and down. It was a simple site about Samuel's company. She didn't know exactly what he worked with, but according to this, he worked for some archaeologists on different dig-sites. The last time Mel saw him, he was traveling overseas, to France.8964 copyright protection658PENANAsNI4omTlNn 維尼
Mel took a bite of the cupcake and closed her computer. She sat like that for quite some time. The wheels in her head were slowly rotating. She was thinking. As she thought, she ate the rest of the cupcake, and even some chocolates. She didn't want to leave the wrappers on the desk, so she walked to the kitchen to throw them in the bin. There she found all the invitations to her birthday party. She was going to post them tomorrow. She was going to invite a whole of twenty people. Eric was the first one she was going to invite. Then Trevor, Ivy and Elsie. Those were the four most important. The other ones were mostly friends of Ivy's. She was the most sociable person Mel knew. It wasn't like Mel was best friends with Eric, Trevor, Ivy and Elsie. They had know each other for years, but as of late they had lost contact. But this was a big birthday. She was hitting the big eighteen! There was no way they wouldn't show up.8964 copyright protection658PENANAUzWBbys4h9 維尼
She would have to drive all the way up to the hospital where her father was. First she'd call her mom, and make sure everything was all right with her. Even though she had her doubts, she had decided to make the call. Mel found her telephone and started dialling the number. Her mom answered on the second ring, making Mel suspect that she was waiting for the call.8964 copyright protection658PENANANzOSykpXwl 維尼
“Oh Mel! I don’t know what I’m going to do!” her mother whined into the phone.8964 copyright protection658PENANAhZB5flaGii 維尼
"You didn't even have contact with him," Mel said in her mousy voice. Mel stuffed her face with more cupcakes as she spoke, making sure to eat everything she had baked for the party. How Mel survived on her sugary diet didn't anyone know. A normal person would have gotten cardiac arrest or diabetes by now, but Mel kept going. Then again, Mel wasn't really a normal person.8964 copyright protection658PENANA6BbkzsBLfO 維尼
"He was such a great husband! I'll never get the chance to tell him how much I loved him!" she continued being dramatic. Mel just listened while she ate. Her mother didn't exactly leave her much room to talk. In between the cries for attention and the legitimate mourning, she didn't feel like she could say anything.8964 copyright protection658PENANA1msPnhWBRY 維尼
"Are you even listening?"8964 copyright protection658PENANAuJpNvPJXk2 維尼
"Yes mother."8964 copyright protection658PENANAwAoh6QA8jY 維尼
"Aren't you going to express your condolences? I'm crying my eyes out here," she complained.8964 copyright protection658PENANAlEG16YqcWJ 維尼
"My condolences. He was my father too," Mel tried.8964 copyright protection658PENANAdtq0OlcUTQ 維尼
"Pfht. You'd have to look long and hard to find a father worse than him," her voice grew stern. "He never bought you anything, for goodness sake!."8964 copyright protection658PENANAGZ27NTYw22 維尼
"It's not just about what a person buys for you," Mel continued trying to get through to her mother, but it was futile. Soon, her mother would go on yet another rampage, tearing down wallpaper and throwing cutlery around. Then Mel would have to fly to the apartment and fix everything.8964 copyright protection658PENANA9i9DfdB5to 維尼
Her hovercar was almost out of milk. She would have to fill the tank soon. The problem with milk as petrol was that Mel ended up drinking up half of the tank. She wasn't the only one, she'd seen people drink directly from the pups at the milk station. Sometimes she'd go on road trips and bring cookies. Then she'd dip the cookies into the tank and eat them.8964 copyright protection658PENANAh6fxSzAe86 維尼
“You aren’t listening! I knew it!” Mel could hear something break in the background.8964 copyright protection658PENANAYvJGO9b4sr 維尼
“Stop mother, you can’t break everything.”8964 copyright protection658PENANAnTeqrCSjzZ 維尼
“It’s my house and I do as I damn well please!” she was shouting. It was hurting poor Mel’s ears. She wanted to cry. She felt her eyes swell.8964 copyright protection658PENANA3dWFRLlJP1 維尼
“Stop mother,” she repeated.8964 copyright protection658PENANAbSIB1MQGSh 維尼
“Oh, don’t tell me you’re going to cry… Crybaby!” Mel was full on crying now. The tears were running down her cheeks, leaving watery marks on her face.8964 copyright protection658PENANATJhvX0J2iI 維尼
Throughout her whole childhood she had been called crybaby. At one point she even believed it was her real name. It wasn’t until she was in kindergarten she realised she was called Melody. To this day, she got sad when people called her by her old nickname. Her mother knew exactly what buttons to push. She knew that calling her crybaby would push her over the edge.8964 copyright protection658PENANAWiF2rZI3va 維尼
“You don’t care about me Mel. If I killed myself right this instant, you wouldn’t care.”8964 copyright protection658PENANAlgJiIaKR6r 維尼
“Of course I would care, mother,” Mel cried. “I love you.”8964 copyright protection658PENANA1DhiVXhDKJ 維尼
“I’m going to kill myself just to prove my point.”8964 copyright protection658PENANAU2XRKIcaXe 維尼
"Please don't," Mel begged. She was running to the hovercar now. It was hovering in the garage. Mel always forgot to turn the hover mode off. This made it use an extreme amount of milk.8964 copyright protection658PENANArAiew3V4H2 維尼
“Mother, are you there?”8964 copyright protection658PENANAZzwnjruiVI 維尼
“Mel, I’m dying,” her voice was weak, which made Mel believe that she was actually dying. This couldn’t be good. First her father, now her mother’s attempted suicide.8964 copyright protection658PENANAV2vvm97AVd 維尼
“I’m hanging up to call paramedics, please don’t move.”8964 copyright protection658PENANAzOb7WXNC1S 維尼
“I knew you wouldn’t let me kill myself. Ungrateful child.” Mel was crying even harder when she hung up and called the paramedics. She knew some paramedics personally, so she called them. This wasn’t the first time her mother had pulled something like this.8964 copyright protection658PENANAO2b01JinXB 維尼
“Hi, Nicolai? It’s Melody. Melody Halley. My mother, Paula Halley, do you remember her?”662Please respect copyright.PENANAJQdLNi5Cw5
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"Oh, hi Melody, yeah of course I remember her. What's up?" Nicolai sounded playful even though Mel was crying. He was always like this. Unless something really serious was going on. Not that her mother's attempted suicide wasn't serious, but she knew Nicolai dealt with this sort of thing on a regular basis.8964 copyright protection658PENANA32mfMTJMsa 維尼
“She might be trying to kill herself.”8964 copyright protection658PENANAbkBwFiWYjZ 維尼
"What?" Nicolai went into serious mode. His tone was stern, dead almost. "What's your ID-number?" Mel had problems remembering her ID-number, so she had to check with the panel that was implanted in her wrist.8964 copyright protection658PENANAXutRxqeTmQ 維尼
“County One, Sector Forty-five, Number seven six-hundred,” she answered.8964 copyright protection658PENANA5bHUC8umwf 維尼
“I don’t remember you mother’s address but I can find it with your number. I’ll send paramedics to your mother’s location.”8964 copyright protection658PENANANa4t8KS8ja 維尼
“Thank you, Nicolai.”8964 copyright protection658PENANAU6LF6xQM7Z 維尼
“No problem.” His playfulness was back, but Mel suspected it was just to make her feel better.8964 copyright protection658PENANAC6uR6oZwSB 維尼
After she had hung up, she tried calling her mother over and over. She didn’t pick up. This only made Mel more worried. She sped along the lightways, reaching the speed of sound. Mel technically wasn’t allowed to drive a hovercraft yet, but she was feeling a bit rebellious as of late. And normal ground-cars were awfully dull. She’d take her hovercar out for late night drives along the desolate lightways out of the city. Mel hadn’t ever gotten into trouble because of it, and soon she could legally drive a hovercraft, so it didn’t really matter.8964 copyright protection658PENANAJv0wNfuk7S 維尼
She got to her mother’s house in three minutes. The paramedics showed up shortly after.8964 copyright protection658PENANAyareOOhPRT 維尼
Inside the house, the wallpapers were ripped and different sets of cutlery were spread all over the floor. Just like Mel had foreseen. Nicolai was one of the paramedics examining the house. The two walked through the rooms together. They ended up in her mother's bedroom. She was lying there. Pills were spread all over the nightstand. Her eyes were closed and it didn't look like she was breathing. Nicolai took one look at Paula and then looked at Mel.8964 copyright protection658PENANACYXtBJMq5a 維尼
"I didn't remember her being a human...," he trailed off. There was some disgust in his voice. Mel got worried that Nicolai would treat a simple human. Or a superior human, depending on who you asked.8964 copyright protection658PENANAt1NBpr2ixG 維尼
“Didn’t you help her once before?”8964 copyright protection658PENANAIie016DAIG 維尼
“We only talked on the phone,” he said.8964 copyright protection658PENANAhQrYFBFCfI 維尼
“And you thought because I’m a doll, she’s one as well?” Nicolai shrugged. He showed his true self. A cold, unfeeling doll. Dolls could mimic human emotion, but could never really feel it. This is what made Mel the most malfunctioning doll ever. She’d been brought to many mechanics around town. They all tried figuring out why she could feel. Feel like a human. Was it nature or nurture? She’d been brought up by humans. Was that the source of her problem? There were many theories going around.8964 copyright protection658PENANABy9EQVhb78 維尼
“Should we call a human doctor?” Mel asked.8964 copyright protection658PENANAC4LHMDnfaL 維尼
Nicolai shrugged again. He sat down besides Mel’s mother and looked at the panel in his wrist.8964 copyright protection658PENANAxR56v1IcGs 維尼
“You are supposed to check human’s pulse.” He pressed his cold fingertips to her neck.8964 copyright protection658PENANAB5hn2CjLjN 維尼
“There is something moving in there, and she’s warm.”8964 copyright protection658PENANA20wdROPzTQ 維尼
“That means she’s still alive,” Mel excitedly exclaimed. Nicolai looked at her with that empty but playful expression. He looked amused that she felt so strongly.8964 copyright protection658PENANAYpKZPOZulq 維尼
“Fuck you, dolls, I can take care of myself,” Mel’s mother coughed. Her face had gone slightly blue and her eyes were bloodshot.8964 copyright protection658PENANAnBJN2IPvIF 維尼
“Mother,” Mel hugged her, feeling Nicolai’s eyes on her the whole time.8964 copyright protection658PENANAzI0Nm8P18r 維尼
“You almost let me die!” she complained.8964 copyright protection658PENANAMNAvqLIt3D 維尼
Nicolai had called a human doctor, and he showed up after a quarter of an hour. It took longer for humans to arrive since they weren’t capable of driving hovercrafts. Well, some humans were, but most weren’t. It had something to do with their fragile bodies and minds.8964 copyright protection658PENANAhIKK7QKnP2 維尼
“Mrs. Halley held her breath, these pills are vitamin D. She was never in any danger,” the dry doctor said. If he pretended to be a doll, he could probably fool her, Mel thought.8964 copyright protection658PENANApXUhZQToNO 維尼
“So I have wasted your time?” Mel asked, feeling her eyes swell up again. She hated to be of bother.8964 copyright protection658PENANAAEWCg3FWUQ 維尼
“You are a remarkable doll, aren’t you,” the doctor said. “You mimic human emotions so well.”662Please respect copyright.PENANAu4otUZANRD
Nicolai sent her a look that said “don’t explain”, but Mel felt like she had to.8964 copyright protection658PENANAtqUuYiTQUz 維尼
“I’m actually not a proper doll…,” she started. “I have a malfunction… That’s why I’m not fit for labour.” She showed the Doctor her panel. It said Malfunctioning. The panel was red.8964 copyright protection658PENANA0rqsuTkhP8 維尼
The doctor stroked his beard and looked Mel dead in the eye. “You’re Samuel Halley’s daughter, aren’t you?”8964 copyright protection658PENANAWtSDxGvRnV 維尼
Mel nodded.8964 copyright protection658PENANAeioQJ4zizr 維尼
With that he left.8964 copyright protection658PENANAjNheNTUw0U 維尼
It wasn’t until the day Mel’s father died she thought about her heritage. Mel had never thought about where she’d come from. Was she just from another doll factory. How could someone like her get through the controls? 8964 copyright protection658PENANArGCRB8qyiw 維尼
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