Melody

Chapter 5: Rise of Melody

Peter's POV

The typewriter sat in front of me, its cold, impersonal keys mocking me with their mechanical indifference. Annie had set it up with meticulous care, placing a fresh sheet of paper in the carriage and adjusting the chair to the perfect height.

“This is for you, Peter,” she’d said, her voice sweet with an almost maternal pride. “This is your chance to make things right. I’m giving you the tools to bring Melody back to life. You’re going to write Melody’s Riseㅡa real book this time, the way it should be.”

She’d been beaming when she said it, but the smile never quite reached her eyes. I could feel her watching me, hovering just out of sight, waiting for me to make the first move.

I hadn’t asked for this. I hadn’t asked to be here in this house, under her control, writing a book I never intended to write. But there was no other choice. I knew better than to argue.

The typewriter was old, the keys worn from years of use. I knew it wellㅡthe Hermes 3000 typewriter was the one I’d written the Melody series on all those years ago. There was something almost poetic about it: my first success, my first mistake.

But something was wrong. I ran my fingers over the keys, testing the feel of them. The letter “N” was missing. Just an empty space where it should have been.

I paused, staring at the machine. Annie had taken such care to set this up, yet she’d left out one of the most important letters.

I knew why she’d done it.

It was a power move. A small but significant way to remind me who was in charge.

“Annie,” I said quietly, “the N is missing.”

She appeared in the doorway almost immediately, her eyes narrowing at the typewriter.

“Yes,” she said, her tone sing-songy, almost cheerful, “I noticed. But you know what they say, Peter. You can’t always get what you want.”

“Annie, I can’t write a book without an N-key.” I tried to keep the frustration out of my voice, but it crept in anyway. “It’ll make it impossible toㅡ”

“Impossible?” she interrupted, her voice suddenly sharp. “Impossible for you to cheat, you mean?”

“What are you talking about?”

“I know you, Peter,” she said, stepping closer, her eyes glinting. “You’ve always been good at finding ways to get around things. You’re a writer, after all. You’ve got a clever mind.”

She leaned in, her face too close to mine now.

“I’m not letting you cheat, Peter. Melody's Rise is going to be real. It’s going to be just like the first one, and you’re going to write it properlyㅡno tricks. You’ll figure out how to write without an N, just like the rest of us have to figure out how to live without the things we need sometimes.”

The silence between us was thick, and I felt the weight of her words pressing down on me. She was right, in a way. I’d always found ways to get around things, to bend the rules, to find shortcuts. But I couldn’t afford to do that now. Not with her watching my every move.

I was trapped.

The first few sentences were harder than I expected. I had to fight the urge to stare at the missing letter and try to figure out ways around it. My mind kept jumping to workaroundsㅡreturn, remake, rethinkㅡbut none of them would work.

I had to do this the way Annie wanted. I had no choice.

Melody's Rise. I wrote the title on the first line, careful to avoid the N as I typed. There was something inherently twisted about the process, as though the absence of the letter made the words feel less real, less solid.

I stared at the title for a moment, then began writing the first sentence of the book, trying to settle into the rhythm. I had a story to tell, one that would satisfy her, one that would keep me alive.

The problem wasn’t just the missing N. It was the fact that the entire idea felt wrong. Melody's Rise was never meant to be written. Melody Caldwell was dead, buried in the last pages of Melody's Twist.

But that’s the way Annie wanted it. She’d created her own version of the world, a world where Melody would never die, a world where her obsession would live forever.

I paused for a moment, the words on the page flickering in my mind. I had to play the long game. I had to keep her happy, keep her engaged, so she wouldn’t break me, so she wouldn’t hurt me.

I had to make Melody come back to life, even if it meant twisting the truth of her existence.

Annie was there when I finished the first paragraph. I hadn’t noticed her creeping closer, but I could feel her presence behind me, hovering like a shadow.

“Well?” she asked, her voice thick with anticipation.

I turned slowly, trying to hide my weariness. “It’s just the beginning.”

“Is it good?” she asked eagerly, leaning over my shoulder.

“It’s…” I trailed off, staring at the page. “It’s a start.”

Her lips curved into a satisfied smile. “Good. I knew you’d do it. I knew you’d find your way back to Melody.”

She stepped away, but I could still feel her eyes on me, watching, waiting for the next word, the next page.

---

As the days passed, I settled into the grim routine. Write. Sleep. Write. The hours bled together, the only punctuation marks in my life being Annie’s visits, her voice, the demands for more pages.

I kept my focus, even as the pain in my legs intensified. Without the Anodyne, the ache was becoming unbearable, but I couldn’t risk asking her for more. She was withholding it, as she had promised, and the more I wrote, the more I felt the fog of withdrawal settling over me.

But there was no time to dwell on that.

I had to write Melody's Riseㅡnot just the story, but my own return. My escape.

Annie would never let me go willingly, but I couldn’t help but dream of freedom. Maybe if I wrote her a story she would want to hear, one that kept her entertained long enough, I could find my way out.

Maybe if I made the story real enough, she would believe it. Believe in it so much that it would save me.

The story, I realized, wasn’t just about Melody. It was about me. It had to be. If I couldn’t make her believe in Melody, I would make her believe in my survival.

I just had to make it through each day, each sentence, until the story was finished. Until she was satisfied. Until I could finally escape her clutches.

So I wrote. And I hoped.

The missing N-key gnawed at me with every sentence, reminding me of my limitations, of how much I had lost already.

But as I wrote, the pain started to fadeㅡreplaced with a kind of numbness. I didn’t want to think about the how of escape yet. I couldn’t.

I just had to write. Write until it was done. And then, maybe, just maybe, I could get out of this house alive.