By: Yuxi Nan

Behind me was the giant mansion my parents owned in the distance. Thoughts swirling in my head. Did they see me? If they find me, I’m dead! I had just ran away from my home, escaping from a big party my parents were hosting. That was way too many people. I thought. All the noises in my head were overwhelming.

Ever since I was five, I would hear voices in my head when I was around people. Later, I found out that these voices were other people’s thoughts inside my head. I never knew why, or how it started, but I fell into a coma for a month, leaving my parents terribly worried. Russell! Snap! I turned around, right behind me I saw a glowing blood-red pair of eyes, then everything in the world turned dark.

I woke up to see a rather horrible sight, the same pair of eyes staring right at me in the face. I let out a yelp, and slapped the figure right across the face. Ugh, he groaned. The strangest thing was that I couldn’t hear his thoughts. Silence between us.

I checked my surroundings, we were in a very small room, and a small window in the far corner, and I was placed in a bed that was as hard as a rock, and somehow in a weakened state. It was so dark I could barely see the creature’s face, only his bloody glare staring at me. Seeing my bewildered face, the “thing” finally decided to say something.

“Haha, you must be wondering why you can’t read my mind. Don’t worry Melanie, you are one of us.” The figure, who now had stepped into the moonlight, looked like a human boy about seventeen, the same age as me, and the only thing that was strange about him were those eyes.

Still, my thoughts raced. How could he have known my name? Where am I? But those thoughts were stopped when the red-eyed boy suddenly tied up her arms and legs at a surprising speed and put a gag over my mouth. A sudden force also hit my head as I was knocked out.