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6
Melanie walked through the automatic sliding doors of the library, an ancient, safe fortress to her, since she was young.
The spark had always been there. Reading and writing was her oxygen and water, the vital aspects of sustaining life. "Melanie!" Mrs. White's always-cheerful voice greeted her as she walked past the front counter. "Mrs. White." She nodded her head as she greeted her, an acknowledgement to her presence. "Is the computer I booked free?"
The aging but efficient woman behind the counter looked down briefly at a non-visible booking sheet, and nodded. "Get ready for the printer to spit out a load of crap. I've finished my new novel." Mrs. White nodded enthusiastically, and turned to the printer, expecting the manuscript to suddenly materialise in the tray.
Wondering off aimlessly, but with intent, Melanie headed towards the computing suite of the library and sat down at the vacant computer. She inserted her USB key and opened the already existent file, and began to type feverishly, used to the keyboard layout. The keys were pretty loud in the small room.
It did not take long for her to type out the last chapter, and the printer then whirred into life behind the front desk. The eager Mrs. White quickly picked up the pages, reading them almost as quickly as they were printing.
Melanie walked to the counter, smiling at Mrs. White's anticipation for the next page. Mrs. White looked at the printer in confusion, expecting another page to be ejected from it. "That's it." Mrs. White looked up, handing Melanie the pages all in order, held together with a shiny paper clip. "I love it Melanie. I think you're onto a winner with this one, and as usual, the first edit is perfectly punctuated, and it's all spelt correctly." She paused touching her hand, "You're the daughter I've always wanted, but never had."
Melanie blushed, embarrassed at the thought, and then headed towards the door, with intention to leave. As she was to walk through the door, she turned around; she had a change of heart. "Excuse me, but do you have any reading suites available?" Mrs. White behind the counter didn't look up, smiling. "Yes Melanie." Still smiling, the satisfied woman behind the counter reached into a draw, extracting a red pen and an A4 spiral book. "Here's a head start."
"Thanks."
Melanie walked at a quickened pace towards the reading suites, eager to reach them, her head full of thoughts, struggling to make sense of it all, trying to convert them in her mind into an at least coherent and understandable couple of pages, a framework for her next novel.
She reached the table, opening the book, scribing like a pre-schooler for the first time: It wasn't supposed to make sense; it was just to get it out of her head:
Main character - Male. He is seventeen, and highly disturbed mentally. He has psychopathic urges, but is able to contain them from actually happening. He goes to school, but wants to drop out, he thinks it is pointless and a waste of time and money.
His main interests, apart from total disregard for his own body are watching movies, listening to music, working out and caring for his small, but very close group of friends.
There are five other people in his friendship group, who will have names thought up for later. Two males, and three females. The first male is schizophrenic, and is frightened of his condition, but still too sure of himself to go and get treatment. The second male is perfectly healthy, even if he is a little overweight and becomes extremely obsessive over tasks he begins.
Now to the females. There are three, with the first being the main character's love interest. She is an intelligent girl who aspires to be nothing more than a fashion designer or singer, but her intelligence could easily lead her into a career in complex sciences or law, that is if her severe depression does not drive her to suicide.
The second female of the group is closest with the previously described character, and jokingly plays around with suicidal thoughts, but when placed in theory is the most likely candidate that would commit suicide in the group. She is very open about it, but everyone doesn't take her seriously except for the next character.
The final main female character is the one in the group who wants to achieve the most, but just does not possess the intellectual capacity to fulfil her dreams, wanting to become a psychologist of some sort. When something comes in her way, preventing her from achieving her dream, it drives her into depression and the abuse of alcohol and other drugs.
Most of the time when the group is brought together, everyone is laughing and joking and having fun, but when they are separated from each other, they all descend deeper into their own problems, not finding a solution that will help them in the long run, due to fear.
They are all in a similar boat with their parents, and they're either children of divorce cases, never met or actually liked one of their parents or emerge from a background of domestic violence or alcoholism.
Melanie sighed, a knock at the door, bringing to an end the surge of inspiration, which still swam, incoherently in her mind. "Yeah... Just a minute." She closed the book, and brought it close to her chest, grasping it tightly in her arms as she left.
When Melanie made it back to her car, her eyes were slightly glazed, tired but determined not to fail. She placed the book on the passenger seat, accelerating towards her apartment.
This would be the one, she thought.