Disclaimer: A few characters belong to Marvel and those are being used for entertainment purposes only. No money is being made from their use. The other characters, and the story belong to me, Magik, the author.

by Magik

    The child sat huddled on the floor, her small hands over her ears and tears streaming down her face. In her head a hundred thousand people were screaming for help and every death cut her being to the quick. More and more tears fell down her small face and she began to scream and rock back and forth on her heels. The year was 1988 and the girl was five.

    Melissa Burgross was nine when the voices stopped. After years of being treated like she was autistic or psychotic, the voices had finally stopped. All the doctors agreed that whatever had afflicted her when she was younger had suddenly just disappeared. They said it was a miracle. To Melissa it was like stepping out into the sun after being kept indoors all your life. She was scared.

    When she tried to tell her parents what had happened, how she had been cured they just laughed and said she was so creative. But Melissa's stories were true. A bald man in a wheelchair had come into her room one day and shut the voices out of her mind. "I've built you a wall," he had told her. It hadn't been a dream. It had been a miracle.

    Melissa had lived the world through other people's eyes. What they saw she saw. To her no one was different. There was no difference between her and the little black boy. Everyone was the same inside. At least, that was how Melissa saw it. Other people had tarnished views of the world while hers was glowing silver.

    One day her parents told her that she must stop hanging around the blacks and the latinos and anyone else who was different. They said they didn't want her to be excluded by the other children like herself. They claimed that they didn't want to see her hurt. Melissa didn't understand but she did what she was told. She always did what she was told.

    The year was 1996 and Melissa was getting ready for her thirteenth birthday party. All her school friends were coming, Her mom said it would be fun. Melissa didn't think anything was much fun anymore.

    The voices had started coming back, little by little. Like the magic wall inside her head was cracking and letting the light in. This time however the voices weren't overwhelming. They were like rays of light. The voices gave her a strength she had never known.

    As the years ticked by, day after day, month after month, Melissa's ming got stronger and the wall began to loose most of its bricks. The girl was becoming freer, more informed, and her parents said it was just the fact that she was becoming a teenager.

    It was more than that and Melissa knew it. Power was in her hands, understanding. No longer did what she was told matter. Now she made her own choices. Now she felt free.

    In the summer of 1997, the rage of Onslaught was all over the television. Her parents spent the whole summer rioting about mutants and wishing Graydon Creed was still alive. Melissa spent the summer breaking down the last bricks of her wall.

    Melissa was fifteen. She walked down the stairs and looked at her parents, felt their angry thoughts wash over her mind, felt their hatred, their fear.

    "It's wrong to be afraid of what is different," she said quietly.

    "Oh, Melissa, some of the silly things you say," her father laughed.

    They would not listen to reason so Melissa let her power wash over them. It took away all the fear, the hate and left them with eyes that could see.

    "There, isn't that better?" Melissa asked as she walked out the door. Outside the hatred of the town threatened to consume her. Melissa just let her powers out, let it cover the town in a veil of peace. "That's much better," she whispered.

    "Do you want to see what you can do with your powers if you really try?" a woman asked and Melissa turned to face a blond woman.

    For a minute Melissa considered this chance. She was strong and very powerful but she couldn't change the world, not yet. "No. The world is better here."

    The woman disappeared and Melissa walked the streets of her little town. Now everyone saw the way she saw. Now everyone was free of their walls. And Melissa was the one who broke down the walls. She smiled slightly. This world was good. Her world.