Finding Mercy

M E R C Y

It had been decades since I had stepped foot out of the cement cell I had been thrust into when guards found me on pack lands all those years ago. I had watched silent from the little barred window as the seasons changed with snow creeping in, leaves sweeping my outstretched fingers and the sweltering heat scorching my face with the wind brushing lightly against my cheeks and yet I still did not leave the cells. The moss covered ground the only barrier between my feet and the stone-cold floor. Suddenly the door slams open, and I grimace at the sound of metal clashing against rock, the sound vibrating around the cell’s walls. I step back away from the window and closer to the corner of the cell, unsure of what is unfurling as two guards drag a bloody brown wolf into the cell beside me, its back legs being shackled by a shimmering chain. As soon as they pressed the chains against its already battered coat it lets out a growl mixed with a howl of pain, but the guards pay it no heed and shut the door with a resounding clang. As they walk by, they pay me no notice, their eyes sliding over my cell as if I didn’t exist anymore and, in some ways, it was as if I didn’t. The girl I had been when I had been found and then sentenced was a figment of my imagination, a ghost, long gone in this world. I hear whimpering as soon as the door shuts and I look over to see the wolf struggling to move against the cold floor.

Carefully I make my way to its side of the cell, the wolf immediately becoming alert as if only noticing me. I raise my hands up to let it know I’m a friend and grab the small quilt I used to fend against the fierce winds and carefully move closer to stand next to it, or as close as the cell bars would let me. The wolf doesn’t pay much attention to me after deeming me not a threat and turns its head to try and lick one of the wounds against its flank. I softly run the quilt against its fur wiping the flakes of white off of its beautiful barn brown coloured coat, I stop to pick up the white film, mentally noting the sharp feeling of cold where my skin touches it. Snow. This was snow, before I was captured, I used to play in this. Shaking my head, I look back to the wolf, noticing that it had been silently watching me all of this time but I just grab my quilt and slowly begin to help it with its wounds. It whines but eventually falls asleep to the slow movement of the cloth rubbing against its fur. It look peaceful, warm. Once the blood had tried up I stumbled back onto the makeshift cot in my cell and curled around myself, ignoring the tingling in my knees and legs as the cold attacked my nerves. Soon sleep enveloped me tugging me down until I stooped amongst the dark forest floor.

I could see the shadow of my mother running ahead of me, the snarling of wolves with red eyes following us as we ran from the burning ruins we had once called home. The screams of everyone around us enveloping the sky disappearing as we headed towards the river. As I met my mother near our hiding spot, I heard her yell and push me, her body dropping on the terrain as the wolves attack her. Her blood hitting me in the face as the wolves began to feast and howl as I stepped back and dropped slowly into the river below. The stream hiding my scent and pulling me under its currents causing me to pass out. I woke to the feeling of the claws as the wolves on top of me opened their jaws and…

* * * * *

I felt the rough hands grab my shoulders as soon as I felt my eyelids shudder awake. Terrified I looked up at the guard who grabs me. He doesn’t need to say anything, I know what time it is, but he does it anyway. They always do.

“It’s feeding time.” I struggle as he shoves me through my cell doorway but I’m too weak now to do anything more than kick my feet and it always hurts me more than save me. The guard shoves me down the hallway, the blue light the only illumination of where we are headed as he leads me into the room at the end of the hall. He lets me go with a shove and I don’t need to look to know what awaits me.

A few months ago, I had refused to eat, I bit and scratched guards preferring death to what my life had become but whoever was in charge had more use for me alive then dead, although it was never specified my use or when it began. So instead of letting me starve myself my regular mealtimes became me being chained to a shimmery metal chair in a rusty room that had a glass window on one side and plain walls surrounding with the exception of the black sliding panel that acted like a door. It was a torture chamber, or at least what I imagined one to look like. The chair that I was always seated in would send shocks down my body and make me tired while they injected tubes down my throat and had blood lines running from my arms and legs. It was hell. Without an instruction I strip down from my dirty shift and lift myself up onto the chair, eyes cast down. I don’t say anything when the woman comes in nor when she says hello.

Dr Olsen she had once said. When I was younger, I had trusted her, she had given me prizes for sitting patiently as she took blood from me but as I had grown older and the more experiments and “precaution tests” as she’d call them, she did I began to hate her. The way she had that evil look in her eye, how her features had suddenly turned sharp and angry all of the time. I had learned to hate her and in turn she had begun to torment me more than physically. I never speak, I never learnt or at least if I had the ability was lost long ago and so I only watch as she approaches her trolley, already set up for her torture sessions, wheeling behind her.

“Hello Mercy, and how are we today?” She talks to me as if I were obliged to answer, and as if she wasn’t stuffing big tubes down my throat and out through my body for their blood bags. I just narrow my eyes at her and go back to looking at my fingers.

“Now Mercy what have I told you. It isn’t polite to ignore someone.” I don’t sense her as she grips my chins a crushing grip. “You are so so important Mercy; you should be thankful at our hospitality.” I snort. “I can make it so much worse for you, would you like that?” Her grip increases and I feel my eyes begin to water. I shake my head and she let go still smiling pleasantly. “Good. Now…” She claps her hands together in excitement, “Lets get started.” I feel the syringe enter my neck and as I start to lose consciousness, I see the shadow of my tormentor behind the black pane of glass across from me. Watching. Waiting.

* * * * *

“Welcome Back Mercy.” I turn smiling brightly at the beautiful woman who had always kept me company during these terrible sessions. I didn’t know when it began but once the serum Dr Olsen injected into my bloodstream I would always end up in this garden. The flowers made from pure crystals, glistening against the moon’s shine, the water as soft as cotton and this beautiful white-haired lady with purple eyes always ready to greet me.

“Goddess” I nod my head in a small bow my voice tinkling around me. I had once asked her why I could speak in this world but not in my own, but her response had been vague and that the answer had always been in front of me. I had given up after all of this time.

“It is almost time my dear. One of my children have arrived to help you, and there will be others too.” She takes my hand as we walk along the river, taking our usual paths.

“What do you mean saved? I’m going to be free?” My heart races in excitement at the prospect of leaving my small cell that had kept me imprisoned all these years. She touches my face looking upon me with sadness.

“Yes, my daughter, safe. They will take you to a new home where you will be protected but you must help someone else. Do not be afraid of the changes. Do not be afraid of all that you must learn. Rise my little phoenix of all that has become of you. You will help turn the tide.” I move away from her, her fingers coming back wet.

“I don’t know what you mean? Or what you want from me?” I am frustrated but she only laughs, and I feel myself being pulled back into my body, exhaustion seeking into my soul once again.

“Soon my daughter, soon you will know.” With that everything around me mists into dust and I crack open my eyes, tears pouring down my cheeks as I cough up the tube that’s coming up from my stomach.

“Welcome back Mercy.” Dr. Olsen stands across from me smiling as her assistants unhook my legs and arms from their blood bags. “Here is a new coat for you to sleep with. I saw yours had…” her lip curls cruelly and I shiver. “disappeared.” I shakily grab it with a nod of thanks and shuffle to the guard who holds my shift. He helps me put it on, red lacing his cheeks and odd contrast to his stone features. I don’t care as I step in and cover myself with the new coat. Everyone in this place had seen me naked. It wasn’t something I was concerned with any longer. I felt my body give away as I stepped outside the panel and the guard lifted me up, my arms and legs dangling as he walked back towards my cell. I didn’t look at the cell the wolf laid in as the guard gently placed me down upon my cot, the coat already stained with the blood from my wounds as he gently placed bandages upon my arms and legs and then on my throat where a new tube had been placed.

“I’m sorry that you have to go through this.” I make no move to show I heard him, but the gruff hurry up from outside my cell tells me they did. He will be gone tomorrow; the rotation being adjusted so that he no longer watches over the cells. That was the number one rule to never get attached to the prisoner.

I don’t move when he leaves, or when the wolf next door whimpers and claws against the cement floor. Only when he starts to howl do I turn and blink once to say yes I’m fine, but I’m not. The tremors will slowly take me under and so will the pain and hunger ive been feeling for years. I had long given up on hope but according to my friend it seemed I now had some. I don’t move when the sobs slowly grow in my chest until I’m shaking in the cot with tears blanketing my face. I don’t know how long it’s been since I lay curled up in the cot, but the sound of the cell next to me opening with the harsh growls of a beast being thrown in causes me to roll over and shift my attention to the cell next to mine. The two wolves nudge noses and I smile at the familiarity as they embrace each other. I run my finger along the cell half-heartedly as a hello and the first wolf nudges my hand as if to say hello back and as if to ask if I’m okay… I blink back twice knowing that if the guard didn’t come back soon I might just die. I feel myself falling into subconsciousness.