Without further ado though, here is the unedited opening to End of Mercy:
I woke slowly, tightened my eyelids to block the sunlight
streaming through my window, and listened for the sounds of the household
coming alive as I snuggled deeper into my covers. I could hear my mother and father moving
around upstairs, getting ready for another busy day of work. Before I opened my eyes though, I inhaled
deeply, searching for the smell of my mother’s pancakes and sizzling aroma of
bacon frying in a pan. I couldn’t seem
to get a whiff of them, but I could almost taste the sticky syrup on my tongue
as I turned over and slid into consciousness.
Confused, I blinked a few times when my eyes slid open,
and I took in the gritty, gray concrete blocks that made up the wall in front
of me. I pushed up on my elbow and
looked around the room slowly. As my
vision cleared, the reality of my situation came back to me. I wasn’t home. My parents weren’t here. The sounds, smells, and sunlight drifting in
were coming from outside my small cell in The Heart of Mercy Research facility
where I currently was locked in a basement cell.
I should be used to waking in strange places and even
stranger situations by now, but every once in a while, I woke at home again--at
least in my mind--and the disappointment was sharp when I realized that place
and time was completely gone, would never be something I experienced again. Gone forever, along with the people I loved
most in the world.
Metal clinked against metal as the door was unlocked from
the outside. I didn’t have to look at
who it was. For some time now, a month
apparently, Ben Parsons had been the only person at my door.
Except for once. Once
it had been someone…or something…else.
It had been Zeke, or what was left of him.
Now that time, not so long ago, felt like a dream to me. Maybe it had been one, though it had seemed
real enough. He’d stood there until
armed guards had come and taken him away, his eerie ice-blue stare never
breaking away from my gaze until he was completely out of sight. It had been him…but changed. Even now, I shivered at the memory.
I threw the covers back and pushed myself to a standing
position. Never wanting to appear
vulnerable, I was always ready when Ben walked through the door. Ready for what? I really didn’t know. They’d only drawn my blood once, three tubes
of it when I first arrived, and hadn’t run any medical tests since. In the time I’d been here, I’d only seen a
small portion of Mercy as I was dragged through the hallways by armed guards
and brought here to this small hole in the ground. Well, hardly a hole since it had a small, but
comfortable, bed and an attached bathroom, but considering I couldn’t come and
go as I pleased, it was a prison cell just the same.
I
was sure I hadn’t left the safety of the building. Yet, somehow I suspected whoever was in
charge had control of everyone and everything.
And that control was absolute.
What they didn’t know about me was that I didn’t back down and I didn’t
give up--not after what I’d been through in the community and fighting my way
to Mercy. Now more than ever, I was
determined I would survive. And so would
my sister Star, as soon as I learned where they were keeping her. Until they let me see her, they weren’t going
to get a cooperative prisoner.
But Ben didn’t appear.
“Step away from the door.” The voice was feminine, and I stood beside
the bed, too shocked to tell her I wasn’t near the door. I hadn’t seen a female since my mother nearly
a year ago. There had been no women or
girls remaining in the community, and I didn’t dare tell them the truth about
me. Until the end, they all thought I
was just one of the boys. The only
female allowed had been my sister. At
the time, I didn’t know why there were no women; I just knew they were gone.
It was only later that I learned the truth—all the women
and girls were sent into The Dead Forest with a few guards to either live or
die because females attracted Draghoul.
Or, at least, they believed that to be true.
On the way to Mercy, I’d encountered one woman, but I
didn’t count the pitiful creature I’d found locked in the back room of an
underground bunker. She was more
Draghoul than human at that point. But
this, this person was an actual human female.
She swung the door wide and stood solidly in the frame of
the door. I couldn’t move or speak or
anything. I just stared.
Happy Reading and Writing!C. C. Marks
