The Last Hope

07 - Wander

SONG FOR THIS CHAPTER - Panic Room, Au/Ra. Linked above! If you enjoy the chapter please vote, it means a lot.

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Grief was a stone Mercy had swallowed. A constant bothersome weight in her stomach and the more she thought about it, the heavier it became. She wondered how anyone could live with it. The perpetual reminder of loss. The permanent looming ache that meant life would be forever changed.

Walking through the door to her empty dorm room wasn't like swallowing a stone.

It was being under an avalanche.

Mercy gagged on a jagged cry at the sight of Devin's stripped bed. Her books packed away, her snow globes boxed up and removed. They had tidied Mercy's side of the room too. It'd been left in disarray before the party, with clothes thrown everywhere and makeup scattered on the surfaces.

It wasn't just clean; it had been sterilised. There was not one single shred of Devin left behind.

Knees buckling, she collapsed to the floor and clawed at the carpet. Nails tearing in the fibres, the pain should have hit her, but she could only feel so much. Blinded by her tears, she stared out at nothing, there was nothing left to see. Devin's stuff was gone.

Devin was gone. Dead. Murdered. And it was her fault. It was her fault for not stopping him. There was one less person in Mercy's life who cared about her, and it was all Mercy's doing. Far away, someone was screaming bloody murder. Mercy didn't have the capacity to wonder who.

"Mercy! Mer it's okay!" Someone had burst into the room. A man. A man with dark hair and pale skin. He reached for her, and she scattered away across the carpet. "Mer, it's okay. It's me. It's Felix."

She blinked and some of the tears that blinded her ran scorching tracks down her cheeks. The man morphed back into Felix, his bronze hair in disarray. Concerned green eyes swam into view. The screaming stopped. "She's dead Fee." The voice was not hers. It was empty sounding and raspy. Her throat was shredded.

"It's going to be okay Mer, please, no more screaming."

"She's dead and it's my fault."

Felix folded her into an embrace rocking her gently as the breaths shuddered out of her, "no. It's not your fault. I'm the one who let you walk alone."

"You weren't there Fee; you don't know what happened." She gasped out.

"Then tell me. Everything, every little detail. And I'll still tell you it's not your fault, because it isn't." He gently rubbed her back as her shaking quieted. "You can't fall apart. If your mom found out, she'd drag you back to Pleasantville and she'd castrate me for jailbreaking you in the first place." Felix's voice was gentle but assertive. Mercy nodded, wiped her face with her hands, blue threads clinging beneath her nail beds.

Pleasantville was Felix's name for their neighbourhood. He claimed that the people there were faker than their plastic surgeries, and no one could go for two minutes without gossiping. Which was evidently where Felix had gotten it from. Mercy stood, legs feeling fuzzy and crossed to her bed, plopping down onto the sheets. Felix followed her and lowered down onto the bed opposite.

"Don't." Mercy spat the word. She collected herself, "don't sit there, she wouldn't want you to sit there. It would've messed up her stuffed animals." The desperate pleading expression in her eyes had Felix crossing the room and making himself comfortable on Mercy's bed, beside her.

The silence was pregnant. Uncomfortable. The stone in Mercy's stomach weighty burden. Then a devastating howl ripped through it. Felix was crying. Mercy wrapped her arm around his back, placing her head on his shoulder. "Hypocrite," she murmured to him. He laughed faintly, crying louder.