Mercy [Buzzfeed Unsolved]

1. Start of a Long Night

Something felt wrong to Shane. Something felt very, very wrong.

He was a child now, but that's not what irked him, what made his heart stop and the hair on his arms stand up. The atmosphere was pretty vague in detail and accuracy, so it was a wonder Shane zeroed in on these specifics. 

Shane was in his old kitchen; the place he sat for a good portion of his childhood. He'd sit at the kitchen table reading a book - any book he could get his hands on - and listen to his mother move around as she cooked. The radio crackled beside the sink, playing oldies that Shane swung and bounced his legs to.

Out of the corner of his eye, Shane saw the clock change to 1:00. He stood up suddenly, flipping his book down onto the table. His mother turned to watch him rush to the front door, struggling to put his shoes on. She was smiling at him, gazing at him with fondness just as the telephone rung. Shane even paused what he was doing and stood to watch his mother answer the phone.

Shane knew that this wasn't quite happened back then, how everything slowed down around him. It's like his mind was forgetting or not letting him know what was going to happen next, but he was extremely tensed nevertheless. Whatever it was, he did not want to go through this again.

His mother was smiling when she picked up the phone, but as soon as the person on the other side began talking, her face started to fall. Shane could sense this was a lot more serious than any usual phone call. He already wanted to throw up, no matter what the bad news was.

"A- a white Chevy Metro? When he was walking home from Sunday school? I- alright, I'll- I'll tell him somehow..." She was biting her fingernails, which was something she never did. She covered her mouth with a hand, the other shaky hand putting the telephone back on the receiver. "Shane? Honey?"  Shane had forgotten about his half-tied shoes. His arms were hanging limply at his sides as he braced himself for whatever news she had.

"Yeah?"

"He's... he's gone, honey. You can't go anymore. He's gone, I'm so sorry, he's gone," she whispered, "Someone stole him, they don't know where he is or if he's okay or- I'm so sorry honey I know how badly you wanted to play with him but... Stevie's gone. He's gone, oh my god he's gone." 

Shane was shaking. There weren't any tears - or at least he couldn't tell, since he had buried himself in a hug in his mother's apron. She was rubbing his back in comforting circles, repeating those damned words over and over again until he suffocated underneath their weight.

He's gone.

He's gone.

He's gone-

Shane gasped for air, heaving as he rolled around in his bed. He was basically laying in a pool of sweat. The sheets underneath him were uncomfortably warm, and his bare chest was sticky against the duvet. 

A memory warped into a dream. That's all it was.

Squeezing his eyes shut, he rubbed his face and normalized his breathing. The disappearance of his childhood friend happened before he went into grade 1, yet that memory was still so vivid to him. Or at least that announcement was - he had tried to block out most of his memory of Stevie as he was growing up.

He was never found in the end.

It took Shane a few more seconds to realize that it was actually his phone that had woken him up. Squinting at the clock, he groaned as he picked up his noisy cellphone from his nightstand, wondering who the fuck thought they were so important at 2:35 in the fucking morning. He grabbed his glasses and slid them onto his face as he answered the call.