Finding Mercy

Chapter One

Something was different.

I couldn't place a finger on it at first; it remained a frustrating sort of enigma. I just knew that something was different. Better.

My closed eyelids flinched against the onslaught of light--a light that was unlike anything I'd ever encountered...bright, silver, and almost blinding...that is,if I had seemed to have eyes.

The muscles in my back waved slowly, back and forth, almost as I'd they were my--WHAT?

The revelation struck me in sudden wonder, and a little bit of horror: I has wings.

And arms.

And I still felt moderately human.

I was an angel.

"This doesn't make sense," I murmured to myself. My actual name had yet to come to me, but I still knew I didn't belong. There was too much light, too much of an air of prosperity.

And all that lay in the recesses of my mind was darkness. Maybe it was because my memories had vanished, maybe it was because those memories were darkness. Or maybe darkness was all I was, and in some inconceivable way, I'd found my way to the light.

I suppose this should have come to me some moments ago, but the revelation struck me like a bullet to the head: I had no idea who I was, nor where I was, nor why I was here. My hands flew up and stroked my hair, and I found it to be long, loose, and flowing, a red that contrasted so drastically with the silver-white of my surroundings that it was almost painful to my eyes. I was clothed in a spotless white tunic, but my arms and legs had the warm, comfortable feel of when you step out of a shower and slide under your bed covers. I was sprawled, helpless, on an expanse of soft grass, an interminable blue sky yawning, cavernous, over me. Tendrils of mist snaked around my bare skin, but it gave a sensation not so creepy as that of a haunted house, but that of the clouds in heaven. The air smelled of old brick, tree bark, and dew-coated grass. Familiarity edged through my mind...I knew this, but I couldn't place the word for it.

Then I turned around.

There, right before my eyes, a white farmhouse, neatly shingled, but the whitewashed clapboards worn with age, intricately carved columns holding the front porch up. A sign saying "Keep Out, Hungry Child" stood crookedly beside the front steps, and whoever lived there had done a halfway decent job at gardening the mulchy patches along the sides of the house. A rusty bicycle leaned against a nearby shed, and a dust driveway circled around a small duck pond.

The top right bedroom is painted mint green, I thought suddenly, then reeling back in the shock of knowing something I thought I oughtn't to.

I knew this place, it was once something important to me. But I still couldn't think of the word that described it... Ho--home?

"Home," I spoke aloud, not even knowing why. The sounds of the word was like a new food on my tongue; it just didn't know how to react.

But somewhere deep within me it elicited a strong sense of curiosity, you know, the insatiable kind of curiosity that refuses to leave you alone until you satisfy it. I pushed myself off the grass, my legs shaking dangerously beneath me. Yet, gravity seemed to have weaker effects wherever I was, and I didn't collapse in seconds.

I paused at the duck pond and peered in to check my reflection--something told me I did this very often--but when I saw the phenomenon, I nearly vomited.

My forehead had a gaping, bloody hole in it, almost as if a heavy vehicle had crushed it. Instinctively my hand shot up to check whether it was makeup, but instead of firm skull my fingers prodded vulnerable flesh. I forced the rising bile back down my throat. But, with every second that passed, the hole grew smaller and smaller.  Flesh reknit itself and waxy off-white bone removed itself from my brain and welded together. In only a few minutes, my forehead was again a smooth, firm affair.