Chapter 1
Mercy wasn't like those other Catholic kids in her third grade class. She only listened to the cutesy nursery rhymes, while everyone else listened to the pop music that rotted every child's brain by the time they reached the seventh grade. Mercy would always be outcasted because all she would do was sit at the small table in the corner of the classroom and do her own thing. All of the other girls thought she was too weird and didn't want to catch it.
"Mercy." one of her teachers asked her. "Why don't you ever hang out with the other girls?"
Mercy stared at her toys without looking back up. "They don't like me." she responded flatly. "They think badly of me. I don't wish to associate with those kinds of people."
"What if we help them learn to like you?"
"It wouldn't work." the third grader sighed. "You can't just make someone like you. That's like... trying to douse a flame with gasoline and hope it goes out. No, you don't kill the flame in the slightest bit. Instead, you just add fuel to that fire, and the fire grows bigger."
That's when her teacher realized her talent might not be gossiping or being the girly-girl they and her parents wanted her to be. That's when she began to delve herself into art, as suggested by her teachers, drawing pretty things like a house or a valley. Then her art became more intricate. Houses turned into log cabins in a burnt out forest. Valleys became a mountain stream with animals in it.
Years passed, and soon enough, it was her tenth birthday. The children of Yorkshire roamed around in their costumes, begging strangers for candy and their parents don't to a thing about it. Mercy sat inside. She'd just gotten her birthday cake and was about to go to bed by her designated bedtime, nine o'clock. She was a good girl.
As she layed down in bed, she thought about her birthday being over. She was finally ten years old. About to fall asleep with a grin on her face, it seems that wasn't the path she was to take.
"Where is she?" a man's voice asked. "Where is that little girl's bedroom?"
"I won't tell you shit." her mother spat at the stranger, making Mercy draw in a breath. Her mother had never used a cuss word. She got up out of bed and got down on her knees, begging God to give her mother forgiveness.
Her mother let out a fierce scream, and then the whole house went deathly silent. Seconds passed before the small child could hear footsteps growing louder, making it impossible for her heart rate to slow down.
Her door burst open wide, and a man with five o'clock shadow stood in her doorway, his white shirt stained with blood. Mercy knew, deep down, that it was blood, she didn't think for a minute that it was red food dye for the occasion.
"There you are." the man laughed an awful cackle, stepping towards the little girl in her favorite lace nightgown. He reached out towards her. Mercy instantly backed up, her light blonde hair flying in front of her rare blue-violet eyes.
"Oh, no, honey, I won't hurt you." the man said with a sickly-sweet smile. Mercy stood her ground. "Yeah, right." she said. "Like I'd fall for that one."
The man ran towards her, and she ran to him, ducking at the last second and sliding in between his legs. The man cussed at her. She scrambled to her feet and ran to the kitchen to find a phone. She jumped over the counter towards a phone, and grabbed it. She turned around, and she felt tears well in the back of her eyes.
The body was bloody, as if she'd been cut all over. Her mother sat on her stomach, a pool of blood forming around her, the menacing red liquid making the ends of her strawberry blonde hair stick together.
