Scars That Run Deep

Nightmares

The stench of smoke and taste of ash in the back of his throat woke Mercury from his sleep, the former assassin coughing as he shot up from bed and found the room engulfed in flames. Kicking the covers off his body, he covered his mouth and nose with the collar of his shirt before making a break for the door.

Wait. Didn't he fall asleep without a shirt on?

He didn't have a lot of time to think on it since he ran right into a wall as soon as he passed through the doorway of his bedroom. How did that happen? The room was at the end of a hallway, yet this one made a sharp left turn instead of going straight. Was this one of those dreams where some place you know well suddenly turns into a labyrinth? And even though his instincts were telling him to get to the front door and out of this burning house, his main concern was the whereabouts of his family.

Yang was not in the room with him when he woke up, and he didn't hear any screams that would hint at Angel being in any danger. Maybe they made it out safely and were waiting for him! But if that were the case, why didn't Yang wake him up? Why would they leave him behind? Yang wasn't heartless, and Angel would've refused to leave the building herself unless he was with them. Mercury's confusion only grew as he passed down a hallway that was much shorter than it should've been, then found out he was on the ground floor upon noting the absence of a staircase when he entered the living room. Vaulting over a fallen support beam, he felt the heat of nearby flames as they licked at the legs of his sweatpants.

And speaking of legs, he felt an unbearable pain in both of his thighs that only intensified the closer he got to the door, and his balance seemed to worsen with every other step. He squinted his eyes as he struggled to see where anything was due to the surrounding heat burning his face, soot and ash invading his lungs like parasites and choking him. Desperately gazing around in search of an exit, he spotted what looked like a doorframe, and without thinking he charged, briefly ignoring the agony in his legs as he shoved his shoulder into the wood with a yell. The door exploded into splinters and embers, his eyes squeezed shut as he ran out of the burning house. Once he was several yards away from the building, Mercury immediately wanted to look for his girlfriend and daughter, wanted to call their names and see them safe and sound.

His body did not obey him, nor did his voice. In fact, the former assassin seemed to no longer be in control of his own body anymore. It was like he was watching things progress through someone else's eyes, yet he knew he was still looking through his own eyes. At first, all he saw was darkness since his eyes were still screwed shut, watering a bit after being trapped in a hot, dry atmosphere. He could feel himself breathing heavily while bending over with his hands on his knees, his heart pulsating with adrenaline inside his chest. The pain he'd felt in his legs was now in multiple areas across his body including his face, as if he'd just taken a beating.

Wait...why were his hands wet?

His body seemed to respond to that thought because his eyes opened again. His vision was blurry, but what he saw shook him greatly – the reason he was hurting so badly and why he felt something wet: beneath his hands were blood-soaked bandages wrapped in multiple layers just above his knees. No...then did that mean the house that he'd just escaped was...? His body suddenly stood up straighter and his gaze locked onto two familiar young women appearing from the tree line.

"What are you looking at?!" He snapped, and yet he didn't; it was his own voice he heard, but his lips hadn't moved. Mercury had no idea how this transitioned from a weird dream to watching one of his most unpleasant memories like some messed-up documentary film from his own eyes.

"I'm looking for Marcus Black." Only Cinder could say a simple sentence and manage to sound both collected and impatient as hell.

The memory began feeling more real once Mercury could actually taste iron and copper in the back of his throat. His past self then spat out a glob of blood and gestured to the lifeless corpse of his old man on the side of the dirt road. He remembered he never took his eyes off of Emerald and Cinder when they approached him so many years ago, yet for some reason his body kept his father's body in his line of sight, not wavering.