Mercy

By Ashley Webster

Life is pain. At least that is what 15 year-old Marie (Mercy) Grey has seen. She is cursed, plagued to feel the anguished cry of the dying. They call to her in their suffering, and she answers. She experiences their pain and ends it. This has been the norm for her since a child.

This changes when the force within her drives her out of her hometown, and towards a young girl. For reasons unknown to her, Mercy stumbles across a girl named Alex who doesn’t appear to be dying or outwardly suffering. Now Mercy is faced with a mystery that she must unravel around the girl, about her own ‘gifts’, and that will challenge who she is. She’s been sent to help Alex, if only she knew how.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sylvia Cunningham
• Release date: Jan 13, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370102532

Book preview

Mercy

Published by Ashley Webster at Smashwords.

Copyright 2017 Ashley Webster

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

Thank you for downloading this ebook. This book remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be redistributed to others for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy from their favorite authorized retailer. Thank you for your support.

A special thanks to my mom for always supporting and believing in me.

Contents

Part 1: The Curse

Part 2: The Girl

Part 3: The Truth

I dedicate this book to the raccoon that inspired it,

to those who have asked for an end that never came swiftly,

and to those who’ve had the courage to end the suffering of the animals they’ve loved.

Whatever you suffer remember someday you will comfort someone else with the strength you have found – Ernie Kasper

Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls – Kahil Giberan

Gravel crunched under the girl’s boots as she hopped off of her scooter and onto the shoulder of the dark deserted country road. Her long black jacket flapping against the middle of her thighs as she moves. She was a ghost in the night. The black and red hood of the sweater beneath her jacket pulled up tight to hide her face. She leaves her scooter running, its light acting like a beacon in the darkness of the clouded night. Errant beams of pale moonlight sifted from behind the dense dark grey clouds offering little illumination to the vast country side. No one and nothing was watching her. She had ridden 35 minutes to get here and hadn’t seen a single car on the lonely night. But right now she was not alone. The girl was on the deserted road in the middle of the night for a reason and one reason alone. To end the pain.

With a sigh, she dug her incisor into her left lower lip and pushed herself forward toward the small mass snared in her scooter’s beam. As soon as the little raccoon saw her it began to screech and hiss. Its tiny paw hands grasping into empty air as it tried to get away. But it couldn’t get away. Its back legs were crushed into the pavement.

Little dark, fearful, and desperate eyes stared at her as she approached the little beast. The girl’s heart lurched to see the small animal so conscious of its own pain, and for it to be stranded and hopeless with no way to escape the black tar it was plastered to. Its wounds were not grievous enough to kill it - yet, but none the less was too horrific for it live on. Her eyes met with the raccoon’s and it became frantic, its terrified and pained cries permeating through the empty dark air. Within her eyes, the creature had seen its fate. That she was here to end its life and to end its needless suffering.

The girl stood next to the raccoon, she was out of its reach, but it was not out of hers. Its small hands alternated from clawing at her, just millimeters from her black boots to grappling at the road to escape from her. Crouching down she examined the extents of its injuries. Its back legs and tail were not much more than a fluffy smear on the road. She sighed because there was no saving this one. Even if she brought it to the local animal services shelter it would never be able to walk again without assistance and nobody was going to take in a feral albeit cripple adult