ʜᴀᴠᴇ ᴍᴇʀᴄʏ {ʟᴇᴠɪ ᴀᴄᴋᴇʀᴍᴀɴ}

Distracted

{Mercy's POV}

My head was pounding.
With every beat of my heart my temples felt like they would burst through my eyes.
My father was speaking to me, but his voice was distant as if he was at the end of a long tunnel.
"The surgery went perfect," his muffled voice filled the blackness that surrounded me, "You're going to heal up quickly, and we'll get back to the task at hand."
He lacked his usual aggressive inflection and spoke with softness as if he was a completely different man from the one I had remembered before.
Suddenly, the blackness disappeared like it was never there and the scene of my Underground home came into view as it did many times before.
My fragile hands were once again in shackles and the room was poorly lit.
I lifted my head to scan the room for my father, but was met with a dull, unbearable ache that originated deep in my skull.
I whimpered and moaned at the agony.
My vessel lifted her hands to our head.
My fingers sank into my hair and grazed my scalp, but something wasn't right.
There were sharp and coarse bumps riddled along my skull that made the shape of a circle around my crown.
When I had my concussion on the night of the graduation ceremony, I ran my fingers along my forehead the next day. I remembered the feeling of the stitches as I gently brushed my head and realized the feelings were the same.
He cut open... my head.
I remembered my father mentioning a device that would alter the flow of chemicals in my body, and my breath began to pick up pace at the thought.
How could he have done that? How on earth could he do that to his own daughter, and why? Why was-
A rhythmic knock behind me stopped my thoughts, but I was unable to turn my head to investigate.
"Hey," a deep voice whispered and I remembered the hole in the side of the wall that led to the alleyway. I remembered Lee from the last memory I had and how he mentioned he would come by again.
"Lee?" I said weakly. Each movement of my mouth felt like strings were attached to my chin that tugged viciously at my temples.
"Yeah it's me," he said, "I brought you some rice."
Out of my peripherals I could see that he had a small bowl halfway through the hole.
"Not...hungry," I winced as I slowly leaned my head back onto the wall behind me. The bowl slowly receded from my peripherals and I felt the thump of his posture matching mine.
"I stopped by here several times this week," he said quietly, "But you weren't here. Where'd you go?"
I remembered the surgery, and vaguely could recall the room across the shack that I stayed in. It was dilapidated, but filled with high tech medical equipment and supplies as if I was in a hospital.
"Was sick," I whispered so there would be no vibration in my throat to disrupt my head.
"Well, I hope you feel better," Lee said sadly.
We sat there in complete silence for some time.
I thought about telling him the horrors I endured behind the walls he sat against. I thought about asking him to take me far away or to have the MP's apprehend my father for the heinous crimes he committed against his own child.
I just couldn't do it, and I didn't understand why.
Say something, please... I thought as I listened to my thoughts helplessly.
I slowly turned my head to look at the hole in the wall.
"Lee?" I asked weakly and I felt his posture perk up on the other side.
"Yeah."
"Why are we down here?"
"What do you mean?"
"Why are people like us down here in this place?" I weeped. The rush of emotion sent daggers behind my eyes.
"Well," he said slowly as he inched closer to the hole so he could speak quietly, "The Underground was originally to hide from Titans, but the project failed so... now it's just a shitty hole where they send criminals and poor people. The bastards up there don't give a shit about us, and would rather let us all fight for food and starve to death before staining their precious streets with us."
I could hear the anger rising in his voice as he spoke.
"I'm not a criminal," I countered softly.
"No. You're not," he said as he leaned back against the wall. "But you might've been born from one or your parents were. Or your family was just too poor to survive up there. From the looks of your house it's probably the latter. Regardless, you don't deserve to be down here."
I turned toward the hole and inched closer.
The pain was still immeasurable, but every passing minute eased it slightly and I was able to tolerate it better.
"Would I really want to be up there, though? With a bunch of privileged assholes?"
He laughed and said, "Maybe not, but at least you'd get to see the sky."
"The sky..." I repeated. "H-Have you ever seen it?" I asked hopefully.
I'd only heard the sky mentioned a few times, and knew little about it, but I imagined it was a dream. For years, I stared at the rock ceiling that hung above the Underground. Then, I spent everyday looking at the wooden ceiling of my shack. I never truly understood what the sky was.
"No, dumbass," he scoffed, "I'm down here with you, aren't I?"
I laughed at his brash comment and agreed.
"However," he started, "I have seen glimpses through one of the holes."
I felt myself drawling closer toward the hole in the wall in anticipation as he finished his sentence. He was silent for a moment as I waited for him to continue.
"From what I've seen, the sky is bright. It's usually grey or blue and from what I could tell it's massive. There are these white...things that levitate called clouds. It's something."
"Wow," I whispered slowly as I tried to picture the scene he painted for me.
"I've never seen what it looks like at night, though," he said sadly.
"The sky changes at night?" I exclaimed which made him tell me to keep my voice down, but my body buzzed with so much excitement that I had almost forgotten about the pain I was in.
"Yeah. It changes all the time. Sometimes water falls from it. Sometimes strikes of light flash out of it, and it changes colors all the time," he said slowly as if he was telling me a bed time story. "I've never really seen all of that, but like I said, I've caught glimpses."
"So..." I began, "Do you know what it looks like at night?"
He sat silent for a moment and readjusted his posture.
"I know it's dark, kind of like down here," he said softly and I shrugged my lips at his words. "But," he continued, "my mother use to tell me stories about the stars and how they could light everything up if the clouds weren't in the way."