Disclaimer: I do not own The Punisher, or any other properties of Marvel Comics. This is for fun.

Clemency

I wake up in a white room. White floor, white ceiling, white light. My eyes hurt. My body feels like I've never used it before. Everything is white and illuminated.

How long have I been asleep? Days? Weeks? Months?

Then I remember. It's slow at first, and then it flows over me like a tidal wave. I remember, I remember flames. I remember screams. Darkness, the smell of burning flesh.

Then I wonder as to why I've woken up in the first place, why I opened my eyes at all. So I close them, hoping that they stay that way.

My family is dead. Fire, flames. Red hot tongues of fire caressing my home.

Darkness screams echoing from the black abyss.

Burning Flesh. My flesh. Her flesh. Our flesh.

"TRY THE OTHER DOOR!" the heat is unbearable. Debris crashes down from the celing onto my body, I'm trapped. My wife lays beside me, her legs crushed by the weight, I struggle to no avail. My mother has Annabelle, my angel, with her. Anna's face is frozen with fear and terror. I try again, but the smoke has made it hard to breathe.

"IT'S SEALED OFF!" Jackson, my nephew shouts. The pressure is unbearable, I nearly black out.

"GET ANNABELLE OUT OF HERE!" I scream, summoning my last once of strength.

"Daddy?" She pleads between scared sobs, "DADDY!" My mother runs to the window, and tries to pry it open. A sickening creak, then the roof caves in on them.

Then it all goes black.

I should be dead, but yet my chest rises and falls. My heart thuds like a tribal drum underneath my ribs. I look down. White bandages crisscross over my body. Not good enough, my curiosity demands more. I rip them off.

It's hard to hold in my screams, my horror.

My skin...scabbed, scarred, mangled. It feels tight, like leather. I'm burned.

My face...I know that my face must be burned, but I pick up a shiny metal tray and look. I'm ready for the worst, ready to look at the face of a monster. But, then something strikes me as odd.

Why isn't my face burned?

My wife died, she died with me.

I don't know If I even told her I loved her. Or if I even told her goodbye.

She saved me, she covered me. Why isn't my face burned?

Why? Why…Of all the silly things that could have been saved, why my face? Why not my family?

Why not my reason for being?

The tears that I must have cried in my sleep left scars. From my lower lids almost down to my chin. No other marks. Long scars from my eyes. Like tears.

From the glass. A brick hit my window. Funny how things work out.

Why isn't my face burned? I keep asking myself that question, half expecting an answer

So they remember you. So they never forget you,

My mind looks to violence, and for the first time in my life I do not push it out. I don't count to ten. I don't vision the ocean crashing against the shore.

I just see fire.

I want to rip my lungs out. I want to die. I want to burn.

I want to kill.

I want to see their faces as I give them what they gave me.

Pain. Torment. Anguish.

I want them to beg for mercy

Funny, my last name means "mercy"; Clemency.

And "mercy" will come for them.

No, wait, Clemency is dead. He died in a fire with his family. They all died.

Wife, Daughter, Two Sisters, Brother-in-Law, Niece and Nephew. Father. Mother.

And a twenty-nine year old journalist; James Clemency.

I remove the various apparatus from my skin and rise from the bed for the first time in what must have been months. My head is swimming, and I can't think straight. Everything comes in bursts of violence and sorrow. Everything comes in flashes of white and red.

It knocks me back down on the bed.

I need to settle down; the monitor says my heart rate is to fast. I need to relax. The monitor beeps wildly, and I know that the nurses would be coming soon. I close my eyes and take a deep breath. Then I take another. And another.

More time passes between the beats. I see my wife and daughter. When they smile at me, and I feel the water build up behind my eyelids. Then I open my eyes, and they're still there.

Tears roll down my scars. My fists clench and I try to push my sorrow down beneath the surface. It's no use.

I try to get up again, this time I make it to the door.

I'm so out of it. I must have been under some sort of drug.

I'm so out of it I don't even realize I'd stolen clothes from the gift shop and gotten dressed. The first drops of the evening rain bring me back to the surface. I always liked the rain. When nothing else could, the rain was always good for clearing my head.

But one thought keeps echoing in my head.

So they remember you. So they never forget you.