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Beg For Mercy – Oceans Divide

Fully you can see

All you took from me.

I want to watch you suffer.

Like you watch me burn.

I once read that the people before us buried their dead.

Holes were dug deep into the earth as they laid them to rest in wooden beds.

Marked with stones, their loved ones came and paid respects to someone who wasn't collecting anymore.

I'm not sure I find that comforting.

To know someone I love is slowly rotting within the earth.

But I imagine it was more for the people that were left behind then the one who did the leaving.

The day we finally laid my mom to rest they dug they warped metal from her chest and burned her body.

I remember the way the fire started at the tips of her fingers, wrapping lusting tendril around her skin and pulling it from the bones along her corpse.

Grandfather stood at my side, his hands clasped over a small leather book, the skin of the cover cracker and withered after years of hands stroking it.

We do not touch, and we do not speak.

Behind me, I could hear my guard as she stood, her back against the wall, and her eyes watching mine. She had been breathing heavily from the smoke that clogged the air causing her chest to rattle.

There were no words spoken as the flames began to eat the rest of her body, and no one held my hand as I watched hers begin to char.

I watched as the clouds of smog began to swirl against the stone ceiling, wispy figures dancing along the rock before passing through the vents and leaving us behind.

"Come," Grandfather had said to me, his birdlike hand wrapping around my shoulder. "It's time to go."

I looked up at him and jerked my skin away from him "Don't touch me" I hissed and my guard moved to stand behind me.

Her hand was cold as it took the place of where Grandfather had let go and pulled me from my mother's burning body.

It was then I wanted to scream.

To release the pressure that had built within my chest as I watched the cloaked man light my mom ablaze.

Clamping my teeth, I turned on my heel and followed my warden through the arching doorway and down the hall.

I did not look back to watch my last living relative emerge behind us and I did not speak when he told me he would see me soon.

He didn't.

Six days later I was kidnapped.

xxx

When I fight again, I feel nothing.

And I feel everything.

The sun is too hot, and it burns.

The crowd to loud, they cheer for anyone to die.

The wind whips through the bowl, howling against the metal skeletons that line the floor.

Pain flares through me as she kicks in my ribs.

Her scream filtering through my brain like something I should know.

The blood that stains my teeth is hot as her fist connects with my jaw.

Sand beats against my legs, scrapping at my skin.

My body is broken, and I'm moving through a life that shouldn't be.

Again she kicks me, the tip of her metal plated foot striking my knee.

I can't stand.

I fall.

Rock imbeds into my skin.

She lands on top of me.

Her skin is too hot.

Her face so angry.

I press my hands against her shoulders.

She won't move and I'm stuck.

Nails drag along my face as her fingers claw at my skin.

Shrieks of laughter escape her chapped lips.

I want to run, to escape.

She holds me down.

Her elbow connects with my stomach.

I heave against the pressure.

Bile coats my throat.

Fingers wrap around my neck.

Soon I will have nothing but the bruises with her prints.

I want it to end.

Why won't it just end?

I try to breathe.

I can't.

I want to scream.

I bring my hands up again and press against her body.

She tightens her hands and I'm choking.

The crowd is so loud.

I bring my knees up and press against her body.

She screams, her dark eyes flaring at me.

I slip my feet under her and jerk her forwards.

My hands pushing her up.

She loses her balance and falls over me.

I hear the crack of her head.

And feel the instant she stops moving.

I scream against the horror that fills my body.

My tears burn against the pain along my face.

I want to close my eyes.

To never see this again.

But I don't.

I look at her.

The way her neck is bent wrong.

The blood that stains her face.

And the rock that ate half her skull.

I want to scream.

But I don't.

I lay there.

And I cry.

I feel everything.

And I feel nothing.

xxx

There is no time.

No seconds, or minutes.

No hours to count or days to cross out.

My existence has begun to swim within a pool of everything and nothing, colliding and breaking into a mess of memories, thoughts so blurred I can't pick within what is my mind and what is pictures I have taken from the world outside.

Fatigue numbs my bones and as I tap my fingers against the rusting spring that has managed to rip through the thin mattress beneath, I watch through closed eyes as my life slips through my fingers.

There are times when everything stops and I can hear the cry of someone in pain. The way their bodies twist and press against the fire that laces their bones. The mattress creaks beneath them, and their teeth snap as they scream against the burn.

Then there are times when everything around becomes nothing but a noise. A long tortured sound that fills the cracks and beats against my head. A never ending cry of people's fear, leaving tortured shreds of the humans they had once been.

Those are the times when I wish sound didn't exist anymore.

Then everything slows and I can count the breaths the leave Alice's chapped lips.

I can catch the way her lungs rise and the way they fall as she expels another lungful, another second of the life that she hasn't lost yet.

"I count my life in the breaths I take not the ones I don't" she had said to me as I told her how time has no meaning anymore.

"Don't count the seconds between, count the ones when you know you're alive."

Winding my finger along the curling metal, I twist my hand along the exposed rusted tip.

The pain that should have burned through my body as I moved along the bed no longer ignites within my flesh, bringing forth the fact that the time that has left me behind has taken my body with it.

The swirls of fire that had once lingered along my skin have faded away with the seconds as I stared at the ceiling, losing myself in the greys of the stone.

In the greys of my life.

Of the Compound and everyone fading within it.

There is a part of me that knows I should have died already but Alice tells me that the cup they make us drink from in the prep room keeps us going.

Till we're nothing but flesh stretched over bone.

And we want death.

Somewhere around me people are speaking.

Clipped and chopped words as they grunt above me.

I can hear the way their mouths move along the words, rounding over the curves of sentences as they string together a verse meant to mean something to the person they converse with.

A hand wraps around my shoulder and shakes at my body.

There is strength with the palm, and warmth. It lingers along my skin as they remove themselves and step away from me.

Someone bends near me, I can hear their joints crack as they move, their knees popping as they bow. Then hands are sliding under my back, the movement pulling my tunic and tightening it around my shoulders.

The world around me moves as I am lifted from the bed, my fingers running over the spring that came with my hand. My head lulls and my eyes watch the upside down world sway in shades of fading grey.

I can see Alice as she shakes her head, her mouth a firm line as she watches my body being carried towards the door neighbouring us.

They don't knock as they step inside and drop me on the examine table, my head cracking against the wood.

Pain begins along the base of my skull, a lazy sway of twinges that dance along my bones.

I can hear Doc as he yells at the dropper.

His words loud against the small room, so loud they stuff their way through my ears and beat against my brain.

My head swims as my eyes find the window above us, a small rectangle that lets in the light of a dying day.

"You inbreed moron" Doc's words fall over my skin as he leans over me and twists my head softly to one side, checking the back of my head.

"She dead?" grumbles the man who brought me here and Doc huffs.

"Of course she isn't." Doc moves away from me and I can hear the clang of his tools.

"Then I ain't a moron" says the guard, folding his arms over his chest.

"That's debatable" snaps Doc.

"What's wrong with her?" he asks, ignoring Doc as he mutters to himself.

"She's in shock."

"Been a long while" says the guard.

"Yes, I am aware" says Doc and moves back to me.

"I have orders" says the guard.

"Again, I am aware" he says as he drags a light along my open eyes.

It burns, a fire that licks along my bare retinas causing my eyes to water and groan to build in the back of my throat.

"You need to wake up Bella" says Doc softly, his voice a whisper along my skin.

I want to ask him that what is there to be awake for but death; to wake is to kill again, to die again.

Doc sighs above me "She's responsive but I can't do much but coax. She'll have to be rescheduled."

"He won't be happy" says the guard and Doc frowns.

"There isn't anything I can do" he says "you'll have to get another."

The guard sighs, and says "He really wanted her" his lips twisting as he looks at Doc and then at me.

"He pushed her to far, should have taken the side effects into consideration first before scheduling her over and over again" says Doc as he moves to his desk. "She needs time, I'll keep her here for observation but other than that I can't do anything."

"It's been two weeks" reminds the guard as he moves towards Doc "that's more than enough time to recover."

"Physically maybe, but not mentally."

Within my head the days that have begun to blur snap and I try to remember the last time I was truly aware of one day ending and another beginning.

Doc sighs and I can hear the stool scrap the stone floor. "There isn't much more I can tell you, she won't be functional for tonight, so reschedule."

The guard growls, the sound vibrating in his throat before he nods tightly and turns on his heels, walking through the door and slamming it as he passes.

"Imbecile" mutters Doc and turns to work out something on his desk. "I know you can hear me" he says and stands, walking back towards me "So I'm going to tell you what I'm going to do." Leaning over me I can see the glass tube and needle in his hand. Pressing on the syringe he removes the last of the air within the mixture and turns his eyes to me. "I'm going to give you a sedative to help you sleep. It'll pinch but you'll feel no pain."

I want to scream at him, to push away his hand but my fingers only twitch at my side, my fingers sliding along the small spring within my palm.

"Don't be afraid Bella" he whispers to me as he rolls up my sleeve, twist my wrist up and taps the crook between my elbow "everything is going to be okay." I feel it break my skin, the sharpened metal invading my body but I do nothing.

Everything within me is lost inside itself and I have no control.

I watch as he presses down on the top and the liquid is injected inside my body. I try to bat away his hand, my arm lifting and falling like I'm filled with stones, too heavy to move.

I open my mouth, my tongue swollen against my teeth. "Don't" I try to mumble as he pulls the needle from my vein and dabs at the tiny pinprick.

"Everything's going to be alright" he tries to soothe, "sleep."

I try to press against the darkness that washes at the corners of my eyes. Blinking against the pull that wraps around my lids and tugs them closed.

In my head I'm screaming, the sounds vibrating within my body.

Outside everything is silent, and the darkness fills my vision.

I see nothing.

And everything is gone.

xxx

Somewhere among the darkness that lingers along thoughts I am aware of the tiny puncture that breaks my skin and the voice that laces my ears telling me that I'm lucky they're giving me my shot, that if I had gone on much longer I would have died.

I want to tell them that I had wanted that, that I had lost the fight within myself to escape the pain we have been forced to feel.

That everything that happens to me isn't luck; that they want to me so close to death I am begging for it before they pull me back.

I want to reach out and shake them, screaming at them to let me go, that it's better then entering the arena again, but they tell me I'll be okay soon and the needle is slid from my skin.

I want to tell them that nothing is ever going to be okay again, but they leave and I am forgotten.

xxx

I am haunted.

I see the faces of those who have died before me, and they scream at me as I lay within myself.

Hating me, they tug at my skin and shake my bones.

They punish me for being weak.

Scream at me.

Tear at me.

I want to push them away, to explain that everything is gone.

But they cry, and I'm burning.

I want to shake away the hurt as it lick along my fingers, twisting around my wrists and sliding up my arms.

Fire is all I feel, a pain so hot it crisps my skin as it dances across my flesh.

And I am burning.

And they are screaming.

Because I am weak.

And I've lost myself.

Somewhere in the grey.

xxx

When I wake, I am alone and my limbs are strapped to the table beneath me.

Biting my tongue against the scream that builds along my teeth, I turn my head and pull against the leather that encases my wrists.

Swallowing past the acid that lines my throat I try to lift my heavy head.

Jagged bloody lines trace my veins from my elbow to my wrist on both arms and I stare at them. The crimson colour has dried to black, flaking as I pull against the cuffs.

"You were tearing your skin off" says a voice as the door opens. Jerking away I turn and watch as Doc strolls into the room. "We had to take necessary precautions."

"By strapping me to a table" I say, my voice a whisper as I exercise the cramped muscle.

"It was to keep you safe" he insists and pulls his stool in front of the table and sits down

"It was to keep from damaging merchandise any further" I bite and turn my head away from him.

The light from the window is brighter than before. A white light instead of a grey one and I can see the tiny dust dancers twirl in the casting rays.

Late morning.

"I see you got your quick wit back" Doc notes drily.

"Was that you making a joke?" I snap back and jerk my legs against the restraints.

Doc sighs and leans away from me, his aged face tilting towards the little sun that leaks into the stone room before looking back at me and saying "Want to tell me what happened?"

I press my lips into a hard line and look away from him. "No."

"No?" he asks.

"Nope."

He sighs "You should discuss it with someone" he tells me.

"Maybe" I pause "but it won't be with you."

Doc breathes through his mouth, exhaling deeply before saying "How do you expect me to help you if you won't tell me what's wrong?" he pinches the bridge of his nose and shakes his head.

I scoff and look at the medical table next to my head "The only thing I expect from you, Doc, is to keep patching me up no matter how much I tell you I don't want to go on, because that's your job" we meet each other's eyes "so do your job and stop acting like this is anything but what it is. We aren't friends, we aren't two people feeling each other's pain, we are nothing and I don't want your help."

I watch as Doc's jaw works together, a muscles jumping as he breaths through his nose.

Then he nods "Very well" and stands.

Reaching over my body, he slips the leather restraints off my hands before going to work on my ankles.

I pull my wrists to my body to cradle the broken skin on both arms and watch as Doc slides the bands off my legs allowing me to pull them towards me as well.

Moving over to his little medical table he grabs the bottle of disinfectant I have come to recognize and a wrap of clean white cloth. Turning to me he holds out his hand and I lay my arm in his. He pours the clear liquid on the cloth and whips at dried blood along my arm.

The sting runs along my skin and I watch the cloth turn from a stark white to blood red as he runs it over my skin.

Once he's finished one arm he grabs the other and begins again. I turn away from him and watch the door across from me. Beyond it I can hear only the faintest of cries, soft noises that lull between the cracks in the door.

"They will be here soon" says Doc as he finishes and moves away.

I nod my head and look down at the rips in my skin where my nails tore through. Flexing my fingers I watch the opened flesh move with the tendons clenching.

Pain cripples me and I hiss before shaking out my fingers and turning to watch Doc as he shuffles papers on his desk.

I want to ask him why he does it, saves us when we don't want to be saved. If he understands how much it hurts to face the moments in our life we want to escape or if he ignores the pleas in our eyes because we aren't like him, and we don't exist in his life as anything but animals.

I want to tell him what it was like to murder that kid, just so he will understand why it hurts to breathe.

And I want to tell him what it's like to lose yourself, to forget your name and your life beyond the grey stones that line the ceiling of your cell.

But I don't.

Because we are too different and we don't live in the same world.

Because my words incriminate me, make me into what they want.

Because there is nothing I can do, and there is nothing he will do.

So I sit and I watch as he moves through his life and I wonder how everything came to be as it is now and if somewhere deep in the past we could have been more than a prisoner and a warden.

xxx

I can smell iron.

The metallic tang that lingers in the air even after the candles have been blown out and the rusting blood has dried on the bench beside me.

A man, not much younger then Grandfather had sat beside me, his spine arched and his wrist held tightly to his shivering body.

He had been screaming, his frame shaking violently as the women in Prep had moved closer to him, cooing silly words of comfort as they held buckets in their hands and needles in the other.

Cries were trapped in his chest as he held the stub to his stomach; his head shaking as he spewed spittle against the candle lit air.

Esme had stood beside him, her hand resting on his shoulder and I watched as he tried to pull away from her.

"Don't fucking touch me!" he screamed and jerked against the chains that held his one wrist and ankles.

Blood had matted his white hair when the killing blow had been dealt and dripped down his face, staining his ancient neck.

Someone came to stand between us and jerked at his chains, pulling his uninjured hand up and away from his body before wrapping their hand in his hair and wrenching his head against the wall.

The women moved quickly then, dipping cloths into the buckets and wiping at the bleeding stub of bone where his hand have been severed before stitching it quickly and moving away.

I watched as his tears fell and the blood dripped from the tight stitching, both of them hitting the floor and disappearing with the rest of the pain that lies on the stones of Prep.

His cries didn't stop when they moved him.

Or when they walked him down the hall to the Compound.

Long after he was gone they echoed within my throat.

Shadows pass under the door, light footsteps moving over the chilled stone floors.

A small form unlocks the door and pushes it open, filling the room with the light of the candles from the wrought iron holders just past the threshold.

Sniffing the room, she grimaces before quickly moving around to the wilting wax lumps, lighting small flames as she goes.

Behind her six other's follow, their red tunic flashing in the dim light and I wonder if they know they dress in the same shade as the people bleed just beyond their walls.

Dropping my head, I watch as the shadows move around my body, their black fingers drawing along my pale skin before fluttering and dying.

I can hear as more people enter the room but I don't look up, there is just no point in trying to catch their eyes, they don't want to see me as anything more than a job.

Ingrid's heavy voice floats around my head as she speaks to the women around me.

Someone important to them steps through the door then.

I know because the people around me stop.

"Majesty" says Ingrid and I wonder which Royal I am blessed to see today.

A light chuckle fills the room and I grind my teeth.

Edward's father moves through the room and comes to stand in front of me.

"How are you this morning, Bella?" he asks and I wonder if I could get away with head butting him before they shot me.

I work my jaw as I stare at the ground, my fingers clenching at my sides.

When I don't answer him, he snaps his fingers and someone's hand pinches my chin, forcing my head up to meet his eyes.

Edward's father sits in a small wooden chair in front of me, his elegant robes folding around him like drapes of liquid gold. His hair is braided still, pulled in front of him and resting in his lap.

I don't know his real name, but I will never call him King.

"I have a surprise for you" he says after studying my face.

He folds his lean fingers in his lap and smiles at me.

His teeth are white and I wonder how he keeps them so clean.

Then I imagine someone polishing each one for him and my stomach rolls.

I don't have anything to say, there is nothing left for him to take from me, but anything ever given by someone is power always has a price too high to pay.

Edward's father nods to the guard who stands at the door and he barks a command to the people outside the door.

A man, his hands bond in front of him, struggles against the men that hold him as he's catered through the door.

White eyes flash through the room before landing on me and Edward's father.

"What the fu—" he grunts as a fist lands in his stomach and he doubles over coughing.

"Watch your mouth" snarls one of the guards as he spits at the Darkie below him.

Something in my stomach heaves and I look at Edward's father.

He smiles and draws a long nailed finger along my cheek "You're talented but with nothing to test your limits." He looks at the struggling man. "With him, everything will be tested."

I fight against the bile that churns in my stomach "No" I whisper, shaking my head "I won't."

Edward's father laughs and shakes his head, pulling his hand away from my face "I didn't hear myself giving you a choice." His shoulders shake "You really are something, my dear."

"You'll have to kill me" I tell him "because there is no fucking way I'm doing this."

Edward's father stops and looks at me "Either it's this man, or it's that pretty little thing you have become so fond of." The way his eyes meet mine chill me and I pull against the man who holds my face. "It's your choice, my dear; either way, someone will die today and it won't be one of my people."

Edward's father stands then and walks away from me.

A scream builds in my chest and I screech against my teeth, jerking my face from the sweating hands of the guard and pull against my chains.

The two guards wrestle the man to the bench and sit him at the end, away from me, chaining his wrists and ankles before stepping away and going to stand by the door once again.

He grunts and thrashes, cursing the men that stand to the side and the women who work away from us, ignoring him as they sew together the thick leather armor.

"You're wasting your breath" I tell him and he curses me.

I curse me too.

Anger swells within my stomach as I watch the Day Walkers work around me and I to want to shout at them, to curse and yell at them. But I shake my head because they won't listen to me, and drop my eyes once again; the fight within myself feeding the despair that drowns my body.

I hate them so much I burn with the sickness.

I want to scream and shake and cry and beat them down but I'm chained to a wall and they don't even acknowledge me.

Esme moves through the room then in a swirl of crimson fabric and the women chatter to her.

They recap the events she missed and how exciting this fight will be.

"What the hell is wrong with you people!?" the man yells as they laugh. "You sick sons a bitches!"

"Get Edward" says Esme to one of the woman "He'll need to be here."

Someone objects but she holds up a hand and they run out.

Lifting my head I watch as Esme moves to the man with the cup and I grit my teeth.

I want to tell him not to drink it. That it will keep you alive.

But he won't understand.

Esme speaks in soft tones and lifts the cup to the man's lips.

He snarls and pulls away but she continues to hold the cup up and talking until he nods slightly and she tilts it over his lips.

Esme looks at me and I look back her and I tell everything I never will.

I tell her how much I hate her for doing this to me.

I tell her about the people who have died because of me, and the way they looked when the last bit of life drained from their eyes.

That it's her fault as much as it is mine that they died.

She did it as much as I did.

They all did it.

She turns away from me, smiles at the man and moves back to her needlework.

I press my lips together and begin to count the seconds.

One.

Two.

Three.

xxx

Edward stands behind me, his hand resting on my elbow as Esme adjusts the leather along my arms, clipping them into place and braiding my hair.

He's breathing softly against the skin exposed on my shoulders, every exhale rustling the hair that rests on the nape of my neck

Esme steps away from me and nods to Edward and he pulls me away from her to the mouth of the dark hallway.

She doesn't wish me luck this time and I wonder if she finally realizes how worthless those words really are.

Edward says nothing as we walk.

And I have nothing to say.

Behind me I can hear the shouts of the man, and the curses that roll through the tunnel behind me.

Twisting around the corner Edward pulls me to a stop and looks down at me.

"Will you fight?" he asks and I say nothing.

I look up at him and watch as his eyebrows pull together and his hand tightens on my arm.

"Will you fight?" he asks again, his words biting.

What is there to say?

"Answer me!" he snarls as he shakes my arm.

"I don't know!" I yell and pull at his hold.

"You have to fight, Bella" he says.

"Why?" I demand "Why do I have to fight? Why doesn't he have to fight? Why am I so much better? So much more valuable than him?"

He doesn't answer me and I know it's because he can't.

There is no way to put a measure on a life.

No way to define someone in worth.

"Why do you even care?" I mutter, my throat aching.

"I don't" he says and I nod.

"Of course," I spit the acidic words "just making sure the merchandise isn't breaking."

"Bella" he says and I nod again.

"Time to go."

Edward looks down at me, his face so twisted before he nods and we begin to move again.

I can hear the crowd.

I know the sound so well it fills my body.

The gates are open this time and Edward walks me through and out into the arena.

This time I am the opponent.

I'm sick.

It's so hot, sweat slicks my skin as soon as the sun hits and my eyes burn.

We walk away from the mouth of the tunnel and the people are crying above us.

Edward turns me so I'm facing the entrance.

He bends his head slightly.

"Don't die" he whispers and walks away from me.

I want to ask him why not but he's gone and I'm watching as the gates are dropped down and the Darkie man is pulled up to the bars.

The guard beside him nods and the barrier is lifted up.

The man is forced past the mouth and into the sun.

He screams as the light hits his eyes.

And I cry.

One of us will die and I don't know which one it will be.

And I can't decide what scares me more.

That I might die or that I'm thinking about killing one of my people.

Inside my head I know, I'm already dead.

I feel everything.

And I feel nothing.

A/N:

Hello!

I hoped you liked it.

Let me know?

Massive hugs and peace to all.