half a soul [kousei]

mercy woods.

A mop of brown hair leans over her plate, absent-minded eyes scanning its contents with little to no interest. She scrapes the peas away from the gravy and picks away at the dinner roll.

It's not that she's full, or that the food doesn't taste good. The stuff she could hold down was delicious. But eating has never been Mercy's strong suite, and the impending promise of Death hanging over her head like a storm cloud isn't helping her stomach.

She had never been able to eat when she was in a bed mood. Mum could cook up the best bread in town, but if Mercy thought about the bacteria swimming around inside of eat, just waiting to eat her from the inside out...well, she just couldn't bring herself to take a bite. Gabriel would try to convince her it was alright. The bacteria was dead, nothing survives in an oven for the amount of time that bread does. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it didn't.

Today, it's not working.

Mercy sets down her fork carefully, without a hint of sound. She knows that none of the others can hear her over the din of their own excitement and confidence. But she still doesn't want to add to the noise. She stays silent, moving carefully, like everything is made of glass and she's scared she's about to knock something over.

She forces her mind off the potential amount of germs in her food by focusing on the faces around her, watching, counting. Twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three.

(How many boys, Mercy?)

That's what Gabriel would say.

Twelve.

(And the girls?)

Eleven. Or twelve, if you count me. But that's assuming everyone's gender, Gabe. Our statistics could be wrong.

She frowns, running it through in her head, counting under her breath.

Four, five, six.

She doesn't like how much they all move. So quick, flickering back and forth, making it difficult for her to keep track. If only they'd stand still, just for a moment. She pulls at her fingers and tries to visualize what it would look like, sorting them into little boxes: first by gender, then district, then eye color, then the likelihood of each becoming her killer. The odds are stacked so high against her, and she's never been much good at seeing over things. Gabe used to tease her about that.

Ten, eleven, twelve.

She used to play hopscotch with him, for hours on end, until the sun burned her skin and he was too tired to play anymore. They didn't play like the other kids. Their sets of squares would go all the way down the street, from one all the way up to at least a hundred, the handiwork of a child who desperately needed something to occupy her mind. Perfect little lines, perfect little numbers. She used to get mad when she messed up and the rain didn't come to wash it away.

(It's okay Mercy, I like it.)

He always liked it. She could've drawn a circle and he would've been impressed.

But now there was no one to impress. Now she was nothing more than a nervous wreck, separating her food and pulling at her fingers and counting under her breath.