I had no plan in the beginning. I just floated down the river, numb to the world again. I watched the night sky as the water took me south down the Mississippi, out of St. Louis. After I couldn’t see the lights from the city anymore, I randomly clawed my way up a riverbank of sloppy mud. From there, I started going east. That’s when I did formulate a plan. New York City. That’s where I’d go.

I started thinking about where I could disappear again. Somewhere that I could just be a face in the crowd and take out the trash when needed. That’s when New York came to mind. So many people all in one small location. The crime, murder, and any other dark deeds done in secret had to be plentiful in a densely populated area like that. It was my best idea. A place I could hide until the beast had to be let out of its cage… and death had to be dealt.

I had no intention of going back to St. Louis. Not after the way things went down. Initially, I thought that maybe one day, I could tell them the truth about myself, and somehow everything would be okay. I was so fucking stupid. That is not how things went. The look on their faces told me I’d never be welcomed back. The final nail in the coffin was the kill shot. The fact that it was from Autumn made it worse. Everything I feared… it all came true.

I knew there were questions that they had to have. There was a lot left unanswered in my mind too. I wondered what they really thought about me. Now that a little time had passed, and they thought I was dead, hopefully. But it was easier to just tell myself they hated me, and to never go back.

Yet, I knew the actual truth. I was too scared to face them. I couldn’t imagine having to face Autumn, let alone Eleanor. What would Carter think? And Frank… the look on his face was something that hit me harder than I thought possible. I did that.

I kept walking east. I had to give up my family again. I’d have to be the monster on my own. No one close enough to hurt. It was the life I lived for the first two years of this shit, before the Chasse family found me in that parking lot. This was how it had to be… forever.

However, fate intervened, and something happened.

I was thrown to the ground by an unseen force. My body no longer my own as it twisted and flexed in unnatural directions as I thrashed on the ground, clenching my teeth so hard I thought they’d shatter. My vision went black, and there was this noise. It was like a speaker with the volume turned past the max. Nothing could be understood, only an overwhelming roar that vibrated every inch of me. The force felt like I was being buried beneath a mountain. It was a violent and confusing experience that was quickly replaced by the dominating power of the voice from before.

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“Rise,” it spoke to me.

Images started ripping through my mind. It was another vision.

There was a woman with straight black hair and eyes to match. She had other women bowing down in front of her in some kind of ritual. Others chanted in reverence. I couldn’t understand what they spoke, but I knew they were praising her. They were calling on her for power. I could feel the rage and darkness of the woman. She wasn’t like Charlotte Gunderson. She was far more wicked and disturbed.

I saw so many things at once, it is hard to explain them all, but I understood every second of it. I saw her the first time she made human sacrifices to extend her own life. I saw the second time, the third, fourth, and so on. I saw her live on for centuries in every corner of the world, perfecting her dark arts and power. I saw her perform a ritual that killed four teenage girls and allowed her to speak to something beyond our own world. It was evil. That’s all I felt… evil. The thing she reached out to on the other side gave her newer, darker powers that made her into something far more dangerous. Something that she could never have been on her own.

Then I watched as she would twist and corrupt those around her to serve, and to lure others into her grasp. I heard them call her Mercy. Mercy Lewis! Though I knew it wasn’t her true name. She developed this alias later in life to hide. I watched her paranoia make her to take more lives in the name of power and secrecy.

Every place she went, through many stages in time as she brought despair and corruption. I saw all of the evil she had committed, all of the darkness she spread through the world, like the plague she was. I saw all the lives snuffed out to extend her own. There was blood everywhere, in every image that passed through my mind. Bodies bent, broken, and burning all laid in her wake. There was a fire, a red fire. I could feel the heat of it from the visions. It wasn’t normal. It felt like it could burn me through my mind. It was conjured from somewhere else.

The voice spoke again, “Mucia!” The name reverberated through my mind until it was engraved into every thought.

I sucked in a gasp of air as my eyes flew open. That name… Mercy Lewis. The alias she had come to be known by in our modern times was supposed to protect her identity. It did nothing for me. I could feel the beast pulling inside, but I already knew where I had to go. I had to turn around and go back to St. Louis.

That evil bitch had come to the surface looking for me, except I was the one who’d find her. I’d be the one to kill her. Mucia was my next target.