MERCY / PRELUDE, AN AUTOPSY

JULY 1, 1994 ━━ Outside of the hospital there is a storm raging, violent and obscene as lightning streaks the sky, leaving blurry residues of light, reminiscent of a god's potency. The blonde woman with the cherub-like infant in her arms looks out the window at the dark and hostile sky, and takes comfort in it. She holds the boy close, tells him, your father loves you, and wishes that the sky could reach down and embrace her. The little girl in the corner of the room watches her mother hold the tiny child whose hands grapple like vines. There's nothing akin to resentment in her eyes, and when her mother calls her over, displaying an uncharacteristic amount of affection, the girl thinks that her brother might be a miracle.

On the other side of the country, thunder roars overhead, making a new mother's skin crawl. There's no comfort in storms, only superstition that runs deep. Bad omen, the woman mutters under her breath. She holds the infant closer to her chest, running a tender hand over her child's dark head of hair. The baby's eyes are dark like coal and far too acute for a newborn, but her mother takes comfort in nothing else but her. There's no one else in the hospital, just the two of them and so much love that it's suffocating. But they leave as soon as they are discharged, exiting the room that brandishes the number 4.

          Bad omens everywhere.

CAPOTE IS A BORROWED NAME, found on the cover of a book in a somber store that smells of must and looks brittle to the touch. There is dust coating the shelves and the small windows allow only slivers of sunlight in, casting rays of light on the warm wood floors. The book itself has been passed to many hands and the pages are creased and water-damaged. It's purchased by a woman with eyes like stones and inky tresses that unravel down to her hips like a dark, stifling river. Even though her hands are calloused and her skin shows wear from the sun, there's something beautiful about her petal lips and gentle regard.

She thinks the name will make her belong, that a name like this will make her American and consequently her daughter as well. But the streets are not paved with gold; they are caked in mire and the fantasy falls flat. What she doesn't know is that this world will never be hers and she will die far from home with no hope left, only fear in her veins.

SHE NAMES HER WILL CAPOTE—a collection of names that mean nothing to her, only hold the promise that her daughter will be more than she was. She is not welcomed in this land, but there is still hope for the swaddled infant that lays dormant in her arms. Only a few months old and already, Will is the only thing she has ever loved. Even in the shoebox apartment with creaky floorboards and thin walls, burnt-out lightbulbs and only cold water, she finds a home because of the gentle little girl who has only been made up of love.

Even as she grows older, Will still maintains a certain tenderness and reticence that's abnormal for someone her age. She is meek and more importantly feeble. Nothing about her cries power and it seems a curse that her mother's fragility was hereditary, some kind of fundamental facet wound into her DNA. Her mother thanks God that she hadn't inherited her father's belligerence—she wouldn't say but it scared her. Eventually his touch made her angry and she hated the way words fell from his mouth in empty promises. He was chaos, a bad omen, and she wanted Will to be nothing like him.

But there was always something there; too unforgiving and turbulent, a hunger for antagonism that burned bright.

          It was always there.

JULY 1, 2001 ━━ Will Capote waits at the bottom of the stairs on the tarnished floors that are slick with water, tracked in from the storm outside. The sky is grim and the rain falls like angry bullets, pounding against the glass as if they might pierce through at any moment. Bad omen, Will thinks to herself. She distracts herself by tracing the grooves in the steps that have been worn down by the treading of feet. Her puny finger presses against the shallow indent, wondering how hard she might have to dig to make a mark. Prying the loose nail up from the railing she cuts into the wood like carving through flesh. Dark clouds loom outside like phantoms and the street lights from outside cast shadows in the dim lobby, but Will drives deeper with the nail, gutting the wood until small shavings are pulled from the steps and scattered along the linoleum.

She's never been afraid of storms, or anything for the matter, unlike her mother who always instilled in her that storms were foreboding, bad omens, harbingers of destruction. But Will finds comfort—not in the angry skies, but the discord that it brings and the ugliness that it unearths. Under the veil of placidity, a fire rages inside of her, carving into the wood like its wronged her. Destruction, ruin, fashioning decay.

When her mother does finally come through the doors, soaked to the bone and swiping drops of water from her cheeks, Will bounds up to her with a seraphic smile and her mother wonders how she might have been so lucky. It's her birthday, she reminds her mother, though the woman hasn't forgotten of course. Will trails after her, stepping only in the places that she does. She steps over the hollow she created in the stairs and follows her up to the second floor. When they reach the apartment her mother goes to her room and gathers the book with the borrowed name. Will accepts it gingerly as though the book might crumble to ash at any moment. It doesn't mean much to her really. She's seven and dyslexic; the letters always warp and transfigure, but it comes from her mother so she carries it pressed against her chest all night.

It contains her mother's hopes and dreams, but neither of them can read the words in the pages so the book holds nothing but sentiment. Will runs her finger over the title for hours that night until she understands the words: In Cold Blood.

Later in the night the storm still rages on. Her mother mutters under her breath, bad omen, but Will only frowns, looking out at the dark sky and feeling nothing. And then she thinks about something she did at school that day—how her teacher told all the children to draw their families and Will's felt incomplete. Gathering the crumpled paper in her hands, she gives it to her mother, watching the woman's face contort into something forlorn. Even through the crayon and scribbles, her mother can make out the picture of them and an empty space where nothing seems to fit. Will would have drawn what she imagined to fill the void, but there was nothing that belonged—just emptiness and all that came with it.

Her mother never talks about the empty space—or the person that should be there. And when she says a resound no—no, you don't need to know about him, Will reminds her that it's her birthday. It's her birthday and she wants to know, because she has never been normal and this is part of the reason why, part of the reason why she will never be whole. But there's something in her voice that is so unlike her, some foreign sound that fills her mother with so much grief that she stills. Just like her father, her words are filled with so much ire that it's palpable, suffocating even. Lately, it's been too easy to fight. More and more her mother would lock herself away in her room, collapsing to the floor and weeping like there was a gun to her head. Lately, everything Will did was so much like him. And even now it was so easy for her mother to raise her voice even though she doesn't mean to. So much anger that it hangs heavy in the air. Neither of them can breathe.

By now they're shouting so loud the neighbors can hear. Her mother is adamant but so is she. It was uncharacteristic to see her mother so full of fire. No longer meek and tender-hearted, her voice sounded like a war machine and she would not be silenced. It was too easy to be angry, too easy to desire chaos. Will's eyes seemed to be alight with flames, raging and sweltering as the lights above their heads flickered with power. The storm raged on and Will was seething; seven years old and spiteful like a feral wolf. She was too at home in this disarray.

Her mother's hopes were misplaced. Will would never belong in a place. She belonged to chaos and the devastation that came with it.

The paper in Will's hand, covered in crayon scribbles of the sad family starts to burn slowly in the palm of her hand before it spreads down like it's been soaked in gasoline. Every inch of her comes to life, burning with acrimony that is beyond her control. It feeds off of her own anger like a parasite, consuming every other feeling in her bones until there is nothing but raw fury. Her mother cries out, prying the burning paper from her child's hands and recoiling as the flame catches her sleeve, spreading rapidly up her arm and searing the soft flesh through the fabric. The paper falls to the rug below them and in a beautifully ruinous way it spreads across the room, casting shadows out the window and into the dark night. The apartment goes up in flames before Will can blink and as the fire burns hot against her tender flesh, something else consumes her—fear. Her hands shake and the fire rises, tears pricking the corners of her stone eyes. Control is foreign and the only thing left is chaos as her hands fold into tight fists, sweat pooling in her palms. Her mother is screaming, blood-curdling screams that make Will cry with her.

The flames don't touch her as she grabs her mother's now unmoving body. There's nothing but burning flesh and scorched patches of bones left, and though the smoke stings her eyes and gets caught in her throat, the fire does nothing except dance around her skin like it belongs to her. And then, urging her feet to move, she runs. Grabbing the abandoned book at her feet and fleeing the destruction, Will Capote doesn't look back. Shoving through the throng of people, she exits the building and is pushed down by the rough bodies that surge with desperation—the animal instinct that demands survival and nothing less. Collapsing in a puddle of water, the book slips from her grasp, soaking the water into its thin pages and cooling the singed edges. She gathers it quickly, struggling to her feet as she runs into the crowded street. The whole building is encased with fire, the flames pulsating as if they are alive, lifting higher into the malevolent night sky.

Will thinks her heart might beat through her ribcage and as the blood pumping in her ears grow louder, the fire only seems to grow wilder, smoldering so hot that glass shatters and ceilings collapse until it reaches the lobby—down the stairs and over the step that has been carved into. The only thing that breaks through the sound of her own heartbeat is the shrill sounds of her mother's screams echoing in her head. She is haunted. Everyone's eyes are on the burning building—this luminous spectacle of catastrophe—but Will's hands are pressed tightly over her ears, drowning out the noise until there's nothing, just silence.

She looks up at the storm that rages on. Her hands fall to her sides. Her mother screams. Thunder roars overhead. Her skin crawls.

          Bad omens everywhere.

note: yes, jason and will are born on the same day!! they're birthday buddies and soulmates... maybe??? ig if you believe in that kind of thing. but anyways i know that leo and will's backstories are very similar (i.e. accidentally burning their moms up... oops) but i think that's gonna contribute to their bonding cause if there wasn't some shared connection then will would have absolutely no attachment to leo and would 100% leave him to die. also sorry to will's unnamed mother who literally died before the first chapter😬😳