Chapter Text
Marinette Dupain-Cheng told her parents everything.
And since she'd become friends with Alya, she told her everything too. Even though Alya wasn't always quite so open herself, there wasn't anything that Alya didn't know about Marinette.
Well, except for one thing. One thing that neither her parents or Alya knew.
Marinette stuffed a croissant in her mouth as she sprinted out the door. She was running late. Again. She'd been up late last night working on a dress design, and she'd slept through her alarm this morning as a result.
Lucky for her, she could book it when she really needed to. Years of being late had resulted in Marinette actually being pretty fast, when she was motivated.
She ran all the way to school, with no moments of her famous clumsiness, except for the one where she almost ran into a pole, then dodged it by screeching and flailing wildly as she stepped around the pole, dropping the last piece of her croissant as she did. Not a great moment, but still better than she did normally.
She got to school before the bell rang, and stopped in front of the staircase, hands on her knees, panting hard.
A second later, Alya came running up to her. "Girl, did you hear the news this morning?"
Marinette looked up at her. "The news?"
"You didn't hear?" Alya's eyes were wide with shock and excitement. "About what happened at the Jagged Stone concert last night?"
Marinette shook her head.
"Seriously? A guy brought a gun to the concert. They think he was planning on shooting up the place." Alya pulled her phone out of her pocket and tapped on the screen. She turned it around so that Marinette could see the picture on it, a mugshot of a guy in his late thirties. "Anyway, this guy brought a gun to the Jagged Stone concert, but then this guy..." She pulled another photo up on her phone, this one of a guy in his twenties, and kept talking. "...told the police that the other guy was going to do something bad and they were able to stop him. Isn’t that so cool?"
Marinette smiled at her friend's enthusiasm. "That's great, that they were able to stop him. Did anyone get hurt?"
Alya shook her head, still looking like she was about to explode from excitement. "Nope. But I haven't even told you the best part of the story yet. Guess how the guy knew that something bad was going to happen and that he needed to contact the police."
Marinette's stomach twisted. She had a sinking feeling that she knew where this was going. "Ho.. how did he know?" She asked with a nervous smile. "D…did he see the gun or something?"
Alya shook her head again. "No, nothing like that." She beamed at Marinette, eyes alight with the delight of finding a great news story. "He saw reapers!"
Marinette's stomach dropped. "Oh," she said in a small voice.
Alya didn't seem to notice that Marinette was not as excited as she was. "Yeah, the guy's totally a harbinger, and he saw a bunch reapers standing next to the people around this guy, figured out that this guy was about to do something bad, and told the police! Isn't that amazing?"
Marinette nodded, feeling sick to her stomach.
Alya finally seemed to notice that was something was bothering Marinette. "Oh, come on, Marinette. Don't tell me you're one of those people who thinks that the harbingers are creepy."
"I don't," Marinette protested weakly.
"Good, cause you shouldn't," Alya said happily. "They're like superheroes! I mean, there are all these stories of them saving people's lives because they saw a reaper and knew they had to do something. I mean, sure, seeing the personification of death all the time is probably a little creepy for them, but they're so cool! Like, the way that they can tell if someone is going to die in less than a year if the reaper is more than twenty feet away from the person they're looking at, or if they're going to die in less than a day if the reaper is more than five feet away, or if they'll die within five minutes if the reaper is right next to them. It helps them save so many lives! I have to start writing a blog about them. Can you even imagine what it would be like to be able to see a grim reaper?"
Marinette saw a flash of color out of the corner of her eye and glanced sideways involuntarily.
Standing across the street from her was a figure in a long, blood red cloak, the hood pulled low over their face so that all Marinette could see was their blood red lips and their chin. The sleeves draped over the figure's hands, hiding them from view, one sleeve bunched up where the figure gripped the handle of a bronze scythe.
Even with the figure's eyes covered, it was easy to tell where it was looking.
Straight at Marinette.
It had been following her for the last week, staring at her through the windows of her house and classroom, standing across every street Marinette went down. Marinette kept trying not to look at it, but the brilliant red was hard to ignore.
Marinette tore her eyes off of the creature and looked back at Alya with a forced smile. "No. No, I can't imagine what it would be like to be able to see a reaper."
Alya frowned. “Are you okay, girl? You look like you feel kind of sick.”
Marinette shook her head and smiled weakly. “No, I'm fine.” Alya didn't look convinced. “I am. You said you wanted to write a blog about the harbingers, right? What's your first post going to be about?”
Alya's eyes lit up. “Well, actually..”
The bell cut her off. Marinette smiled apologetically at her. “Guess you'll have to tell me later.”
Alya nodded. “Yeah. After class.”
They went up the steps together. Just before they stepped inside the school, Marinette glanced over her shoulder, looking across the street. The reaper still stood motionlessly on the other side, and even though Marinette knew it was impossible, it almost looked like the reaper was smiling.