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Most people would consider killing someone out of the realm of possibilities for themselves. This “most people” included Katherine “Kitty” Pryde, self described nerd and computer enthusiast. If someone had asked if she could kill someone, maybe in the context of The Hunger Games, she’d probably respond with a laugh and a resounding no.
But still, here she was, with a lifeless body lying in front of her. Hollywood never shows what a dead body really looks like, neck at an odd angle, eyes open and lifeless. It had been just another average night when Kitty had come home to her shitty little apartment in a slightly shittier part of town.
When she first started renting it, her mom was always fretting about her safety, but Kitty had assured her that she would be fine. Nonetheless, her mother had insisted she take a couple self defense classes. Self defense classes that it turns out, had some in handy.
That evening, she had been fiddling with the lock while still wearing gloves because it was motherfucking cold, jesus, which always seemed to stick even though the landlord had assured her it did not, when a hand firmly squeezed her shoulder.
The man whispered “Don’t scream or I’ll blow your brains out” and shoved the cold metal of a gun barrel against the back of her neck. Oddly, Kitty’s first thought was how motherfucking cliché this was.
Like what are the odds of actually getting held up in your apartment with words that sounded straight out of Hollywood's newest crime thriller blockbuster. Maybe this was why she had managed to keep a cool head when she flipped the guy.
As he fell, his head connected with the doorframe with a sickening crack. The gun didn’t even go off, so she picked it up and checked it. Empty. Regardless of that, the guy still laying unmoving on the floor. She pressed two fingers against his neck for a pulse. Nothing.
Fuck, this was really gonna put a wrench in her plans of homework, ramen with melted cheese (shut up it’s good and she was still a broke college student), and a marathon of Law & Order: SVU. Kitty sighed as she felt exhaust seeping in after the adrenaline rush. She pulled her cellphone out of her pocket and dialed 911.
“Hello, yes. So a guy broke into my house. No, I’m not hiding, he threatened me with a gun and I disarmed him. By flipping him over. Yes, that’s the problem, I think he might be dead. He hit the door frame and now he’s not moving.
Yes, I checked his pulse. He said he was going to kill me. No, I checked the gun and it’s not loaded. The police will be here soon? My address yes, 8790 Shadow Street, apartment 17c, yes I know it sounds like a street in Gotham City. Yes ma’am I’m fine. Thank you. Goodbye.”
She clicked the phone shut and shuddered, before backing away from the man’s body into her living room. Kitty shrugged off her shoulder bag onto the beat up couch and slumped down onto it. Honestly, she was surprised at herself and the fact that she wasn’t panicking. How she had been fretting about her GPA one minute, then had broken a man’s neck, and was right back to worrying about school right after. Was that bad?
She only realised that her heart had stopped hammering against her ribcage when she heard her lock clicking again and it began to do so again. Kitty leapt to her feet and whirled around to find someone in her doorway.
Not just anyone, but a girl. Roughly the same height as Kitty, with long blonde hair, half up in two chopsticks, and cut into thick fringe across her forehead. The girl was dressed relatively normally, in black leather pants tucked into boots, a loose black tank top that did little to hide her curves.
Kitty opened her mouth to say something before promptly closing it again, then opening it and closing it again, in a way that Kitty could only assume made her look like a fish. The girl, however, seemed unphased as she stood over the dead man in the doorway and cocked her head at Kitty, as her mouth quirked into a smirk. Kitty finally managed to get her voice to work and stuttered,
“Uh- er - um.. who are you? And uh why are you um in my.. house?”
The girl laughed lightly in the most infuriating I-get-that-alot kind of way
“I have alot of names.”
“Um, such as?”
“Well, that get’s to the next question. Magik, Darkchylde, most commonly, Death.”
“Is that like a gang thing or something, cause if you’re gonna kill me, just do it. I can do without the smoke and mirrors.”
“No, it’s my job to take the dead’s souls to limbo for judgement. Like your friend, here.”, she poked the man with her foot and nodded down to him.
“You expect me to believe that? I’m not stupid. Get out of my house!” Kitty shot back indignantly
Death shrugged, “Suit yourself.”
She held out her hand, where a glowing sword materialized, then bent down to the man and moved as if slit the man’s throat. But the cut didn’t bleed, it just faintly glowed and a silvery smoke like substance seeped out which she collected with the sword.
Kitty just stood there, gaping once again as the girl straightened, and shot another look back at her as that smirk crept back onto her face. The sword disappeared into thin air, and the girl raised one hand, looked oddly perplexive for a split second before shaking her head.
Her lips split into another smirk and she wiggled the fingers of her raised hand at kitty while her eyes flicked over her in a quick up down of someone who is definitely not interested in being just friends, before a circle of floor began glowing around her feet and she dropped down through the floor and disappeared.
Kitty stood there unmoving, blinking slowly. She couldn’t fathom what had just occurred in front of her and honestly didn’t know is she would believe herself. The only proof of the girls’ presence there was the rapidly fading glowing mark fading on the man’s neck.
-
The next several days were far from ordinary, but were still pale in comparison to the events of that night. The police showed up there several minutes after the girl, (Death?) had disappeared (disapparated? Honestly, Harry Potter seemed far less out of the realm of possibilities now) and took away the body and got Kitty’s account of the events.
She left out the appearance of Death, the girl, whoever she was because they would probably think her to be crazy. Maybe Kitty was crazy. Kitty decided she should set about convincing herself that what she had seen hadn’t been real.
Like maybe it was a stress induced hallucination, or the events of that night had lead her to confuse real life with a dream, but she didn’t. While she wanted to prove to herself she wasn’t crazy, Kitty wanted to believe that girl was out there.
And that she was just someone, not the grim fucking reaper. And still, life continued on in the linear fashion that it does, with school work, relaying the events of that night to her friends (sans the girl Death) and the phone call about the same to her mother.
Which went about as well as she had expected, “Katherine Pryde! I told you that apartment was a bad idea! You’re going to get yourself killed before college is through (Kitty might not mind that since Death is so yummy.) Aren’t you glad you took those self defense classes! You simply must move.”
Kitty assured her mother that yes, she would move, but never did. She told herself it was because the rent was cheap and it was close to school but in the back of her mind a little voice murmured, “that girl knows you’re here”.
In the weeks following she found herself thinking about the girl Death more and more. It became a constant thought pressing oppositional against all other things in her head. On a particularly boring day in history, she flat out gave up on trying to take notes of her least favourite teacher’s droning and closed the document to open an incognito tab of Google Chrome.
In the search bar, she typed “stories about sightings of death”. Kitty opened every result on the first page of Google. Many of the sites were complete and utter bullshit, but she found a forum of a couple people who had been talking about situations where they had met a girl matching the description of the girl Kitty had met.
Clicking on the profiles of each person, she found them to be all over the world. Kitty guessed, maybe she’d just have to meet her Death to find out anymore.
This was how Kitty found herself standing over a man not unlike the first night she met Death. Except the fellow lying in a pool of blood at her feet, had not broken into her apartment. His crime, in Kitty’s eyes, was far more foul. The man below her ran a popular (and oh so disturbing) site on the dark net.
For once her love of computers had come in handy in her day to day life when she was able to trace his IP address. She sat at the man’s table and watched the door expectantly. Sure enough, the inside locks magically clicked open and the girl Death appeared much the same, except now sporting a leather jacket. When she saw Kitty, she looked faintly surprised.
“You again? That seemed like a one time thing.”
Kitty shrugged, and nervously shifted her weight, “This one deserved it.”
“It’s my job to see if he really did, you know.” Death deadpanned
Kitty shrugged again, “Then I just made it easier.”
With an eye roll, Death huffed a little, “Suit yourself.”
“So, why doesn’t everyone know about you?”
“Not everyone sees me.”
“Why not?”
“Most times when people kill someone, they don’t stick around. And I don’t want them to see me. I tamper with people’s memories a little, sometimes.”
“So why not mine?”
Death lolled her head back and shrugged exaggeratedly. She sighed again continuing, “I don’t know.”
“Why not?”
“You ask way too many questions.”
With that, Death spun smoothly on her heel before disappearing into a disk of light once again. But not before Kitty saw the semi pleased smile on the other girl’s face. Or maybe she had just imagined it.
Kitty’s life continued on like this, killing perverts she tracked from the darknet, so she could see the girl Death again. Each time she managed to exchange a few words with the girl. However, this did nothing to help with Kitty’s craving for contact with the girl. It might have even increased it. Sometimes around when Kitty’s kill count reached the double digits, when Death walked in, she let out an exasperated sigh.
“Christ, really? You again?”
She let out another one of her characteristic sighs before crossing her arms and looking at Kitty pointedly.
“You know, killing people is illegal. And everyone’s soul gets claimed at some point. Why?”
“I dunno. Look who’s asking too many questions now.”
“Do you think you’re some kind of superhero? Ridding the city of crime? Hiding in the dark until they get home then killing them with a knife? Your superhero name could be Shadowcat.”
“No, it’s not like that.”
“You’re just making my job harder, kid.” Death replied as she leaned down to claim the man’s soul
“I wanted to see you.”
With that, Death stopped mid cut and looked up at Kitty once again with the closest expression to shock Kitty had ever seen her with.
“Excuse me?”
“I wanted. To. See you.”
“Fuck, you could’ve just asked.”
“I could’ve?”
“Uh, yes? We can go get coffee or something.”
Death straightened up and plucked a sharpie off the counter, that the man must’ve abandoned pre-Kitty and grabbed Kitty’s arm by the wrist. She scribbled a couple words, then paused and glanced up at Kitty.
Upon seeing her “holy shit a hot girl is touching me” expression, her lips split into an amused smirk. Then she flicked her eyes up and down Kitty’s body once again and licked her lips, in Kitty’s opinion, way more suggestively than was necessary.
Kitty felt a hot blush crawling up her neck, into her cheeks. Death bit her lip and laughed lightly before turning away from Kitty. She then amusedly looked back and tossed the marker over her shoulder with a “Call me.” Kitty watched her disappear into the light disk before glancing down at her arm. There, in much prettier script than Kitty would’ve expected from Death, was scrawled
Illyana Rasputin
859 - 6058
Illyana Rasputin. Not the kind of name she thought someone like Death would have but striking nonetheless. Illyana Rasputin. How long do you have to wait after seeing someone until it’s not weird to call them?