Power

What is power?

Is it authority, control, influence, supremacy, strength, dominance? None of these? All of these?

Power. That is what I gained after that day. Respect. True Respect. I gained that too. Although if we are to be frank with each other…it was more fear than anything else.

My fellow child-assassins were scared. There was no doubt about that. But we were not supposed to know fear and so they hid their new emotions as best they could from our superiors.

Ah…our superiors. Now, they were not scared. At least not outright. They were …overjoyed. I was gifted! Not one of them cared how or why but they knew that they had found me for a reason!

A reason.

Suddenly I was the "twenty-first century killing machine."

Talk about coincidence.

I could kill with a single touch and here I was, by mere luck, part of an assassination organization that employed children. I became the go-to girl for all of the tricky jobs.

They needed someone killed, but it had to be untraceable, unnoticeable, it had to look natural.

Natural. Those deaths were everything but.

I remember every person that fell before my hand.

I remember how they stood in shock as they entered their bedroom to find me sitting either on their bed or in their chair. I remember their questions…their clueless questions. Who are you? What are you doing here? How did you get in? Almost every single time, the questions were the same. Could people be any less creative? I think they watched too many movies…too much TV.

Either way, they stared as I simply sat there without saying a word. My eyes were blank as I looked into theirs. Just another job, I thought. It's just another job. Their shock, their confusion soon became annoyance…anger. Get out! They said. Get out!

Oh. Don't worry. I will. But first I have to do something.

What? They questioned. Of course I answered with the truth: Kill you.

And with those words I stood up, walked to my mark, and again met their eyes. Their looks were always that of incredulity. Some even had the nerve to laugh. Laugh…can you believe it? Those were the ones I killed slowly. I was not a fool. I was not something to be laughed at. I would make them see that.

And so the years passed. My fame amongst the assassins of the world grew. I was practically a celebrity. And here I thought that the underworld of murderers was supposed to be secretive and obscure. Please.

I thought that I had cut the strings….but apparently there were strings that I did not know about…

I began to intensely dislike that "fame." I did not want it. I did not want this life. On my common excursions into the big cities around the world, I saw everything that I did not have. Everything that I wanted and couldn't have. Not while I worked as an assassin.

I saw other children. My age.

They had a mom, they had a dad, most of them had a brother and/or a sister. Some of them even had more than one mom; more than one dad; numerous siblings. It saddened me.

Why had I been abandoned? That was the story for all of us. We had ALL been abandoned. Our parents didn't want us. Why? Why? You have no idea how many times I asked myself that question. Why? If my parents had known what had happened to me, would they be disgusted? Would they wish they had taken up the responsibilities they had thrown aside so recklessly? Would they wish even more that I had never come into existence?

Unanswered questions. That is all that they ever were.

Reaper. How affectionately they called me that. That is what I was. I was the Grim Reaper in the flesh. I was the taker of souls, the absolver of life.

Rumors began. There was no way I could be human. Was I some sort of demonic reincarnation? Was that the reason I had been "abandoned?" Had my parents seen what I could do? Had they themselves been victims of my dark powers?

Questions. That is all they ever were.

But isn't that what we can't seem to avoid in life: questions?

In any case, those questions drove me almost to the brink of insanity. I hid my true face from everyone. I rarely let anyone in.

Finally there came a point at which I knew that I wanted more out of life than just…death. My dismal existence was…suffocating me. I didn't want to not feel anything. I had heard and seen so much. And I wanted a taste of it all. I wanted to feel boredom, anxiety, elation, love.

Love. I wondered so much what that was like. It was an emotion that I had seen so many times in so many parks, in so many streets, in so many people. But no matter how hard I studied the way they looked and spoke…I knew I would never comprehend it. Not until Death and I took a little break from each other.

I know…I know…I said that he was always there for me. And that is the truth. He has… and still is. To this day, I know I can count on him to keep me company.

Especially after the accident.

The accident was the one time I had begged Death to leave me. I had not realized that by sending Death away I could fall victim to the world of jealousy and desperation that the humans lived in.

But before I can tell you about the accident, I have to tell you of how I sought a new life.

January seventeenth. I had just turned twelve. Exactly five minutes ago at 3: 17 a.m. I had turned twelve. It was the day I got to wondering as to how my superiors knew what time I had been born at. I was abandoned, right? Little details like that should not be known…

It was also the day I escaped.

No one could tell me what to do anymore. I was my own…. woman. No one could stop me. They wouldn't try…fear, remember?

I left. I scaled the towering walls of the compound and left. At the airport I bought a random ticket and boarded a random plane. Random. I didn't care where I went, I just wanted to leave.

Where was I going, specifically, you ask?

Well…it turns out I was headed to South Korea.

…Seoul, South Korea…

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A/n: I hope the stream-of-consciousness POV is not too hard to follow.

Do me a favor and review??…. pretty please with a cherry on top? XD THNX