Death is like a cold shadow standing over its victims, watching quietly, greedily. One always knows when death comes near. It is accompanied by fear and an ache in the abdomen, a foreboding feeling that one cannot escape.

As the monster drew closer, its breath acrid, its eyes on fire, Serena could feel death reach out for her. She had never lost a fight, but now she knew how it felt to lose. She could see the victory reflected back in the red hot eyes of the creature. She would have run, but her legs felt as if they were made of stone. She was paralyzed by the cold shadow which had encircled her.

The monster gripped her in its fist, ready to crush her. She could not breathe.

Fire shot through the arm that held her, forcing the monster to loose its grip on her abdomen and scream in the sudden stinging pain.

"Run, Serena!" Sailor Mars yelled, but Serena once again found that she could not move, even though death had run to the monster's side. There was something very wrong with her, with the world. Everything seemed to twist and shake. The air seemed to be charged with change.

A masked man ran past her, sweeping her up into his arms. He carried her to safety, away from the grasp of the monster.

"Are you okay, Serena?" Tuxedo Mask asked her. His face looked worried, but even his expression seemed wrong to her.

"I'm fine," she said, though she felt as if she were sliding quickly off the side of a cliff. "Someone took my brooch."

"How do you know?" he asked, eyes wide in shock, yet unbelieving.

"Because it's not in my bag," she said calmly, detached from the heavy reality of her accusation.

"Maybe you dropped it."

"No!" Serena insisted. "I didn't drop it. Someone took it." She could almost see it in her mind, feel the hand reaching into her bag and removing her most precious possession. Her vision was unfortunately imperfect.

Serena heard the monster squeal once more, then the world became quiet. It had been destroyed without her help. The Sailor Scouts came to her side.

"Why didn't you transform, Serena?" Amy asked. She and the other scouts were panting from the effort of destroying the creature.

"My brooch was stolen," she said. She watched the reactions of her friends, and each seemed surprised. She turned her back to them, and headed home before any of them could reply to her news. She knew their answers anyway, and she did not want to be told that she was wrong.

When she arrived home, she found her brooch sitting on her desk as if it had been there all along. She picked it up as if it were a foreign object, as if it had been the one to betray her.

She remembered placing the brooch in her top drawer the night before. She put it behind her spare uniform, where it could not easily be seen. She opened the drawer to find her spare uniform pushed to the front. She had taken it out this morning in her usual rush, and had wrinkled her uniform in the process.

She knew that she had placed it in her bag, yet it appeared now on her desk.

Someone had taken it. She was right; she was being sabotaged.

The next day Serena made sure that she had her brooch on her uniform instead of in her bag. She was quiet and reserved. She watched all of her friends intently, picking apart their every movement and word. Only someone who knew of her identity would have taken that brooch, one of her closest friends.

When another monster came that day she transformed easily, but something still felt wrong to her. Her world was off balance, yet no one else noticed. She reached for her wand and found only the cold hand of death to hold. She had left the crescent wand in her bag, unable to learn from yesterday's mistake, and once again someone had robbed her of a precious possession.

She tried to fight against death this time, and reached up for her tiara though she had not thrown it for some time. She aimed small, but missed by a large amount. Her tiara clattered to the ground, useless. As the monster charged, she felt the world ripple. A hand snaked around her wrist and pulled her away as the rest of the Scouts combined attacks to defeat the monster.

"Sailor Moon!" Tuxedo Mask exclaimed, holding her to his chest. "I almost lost you again. Why didn't you attack?"

Serena felt very awkward in his arms. She pulled away from him, grimacing.

"Someonetook my wand."

The Scouts hurried to their leader's side. "What happened?" Lita asked.

"She says that someone stole her wand," Darien explained, and by the tone in his voice Serena could tell the he did not believe her.

"Are you sure?" Amy asked. "It seems that you've been sort of forgetful lately, Serena."

Serena looked up at her friends. They were worried, unsure. "I am sure," she said coldly, "that I had my wand this morning. I am not sure of my friends."

She came home to find her wand on her desk, just as the brooch had been. Her saboteurs were not creative.

In the following days, Serena strapped her want to her leg and kept her brooch securely on her chest. She wore longer, baggy skirts to cover up the wand, and an untrusting expression to cover up her fear. A couple of fights passed without incident, and her friends always looked more and more sure that Serena was blaming her forgetfulness on an enemy that did not exist. Serena even began to believe that she had only imagined the betrayal. It was all just a mistake.

A week later, they were fighting again and the battle was going smoothly. Serena was dodging a dart of power from the latest creature when she felt something in the air change. Her senses screamed in a panic, but Serena could not figure out why. She was fine; she had her wand at the ready. An arm circled her waist and lifted her into the air.

Tuxedo Mask was swinging down between buildings, and had scooped Serena up.

She looked up at his face, though he would not look at her.

"Darien? What are you doing? I was fine,' she said.

Darien's arm loosened. She slipped from his grasp as he swung onto the roof of the next building. Her eyes became wide and she scrambled for his arms, his ankles, anything to grip onto. She could see now when he had hugged her and slipped his hand into her bag. He was as quick as a thief. She slipped away from the sky, unable to stop her fall. She met the pavement with a sickening thud, a sharp crack.

Pain stabbed up and down her torso, though she could not feel her legs.

"Serena!" came the screams. Her friends crowded around her in regular clothing, and pulled her brooch away so that she too was just another person. Lita and Mina gripped her hands and talked quietly to her though she could not hear the words. Amy checked her pulse. Raye was calling an ambulance, but did not look at her friend.

The fiery scout never once looked at Serena as she talked to the operator. Her dark eyes instead met the blue eyes of Darien, who also never looked at the woman he supposedly loved. Neither spoke a word, but it was clear to Serena that neither felt regret or worry. She could see in their faces pure relief and joy.

"No one would ever think it was them," she said, though her words did not leave her mouth. "They even fooled me."

Though death had followed her around for some time, she was never meant to die. She was meant to be brushed aside, out of the way, like a broken toy. No one would ever suspect her two closest friends to be her worst enemies. They'd gotten away with their plans.

They would live happily ever after.

Author's Note: A short, but dark story. It is a little stupid and a little unlikely, but there's nothing about Sailor Moon that isn't a little stupid and unlikely. Please review if you feel like it.

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