A nice walk in the woods always helps me to relax and calm my spiked nerves. The fact that I'm dragging a body behind me should be irrelevant. But, sure enough, this is why I'm taking a walk today. I mean, I shouldn't be nervous. I've done this dozens -hundreds!- of times before. Alas, I can feel Death looming, watching. I continue to drag the weight behind me, careless of the roots that are tangling up his clothes. I steal a glance back. The man's face is actually quite handsome. And, in a... um... a state of zero consciousness, his features are relaxed and he looks almost innocent. I heave a sigh. This is where I always feel bad. Even if it's just a tiny fraction of guilt. They always tell me that I shouldn't. I shouldn't feel bad because he's a horrible person who's committed more crimes than most people could even imagine. If he was a saint, I wouldn't be the one picking him up.

Technically, if you look at it from a certain point of view, I didn't kill him. His sins did. But I guess that's irrelevant, too. I continue trudging down the well-worn path, mumbling to myself along the way. "I'm not a murderer," I whisper to myself. The trees that line the path remind me of Death himself. Tall, dark, and dangerous. I keep marching, watching out for anything... dangerous. Finally, the forest thins and I reach the clearing.

"So, she decides to show up," I hear a voice call out, causing me to jump in surprise. The phrase is then followed by a hearty chuckle. I roll my eyes and smile at the person walking up to meet me.

"Hey, Damien," I drop the body in the middle of the clearing then wait for Damien to reach me. "Where's Rev?" I question, curious about my usual companion.

"I dunno. He just asked me to fill in so I did." Then he lowered his voice, "I mean I couldn't resist if it meant being with you..."

I laughed and rolled my eyes at his comment. "Whatever you say, Damien. Let's get on with it."

He smiles warmly, which sometimes just seems so ironic to me, and we surround the man lying on the soft, grassy field.

"What'd he do?"

"I don't usually ask."

"Why not?"

"I don't know. It all still seems so... wrong, I guess. I just take the jobs, and trust Death." I smile coldly at my own words, "Huh, funny, trust in death."

He pats my shoulder softly. "It'll get better."

I shrug and turn back towards the corpse. I close my eyes and tense up subconsciously. Then, I look up to the heavens. "This man committed the deadliest of sins. For this, we ask your permission, to condemn him to imprisonment in Hell."

Everything is silent for a couple of heartbeats. Then, the sky rumbles. Light flashes against the clouds, giving us moments of sight and blindness. Suddenly, I see him. I see Death. His tall, well-built, broad body looms from the clouds. At the next flash, our eyes meet. His are filled with empty darkness, sending a cold shiver down my spine. They almost seem to soften, but it happens so quickly, I know I've imagined it. The light strengthens and I am forced to avert my eyes. The air around me sends tingles from my toes to my fingertips. A thunderclap shakes my teeth, and, just like that, the light dissolves, and the air settles. My heart is thumping coldly. The body is gone.

I stand, my shoes pressed into the soft ground, and hesitate for a moment. Then I turn to Damien and he nods his head, turning back into the forest. I follow suit.

I don't look back.

--------------------------------------

A couple of hours later, I'm laying on the couch at Damien's, who left to buy some food from a nearby grocery store. In his absence, my heart is still pounding. Black eyes swim through my mind, replaying the previous events. I'm starting to doubt that I saw him at all. Nobody sees death. They predict where he's gonna be, they watch his work happen. But they never actually see him. So how come I did?

A voice pulls me from the darkness, "Sev?"

I shake off my uneasiness, "Sorry, yeah?"

A bulky figure stands in front of me, worry etched into the lines of his forehead. He must've come in while I wasn't paying attention. "You alright?" His deep voice is slightly raspy yet somehow soothing. His broad shoulders and massive height made me look like a child next to him.

I smile at the image then lean back into my cushioned chair. "Yeah, sorry, Rev."

He nods and sits down next to me, making the couch sag to his end. We sit there quietly as if he's waiting for me to continue. He looks at the ceiling, pondering his own world without being pushy towards me. I slowly give into his silent prompting. "Well, I don't know, it just feels odd sometimes. I feel out of place. Like nobody really knows me anymore."

Rev grunts, "You don't think I know you after twenty years?"

I shrug, "Well I guess what I mean is that no one knows who I was. I don't even remember. And the only thing I can remember is something no one else can see."

"Like what?"

"Like... what color is my hair? My skin? What do I look like to you, Rev? "

His eyes are tinged with sadness. He knows what I'm doing, but answers anyway, "Well, your hair is almost like a sun-bleached blonde. Your skin is golden. Your eyes are the most vibrant color I've ever seen. Somewhere in between green and light brown."

I sigh and look at the ceiling. "You said black hair last year. And red the year before that."

He nods in thought, "But your eyes are always hazel. Maybe they stay the same."

I shake my head. "A couple of weeks ago I asked Damien. He said I had light blue eyes."

Rev looks at the ceiling, too, joining my thoughts. I close my eyes and gently say, "I just want someone, anyone, to see me. Not to see lust or beauty. Just me."

Rev opens his mouth to reason with me, trying to figure it out, when he is cut off by a sudden scream. We leap to our feet in surprise. The sudden shriek came from upstairs. In the middle of an uncharted location. I see my own fear reflected in Rev's dark brown eyes. I hesitate, trying to pinpoint the location of the sound.

"Help me!" The high-pitched voice tares through the air. I run towards the sound, slipping around tables and chairs and stumble up the steps. Rev is close behind. We enter a dimly lit room. A woman, whose thin wrinkles make her look around 50 years old, lies in the middle of the room, her wrists bound. A more familiar person leans against the opposing wall, staring down the woman with an annoyed glint in her light, sea-foam green eyes.

"Kianna? What's going on here?" I yell over the sounds.

Suddenly, the woman's scream silences and her body slumps forward, driven into a sudden sleep. I look behind me, where yet another figure stands.

"Adrian?" I whisper in unbelief.

He nods in Kianna's direction, his face stony. His eyes don't meet mine.

I look at Kianna. She looks tired. Like she's barely holding up. Her shoulders sag into a shrug, "She," She nods towards the woman, "had some interesting things to say to me." We all examine the lady again, whose face is pressed into the carpet in an almost comical way. Kianna continues, "Somehow, she knew all about us."

My eyes widened and my mouth dropped, "How?"

The boys beside me looked at each other skeptically as Kianna growled, "We seem to have some sort of stalker on our trail... or a scent of betrayal." I stand there silently, letting the thought settle.

"Any idea who," Rev grumbles, "would be dumb enough to mess with us?"

Kianna's eyebrows rise and our gazes meet knowingly. I speak cautiously, "Someone who has a bet against Death."