Death to Bumble Bees

1: bee vs death

TW: mention of substance abuse, acab, many imaginative deaths, and self harm & unaliving. (Nothing gory or scary, should be more dark comedy than anything else.)

Listen to: You Stupid Bitch by girl in red

Chapter One: Bee vs. Death

She was never expected to survive.

When Bee was born, the stars aligned in such a way that her future was declared to be dead-on-arrival. Where others had a brilliant light, she had a void—a darkness that made her mother's psychic spiral and start drinking again after three entire weeks of sobriety. And according to her mother, it was the perfect explanation for her father getting lost at the grocery store... for 16 years (and counting). So, she was pretty much cursed. At least that's what her mother called her—a curse; a walking, talking thing that caused disasters.

All in all, she had a pretty decent childhood.

So, anyways, here she still stood; the fire consuming everything behind her as she once again narrowly avoided Death's awaiting hand.

If she didn't know any better, she'd assume Death was flirting with her. He was always there. No matter what turn she took, he knew and was already three steps ahead of her. It was like he knew her better than anyone. Even better than she knew herself.

It was almost romantic when arranged in those words. Bee always was a sucker for romance. Her grandfather called her an old soul—a nice way of telling her that her views on love were unrealistic and outdated in the 21st century.

Well, it wasn't like she was exactly actively searching for love. Obviously, she was too busy and preoccupied by jumping out of burning buildings to focus on another human being with their own needs, wants, and feelings. Being courted by Death—as romantic as it sounded—really ate up her spare time for those things.

"Better luck next time." Bee smugly wiped off her hands, rubbing off the darkened soot from the fire.

The many emergency vehicles that were responding to the gas implosion sounded out—making her groan. Calculating the distance to the nearest hiding spot across the parking lot, she felt the temptation to make a run for it. With the sirens growing louder, she went for it—crossing the vacant lot towards the patch of woods between the convenience store and suburban homes.

Unfortunately (and unsurprisingly), first responder automobiles were way quicker than her stubby legs.

"Beatrice, why is it you are always in the wrong place at just the right time?" She heard the familiar voice, making her huff out in preparation before turning around with a forced smile on her soot covered face.

Meeting the lady cop's unimpressed eyes, Bee pulled her shoulders up as she held out her hands in a shrug, "Would you believe me if I told you I'm up against the Powers That Be from Final Destination?"

The officer shook her head, "You know the drill, Ms. Lippman."

Sighing, this is what she wanted to avoid. "Is it Gary or David today?" Bee shook her head, "Last time Gary took my statement he made me watch him eat an entire breakfast burrito whole—I was scarred, Julia. Scarred!"

"File a complaint, then." The police officer rolled her eyes, gesturing for her to move it along.

"Kinda rude." Bee muttered under her breath. She knew and understood the ACAB motto, but boy was she the worst kind of people-pleaser. She side-eyed the officer, "I expected more from the person that taught my mother how to smuggle an entire toaster out of a store undetected, Julia."

"Move your ass, child." Julia snapped, already tired of her as she shooed her off with her hand.

Raising her hands in surrender, Bee left the cranky-old boss cop, joining the frenzy of people working on getting the gas fire under control.

"Why am I not surprised to see you here, kid?" One of the younger officers chuckled.

"David." Bee grinned. Curse who? Gary wasn't there with a messy, greasy breakfast burrito. That was a win in her books.

David smiled brightly back, his boyish look still visible under the new wrinkles forming near his bright eyes. "What's the story today, Lippman?"

While Bee enthusiastically described the events that had occurred through a miraculous and meticulously step by step performance, elsewhere between space and time, Rathven Ozias Paithwen (Rath for short) had just been called back to work after many centuries of apathetic idling and senseless wasting away somewhere in the cosmos.

Death was fed up.

And just so everyone is on the same level of understanding, Death was not just one individual. That would be impossible. Death wasn't Santa Clause. He couldn't travel around the world in one night, visiting earth's children and leaving them their gifts (to be perfectly candid, the 'gift' is their death in this situation). No, "Death" was an organization—a nine-to-five workday for those who were undead and in need of a change of scenery in their immortal peril. And like any organization, in order to keep the business working, everything had to run smoothly.

Bee was what those in the Death business liked to call "the complete opposite of keeping things running smoothly".

Never in Death's immeasurable un-lifetime had they came across someone so adamant on not dying. They had thrown everything at her—a carbon dioxide poisoning in the middle of the night, bad seafood at a new restaurant, a sudden lightening storm at the family lake cabin, an accidental shooting during a convenient store robbery, a car crash pile-up on the highway. Hell, they even purposely made everything in her life (within their power) go wrong so she'd get depressed and just finish the job herself. She was at the very end of her adolescence and she hadn't so much as even placed a razor to her wrist.

And now, there she stood. Narrowly escaping the gas station fire (who fucking escapes a gas station explosion?!) that had taken weeks to work out the legislation for. And she wasn't even bothered.

The girl was indestructible. Mentally and physically.

It was an insult to the corporation and word was beginning to spread. Their 'Dead in 24!' reputation was on the line and even their most loyal of clients were beginning to grow suspicious and wary. It had long since passed 24 hours since they got the call to process the girl and they hadn't even managed to put a dent in her. It meant making the call—a call they hadn't used since the 19th century, when a newbie trainee turned out to be a pyromaniac and processed too many humans unsupervised. (Honestly, the use of volcanoes should have been a dead giveaway—pun intended. He was promptly fired. Literally.)

Mistakes on Death's end were few and far between—warranting disastrous impacts that left them a mess of numbers to sort out in HR—but when they did happen, the call was made.

This is where Rath comes in.

Specializing in fixing blemishes, Rath took a hands-on approach that his colleagues despised. Instead of creating foreign obstacles, Rath preferred to be the obstacle. Normally he was the clean up crew for mistakes that caused too many human deaths (the processing was absolutely infuriating when the dead weren't due to be processed—their lingering souls kicking up a fuss that Rath had to chase down and deal with). A mistake about not enough deaths? Now that was interesting. Dare he say it, he was even excited.

Of course, Rath had no idea what he was up against. Bee wasn't like any other human or soul he had dealt with before.

Bee was a void.

She had nothing to lose and nothing to gain. Like the stars reflecting the earth, she was the part of earth that represented the empty matter of space. A negative force that pulled everything and everyone into her orbit of pure nothingness.

In other words, a walking, talking curse was up against the so-called unbeatable, inevitable Death himself.

What could possibly go wrong?

The End of Chapter One

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