I Am Tabitha Bleu

Chapter 1

Tabitha

     Inhale. Exhale. Repeat. Inhale. Exhale. Repeat. Just keep breathing, Tabitha. Breathe, and know that nothing can hurt you.

     That was all the motivation needed for Tabitha to open her eyes, coming face to face with a lycanthrope. She could smell the copper of blood, the odor bringing tears to her eyes. Its fur, the color or an oak tree’s bark, was matted with dirt, bits of rotting flesh, and more blood, most of it dried from age, but some fresh splattered here and there.

     Most people would run away into the darkness of the night, screaming in terror, but Tabitha stood her ground. After all, Tabitha had faced much worse. She was far from afraid of something so simple. Her left hand lifted, a pistol being tightly gripped. But it wouldn’t be that easy, now would it?

     The creature lunged forward, its claws in her shoulder, causing blood to splatter into the breeze. The girl gave a sharp shriek as the beast dug deeper, tearing into her skin. Her screams intensified before turning into something entirely different. She began to burst in fits of laughter. She then held her beloved pistol to the beast’s skull with a twisted grin.

      “Au revoir, you son of a bitch,” Tabitha giggled, pulling the trigger and sending the lycanthrope reeling off of her, howling in agony. It took three seconds before the equivalent of screaming stopped and the monster fell, its motions ceasing.

      The girl stood, dusting off her bloodied clothing as if it would magically clean them. But magic doesn’t exist, and the only way to fix things was through hard work. Though, she was wearing her favorite t - shirt, and there was no way she could fix the tears or get rid of the blood that was bound to stain. Her lips parted in a heavy sigh. She simply placed her pistol in its holster on her hip and walked away from the body. Her job was to execute it. The corpse was the clean up crew’s problem, not hers.

      Along the way toward headquarters, her mind began drifting, as it does often. She was eighteen, and rather than going to high school like normal girls, she worked a job that could easily get her killed. Fighting lycanthropes was nowhere near the worst thing a reaper faced, and honestly, death was simply a common factor. But she had a perk that most others didn’t in the field of being an executioner. She couldn’t feel pain. She couldn’t feel anything physical, in fact. A rare disorder called congenital insensitivity to pain with anhidrosis both blessed and cursed her body.

      Meanwhile, such things affected her emotional state as well. The only thing she ever felt was joy when slaughtering her target. She was psychotic, and she knew it. But, she had no way of changing it, or anything she had. Most people would have fled Reaper Inc, but it was all Tabitha knew. After all, she was raised there, her earliest memories involving the headquarter barracks and Grimm. She was trained to be a murderer, to not feel sympathy toward any of her targets.

      It wasn’t like she was put into hiding due to her looks, or her parents. She never new them, and honestly she didn’t want to. They abandoned her. The only things she had of them were her looks. She had fair hair, the color of the sun, that reached her mid back. Over the years, the bottom had been stained with blood, giving it a pinkish hue toward the tips. Her face was slim, nearly guant, with cheeks dusted by rosy colors. But her most prominent features were her eyes. They were amber, appearing golden in some angles of light. In all reality, she was quite lovely, but this beauty was hidden from the world by the blood of executions and the walls of headquarters.

      She blinked, caught off guard as she hit the cement steps of the building. Sighing, she shook away her thoughts. It was time to report to Grimm of her success. Her footsteps were nearly silent among the sterile hall. The bright white was off putting, and the sheer length was enough to deter even reapers.

      She took a turn at the end, a door with an industrial handle looming over her. Her hand didn’t even quiver as she placed a hand on it, pushing on the weight required to push the door open. A nameplate hung by her head, a solid black with a golden engraving.

     Grimm , it read.

     The door opened silently, revealing a figure hunched over a mahogany desk. Salt and pepper hair face the door, and the head lifted upon Tabitha clearing her throat. The figure was male, with skin as pale as ivory and clinging to the skeleton beneath. His eyes were sunken in, and were such a deep brown that they appeared black. A black tuxedo adorned his body, with a red undershirt.

     “Grimm,” Tabitha greeted, “the execution was a success.”

     “Excellent,” Grimm replied, smiling darkly.

      A moment of silence passed.

     “So, how are you, darling? Come give Daddy a hug!”