1. The assassin

We live in a world where people with special abilities are born. We live in a world where those people have to hide for what they're capable of.

Elisa Brookle is one of them, and having to stay hidden, she's forced to stay in the shadows as the blood splutters out of the man's mouth as he falls to his knees. When another second passes, he falls on the ground, and his face lands in a rain puddle. The water colors ruby red, making Elisa who's been watching everything since the very start want to look away.

But she does not.

She continues to watch the scene in front of her. She's been trained to be able to handle these situations, she knows that, but her stomach still turns every time a lifeless body falls down. Every time a person gets robbed of their life.

She's seen it too much. She's seen too much death already. Especially with her parents murdered when she was just a toddler. But here's the weird thing;

she was the murderer.

Oh, yes. Shocking, is it not? Elisa Brookle has been a murderer almost her entire life. She might not have meant her parents' death to happen, but it did. She only wanted those cookies on the counter so badly, but it did happen.

There she was, a two year old girl, sitting next to her parents' corpses. No neighbor came looking for her. No, they didn't care. No other family came, even if it was just to visit. Nobody noticed that her parents didn't respond to any messages, or didn't leave the house anymore. Nobody even noticed that they didn't arrive at work.

the two year old girl, of course, didn't think about that back then. She did not think that it was strange. Nobody cared. Nobody wondered where the happy family went. But now it's all so clear.

A woman with strange clothes and with the special hats that always gave Elisa a peculiar feeling was the only one that came looking for her. She took her in, trained her to become a true assassin -a very good one, too-, and cared for her. The handler, Elisa calls the woman. Even though the handler wanted Elisa to call her mom or mother, Elisa did not and never would.

She had a mother. God knows what happened to her parents after she got taken by the handler. Elisa doesn't know where they're buried. . . if they're even buried. Their bodies might as well have been dumped on the side of the road on some never-used road. But she had a mother and father. She would not replace them, even though she doesn't remember anything but the stories that have been told by others.

Elisa knows it was the handler who made sure no one came looking for her mother and father, or even her. She knows because the handler told her on her twelfth birthday. She suspected it, but never dared to ask the woman about it.

"Why?" Elisa had asked the handler.

"Because you would've gone to some boring and awful orphanage, little one," the handler had responded.

This was not the real answer.

The handler could lie like the best, but Elisa always knows when she does. So she asked another question, "You only took me away from there because you needed an assassin that you could trust completely. One that would follow every order because you raised her. Tell me that that isn't true, and look me in the eye while you do so."

The handler lied.

"I took you because I wanted to help you," the handler had said. "I care for you like a daughter. Yes, I've trained you to be an assassin, but only because you'll be able defend yourself. You'll never feel vulnerable or weak again, little one."

The first bit might've been true. Elise does think that the handler cares for her like a daughter. But the last part was most certainly a lie. She needed Elisa. She needed an assassin to do every job without a question.

And Elisa did. That is until it got too much.

She trained every single day growing up. Trained to kill humans with dolls. Elisa was happy, glad not to be ordered to murder a breathing human. But that happiness didn't last long. At just fifteen years old, the girl was ordered by the handler, the woman who said she saw her as a daughter, to kill a man.

A man, Elisa thought, that isn't so bad. She was a female assassin, after all. Elisa never liked to be called a girl. She was not a girl. When someone says girl, they think of happiness. They think of a carefree life. Elisa was not happy, nor did she have a carefree life.

She never liked the other sex much. She was raised by a strong woman after all. She was raised never to ask for help, never to show any weakness, but most of all; never to appear weak in front of any man.

Elisa handled that pretty well. She always made sure that all men that crossed her path felt imitated. She made sure they were afraid of her.

But when she had sneaked into the house of the man without a single sound or leaving a single trace, she could not do the job. Even though she didn't feel threatened by anything, she could not. While Elisa sat hidden behind the seat in the living room, the man cooked dinner with his young son.

"Maman va arriver dans quelques minutes, mon petit," the man had told his son. Mom will arrive in several minutes, he had said. Elisa speaks fluent french and understands it very well.

She might've destroyed the chance of a life in France the moment she murdered her parents while having a tantrum, but she remember the words leaving her mother's and father's lips very well. 'Ma petite' they called her. The moment the man called his son mon petit, she knew she could not kill him.

That's the moment she also decided to run.

To run away from everything

To run away from the Commission where she had been taught everything.

To run away from the woman who had been longer in her life than she knew her parents.

To run away from everything that she knew.

She handled the whole runaway pretty well, she always reminds herself when thinking back of that times. A false name, another hair color, and a British accent was all it took to start another life.

Her blond hair had to become dark brown.

Her name, Elisa Brookle, became Samantha Brown.

The handler looked for her, of course. She never found Elisa, though. And she never will.

Elisa has created a calm life in just over a year. Now she's two years shy of eighteen years, and feeling better than ever. She feels at home.

At home with her girlfriend, Morgana.

At home with the street cat they took in. The lazy cat that hates almost everything that doesn't come with cat food, or human food even. The cat that only comes to lay on one of the two girls' laps when they're having dinner. The cat that Morgana wanted to call Francis so badly. They did. Francis, the cat that even though he almost always is in a bad mood gets to stay.

At home in a student room in the middle of Toronto.

Toronto, her new home. At least it felt like her home until more and more people disappeared and found dead in the morning. The serial killer that never left a trace, the paper called the murderer.

Elisa knew better. It's hard not to leave trace. It's hard to make sure you're never found. Only the best can. Only the Commission its assassins can succeed in doing so.

Not bothering to come in contact with the commission or being found by the woman that reminded her of Effie Trinket, Elisa continued the life-style she adapted; wake up next to Mor, get ready for a day at school- that kind of routine.

Unfortunately, it got disturbed by an unfortunate set of events.

She's now watching a murder happen. She should run, Elisa knows that. But she stays, and watches how the murderer grabs the now dead man's wrists.

Elisa narrows her eyes, trying not to let the rain disturb her. It's a smart move, she thinks, to act in a storm. No one wants to come outside and fly away. Everyone prefers to stay inside, get cosy, and enjoy the day under a warm blanket. But he missed one thing. There are more policemen and ambulances on the road. Tricky, that it is.

Still, the assassin doesn't seem to mind. He takes a look at the men and then around him. No one is around, no one that he can see. Elisa is there, watching his every move.

Right now, she's watching the boy closely. He looks her age, maybe a year younger. It annoys her, really, that the handler recruited another young person. She can't help but wonder if he's an orphan, too.

The boy doesn't mind the man's blood in the puddle. It'll wash away. Everything will. Another day, another case that will stay unsolved.

Elisa won't call the police. It'll only make the assassin mad. It'll only drive him that crazy that he'll hunt down the person who saw him: her. When he can't find her or kill her, then he'll go for everyone she loves.

Morgana.

She cannot have that. Not when she's finally found a home. So she turns her back on the scene, just like she should've done the moment she saw the boy arrive through the blue light.