Disclaimer: I don't own anything you recognize. And I should probably also point out that this is almost entirely inspired by The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak. You should read it. :)

Merope

I remember the first time I encountered him. He was not an hour old. I wasn't there for him. I was there for her.

It was cold, snowy. The night was a busy one for me. I don't pay much store by human events, but there are some I am aware of- the ones that affect me. There are particular days when more people die, usually in accidents or suicides, and these are the days I track. It was one of those nights.

I was overworked and tired. Anyone who fought, even in the slightest- a hesitation or an inclination to cling to the body- I let them stay. The ones who were confused by my presence I took immediately, they had no chance to struggle.

But that was not the case with her.

I found her in an orphanage. She was lying on a couch, while two women scurried about her. They were trying to fend me off, no doubt, though they hadn't the slightest chance. An infant cried near by. It intrigued me, infants always do.

"Hush, hush, Tom," one of the women had picked up the infant was rocking it soothingly, "Your mama's gonna be just fine, just fine."

I stopped. I shouldn't have, I still had much to do. I always have much to do. But I stopped. The infant could not have been either of the scurrying women's. Neither of them were in the state of a recent mother, and upon closer inspection, the infant seemed a newborn.

That left only one option. The sickly gray woman, the woman I was here for, must be the mother. I looked at her closely. She was not attractive. She was young but not youthful. She was simply gray.

I looked back at the newborn. It looked nothing like the mother. It was rosy and pink, and so unlike anything I see when I work. I did not know then what he would become. I did not know that eventually he would make my job more difficult than any other. I did not know I was looking at evil. Nothing is certain when one has lived for less than an hour.

I almost left right then, looking at that small bundle of life. I rarely feel guilt, but I did, knowing I had come to take his mother. Perhaps if I had, things would be different. But I couldn't. I can never just leave. I have to try, every time, and new mothers rarely come easily.

I moved again to the woman on the couch. An instinct, and the observation of her completely unkempt appearance made it obvious: life had left her long before I had arrived. I would have let her stay. Had she made even the faintest of efforts to cling to life, I would have left and gone about my business. But she didn't.

Close as I was, she sensed me. Her eyes fluttered open. They were black, the only thing about her that wasn't gray. Immediately the two women rushed to her. One still held her child. She looked at him, for less than a moment I thought I saw something lifelike hiding in her. "I hope he looks like his papa." She muttered.

And then she came to me. I used no force whatsoever. She just came. And so I did my job. I took her, and put her in my load.

I looked again at the now sleeping newborn. I thought at the time I would see him sooner, rather than later. Children without mothers usually come more quickly. I burned the image into my mind. Small, frail, innocent, beautiful. I would never forget it.

I did not know at the time that he would become the bane of my existence.

AN: So, I decided to write and post another chapter of each of my two stories, so you'd get a better feel for what they're going to be like. This one still needs another chapter in order to encompass the entirety of my idea, but this is the gist. Like it? Please review!

Love, Sunny