Chapter One: The Birth of the Phantom

I move through the bowels of the Underworld trading network tunnels as a shadow beneath one of the less than savory areas of the city above, blending into the dark castings of rundown buildings. The stench is one of filth, decay, sewage, blood, and grime. Nothing less than nefarious ever happens in this hidden world full of crime and death. This is the place where the scum of the world is disposed of and forgotten, not nearly suitable enough to be welcomed amongst “regular” civilization, noble lords and ladies, and royalty in the cities above. This is societies’ answer for punishing those who commit crime above, a phase worse than death, a literal hell. Guards posture at entrances within each city to ensure none of the trash they dispose of comes crawling back out. The only people allowed in and out are merchants and their horse-drawn carriages to trade, buy, and sell goods with the scum of the earth, the only real spread of economy in this asshole-of-the-Earth.

This “glorious haven” is where I had the pleasure of being born into slavery, owned automatically from birth, by the well-respected under-lord, Christian Bartoa. I was starved, beaten, abused, and seen as nothing more than a moderately useful piece of property for half of my life under his care, but at least I was never touched sexually. I wasn’t scheduled to start working in the Underworld’s whorehouses until my tenth birthday. When that day came, Christian made his way into the dank, humid slave holding cell. He had said that he needed to, “loosen me up first so I didn’t embarrass his name with poor performance” as he unbuckled his belt, shoved my small frame against a working bench by my throat, and clawed at my rags.

My vision began to blur as he cut the blood flow from my brain, my hands instinctively grabbed at his hands around my throat, my body writhed in panic beneath his large, full-grown, adult male frame. Just as I began to fade into darkness, snapshots of scenes passed over my eyes, sounds muddled as if happening in the distance. My mom jumped on Christian’s back, throwing an arm around his neck from behind while using the other to claw at his face. I could hear her screaming, but the sounds and sights were still foggy as my brain sucked in blood and my lungs filled with foul, thick air in our cell. My mom rode him like an angry bull when I finally began to regain my faculties and moved to prop myself up.

I threw my hands out behind me to prop myself up when I saw the sight and felt the item that had set the rest of my life into motion, my mom’s lifeless body crumpling to the floor and a hammer lying on the work bench beneath my hand. I moved, locked in a haze of disbelief and shock, my body moved of its own volition as my fingers wrapped firmly around the handle of the hammer with the hooked, nail-removing side forward. I couldn’t even see what I was doing as my legs automatically stepped forward for me. The only vision that flashed across my eyes was the sight of my mom folding with wide eyes and blood streaming from a hole in her throat where a knife was still lodged. The only sounds I could hear were that of her dying gurgles, gasps, and the sickening thud of her body landing full-force onto the filthy rat-shit-covered floor.

By the time the shock faded enough for me to grasp the reality of that present moment, my body was trembling over the corpse of Christian whose head was riddled with the bites of the hammer’s teeth. The cracked bone of his skull protruded in some places, brain fluids and chunks seeped onto the floor around his head. The hammer I held in my hand was covered in chunks of flesh and blood. My face, my rags, and my hand were splattered with brain residue and blood. I vaguely remembered my body throwing a knee forcefully into his balls and bringing the hammer down on his head when he leaned over to grasp his groin in pain. From there, I didn’t remember how many times I had hit him, but judging by all the gouges in his head, it had to be close to 50 times. I was certain I had hit him long after he was dead. I pulled the knife from my mother’s throat, taking Christian’s belt and sheath, and leave.

And so began my life of hiding. The first year on the run was difficult. I slept inside dumpsters most nights and rifled through the garbage behind food establishments to stay alive. I was filthy. My platinum hair was browner than it was white, and my pale skin could be mistaken for tan when really it was only covered in grime. I had to find something I could do to make money that I could be discrete enough to accomplish without drawing the attention of the massive amount of people I managed to successfully piss off by means of killing the under-lord, Christian.

That led to my current livelihood of being an assassin. I started out with nothing more than the knife that killed my mother, Christian’s belt and sheath, and my rags cut, sewed, and repurposed into a disguise to hide my hair and face. I was sloppy in the beginning, and it was a wonder I’d never been caught. As the years passed, I became the most efficient, deadly, mysterious, and untraceable assassin. I entered unseen, killed in silence, and vanished without leaving a trace, striking fear into the general populace of the underworld networks as well as the neighboring cities above, for, I’d found a discrete way to make my way above undetected. No one was safe if they had my target on them. My notoriety grew and I became known as Phantom Reaper. A name given to me by the population that I just ended up adopting since I didn’t want to be linked with my actual identity anyway.

I move through the cracked and broken alleyway streets of the Underworld, switching between the cover of the shadows of broken-down buildings and the rooftops as I move towards the bulletin board in the center of the marketplace. It is the only way to request a job be done by me since there is no way to reach me, a precaution I took to avoid being assassinated or discovered myself.

No one knows what I look like and no one knows where I live. The name given to me at birth, Tessa, was buried that day ten years ago when I began running. Instead, I use many different aliases for the purchase of my many safehouses scattered around the Underworld. I’ve developed my costume over time, and I’d like to think I look pretty badass. I wear a skintight, full body, black outfit. A mask always covers the sharp features of my face, only revealing my piercing emerald-green eyes which are cast in the shadow of a black hood I wear. I have three belts of various throwing knives, fighting knives, and a small black medical kit. I wear black boots that almost reach my knees with a boot knife hidden in a sheath clipped on the rim. The only thing that can truly be deciphered about me, is that I am a female. I act as two completely different people. All jobs, intelligence gathering for the jobs, and anything at all to do with assassination are performed in my assassin outfit under the guise of Phantom Reaper, the cold, heartless, killing machine, while regular activities such as shopping for items in the market place or going to local taverns are done under a separate alias from any of the ones tied to my safe-houses, Tiffany Baxter, to which I own a completely separate house under. The assassination business is a lucrative one, especially once you’ve gained notoriety for being 100% successful. The higher profile the target, the more risk is involved but the payout is larger. I only do the high-risk, high-profile jobs that other assassins won’t dare to touch.

I approach the bulletin board, my senses stretching in all directions. This is the most vulnerable I allow myself to be since it is common knowledge that I only take jobs from this board and it’s the only way to find me if they knew when I’d be here or did a stakeout until I arrived. I’ve been attacked on a few occasions when I first started out using this bulletin board method, but the people of the Underworld quickly learned I’m not one to be trifled with when I killed my attackers without hesitation and left their corpses for all to see. I haven’t been bothered since the tenth one I eliminated but I always exercise caution just in case someone stupid decides to get ballsy with me. My eyes scan the jobs without any feeling, searching for the highest, realistic price for a head. Usually when people try to set traps for me, they make the price way too high for the target to be eliminated. One of the easiest ways to avoid wasting my time. I’ve fallen for a few of the traps set by people who did some research beforehand but somehow, they still never expect me when I arrive, and they end up dead before I leave simply because I’m annoyed they wasted my time for no actual pay.

I snag a job from the board that fetches a decent price, my eyes shift over the details of the target. I decided to accept the job and whistle for my raven, Shadow, who flutters to my arm after only a short wait. I scribbled a note to the client to inform them that I accept their job and where to meet to collect the proof that the job has been completed and in turn, pay me the promised amount. I generally give them a small sliver of the target’s scalp as proof since it’d be inconvenient to lug around a whole-ass head. I sign the note with PR and tuck the note in the message tube on Shadow’s leg, button it closed, and send Shadow to deliver it to the client.

Once I’ve accepted the job formally with a client, my usual routine is a one to three days to gather intel on both the target and the client (in case the little pieces of shit decide they don’t want to pay after I’ve completed the job, they pay with their life). After I’ve collected enough intelligence such as maps of estates, entrances, exits, security, rooms, patrol routes of guards, shift changes, etcetera, I either stay in the Underworld or leave the Underworld via grappling hooks tied to ropes at my secret entrance, depending on where the target is located. I then watch the estate for an hour to ensure my details are accurate and get a feel for the patterns of marching routes the moving guards will patrol. I generally use well-placed, dart-blade, throwing knives between the slits in their helmets to dispose of stagnant guards at estate courtyard entrances and move to catch the armor-clad bodies before they crash to the ground. I remove my blades first before removing the bodies from the armor shells and then dump them in whatever dumpster is closest. After the bodies are safely hidden until the morning trash removal when I’ll already be long gone, I stand the empty shells of armor back up as if the stagnant guards remain at their posts, which assists in avoiding detection before I’m finished and out. If I’m able to get inside of the main building of the estate without killing additional guards by using discrete entrances such as picking locked wine cellar doors, picking locked windows on a higher floor level, or using maintenance tunnels, I do. I use my knowledge of the maps I study for each estate infiltration, usually popping a panel from the ceilings and traveling between the ceilings or roofs using the wooden support beams that allow for stable structure. I follow the beams, counting spacers between rooms, until I’m above the location where the target is supposedly located. I’ll listen for about ten to twenty minutes to make sure they’re alone then I move down in silence, finish the job without hesitation, scalp the target, and leave the way I came. I don’t care if the bodies are discovered and linked to Phantom Reaper since no one can find me that way. I don’t spend unnecessary time cleaning up after myself. Then I sleep like someone whose hands aren’t dirtied by ending thousands of lives.

What I don’t realize when I’ve accepted my current job, is that it will be like nothing I’ve ever encountered before…