Death wasn't kind. Fleur knew that. It snatched where it could, taking people who were far too young, far too good. It didn't pretend to care, it didn't pretend to distinguish. The hooded vale of death had hung over the world for a long time, always threatening. It had never touched Isabel quite so close. Death had ripped away a part of her, the part of her that was most loved. Now Fleur would sit staring for hours. Her face sunken and haunted, her mind cold and empty. The more the years went on, the more her town seemed to become like her. Many were snatched away, and those that were left would wish it was them. The world had gone cold, because of the plague that was death, and war. All her life she had feared death, suppressed dealing with the notion, never ready to depart. Always for her there would be tomorrow and the day after. As she'd aged she'd kept company with older folks, after all, if they were still living then she was young. But there came a day when every one of her older friends had passed on and a fair few of the younger ones too. Death in those black days was neither kind nor quick. The virus has a steady progression, a gruesome countdown to the demise of the inflicted. The stories that survived from the era told of the medics who hastened death wherever they could, anesthetic and a pillow was kinder than the drawn out path of the sickness. Time was no longer her casual acquaintance, but leading her steadily onward whether her feet wanted to follow or not. Death came to her with the slow rattling gasps that had taken her mother years before. Her breathing would stop for a time only to reemerge like a drowning victim coming up for one last breath. But in a few moments she had passed on, her earthly tether separated and her soul bound for the reapers. Death is a body or shadow that lurks in the dark, he crawls under little children's beds and he is always there. He is always there, following you and the closer he gets the sooner he will take you as his own. He is the ghost that people fear and he is the tormentor of the many corpses claimed by death. You know when your time is nearing its end because you can feel the chill of his icy breath as it tickles the hairs on the back of your neck.

Fleur hopped out of her bed, disgusted with the nightmare of her last breath. It was wholesome, but in all the wrong ways. As she stepped up, her legs gave out. Her eyesight blurred, but not because tears were welling up. Everything became fuzzy; then she saw nothing at all. The consciousness was floating through an empty space filled with a thick static. Throughout the inky space her heartbeats pounded loudly, echoing in her ears, alongside fading pleas for help. Feeling in my body drained away until finally all was black. What was happening to her?

She came to be not too long after, deciding that a job would be the thing that set her mind back on the right track. As she popped by the request board, she immediately saw the quest that benefited the higher ups, particular the Phantasms that ruled over Oak Town. On her way to the mansion, she made herself presentable. Today, she would have to be a maid.

As she entered and was immediately given the title of assistant mason, she completed her duty without a speck of dust left, overseeing to the other workers and making sure that they were on task. One whispered things regarding the Phantasm household, but Fleur (at the end of the day) decided to keep shut about it. It would only stir trouble, which could find its way back to her and bite her in the back at a later date. Accepting the jewels, she finished her quest with relative ease and decided to head back home in order to rest up some more.

The regret would come to her in quiet moments, such as when she was going to sleep or stopped to take a lunch break. It would seep to the foreground of her mind and demand to be reexamined again. But she was tired of thinking about it, no amount of analysis was going to turn back the clock. She had to get on with the here and now, make better choices next time around. Regret washed over her like the long slow waves on a shallow beach. Each wave was icy cold and sent shivers down her spine. How she longed to go back and take a different path, but now that was impossible. There was no way back. There was no way to make it right. The remorse would eat at her everyday of her life. She envied the pebbles, hard and lifeless, unable to feel the torments of life.