It was a cold night in the middle of autumn, cold but not in the least silent; the city was bustling just like every night, but this night, someone would leave the face of earth.
A middle-aged man walked into his room in a hotel and pulled out a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. He lit one, the match flaring momentarily in the dimness, and took a long puff. He slipped off his leather jacket and dumped it carelessly onto the messy bed, revealing an arm overly covered in tattoos. He walked towards the bathroom, the exhaustion of the day evident in his steps, only to pause mid-step as if sensing a shift in the air, a subtle change. He turned back, his eyes scanning the shadowy corners of the room, but everything appeared as he had left it. Shaking off the prickle of unease, he turned to continue his walk, only to freeze solid, shock and fear icing his veins.
In front of him, where there had been empty space moments before, stood a curvy lady dressed from head to toe in bright baby pink. Her long, wavy black hair was tied back with a matching pink ribbon, framing a face with big, doe eyes that looked at him with an unsettling sweetness. Her smile was bright and beautiful, a stark contrast to the professional gun she was pointing straight at his chest. Yet, he wasn't terrified by the weapon itself; no, his fear came from the instant, gut-wrenching recognition of who she was. Peace is what she's called, the A-ranked assassin who always wore pink. No one had ever seen her true face and lived to describe it; if you had the chance to see her face, your next second was your last. The only things known about her were her signature pink color, her habit of gifting a single flower to each of her kills, and her unarguable position at rank one on the global assassin board. But when you see her, there's no way you won't know she's the one.
"Hi," she waved, her voice sweet and melodic.
The man reacted on pure instinct, his hand darting straight for the gun holstered at his hip. But she was faster; she shot him in the next second, the loud bang of the gun filling the room, and he fell straight to the floor, a ghastly hole in the center of his chest. The girl sighed, a sound of genuine disappointment. "Why do you have to be so hasty?" she asked the lifeless man. "We could have played a few games before you died. Such a boring death." She stepped forward and, with an elegant gesture, dropped a single, perfect pink rose onto his body.
Just then, a sharp, urgent knock rattled the hotel room door. In one fluid motion, the girl tucked the gun away into a pink leather holster strapped securely to her waist. She then retrieved a black veil from her pocket, and she put it over her head and face in an instant. She walked straight to the window, unlocked it with a flick of her finger, and without a moment's hesitation, stepped out into the space. She fell straight down into the bustling night below. People on the street looked up, startled by the sight of a pink-clad figure plummeting, but no one saw her land or suddenly disappear from their sight mid-air; she was just too skilled for them, a ghost in the urban grounds, but she was definitely making the headlines again. You only ever heard of Peace when she struck, and now, undoubtedly, she had killed another person. The police would come and pack the body away like always, another tragic, unsolvable case in a city full of them.
----
Peace slipped into the darkness of a restricted alley in the suburbs of G City, a place forgotten by the city. She reappeared a few minutes later, transformed. She was now dressed in a baggy and ordinary-looking school uniform that effectively hid her shape. Her long, wavy black hair had been let loose from its ribbon, cascading down her back. She had removed the dark brown contact lenses she had on during the kill, revealing her true, unique, and striking blue eyes. She still looked disarmingly cute, though now in a completely different, more innocent way. She walked to the main road and boarded a taxi, telling the driver to take her to one of the most luxurious residential areas in the city: Denna Hills.
The taxi driver, a lanky man with tired eyes, had to glance at her again to confirm she had just said what he thought he heard. She didn't look bad, but she certainly didn't fit the exclusive aesthetic of Denna Hills with its manicured hedges and luxurious cars. "Fifty dollars," he said in an attempt to discourage what he assumed was a mistake or a prank.
On a normal day, Peace would have argued the price relentlessly until she was satisfied. But tonight, she had made good money from that kill, and she wanted to be generous for once, so she opened the door and got in. "Fifty dollars and nothing less," the cab driver repeated, just to be sure she had heard him correctly. With a sweet smile, she dipped her hand into her school bag and handed him a neat hundred-dollar bill. He took it, his eyes widening in shock. He held it up to the light, confirmed its authenticity, and then looked at her with even more surprise, immediately reconstructing her in his mind as some rich kid trying to be low-key. And indeed, she was supposed to be a rich kid, but...
"Make yourself comfortable, miss," he said, his tone now markedly respectful. He started the ignition, finally leaving the curb, and even switched on the radio and the car heater to ward off the autumn chill. On the radio, the news of her work was already being reported: "Peace Struck Again: Brother of Arrested Mafia Lord Killed." A smile touched Peace's lips as she stared out the window at the passing city lights, a quiet, profound sense of pride warming her from within.
She was nobody after the "Peace" identity that only she knew about. In the daylight world, she was the failed daughter of real estate tycoon Raymond Macmillian: Eva Macmillian, a foolish girl who couldn't even tell right from wrong, the daughter who was always bullied and picked on, the daughter nobody liked. She couldn't even pass her schoolwork correctly; she was nothing but a disappointment that even her own mother hated to see. Because of this carefully cultivated image, hardly anyone knew she existed or that the prestigious Macmillian family had another daughter after their eldest, the piano prodigy, Zora Macmillian, the daughter everyone cherished and adored, the daughter everyone prayed to have.
But Eva knew exactly what she was doing. Every failed report card, every bad test she had ever brought home to her family or presented to the world, was a fake she had created herself, designed to avoid the venomous attention of her elder sister, who believed Eva was born only to lick her feet. It was safer to hide her success; she never really enjoyed the hollow flattery anyways. Her brilliance, her lethal competence, was her own glorious secret, a weapon and a shield, known only to the world as Peace.