It Takes Time / Reaper x fem!OC

3. Hauntings

Sienna stood in the middle of the alleyway, her brown curls billowing in the strong wind, watching as Jack Morrison stepped carefully towards her. He placed each foot precariously on the wide ground, as if one wrong step would lead to his death. Worried, Sienna made an effort to move forward, but her feet refused adamantly, remaining glued to the concrete ground defying her control. As if sensing her distress, Morrison lifted a hand towards her.
'It's okay, I'm here. I've got you.'
His voice was gruff, and sounded out of breath, but upon hearing his voice it soothed her, and Sienna relaxed under his gaze, feeling safe. He was getting closer now, but was still at least 50 metres away.
His voice kept calling out to her: 'I'm here. I've got you', but as he repeated it over and over and over Sienna couldn't help but feel as if she were listening to a broken tape recorder. His gruff voice became unfamiliar, and although it still sounded warm there was an undertone that didn't seem right.
'I'm here. I've got you. I've got you. I've got you.' He lifted his gun towards her, and Sienna's eyes widened as she struggled to move her feet once more, grabbing her legs and hauling. The once soothing tone had become anguished, and Sienna could do not nothing but look into the barrel of Jack's gun.
No, not Jack. A soldier. Just another one; Soldier number 76.
He still repeated his lines, drawing unbearably closer still, until he stopped a bare few metres away. Still aiming his gun at her, his voice was muted now.

'I've got you. I've got you in my sights.'

Three gunshots sounded, painfully ricocheting through Sienna's eardrums as she braced for their impact. Three dull 'thuds' signified their target was hit. The soldier lowered his weapon.
The eerily musical tinkling of metal against metal echoed in the alleyway, and Sienna whirled around, feeling her body for wounds, yet finding none. As she turned, a huge, shadowed man stood, picking three silver bullets out of his armour and flesh with his black talons. Staring straight at her through the black, empty eye holes in his mask, he spoke, and his words devoured her. 'You can't kill what's already dead, Sienna'.

Gawping, the girl was paralysed to watch as Reaper lifted a gloved hand up to his mask, gripping it by the sides.
'No!' Sienna managed to choke out as the white mask shifted, about to reveal the man, the monster, underneath.

The mask was gone.

In its place was a huge white barn owl, that spread its wings and leapt towards Sienna, clawed toes poised at a deadly angle towards her face, about to dig into her eye sockets and rip her bloody eyes out and---

Her head slipped from the foot of the bed and hit the floor with a muffled bang, jolting Sienna awake immediately. Her hands rushed to her face, ghosting over her cold eyelids before shifting down to touch the places on her chest where the bullets would have penetrated, had...
Had Reaper not taken them instead.

It was... a dream?
No, it was a nightmare. Sienna's mind corrected her.
Attempting to ignore any potential implications of her dream, she cast her soft, sleepy eyes towards the window. The sun had barely moved, allowing her to assume she'd only been unconscious for a short amount of time. A draft of wind suddenly shifted the air in the room, and her freckled nose twitched, catching a savoury aroma.
'Obviously not that short an amount of time, though' She spoke aloud, eyeing up a tray of food that had been placed precariously on the empty dresser. She hadn't seen him come in, and once again she quelled a burst of anger that reared its head inside her.
'How dare he treat me like some kind of pet! I am not a toy, and we'll see how he likes it when his little toy fights back!' She growled out in rage, aware that her voice fell only to the silent walls, but she didn't care anymore. Stomping over to the tray, she lifted a silver aluminium lid to find some kind of chicken dish, with a thick sauce. It was blatantly just a takeaway, and Sienna couldn't help but picture the ridiculous image that was Reaper picking up a takeaway in store. She stifled a giggle when she realized he would have been in those 'grim reaper' clothes too. Her anger began to subside.
'Probably scared the shit out of the staff, that's pretty hilarious'.
She pulled the dish towards her and sat back on the floor to eat. Noting the distinct lack of cutlery, she sighed and picked up the food with her hands. At least she was being fed, and it was surprisingly decent she thought, taking a bite. For a takeaway.

Polishing off the food quicker than her hands could feed her, she washed her hands in the adjoining bathroom and returned to clear up the food, ignoring the odd aftertaste it left in her mouth. Mustn't have been that fresh.
Finishing, she leant back against the foot of the bed again, feeling the cold of the wooden floors seep though her jeans.

The constant isolation was anguishing, and Sienna was starting to feel the impacts of the dark, swelling silence that surrounded her uninterrupted. As the darkness closed in, the shadows seemed to taunt her and pull at the edges of her mind, whispering to her to let go, to let insanity take her.
It's actually worse than having Reaper himself here thought Sienna suddenly, but then balked at her own mind's boisterousness, recoiling at the idea. She shifted uncomfortably on the floor, her jean buttons scratching at the wood below.

On her full stomach, her eyes closed and her resolution hardened. She opened her lips to speak, and her voice came out strong.
'I'm going to catch him and force him to...' Sienna's forceful statement was halted as she pondered her plan quickly.
'... Let me go.'
Sienna frowned, eyebrows knitting by together in a fuzzy line. Even she could hear the weakness in her conclusion and she pinched herself at the thought of having something so undefined as a plan of action.
'What a shitty notion... At least it's better than nothing, though.'

But how was she going to do it? The question popped into her head, and she shook her brown curls out, feeling the knots weighing heavily on her skin - dry and unwashed. The crisp layer of dirt and ash still on her hair crackled a bit, and Sienna flinched at the sound.
'Gross. Maybe a shower couldn't hurt first?' She mused, fingers trailing absentmindedly down her skin.
Where she touched, the thin ash layer fell away to reveal the flushed, golden brown skin beneath, and Sienna gathered herself up off the floor to head to the bathroom. She'd cleaned herself up a bit this morning at the sink, but hadn't had the guts to strip knowing that Reaper could burst in. It was too vulnerable, she felt.

'Well, he's not here very often.'
She pulled off her top and placed a towel within reach of the shower
'And considering he only recently dropped off my food he won't be back soon'
The water flooded quickly into the bath, and the heat immediately began to steam up the glass surrounding the shower.
'So I might as well enjoy myself for just a bit of time'
The hot water hit her skin, and the shower floor turned a cold shade of grey as the ash washed off her body, swirling in little whirlpools before it was taken away down the drain.
Sienna tilted her head back, letting the steam clear her mind and wash away her fears. Her hand came into contact with a lone bar of soap, plain but partially used. Ignoring the large hand shaped imprints on the bar, she ran it along her body.
'I wonder when he'll come back to collect the plate? Doubt he'd risk leaving something sharp...' Her voice was barely a whisper above the rushing of the water, but it resonated loudly within her.
As quick as she could, she pushed some of the lather through her tangled locks, and leapt out of the shower, grabbing her towel.
'There is no way I am being caught by him in such a moment of weakness' she growled, angry at herself for not thinking about it before, and hastily dressed herself, still half wet, sticking to her clothes.
Suddenly out of the heat of the bathroom, Sienna staggered at the cold, and a sudden wave of tiredness that overcame her.
'W-what?' Her voice gasped out as the room rocked, and she took a few deep breaths. 'Calm, Sienna. You're stressing yourself out. He hasn't done anything... Yet.'
Another wave of nauseous tiredness hit her and she sat down. The room stopped swaying like a pirate ship, but a thick fog-like tiredness still swelled in her head. The food plate was still there. Her eyelids drooped, covering her cocoa eyes.
So much for not wanting to be vulnerable.
Long eyelashes fluttered for a few minutes before Sienna finally gave up and closed them for good, letting sleep consume her, but not before a sliver of light struck out from behind a widening crack in the door.