The city thrummed with ambition and greed.

She blended into the crowd, a nondescript figure amongst a sea of suits and briefcases by day. By night, she transformed into something else entirely.

Her mission was far removed from the typical underworld dealings of those who excelled in her profession.

She didn't take lives.

She aimed to change them.

Her weapon of choice wasn't a gun, or knife, or chemical toxin like Novichok. It was a sleek syringe, filled with her own concoction of a shimmering, iridescent serum. A potent blend of chemicals that ignited a part of the brain that wasn't active in all humans. It altered the brain permanently.

She would slip amongst the shadows, disguised as a waitress, a maid, a mistress, for the elite. The politicians, CEO's, the decision makers who shaped the world through their choices for their own selfish gains, those were her targets.

Children were going hungry, whilst the rich feasted.

Families displaced through gentrification, whilst real estate moguls turned into billionaires.

She had created the serum by accident. A mislabelled vial stored in direct sunlight.

Sunlight, the very thing that enabled earth to grow, to flourish.

At first she didn't realise what she'd created. But as the days turned into weeks, and then months, the testing was conclusive. Not only that, it was reproducible, stable, and viable.

She made a choice.

Through community gatherings and grassroots movements, she silently empowered those whose shared stories of suffering gave her the targets she needed.

Executives, politicians.

The world slowly began to change. A ripple went out through the city, then globally.

Men and women who were once indifferent to people's suffering suddenly, strangely, came down sick for a day or two. Feeling heavy, exhausted, like the start of a cold. Then afterward, an enduring heaviness that was unexplainable. A weight caused by the realisation that their actions had knowingly caused other people's pain.

Some changed their ways, forging a new path, one built of understanding, compassion, and hope.

Others grappled with the consequences of their actions. The heartache at what they had done. The decisions they had heartlessly made haunted them, to the point that they could no longer stand to be under the crushing weight of guilt that this new found empathy had bestowed upon them.

The elite hadn't felt empathy before. But they were well versed in fear.

The stories, their colleagues suffering. What was this virus-like plague that was seemingly only effecting the upper-class?

The whispers spoke of a woman. Some said she was dressed in all white and only appeared at night. Others said she cried all the time, and if you heard her cries, run. She is not to be taken advantage of.

She enjoyed these stories.

You can't catch a story.

But if you're complicit to sufferings of the world, maybe, just maybe, you'll catch cold.