Chapter 2: Gifts from the Void
POV: Marcus
The apartment smelled like old carpet and broken dreams. Marcus tossed his keys onto the counter, muscle memory from a life he'd never lived, and watched them slide across the laminate surface. They hit something unexpected—a soft thud instead of the usual clatter against the backsplash.
A notebook. Black leather binding, unremarkable except for the fact that it absolutely had not been there when he'd left for work.
Marcus stared at it for a long moment, exhaustion making his thoughts sluggish. Landlord maintenance? But they would have called. A delivery through the wrong door? But his name wasn't on it.
He picked it up. The leather was soft, worn, like something ancient that had seen decades of use. No title on the cover, no markings at all. Just smooth black leather and the weight of possibility.
The moment he opened it, English words appeared on the first page as if written by an invisible hand:
How to use it:
The human whose name is written in this note shall die.
This note will not take effect unless the writer has the person's face in their mind when writing his/her name. Therefore, people sharing the same name will not be affected.
If the cause of death is written within the next 40 seconds of writing the person's name, it will happen.
If the cause of death is not specified, the person will simply die of a heart attack.
After writing the cause of death, details of the death should be written in the next 6 minutes and 40 seconds.
Marcus read the rules twice, then started laughing. Deep, hysterical laughter that echoed off the cheap walls. A Death Note. An actual fucking Death Note, like something out of anime.
"Right," he said to the empty room. "And I'm Kira now?"
He opened the notebook further. Blank pages, cream-colored paper that felt expensive under his fingertips. No names written in flowing script, no evidence that anyone had ever used this supposed instrument of death.
Because that's what it was supposed to be. A notebook that could kill anyone whose name was written inside. The kind of power that had driven Light Yagami to megalomania and mass murder in a story that was definitely fictional.
Except...
Marcus set the notebook down and rubbed his temples. He'd died in 2024 and woken up in 2007. He was living inside a television show. Maybe absurd was the new normal.
The heat in his palms returned, stronger this time. Not stress. Something else. Something that made his skin tingle and his bones ache.
Frustrated, overwhelmed by the impossibility of his situation, Marcus slammed his hand against the wall.
Pain shot up his arm. Then something else—electricity, fire, power coursing through his palm like liquid lightning. A rectangular outline appeared in the drywall, glowing soft blue around the edges.
Marcus stumbled backward, watching in mute shock as the outline deepened, became three-dimensional. The wall simply... opened. Like a door that had always been there, waiting for the right key.
Beyond it was not the neighboring apartment, not the building's interior hallway, but something impossible: the pharmacy's storage room. Two miles away. Through solid matter and empty space.
"What the hell..."
He reached out, fingertips touching the door frame. Solid. Real. The antiseptic smell of the pharmacy drifted through, along with the hum of industrial refrigeration units.
Marcus stepped through.
The door slammed shut behind him with a sound like breaking reality.
He spun around, heart hammering. Where the door had been was now just the storage room's back wall. Painted cinderblock and motivational posters about workplace safety. No glowing outline, no impossible portal.
He was trapped.
"Okay," Marcus said to the boxes of gauze and antiseptic. "Okay. Don't panic. You opened it once, you can open it again."
Four hours later, as dawn light crept through the pharmacy's windows, Marcus finally managed to recreate the door. His palm was raw from pressing against surfaces, his head pounding from concentration. When the blue outline finally appeared on the storage room wall, he nearly wept with relief.
He stumbled through and collapsed onto his apartment floor, every muscle in his body screaming exhaustion. Whatever he'd done, it had cost him. The power was real, but it wasn't free.
When he woke up, something was eating his apples.
The creature sat at his kitchen table like it belonged there, massive and inhuman, with gray skin stretched over skeletal features. It peeled an apple with claws that could disembowel a man, taking neat bites while watching Marcus with yellow eyes that held alien intelligence.
"Finally awake," the thing said, its voice like gravel in a cement mixer. "I was starting to get bored."
Marcus's hand went to his chest, checking for a heart attack. Finding none, he managed: "What are you?"
"Ryuk." The creature took another bite of apple, juice running down its chin. "Shinigami. Death god, if you want to be dramatic about it. I'm attached to that notebook you found."
The Death Note. Which was apparently real. Which meant the creature—Ryuk—was real too.
"Let me guess," Marcus said, still sprawled on his floor. "You're here to watch me become a serial killer and judge humanity's moral failings."
Ryuk laughed, a sound like breaking glass. "Cute. You know the story. But you're not Light Yagami, are you? You're something else entirely."
"I'm nobody special."
"Liar." Ryuk leaned forward, those yellow eyes boring into him. "You're not from this world, are you? Your soul smells... different. Like it's been somewhere it shouldn't have."
Marcus's blood turned to ice water. Ryuk knew. Somehow, this death god could sense that he didn't belong here, that he'd died in one reality and awakened in another.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Sure you don't." Ryuk's grin stretched too wide, showing teeth like broken razors. "Tell me, Marcus Sullivan—and yes, I know your name, it's written in my book—how did you die?"
The question hit like a physical blow. The rain, the semi-truck, the moment of impact when time itself had shattered. Marcus could still feel the echo of that pain, the sensation of his consciousness being torn apart and reconstructed.
"Car accident," he whispered.
"In 2024." Not a question. Ryuk somehow knew. "Seventeen years in the future, watching a television show about this exact place and time. You died thinking about characters who, from your perspective, were fictional. And now here you are, living among them."
"That's impossible."
"So is opening doors through solid matter. So is a notebook that kills people whose names are written inside. But here we are." Ryuk finished his apple and tossed the core into Marcus's sink. "I've been a Shinigami for a long time, boy. I've seen humans do extraordinary things with the Death Note. But I've never seen one who came back from the dead with knowledge of the future."
Marcus struggled to his feet, legs shaking. "Why are you telling me this? Why not just... take the notebook and leave?"
"Because you're interesting." Ryuk's grin somehow grew wider. "Light thought he was special because he was smart. You actually are special because you're impossible. You have power over doors—that's new. You have the Death Note—that's familiar. But you also have something neither Light nor any other human has ever possessed."
"What?"
"Perfect knowledge of who deserves to die."
The words hung in the air like a curse. Marcus thought about Walter White, three months away from becoming Heisenberg. About Tuco Salamanca, beating dealers to death over pocket change. About the Cousins, who would kill anyone in their path to reach their targets.
He knew their names. He knew their faces. He knew their crimes—past, present, and future.
"Don't worry," Ryuk said, standing and stretching wings that span the width of the kitchen. "Your secret's safe. You're way more interesting this way."
The death god walked through the ceiling like it was made of mist, leaving Marcus alone with the notebook and the terrible weight of possibility.
Marcus stared at the Death Note, then at his hands. Heat still thrummed beneath his skin, the echo of power that could open doors to anywhere. Combined with a weapon that could kill anyone whose name he wrote.
He had the power to go anywhere and kill anyone. In a world where he knew who becomes monsters, who dies innocent, who deserves salvation and who merits judgment.
The question burning in his chest wasn't whether he could change things. It was simpler and infinitely more complex: what kind of person would he become in trying?
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