The rain followed me home persistently.
By the time I reached my street, my shoes squelched and my socks were too wet. I should've been annoyed, but the Death Note in my bag made it hard to focus on something as minor as that.
I dried my hair, changed clothes, and locked myself in my room. I tossed the Death Note on my desk and stared at it like a weirdo.
I've watched Death Note. I know how this goes.
Write someone's name, wait, and then they fucking dies.
But I wasn't planning divine justice. I just wanted certainty. I really am scared of stuff that doesn't make sense. I wanted to be certain. Certain, if this is real, or if this is just some stupid prank.
Now, that's why I have to use it.. To see for myself if this is all just a parody. That brings the question, whose name should I write?
I could kill someone off from my family.. or I could kill a criminal… clearly replicating the original series. Hm, yep. This would make more sense.
I sat down, opened my laptop, and pulled up a news site. There were always some active cases. Hit-and-run suspects, armed robbers, corrupt officials.
After ten minutes of scrolling through depressing headlines, I stopped on a man arrested for a series of arsons. I might as well be an arson the way I'm playing with fire.
… Fuck me.
Well, back to the important topic on hand. He'd been granted bail yesterday.
"That'll do," I murmured.
I wrote down his name & age, with his face in mind.
My anxiety was getting the best of me in this silence which felt eternal. I'm not the one who should need a heart attack….
"Thirty seconds… or forty seconds? Heart attack," I muttered, trying to remember the timing from the anime.
In this painful silence, I kept repeating my thoughts to myself.
What if it worked? That would be… Hm..
But if someone else found this notebook. Someone reckless, stupid, angry… that would be worse. I needed to know the rules before the wrong person did.
I wasn't sweating. I was just sitting there… attentive. Waiting, waiting, waiting, and waiting…
And waiting.
I kept one eye on the news site, refreshing obsessively. Simulating between possible outcomes…
If nothing happens, then this notebook is a joke and I can return to my regular and awfully dull life.
If something happens, then this notebook is real and I should start panicking.
If something happens but with a delay, it's a little faulty.
If something happens but not to the target, it's faulty as fuck.
It's already been over 40 seconds, so this might not be real after all?
"Useless." I let out a disappointing sigh.
And just as I was about to wrap this up.. after nearly 2 minutes prior to writing the name, the headline changed…
"Suspected Arsonist Dies of Sudden Cardiac Arrest While at Home"
"..."
"…Oh," I said calmly.
It worked. What the fuck? It actually worked..
I leaned back slowly, covering my face with my hands.
"Okay. Okay. That's… a result. Definitely a result. And ladies and gentlemen, Death Note is real. Very real."
After having a grasp on the result of my little test, I stared at the notebook again.
"Why me?" I muttered. "Why??"
And that's about when I heard it. A soft knock with rhythms.. Kinda like how serial killers knock when they want to kill you.. Wait, huh?
I realized the knocks were coming from inside my room.
I practically froze, and sat there lifeless..
"I-Is.. this who I think it is?.."
I slowly turned toward the window, half hoping half not.. to see an otherworldly being..
A shadow was stalking me from outside. Its silhouette was humanly wrong. Too long-limbed, too thin, too geometrically fucked to be human.
Then it leaned forward and tapped the glass window again, as if annoyed I hadn't answered quickly enough.
The window slid open on its own and it stepped inside.
The thing was tall.. maybe seven feet? But impossibly thin, like someone had taken a person and stretched them vertically like a fucking elastic. Its skin wasn't bone-white or monstrous-black. It was… nearly transparent.
Inside that transparent skin, faint lines moved. It was like watching stars collide with each other..
Its face had no mouth. And, no nose.
Just a pair of enormous, rotating eyes that were rotting. That awful malice pierced me through and through.. Ugh, my head doesn't feel so good… this is fucking nuts…
Almost feeling like I'm dying, I clicked back into reality.
And when it spoke… actually it didn't speak at all. The words simply appeared in my head, crisp but… almost polite.
He's using telepathy?
"You carried out your first kill efficiently."
I swallowed and proceeded to ask a question expecting it to be true.
"…You're a shinigami, right?"
Its ugly eyes whirred faintly, rotating like crazy as it thought of a response. Any person would've gone insane for even looking at this thing..
"Das wäre richtig. Ich bin Shekai.."
"Ich bin der Shinigami, der dem Notizbuch zugeordnet ist, das du gefunden hast..'"
"…Huh? That's German. Why German?"
"The last human I was assigned to was German. I can change the language if preferred."
"日本語も可."
"한국어도 가능."
"English is the statistical average preference."
"English is fine," I said quickly.
The shinigami nodded or maybe not; hard to tell.
I cleared my throat.
"So… Shekai. What do you want?"
It tilted its head at a precise 32-degree angle, like an eagle searching for its prey. That metaphor… Am I the prey?
"Observe."
I blinked. "Observe… what?"
"You."
Fantastic. An undead stalker with a physically visible nervous system who is creepy as shit.
Now that I think about it… I should ask it while I'm at it.
"Why me?" I asked
"You are not angry. You are not righteous. You are not desperate. You are not delusional."
Its eyes dimmed, then brightened again. Like a bulb straight out of a horror game.
"You used the notebook out of curiosity and hesitation but without some sickly fantasy."
"Rare."
"…So you picked me because I'm boring?"
"Because you are unpredictable."
I beg to differ.
"Most people would argue I'm the exact opposite."
"Emotionally unavailable humans behave outside standard probabilities."
"Your decisions cannot be predicted accurately."
At least I wasn't boring in his eyes.
Shekai moved closer, to the point I could probably hear his breath, if he had any…
Its foot silently pressed on the floor.
Despite its size, it wasn't intimidating in the traditional sense. But, after looking at his filthy eyes and transparent stomach.. I guess I changed my mind. Nevermind, he is creepy.
I asked carefully, "Are you going to… try to kill me? Help me? What is it that you really want??"
"I have already told you. Haven't I? I'm here to watch."
It sat or err floated? It was levitating upon my desk, light as a piece of paper.
"Proceed with your life. Use the notebook or do not. I will watch."
I sighed slowly.
It leaned forward, eyes whirring like some vintage lenses focusing on its target.. Target?
I really hate myself..
"Hey, why don't you have a seat?," I muttered.
Shekai did not laugh, because it had no proper damn mouth to begin with..
"..."
And then it simply… stayed. still leaned on my desk. Awfully silent, not much social, is he? We can get along.
He was also… waiting…
Waiting for what I would do next.