It was quite large for an abandoned building.
It stood on the outskirts of the city, tall and imposing and mysteriously empty. The security system had been rather advanced for its time, but the power was out so it wasn't hard for me to break in. I just smashed through a window and there it all was.
The halls were dark and hollow, my footsteps echoing through the corridors and up the staircases. It was almost melancholy. Yet the funny thing was, why wasn't anyone there?
I was alone.
Adrenaline tingles in my veins as I creep through the unused rooms. The air is stale and cold. I feel a sense of foreboding and disapproval, the oppressive air telling me that this is no longer a place for humans. Something happened here long ago and the building doesn't want me anymore.
The New World is a generally efficient place; our lord Kira doesn't like things to go to waste. So why would he let this valuable building just go unused?
In another time I'm sure I would have found squatters and criminals sleeping in these empty halls, but the times change.
If there were people still living here, I'm sure that they would have taken the furniture. It's all still here, slowly collecting dust. There's a large round desk with dead computers looming above it. There's a couch and a glass table. Someone even left a pack of cookies under one chair, now fuzzy with mold.
Who was here?
If I close my eyes I can almost feel ghosts watching me; sitting at the tables conversing, fingers skipping across the keyboard, laughing and relaxing on the couch. But now it's just me, standing in the silence and running my fingers across the tables and chairs.
Something dark is lurking in these halls, I can feel it. Some old hatred, a ghost that no one remembers. A name floating in the air that no one can hear. Something bad happened here.
I've been following my father for a month now.
He works in a big Kira factory, keeping his head down and generally doing good. He sends me to school, brings home dinner every night, and always pays our rent on time. A normal father.
But some nights he'll send me to bed then slip out of the house and skirt the streets like a nervous shadow. He knows he's breaking curfew without a pass and that worries me. So one night I decided to see where exactly he was going.
I want to know what it means. I want to know why he leaves the flowers on the grave of someone named Soichiro Yagami. I want to know why he lingers outside the old Sakura TV station. I want to know what the ominous tombstone marked only with the letter L means. Who is haunting my father?
It was last week that he came here, differing from his usual schedule. He didn't go inside, he just stood and stared up at the big empty building. Then all at once he left.
The moonbeams slip between the dusty blinds on the windows and stripe the empty rooms with pale light. I stand in front of the desk, tracing patterns on the black monitor's dirty screens.
It looks like whoever was here left in a hurry, taking only what they needed and leaving the rest. Perhaps they planned to come back. There are even papers still in the desks.
I slide them out of their manila folders and leaf through the pages. They're Old World, yet mention Kira frequently. Mostly just meaningless names and numbers, criminals who were judged so long ago everyone has forgotten their names.
That's what this place is for, I think. Forgotten things.
"What are you doing in here?" Demands a voice from behind me, harsh and sudden. I whirl around in terror.
There is a man standing behind me, a little younger than my father, in his forties. His face is washed out in the moonlight but I can see that it is thin and sharp. His hair a slightly long, shining a dull copper. It's his eyes that capture me, they are dark and calculating and strange.
We are supposed to have no fear in this New World but now I am afraid. I have no reason to fear this man yet I do. He has the eyes of all the old murderers and convicts, supposedly eradicated. He has the eyes of a madman.
"I just- I wanted to look around." The words fall out of my mouth in a rush. I was normally a perfect liar, most kids are now.
He looks suspicious. His emaciated form shifts, casting a long shadow across the room and filling the empty space.
"Curious, huh?" His mouth twists into a rather unpleasant smile. I guessed that he had probably been handsome when he was younger but now the affect was almost macabre.
"Yes." I whisper. It seemed wrong to speak so loudly here. The vacant room seems washed in pale blue, cold and lonely.
"I was curious once. But it only leads to trouble, I warn you. Tell me, how old are you?" He murmurs and moves closer to me. I start back and bump into the desk, wincing at the loud clang it makes.
"Seventeen." I breathe over the echoes that still float in the dark air. He laughs but it isn't a pleasant sound.
Why is he here? Another soul searching for answers in the ghosts? Or a wild mad rebel who still persists in his quest to destroy our lord. I've heard of those people, they live in the forests like savages and plan to retake the world. Kira kills them every time, they're mad to resist him.
"In fact I myself was seventeen when I worked here." He narrows his eyes and stares transfixed at a low chair in front of the glass table. It's like he sees someone but the chair remains untouched.
"Who worked here?" I suddenly ask, unable to contain the questions boiling inside me.
"It's far too long a story. I could never breath a word. You should go home now. The New World does not except meddling children." He snaps, pulled from his dark reverie.
My heart jumps into my throat. If he turns me in to Kira's men there's no telling what will happen to me. This was a foolish risk.
"I'm sorry, I won't come back. Please." I'm panicking a little but he just nods.
"Just go home."
"Yes mister…?" I turn and give him a doubtful glance. Kira's law dictates that we must learn the names of anyone we meet, in case we need to register it later.
"Call me… Ryuzaki." He says after a pause, then laughs.
I bolt.
My legs pound too loud down the empty stairs and I hurdle down empty halls. I squeeze back out of the window on the bottom floor and land with a thud outside on the sidewalk.
I sprint all the way back home, only pausing once to dodge one of Kira's nightly safety patrols. It's not like I oppose Kira, but running a perfect world leaves no time for the antics of upstarts like me. You keep in line, you stay out of trouble, you stay alive. I almost blew it big.
Luckily dad is still asleep when I get back and he doesn't even stir when I creep back up to my room, still panting. I am filled with the need for human company to shut out the great solitude of that abandoned building. The headquarters of the forgotten.
I won't go back there, not after someone saw me. That's a risk I don't want to take to solve this mystery, because that's what it is. I'm solving a mystery that no one wants to know. But I can't go back.
Lying in bed that night I pull the crumpled file out from under my shirt and smile.
Whatever else happens, I am going to figure this out.
Who is Soichiro Yagami? What is L? How did that building just get forgotten? And why on earth would a simple man like my father Touta Matsuda be involved?
I start reading.
A/N: So this is a story about... well, I'm not sure. It's about the New World. It's about good and evil. But it's mostly about a protagonist. A protagonist that doesn't matter, yet does. You could call it an OC but it isn't really. The protagonist is you, or maybe me, or whoever you want. They are your very own story viewing vessel. See what I mean? I don't even know what I'm writing about! But I hope you enjoy it, a least.