NOTE: I do NOT own Death note, or near. . . .or wammy. . . .*sigh* *wishes she did*
The Fall of an Angel
Nate River was eight years old. Just like any child his age, Nate was starting fourth grade. There wasn't anything abnormal, or special about him, except perhaps his curly white hair that is always a mess, his red eyes, made grey by contacts, and the fact that he looks about four years younger than he really is. His house was fairly ordinary, long ago, it was a bright and sunny yellow color, but now it just looked like the friendly neighborhood dog peed on it. It was just one floor (not counting the basement) with the standard rooms, a blue kitchen that had one too many rooster decorations, a living room whose couch was home to many an odd stain, and then a hallway that led to a bathroom, duck themed and two bedrooms: one very white and clean, the other red and dark. His parents did not fit this ordinary mold, however. His mother, Rosalina, was born in Italy and had met his father, Samuel, when he was stationed there with the British Navy.
Little Nate is an only child, and a loner child. His father was with the navy until Nate was five, so it was just he and his mother. Rosalina was a very timid woman, short-cropped black hair and a tender face. She showed Nate how to fix buttons on his clothes and made cookies with him. She taught him his alphabet, and how to read before he started kindergarten. He was as happy as can be, but, like all good things, that soon came to an end.
November 13th, 1996 Samuel River, Nate's father, was in a fight with one of his shipmates and beat him to death. He was discharged from the Navy with dishonor a week later to return home to his wife and child. Nate was excited to meet his father; he had always imagined him as a great hero, strong and smiling. However, the man who walked through their front door was not the man he had imagined. His father was strong, but he had a permanent scowl etched into his face, making the muscles look sinister, rather than heroic. He had dirty black hair that was matted down in places, and was a coal black like his wife's. Nate smiled, but hid shyly behind his mother's skirts. This man was scary, and he couldn't believe that this was his father.
Samuel leaned down to inspect Nate, and the first words he said to his wife in the five years they were apart was, "This eint my kid!" The smell of alcohol engulfed Nate's senses and Rosalina looked alarmed.
"Of course he is! This is Nate." She tried to push the trembling boy forward.
"Then why's he got white hair? I eint got white hair, you eint got white hair." He stood again to glare accusingly at Rosalina.
"The doctors say that he's albino, it means that there's no color in him."
"You tellin' me my kids some colorless freak?!" Nate hid behind his mother, afraid of this brute that he had admired not but an hour ago.
"No, no! He's very smart and sweet. . ." Samuel approached the boy again, yanking him by the arm from the safety of his mother's folds.
"Can you fight, boy?" Nate shook his head, afraid to speak. "Can you speak? Say something!" His father pushed at the child, causing him to fly backwards onto the carpeting.
"Y-Yes. . ." He barely squeaked the words would when his father was over him again, picking him up by the collar of his t-shirt.
"Yes what?" Nate looked to his mother, searching her face for help but she stood there passively, looking at the floor. "Damnit, answer me boy!" His large, watery eyes went back to his father, and he shook his head to say he didn't know. "Useless, that's what you are. You're a useless freak." Samuel dropped his son onto the floor and clumped to the kitchen with his wife tailing behind, head down.
As the years progressed, Samuel's outbursts became worse and worse, eventually targeting his wife as well as Nate. He expected Nate to know everything and anything, on the spot, and if he didn't know, or got the answer wrong, he was hit until he said the right answer. On the days that Samuel went too far and broke on of Nates limbs, or left a noticeable bruise, Nate stayed home, and it was like it used to be. Just him and his mother. His father worked at a construction site, but his mother continued to stay home. She would help Nate learn the question he got wrong, and then some new material, in hopes of preventing the next outburst. However, the next day it was always something different, Samuel asked anything and everything.
"Nate, I asked you a question." Samuel was reclined back in a wooden kitchen chair, Nate a seat away, staring hard at the dark swirls in the oak woodwork. His father became infuriated at his lack of any response at all, and he slammed his fist down on the table. "Answer me, damnit!" Fear tainted his eyes and his heart felt like it was being devoured as he glance towards his mother, who had been cleaning the same spot of counter for the past five minutes. Face red with rage, Samuel stood, knocking the chair back into the wall with a loud crack. Nate flinched and looked up
"I don't know, Father." He trembled and closed his eyes as he awaited what would come next. Samuel grabbed him by the collar and yanked Nate out of his chair, lifting him high from the ground, fist raised.
"Did you just say you didn't know?" Nate shook his head and his father whipped his hand across Nate's face with a sharp smack as rough skin met frail. Nate forced back the tears as he was hit again, and again, knowing that crying would only make the beating worse for him. "And now?!" Samuel screamed, as if hitting Nate had knocked the answer into his head. The small boy remained quiet and his father threw him down and muttered "Useless" before turning and walking away. Nate quickly gathered his books and fled to his room to try and drill the miniscule fact that he had forgotten into his head.
Nate didn't emerge from his room until the next morning when he had to go to school. The swelling had gone down, but there was a sickly yellow-brown bruise perched on his cheekbone. He gathered his school things and slipped out of the house through the garage, without his father's knowing to begin the long walk to school.
When he got home, he was devastated to find that his father was there, lounging in the kitchen chair menacingly. Usually, his father was on the job until six-thirty, giving Nate plenty of time to complete his homework and double check it. However, this particular day a dark cloud of pain persisted over his head. Nate was instructed to sit and Samuel snatched his books from him, launching into the questions. After the third question, that Nate didn't know the answer to, of course, his mother calmly set down the kitchen knife she was using to prepare dinner and turned to her husband.
"Please let him try at his homework before you quiz him, he hasn't been home for more than twenty minutes. . ." Though her voice was soft, and trailed off towards the end, Samuel was still enraged.
"Are you questioning my methods, woman?!" Rosalina raised her head, looking him square in the eye for the first time in years.
"Yes, I am. I'm saying you're wrong." Samuel advanced on her, and Rosalina flinched, expecting to be hit. What came next, however, was something neither Nate nor Rosalina expected. Samuel's hand gripped at the knife she had abandoned and cut her face, causing her blood and screams to gush out. But that wasn't enough for Samuel. He gripped her arm and drove the bloodied blade through her ribs, puncturing a lung. And then again, in a new spot. He repeated over and over until all that was left was a blood-stained corpse and a frightened boy.
A pencil was what reminded Samuel of Nate's existence. It rolled off the table and landed on the wooden floors with a clack. Samuel spun around, dropping the lifeless shell of his wife on the floor and began to advance on Nate. In the back of the small boy's brain, a voice was yelling at him to run, and he complied. Nate ran out the front door, where his father dare not pass wearing his blood stained clothes. He ran all the way to the park where he stopped to sit on a park bench, short hiccups escalating into sobs as he absorbed what he had just witnessed. His mother was gone, and his father was going to murder him. Nate's only friend had moved away two years ago, he had nowhere to go, nowhere to be.
Towards dusk, an elderly man in a suit with white hair and a toothbrush mustache approached Nate on the bench. He looked up at this stranger with wide and distrustful eyes, and was met with a kind smile.
"Nate River? I am Quillish Wammy," to prove this, he pulled out his ID and showed Nate. "Your mother called child services three days ago, however, so many people call, you were unfortunately looked over. They sent me here when a call was received from a disturbance at your house from a neighbor." Nate didn't quite understand all of that, but the man's smile and badge had calmed him and he nodded, silent tears trickling down his face. "I have a nice orphanage for you to live in, and you will be taken care of there. Would you please come with me?" Wammy held his old, wrinkled hand out to Nate and the boy stared at it for a good long while before placing his small hand inside and walking with Wammy to a black car with tinted windows. In all the turmoil of Rosalina River's murder, everyone forgot about little Nate and the man who came to take him away.