Summary: I found them. Or, they found me. I'm not sure who... or what... that are, but they say I'm going to be like them soon. And I'm not sure if that's a good thing.
Disclaimer: Guess what guys? I DON'T own Death Note! Wow. You are shocked, no?
Rated T for violence, murder, child abuse, mentions of molestation and rape, severe mental problems and experimental psychosis treatments. I may continue, depending on the feedback I get.
Enjoy.
We're Not Normal, Are We?
One: Prologue
I cower in the corner, attempting to be scarce as my parents rage around the house.
They're yelling at each other, screaming at each other, and I'm scared. I pull my goggles over my eyes and squeeze them shut. Whenever I'm scared, the goggles make me feel safe. They make it look like a game. A game that I can control.
I imagine my father calming down in a sudden change of heart. I think of him putting a finger to my mother's lips, whispering something affectionately, and then she forgives and embraces him. Then she comes to me and holds me tight, and we're a family again.
A small family, but a happy one.
But instead I see my father sink a fist into Momma's mouth. She screams and screams. The noise is ringing in my ears. It's making me sick.
I think my Daddy has apologised, and he goes to hug her to himself. I wish that was happening. But from here, with my father's back to me and my mother facing me, I see the blood pouring from her mouth and her face turning blue as she gasps for air.
"Mail! Mail, run! Call the police, baby..." Then she slumps to the floor, whimpering and gasping as blood fills her lungs, and my father stands up again.
He turns to me.
"Mail, come here boy. Take off your goggles. You're okay. You're fine, Mail."
I pull the goggles off my head slowly.
"That's a good boy. Now come here, hey? Come here, Mail. Don't worry." He holds his arms open, like he is ready to hug me.
I go to him and fall into his warm embrace. I feel safe there. "D-Daddy, what did Momma do?" I whimper.
His voice is soft; calm. Just barely a breath. "Oh, your Momma was a bad woman. She wanted to take you away from me." He holds my face in his hands and smiles. "You just have to tell her that you love me more than her, Mail. Then you can stay with me."
He pulls me over to my mother's shuddering form.
"Mail baby, don't," she coughs up a lot of blood, and I start crying.
My father pats me on the back softly, urging me on. But I don't want to. I want both parents. I don't want to choose.
"Daddy, I-"
He cuts me off with a cuff over the cheek. I cry out, but all he does is hugs me again. "Do it, son. Mail, I love you and she wanted to take you away from me."
I'm scared. Terrified of the man I call my father. "I-I... I love Daddy," I say softly, salty tears slipping over stinging cheek and quivering lips.
"Louder. So she can hear you."
"B-but I don't-"
"Now, son." There was something deadly and final about the tone of voice. My tears fell harder, and I said nothing.
"Mail, do it," Momma whispered, her throat hoarse and croaky, more blood running out of the wound. "Say you love him," she pleaded.
I don't get it. I thought Momma wanted me to love her. Why is she saying I should go with Daddy?
"Say it."
"Do it, son."
"But I-"
"Mail-"
"Now-"
"No!"
"Please-"
"-do it-"
I crush my ears with my fists. The noise is too much. It's too much. My mind is running in circles, trying to catch a nonexistent answer to the posed dilemma. I feel the carpet under my knees, and I curl into a ball. I'm shaking as the noise continues. It's getting louder.
They're yelling at me. They're both yelling at me. And I find myself screaming as well. I can't... I won't...
Stop! Just stop it! Just make the noise stop!
I see everything in flashes. I'm not even sure if it's me that is doing these things. I feel like I'm somewhere else, watching the entire scene like an outsider.
Someone is running out of the room. They're screaming and crying, and being chased by someone much bigger.
There's a kitchen. A drawer they can barely reach. Then a knife; plunging deep into flesh. Again and again and again, until I manage to find myself.
I can feel my own body again. I can feel the cold plastic handle in my palm, and the warm blood that drips down. I stare absently at the object I'm holding, mesmerised as it flashes in the sunlight that pours in from the window.
Then I glance at the limp for before me, red life seeping out of it and onto the tiles. My tears have stopped.
Red and blue lights overcome the warm gold, and there is a crash that falls upon deaf ears. People are in the kitchen. Big people in uniforms. I drop the knife. It clatters to the ground.
My Momma is yelling. She falls down the stairs and I hear her scream.
The men scoop me up, and I can feel no more.
-X-
A large building in front of me. Ornate, gothic and worn; older than time itself. Or, so it seems to me.
The grass is cold and damp under my bare feet. I had taken off my shoes in the car. I don't like them – they were clean of the blood, but the memories remained with them. I don't want the memories. I want to forget.
I want to forget.
Roger says that this place will help me.
Is there something wrong with me?
Am I a bad person?
The old man leads me to the front doors. A sign above them, hard to read in the dark. Squinting through my orange-tinted goggles, I can eventually discern each individual letter.
'Wammy's Institution for Defective Children'
The man, Roger, says it's a nice place.
And, stupidly, I believe him as he leads me inside.