"Death was in that poisonous wave,

And in its gulf a fitting grave

For him who thence could solace bring

To his lone imagining-

Whose solitary soul could make

An Eden of that dim lake."

Excerpt from the poem "The Lake" by Edgar Allan Poe

In my dreams, I was constantly engulfed. Engulfed in the flames of hatred and sorrow. And I was not saved. I can't be saved. I thrown away coat and mask so I could freely bare myself to darkness. Let it consume me, burn me, until I no longer knew who I was. Let it engulf me and now I will become the darkness.

But then it would come. The rain, in rolling, warped clouds; it comes pouring down upon me. I hated it, despised it. Why wouldn't it let me disappear? Why does it have to interfere? It had no right to.

I would shout to the rain but it continued to wash away the soot and ashes of the darkness off me. I crumpled into a ball, hiding. I grabbed onto the remains of the fire and hid. But I know the rain will find me again.

One day, it will create a sea and drown me. The pressure of the rain and coils of waves will cage me to the bottom. Steal the remnants of my breath and my sanity, it will trap me.

But I'll burn before that. I'll smolder into nothing, and watch it wash away my ashes.

Everyday, I look outside I was greeted with the same monochrome scenarios. The color had long bled out of the scenery as days went by the same. Faces were white-washed and voices turned to faint whispers. Things that happen today will soon disappear down a looped drain and replayed again for tomorrow.

There was nothing new, and I hated it. Nothing special, nothing different, absolutely nothing about this life worth living for. And I played along. Like parasites, the people came close just to take what little color I have of myself into them. But I've become way too uncaring. So I let them try to steal what's left of my once flourishing palette. But, just because I let them doesn't mean I'll make it easy.

Then, along came Kira. Like a tipped can of paint, it splashed onto the world of black and white, and created a new painting. The paint was red, dyed by the color of his justice. But people embraced it. Because it was interesting, it was new. The population soaked it in, wanting more, and Kira provided.

I was still young then so I didn't understand what was happening. But Kira wasn't a guiding light to me, it was black hole. It warped the time, and the mind, and played them on his little stage. The show always ends unfinished, and the curtain closes. And we wait once more for them to unseal themselves again. When it does, it was a new story.

There's no ending. But no one cared. Because Kira was a type of Justice. Kira was a thought. Kira was an idea. And you can't kill an idea. It'll always be there, in the back of our minds, in our dreams, slowly dissolving into your consciousness, trying to find the right person.

I didn't want an ending. So, I took it to myself to write a new story. Not just one though, that will finish too soon. Let it be an allegory then, so when one story ends, I can escape to the second.

"Ryuuk, stop eating apples above my bed." The black winged shinigami heard and slowly floated from my bed to perch on the edge of the balcony. I heard the irritating crunching resume. I sighed tiredly, trying not to imagine my comforter dirtied from apple juice stains and then having to wash them.

"You haven't written anything recently," the monster dully noted, "Starting to feel guilty?"

I smirked up at him, eyes narrowing in slight disgust. "Guilty? What's to be guilty about?"

To be guilty of something for the better good of this world? Hardly. Ryuuk didn't reply and simply continued eating.

"Say Ryuuk, tell more about him."

"About whom?" he replied, not really taking notice of the question as he continued to gorge himself with the apples.

I smiled. "The first Kira."

Every time I saw my hand move across the page, I felt giddy. As the pencil I held completed a name, I wanted to laugh out loud in glee. It was truly exciting, this feeling. I could not blame Kira for being addicted.

From across the room, Ryuuk stared at me, waiting for me to say something, a random observation, a thought, a surprise.

"What are you wondering about, Ryuuk?" I turned from the Death Note on my desk to its owner.

"I was wondering if you were inspired from Light. Are you trying to copy his ways, Lily?"

Light, I had gathered from my pestering, was the first Kira. A genius that had fallen for the Death Note due to boredom. It was quite fascinating, learning of my 'predecessor'. His sense of Justice was completely different from the world's but not far from mine.

But, he had a flaw. The petty criminals on TV and in jail were nothing compared to the abominations they stemmed from. Light should have figured that out but I guess once his mind was set, he didn't turn back fast enough to look.

"No, not really inspired by his sense of Justice, per say. And I'm definitely not trying to copy. I'm just motivated by the flaws of his judgment."

Ryuuk tilted his head, interested. "What would those flaws be?"

"All Light tried to eradicate was the top layer of the crime world. There's another layer deep down, and then the core which crime originates from." I placed my hands on top of each other and then moved them over an apple, explaining my logic.

Ryuuk didn't intervene so I continued. "The core is impossible to eradicate but just peeling off the surface layer of petty criminals that make themselves known will do nothing. You have to go for the inner layer, the layer where the ringleaders lie." I wriggled my fingers of my right hand that was sandwiched between my left hand and the apple.

"What layer would that be?"

"The mobs, the mafia, corrupt politicians, the crime syndicates that hide in the dark using disposable thieves, robbers and murders as the walls that block the light from getting to them."

I smiled to myself, pleased. "You get it now? Once those mobs and mafias that supply the offenders are killed, the base layer will fall and the surface layer of crime will collapse with it. Corruption will practically be eliminated at that point."

The never disappearing grin grew in wider and I could see he was starting to find this interesting.

"The core," he pointed to the apple, "Why can't it be destroyed?"

"Elementary," I picked the red fruit off the table and took a large bite out of it, chewing as obnoxiously as Ryuuk. "The core of the world's corruption is the human mind. How can possibly destroy all human minds?"

Ryuk couldn't believe how lucky he was sometimes. And when he thought his excitement had ended with Light, he finds another human just as interesting.

When Midra came back to the Shinigami realm with her short-lived entertainment, he'decided he wanted to go to the human world again. It was really an impulse but with Midra's extra Death Note, he had nothing to lose. Ryuuk more than use to gambling after all.

Of course, he liked his lucky pattern, so he let the black book of death carelessly drop to humans. And thus the curtains open again, a new game has started.

"I hope you're proud about dropping your notebook on my head, Shinigami."

Those were the first words that the human had said when he found the the notebook's new owner. From there, he knew it was going to be interesting.

Author's Note: I'm actually back on FF. YAY! Near will appear next chapter so nobody start fretting in the comments saying that I labelled things wrong. BTW, please review!

*Lily's logic is weird, but I was thinking about how LIght could have succeeded when I thought of the whole "layers to the crime world".