CHAPTER 1 – THE DEATH NOTE

The school bell rang pretty early that Friday. As teachers reminded their class of homework to be done, students started to hastily pack their bags. Some had already dashed for the doorway. Good byes were said before the shuffling of leather shoes made their way out of the classroom. One particular student decided to stay behind.

"Aren't you going home?" Fred asked his best friend.

"Nah, the driver picks me up later than this," the boy replied. "And it's hot outside. I don't wanna stand out there just waiting to be fetched."

With a blank look on his face, Fred said, "I'll wait with you right here, then." And he sat on the chair next to his friend.

"Won't your grandma be looking for you or something?"

"I have lots of time to waste. It's not like I'm going to be doing anything at home, anyway."

"… I see."

After the last person had left the room, the lights were shut off. The bored-looking high schooler had this chance to notice something new: Classroom 404 looked pretty spooky in the dark, even though it was just midday. The chairs were arranged in a neat fashion, the whiteboard was properly erased, the marbled floor was nice and shiny and all the books on the shelves were properly arranged. It all looked like the ideal place for a ghost story to take place. An hour of long, dragging silence passed. The boy soon stood up and picked up his black messenger bag.

"I'll be going home now. See you next week," he said as he opened the door of the classroom and walked outside. His mind was now circling with thoughts. "Fred doesn't usually clam up like this. I bet he's angry again. But for what reason? I didn't do anything to make him mad. Honestly, the guy gets all mad and talks back to anyone if he finds him or her annoying. Couldn't he just cool down a bit so he can talk to me? It's good thing I was the only person around. He wouldn't dare pick a fight with me, haha."

The teenage boy went down the concrete flight of stairs from the fourth floor down to the first. He noticed that a number of students and teachers had stayed around too but not that he actually cared. He walked out of the ground floor of the high school building and went past the basketball courts, where students from the varsity team were still practicing for an upcoming game. As he was going by the large mango tree, he saw something fall from above and lie flat on the ground. It was a little black notebook. He looked above and saw nothing but the branches of the mango tree and the beautiful orange sky slightly covered with heavy grayish clouds. Could've someone simply dropped it? Though just like the students and teachers he passed a while ago, he really couldn't care less about it.

A thought crossed his mind, however. What if the notebook belonged to someone he knew? And what if that someone happened to be the person he had a crush on for the longest time? A man can dream, can he? He took a step back, picked the notebook up and flipped through its pages.

Nothing. It was totally blank.

Another idea popped up. He could turn this notebook into a drawing notebook! He was running out of pages in the last one, why not take this one and do whatever he wants with it? No one saw him pick it up anyway. He thought the chance was perfect and jammed the notebook into his already stuffed bag.

He soon made it out of the school grounds. The setting sun greeted him as he saw his ride home, which was slightly caught up in traffic, come up the street. It stopped by the school back gate for him to get in. The person behind the steering wheel was the driver; a bald man in his early twenties and the person in the front seat was the annoying maid. A female the world would do completely well without. The young student was greeted by her irritating voice. "Noel, are you hungry? Did you wait for a long time? How long did you wait?"

"No," he lazily replied to all three questions. This particular string of questions seemed to get on his nerves. "Am I hungry? Well, if I was, what is she going to do about it? And of course I waited for a long time! I told these idiots to fetch me at 4:00 o'clock and they come an hour later, as expected! Honestly, of all the useless questions this girl asks."

The ride home was a short one, as it always was. In less than fifteen minutes, the third year high school student called Noel was already changing out of his school uniform.

His bedroom wasn't much. There was a white drawer on one side, which rested under a dusty shelf full of used schoolbooks, picture albums, toys and board games. On another side stood a high brown cabinet, which was used for keeping most of his clothes. His bed lay right next to his study table so instead of using chairs, he could simply use his bed.

He threw his white polo shirt and black pants into the clothesbasket. Then, he placed his bag onto his bed and turned on the light of his study desk. Finally, he opened his bag, took the black notebook he had picked up at school and laid it on the desk. After getting his favorite mechanical pencil from its pencil case, he suddenly noticed something he didn't see in the notebook a while ago.

The page had something written unto it. It was black page full of instructions. At the top of the page, the words "How to use it" could be read. The lettering looked quite creepy. He sat properly, took a closer look and started to read.

"• The human whose name is written in this note shall die."

Noel fell silent for a few seconds. Then, he thought, "Ha, what a really cool notebook. I hope I can buy more of these at National Bookstore or something." He read on.

"• This note will not take effect unless the writer has the person's face in their mind when writing his/her name. Therefore, people sharing the same name will not be affected.

• If the cause of death is written within 40 seconds of writing the person's name, it will happen. If the cause of death is not specified, the person will simply die of a heart attack.

• After writing the cause of death, details of the death should be written within the next 6 minutes and 40 seconds."

These set of instructions got him thinking. "Why were these people allowed print a weird joke like this? It's cool but… it's also sort of strange. Ah, hell. It's not like anyone would bother to try it out, right?" The uninterested teenager turned to the first white page of the notebook and started to draw like he usually did when he was bored.

Two hours later, it was dinnertime. The sky outside had changed from a dull orange to pitch black. Noel closed the notebook and saw that the front bore the words "Death Note". Like the list of instructions he had just read, these two words were also written in a rather morbid-looking font. He didn't know why he failed to notice this when he first picked it up. He thought that maybe… he was becoming quite the ignoramus.

CHAPTER 1

END