When this idea came to me, I wondered about whether I should put it up or not... basically, it's about A, who exists about as much as Linda does, but appears in Death Note – Another Note, which is about a serial killer called Beyond Birthday, in case you didn't know.
I don't own Death Note.
The small girl sat on the bench in the early Autumn, chewing her fingernails and hunching her shoulders in. She was in a strange country, in a place she knew nothing about, least of all why she was there and for how long. A boy, a little older than her, with unruly dark hair and large, large, grey eyes with large, large black pupils left the house and crouched opposite her, with the wind blowing against their faces. Many people would see this person as a threat, later. She saw him as a zombie. To her, he looked dead. That was the beginning of the end of A.
The small girl is older now, and she's sat on the same bench in late Winter. But she's not chewing her nails down to the quick now, and she sits straight with her shoulders back. As before, a boy a little older than her, with unruly dark hair and large, large eyes sits opposite her in the garden. She is about to greet him before noticing that he is not the boy she met all those months ago. He sits instead of crouching. He looks less dead. He looks alive, and although his movements are jerky as opposed to the flowingness of L's, he looks more full of life than anyone she's ever seen before. She welcomes him to the house. He addresses her by her real name, not the name she has been given here by these strange people who have almost kidnapped her. However, he still strikes her as odd. The way his eyes sometimes stray to a spot just above her head, and every time he looks, he seems to become sadder. The colour of his eyes is what piques her interest most. A deep red. Vermillion. Yes. He scares her. But they are friends, and they sit there with the ice pouring down the back of their necks and the thunder clapping overhead. That was the beginning of LABB – which meant so many more things other than the Los Angeles Beyond Birthday murder cases. To the girl, it means her and her friends. L, A, and BB. Later, although the girl will never know, it means L After Beyond Birthday, that chase across Los Angeles. L chasing B. There is no girl. She will never know about what happened to her best friends, and perhaps this is a good thing. But maybe if she'd known how many she, indirectly, would kill – she wouldn't have done it.
It is the same garden, although a few years later, and the height of summer. The two boys and the girl are playing tennis, and so far, she is winning. It is not the grey eyed boy, but her that is winning, and she feels elated. She, the youngest, the girl, the littlest, is winning. The boy with the red eyes keeps score and fetches the ball when they miss it. They switch round, and it is the oldest boy's turn to keep score. The game goes on for a while. The girl wins, and she dances around the tennis court because she is so happy. The grey eyed boy is called in. Later, the old man comes out into the garden and asks her to come in too. All three enter an office. The three, the girl, the boy and the old man begin to talk.
It is about an hour later. The girl is shaking her head, and saying no. The boy and the man are not listening, and eventually, she is quiet, because she is wasting her breath. Both parties have made a huge mistake. They will regret their actions in the office that day, the man and the boy. She won't, because she won't be able to.
It is the girl's fourteenth Birthday, Spring. The strange boy with the red eyes loves Birthdays, they always seem to make him giggle to himself, as if enjoying a private joke meant for him alone. But today, he's not laughing. He seems sad. He even offers to make her cake. She helps him, even though it is supposed to be a surprise. Those staring red eyes drift to the spot above her head, and the uncharacteristic tears begin to roll down his cheeks. That's the worst bit, she thinks. Her best friend in the entire world is crying, and she doesn't know why. There is nothing she can do. When she tries to comfort him, he simply hugs her and holds her tighter than ever. She's confused, but she embraces him to and they stay like that for a while. The cake burns, but they don't care. They slice the burnt bits off and cut it into a whole new shape. They put a strawberry on top. She still hasn't been listened to. When he grows up, he'll wonder if there was more he should have done than just hold her. He'll blame himself as much as he'll blame his adversary and former friend.
Over the next year, Autumn, Winter, Spring and Summer, the girl begins to lose weight. She withdraws more and more inside herself and sleeps less. The red eyed boy looks more and more sad as the days go on. There is a ring around a date on his calendar in red, and they don't know why. Usually, he rings the special dates in black. The man and grey eyed boy begin to really push the girl, stretching her - until she snaps like an elastic band.
It is the boy with the red eyes who finds her, lying on the bed, her pinafore and blouse perfectly straight and smooth. He had just crept in at exactly the right time. He sits there with her in her final moments, holding her hand, the red eyes looking into hers. He is never quite the same again. She is fourteen, and has just put several others on death row, without even meaning to. She plays a large part in the deaths of the LABB murder victims, even though she never met them.
Many years later, a blonde boy sat with a red headed one on the bench in the garden. It was raining. But there was a place on the bench where the rain didn't quite fall right. The blonde looked at the spot and thought it looked a little like two figures, a boy and a girl. There was slight red tinge to the air around where the boy's eyes would be. The girl simply sat very, very still. And so the blonde was called inside, just as she had been. He would never return again. The redhead left a year later. Neither would he. Another part to the girl's legacy. If they hadn't snapped her, she would have dealt with Kira. The two young lives would not have been lost.
Back in the office, with the girl shaking her head and crying, time split. One way, they didn't listen, and the girl snapped. The other, they listened. She stretched and expanded, but didn't snap.
The red eyed boy is chosen. He smiles as she comes out of that office, watching the spot above her head again. She is happy because he is happy. And he is happy because somehow, his friend has beaten the odds.
The girl grows up. So do the two boys, who begin to work together. The boys become famous. She does not, and she prefers it that way. She moves to a Japanese high school, back where she came from, and she makes a new friend, who is just as smart as she is. He has gold eyes and a pointed chin. He interests her, just as the boy with the red eyes did. They play tennis, and at the end of the break, they have to call it a draw, because the advantages are irritating after a while. She writes her English essays with great ease, and he's only just behind her. He exceeds her in maths without difficulty.
Both are sat in philosophy and ethics class, staring out the window when she has a vision. It is of a black notebook falling from the sky and landing on the ground. She sees her friend pick it up and suddenly, all the sadness of those who in the alternate reality are to be bereaved hits her hard in the face. Coming back to her reality with a jolt, she watches the notebook fall. And she knows that she must stop her friend from getting that notebook, because if he does, then all hell will break loose and the world will never quite recover. Not completely.
He sees the notebook, and wonders what it is. The bell rings and he decides to find out. He's not supposed to walk on the grass, but everyone else does. The girl sees him, and runs towards him to talk to him and distract him from the notebook. She doesn't quite make it. She almost gets there. Almost.
It is enough.
The car comes from nowhere and her head rests smack on the pavement. The boy with the gold eyes turns at the last moment as she screams and he runs towards her, pulling out a mobile phone and calling an ambulance, and then his mother, to explain that he will be late home. But there is no point. That night it rains, the notebook is destroyed and the girl dies in hospital, with someone to hold her hand and the gold eyes looking into hers. She is seventeen, and she has saved more lives than her childhood friends could ever hope to.
Well that was depressing. Poor A, either way she dies. I know that she is referred to as a he in the book, but I see her much more clearly as a girl. Thanks for reading!