A Telltale Shinigami, a death note fanfic

I am not mad.

That is the very first thing I must get out of the way before I begin my tale. I am not mad. I am not insane. I do not have a faulty connection in my brain. I am not crazy.

But every day I look at the world around me and -

it irritates me.

It irritates me to no end.

Day in, and day out, I hear these tales of people saving others, donating to charities, and always taking some kind of reward for it.

Money, fame, publicity.

That's all people want. If they truly wanted to do something good, they wouldn't ask for anything in return. After all, when you do something great, nobody remembers. When you do something horrible, nobody forgets.

How does our society possibly survive with all this greed and corruption? That is a question for which I do not have an answer. I don't think anybody has an answer.

People are evil, and there should be some kind of change. I wish something would come along and shake them to their very core, until none of that evil remains.

I wish there was some kind of power to purge them of their sickness. But I do not believe in God. I don't think God exists. So who?

I lost all hope for salvation from this Hell that had come to my world. Perhaps there was something to save us. Perhaps there was not.

And then it happened.

Salvation visited me in the form of a black, college-ruled notebook that miraculously fell from the sky and landed not two feet in front of me.

And then in the form of a tall, skeletal, black Shinigami that began following me around after I had written just one name in the Death Note.

I learned all the rules of the Death Note, and began killing with the Shinigami by my side.

I was not trying to be God, like Mr. Light Yagami before me. I did not believe in such things, as I have already told you. I did not kill criminals.

I killed those I saw as selfish, and greedy.

The heads of large corporations. The celebrities that did anything for that one page in the newspaper that would make them seem selfless and admirable. The 'local heroes' that agreed to be on the news or be interviewed by talk show hosts.

They all died by my left hand, the hand that held my pen. They all died by heart attacks, though none of them (and yes, I did check) had a history of heart disease.

I watched in glee as the people began responding.

Some began putting up websites comparing this 'incident' to the incident with Mr. Light Yagami, who had outsmarted even the mighty L.

I made the times of death completely random. I meticulously checked where the people would be at that time, so that they would be in public.

I did not kill people at night, like Light Yagami had. I learned from his mistakes. I did not want to end up dead, like he did.

Detailed reports of the case made sure that I did not make the same faults he had.

Perhaps I should remind you that I am not mad. I proceeded with the caution that no madman could possibly possess - so cautious it almost caused me pain.

I did not allow myself to be caught. I stayed within the public eye. I criticized and I gossiped like any other human being. I went to work, and I paid my mortgage on time. I threw a small housewarming party for a new neighbor in my neighborhood. I donated to some of my friends' children's schools, though I had none of my own.

I was not married. I did not have any relatives that lived with me. I was blessedly alone while I slaughtered those that I despised. And afterwards, I would watch videos of all the selfish things they did on the Internet.

I would commit their voices to memory, and then I would kill some more.

A surprise came late one evening when a knock on the door disturbed my plans and thoughts. I hid the notebook carefully under a loose floorboard in my bedroom and went to answer the door.

Two police officers greeted me and asked me if I knew anything about the recent killings in the news. I politely said no, and asked what it was about.

They told me that I was a suspect, that everyone was a suspect, and that they would like to search the premises.

I granted their request and they searched thoroughly through my collections of DVDs, my notebooks, and through all of the rooms in the house, but they found nothing. Of course they found nothing! I was not a fool, and I was not mad! I was simply doing what was right!

And therefore, I had nothing to hide.

I invited the police officers to stay for a while, to have some coffee and for them to tell me more about what they knew. Perhaps they had caught on to something I had missed, something that could give me away.

And then, of course, I remembered that there was nothing they could have possibly caught on to. There was no evidence. They could not read minds. They did not have the Death Note.

So we sat down and we had coffee, and the officers told me what they knew. It wasn't very much, I realized with glee. I had to restrain a manic laugh from exploding from my throat. They knew NOTHING. Absolutely NOTHING.

"Tell them."

Go AWAY, you stupid Shinigami!

I clenched and unclenched my jaw, and then began talking louder and more swiftly about a topic that the police officers had suddenly changed to.

"You have to tell them."

The Shinigami repeated over and over and over again. I was talking even louder now. The Shinigami was laughing at me. It was actually laughing at the nervousness and anxiety it caused me.

Just go away. Please just go away!

I talked even more quickly and got even louder, until the police officers were staring at me with wide eyes.

The Shinigami got more persistent, until the sound of its voice filled my ears and rattled around inside my head. I tried to keep a straight face, but my lip curled up as I shouted at the police officers now.

There was no denying it now. Not now. There was absolutely no way I could come up with a reasonable explanation for this.

"Tell them, tell them, tell, tell, tell, tell, tell!"

"AHRG!" I let out an animalistic roar. "IT'S IN MY ROOM! THE NOTEBOOK IS IN MY ROOM! UNDER THE FLOORBOARDS!"

The police officers sprang forward and put my arms behind my back.

About forty-five seconds later, I felt a burst of pain in my chest, and everything went black.

A/N: That is the oddest thing I've ever written. It is based off 'A Telltale Heart' by Edgar Allan Poe, so in case you recognized anything from that, it's from there.

Let me know what you think about this. I haven't edited it. I really just started writing and this is what it turned into.

~M.M.