CHOSEN

Prologue: Xulub Hates Losing.

Disclaimer: I do not own Death Note. Go figure.

This story is rated M for Mature, with a specific warning for sexual abuse and violence. Please read at your own discretion!

This prologue will center around our main protagonist's mother.

(See end of chapter for author's note).

A young woman is born to a small, distinctive ethnic group in the Southern tip of Mexico. She is named Akna, and aside from her family, the world knows nothing of her, just as they know nothing of the others in her community. Akna is of no importance to anyone, and she lives the life of a young girl for many years; it wasn't a particularly happy existence, as even young girls like Akna were not treated well within this community, but it was not a particularly miserable existence either.

In Akna's native tongue, there was no term for "maiden," as there were for "girl" and "woman." They simply did not have use for such a term, as when a girl marries she becomes a woman – the window for feminine innocence was pitifully small for people like Akna, one of the many peculiarities found within her isolated corner of the world.

Akna becomes a woman at the age of twelve. She is scared and uncertain when her mother prepares her for her wedding night, but she knows better than to try and escape her fate: her older sister, Atziri, had attempted to run the night before her own transition to womanhood, years ago, but her father beat her bloody before she could get away. Akna could still remember her sister's gurgling pleas as her father tugged her all the way to her wedding by her silky, black hair, her pretty face bruised and swollen.

Atziri had always been a fighter, as her sister fondly recalled, but Akna, always the submissive one, lacks this quality. She sometimes still saw Atziri, now a woman, tugging along a toddler as she went about her chores with a bulging belly, but her sister no longer had that fighting spark in her dark eyes, and she always seemed to hang her head in shame.

If Atziri cannot fight, Akna knows that she will be no different.

Her husband is forty-three, and when he's on top of Akna later that night as they consummate their marriage, she wonders if her father's beating may have hurt less than this.

The man's name is Kabil and he proves to be a very angry man, and a very terrible husband. Staying out until well past midnight, Kabil would then stumble home, bringing with him clouds of liquor fumes and a myriad of insults. Anything that dissatisfied him – be it unswept floors, dust on the furniture, even bland cooking – resulted in a wicked beating for Akna. She would bleed and scream and try to run, but there was simply no escaping him until he left again the following morning. And even then, she was trapped: shackles around her ankles served to keep her confined to Kabil's shack, and the community she lived in would imprison her entire family should she desert her husband, as was common practice to discourage wives from fleeing their patriarch. A girl belonged to her father, and a woman to her husband.

For Akna, those first years are a waking nightmare, and her body was now a minefield of scars and twisted bones. She even had a bad knee, walking with a noticeable limp at the young age of fifteen.

Her only respite was the few daylight hours in which Kabil wasn't home. She had never been entirely certain of his whereabouts during the day, and Kabil didn't permit her to leave the shack without him to accompany her, but she was thankful for the peace that this isolation brought.

This peace, however small, was soon stolen from her, too.

It starts as a low, raspy whisper, condescending and profane, polluting Akna's solitude. The young woman doesn't see anyone within the small shack, even though it sounded like someone was crouched over her shoulder, breathing obscenities into her left ear. At first, Akna doesn't respond – she doesn't respond to most things, these days – but she immediately notices that the sounds cease the second Kabil walks through the door, and begins again when he falls asleep that night.

"Poor child, fate has been unkind to you," it growls, full of hatred.

Akna ignores its cruel remarks for as long as she can - it says nothing she doesn't already know - but without even her pitiful reprieve to keep her sanity, she soon finds it to be unbearable. She knows that it whispers at her bedside, every night, and so one night, she takes with her to bed a match and pretends to fall asleep. When the whispering begins, she strikes the match and holds it out in front of her face, illuminating the creature.

It was short and stood like a human, but it was no human. A naked creature with slimy, blackened skin and protruding bones. Sharp horns twist up from its head, covered in more black slime, and its eyes bulge grotesquely from its head, a bright shade of jade green. Aside from its emaciated form, its belly was large and protruding. Clawed, humanoid hands were held tight against its chest, but rather than feet, its legs ended in hooves.

It stared at her, flashing a smile full of pointed teeth and breathing excitedly.

"Xulub," Akna breathed in terror.

The Devil.

Xulub laughed, reaching out and pinching the flaming tip of her match with bony fingers. Akna did not sleep that night, but Xulub wasn't whispering anymore. Had she struck another match, however, she would find herself still face-to-face with Xulub, for it continued to stare at her in a similar fashion for the remainder of the night.

When the sun rose and Kabil left once again, Xulub no longer felt the need to hide itself from Akna. It began assaulting her with its words again, now complete with obscene, even phallic, sexual gestures. Xulub did everything it could to make Akna's life worse than it had been for the past several years, sabotaging her housework being its new favorite hobby. It ruined her food when her back was turned, filled her water jugs with piss, melted all her candles and coated her freshly scrubbed surfaces with the dribbling wax.

Kabil's beatings grew horrifically brutal as Xulub's torture became more perverse. Even male neighbors expressed concern over the state of Kabil's little wife, but always in compliance with custom, no one moved to help her.

Xulub was more than pleased with itself. It mocked the young woman, spatting on and cursing her, dancing gleefully in the corner of the shack whenever Kabil beat her for the state of the house. The shack was now in complete disarray, with the clay utensils being stolen or broken daily, and the few skirts Akna owned now in tatters from Xulub's meddling.

One morning, after Kabil had left her in a bloodied heap, Akna could suddenly smell rotting flesh. The rotting corpse of a dog lay on her dining room table, complete with a swarm of flies and a pungent odor, Xulub dancing eagerly beside his gift, as if it were a kindly cat leaving his owner a treat on their doorstep.

Akna snapped, doubling over and dry heaving between panicked sobs.

"Why!?" she demanded. What had she done to provoke the Devil?

Xulub stopped its dancing, grinning wickedly and walking towards her. Akna sat back on her heels and stared up at the Devil, not flinching when the creature reached out a clawed finger and pointed, down, down, down, to her abdomen.

Akna's brown eyes widened in horror, counting out the weeks since her last month blood on her fingers. Xulub was right, she hadn't bled since its arrival over a month ago.

She sobbed for hours, huddled in the corner of the shack while the Devil taunted her. Kabil came home late again that night, still reeking of booze, and began to scream at her, but for the first time Akna screamed right back at him. She told him of the pregnancy, and Kabil backhanded her so hard that she could taste the familiar, metallic tang of her blood before he stormed back outside.

Xulub crawled out from underneath the kitchen table, the rotting dog still sitting on top of it, and spread its cracked lips into a wide grin, reaching out its hand to caress Akna's belly. She slapped it away, causing the Devil to laugh.

"My dear Akna, will you not make a deal with me?"

Akna felt her blood run cold as a horrible thought crossed her mind: what if this baby is not Kabil's, but rather Xulub's?

"Give me the girl," Xulub purred. "Give me your daughter and I can grant you anything in the world."

Akna remembered her grandmother's tales of Xulub from when she was a girl. Xulub always existed to cause chaos and destruction: it knew your weaknesses and your fears, it manipulated you and tried to break you, but Xulub didn't lie. Xulub was bound by its word, and although it was cunning, it simply could not tell a lie.

"Your husband, I can make it so he never touches you again…" A sick chuckle. "You hate him, don't you?" It knew the answer to that.

Kabil reentered the shack, having collected himself enough to begin his nightly raging. He grabbed her by the hair, forcing her to her feet, before he began delivering blows directly to her pelvis. Akna realized with sudden horror what his intent was, and she shrieked for him to please stop. Everything had been taken from her, not her child, too! For the first time in years, she called to her neighbors for help. None came.

Invisible to Kabil, Xulub watched from the corner, smiling.

Once her husband had tired himself, he left her sobbing on the floor, clutching her bruised belly, but no blood escaped her. No sign of distress from the baby within her. This distressed Akna more than it comforted her: no normal child could survive such a beating, and she had a sinking feeling that no amount of trauma would shake her child from her womb prematurely.

"You hate him, why save his child?" Xulub asked, emerging from his place in the corner.

Akna's cheek was pressed against the dirt floor, and her voice was raspy when she spoke: "What will you do with her?"

"What I do with the merchandise is none of your concern, my dear."

Merchandise. Xulub had chosen that word on purpose, and Akna winced. The thought of dooming her own daughter to the same objectified existence she'd been forced to undergo was too cruel. It hurt too much.

"No, my daughter will not be born into a life like mine."

"If she's even born at all," the Devil said, laughing.

It appears Xulub would keep the child alive within her womb, but once she was born and no longer of any use, it wouldn't protect her any longer. With a father like Kabil, what chance did her tiny baby have?

"Kabil, take him," she pleaded, tears mingling with the red clay of the floor. "Take my husband instead."

Xulub stroked her hair back from her face. "Only the unborn."

Akna stopped listening after that, much to Xulub's displeasure. He pulled at her hair, trailed his claws over her brown skin until red blood surfaced, even dripped hot wax on her exposed cheek, to get her to respond, but she remained silent. None of this phased Akna, anyways; her world had been rife with physical pain for years, and tonight she felt miles away from it.

Kabil beat her in a similar manner every night for the following months, growing increasingly violent as his wife began to show signs of her pregnancy. All the while, Akna was silent, and Xulub continued to torment her.

Until, one night, Kabil burnt her with a hot pan, making the teenager scream and filling the shack with the stench of her burning flesh. Reaching onto the counter, spurred by her pain and psychological trauma, Akna picked up her sharpest cooking knife and drug it across both of her wrists, slumping quickly onto the floor as crimson blood pooled around her. Kabil ran from the shack in shock, and Akna smiled. Finally, it would be over, everything would be over. She and her child would be safer in death than here.

But then Xulub was standing over her, smiling.

"No, please…"

It grabbed her wrists in either of its clawed hands, squeezing so hard she felt her wrist bones snap a thousand times over, and she screamed again. When the Devil removed its hands, her wrists had only thin pink scars on them.

"What's your wish, Akna?" it whispered. "Anything in the world, tell me."

She was powerless. She couldn't even take her own life, it wasn't going to let her. And so she screamed in its face, wailing as if to release the pain that had been building up for years, her mind broken from having even her death stolen from her. Xulub just kept smiling.

"I can make it so Kabil never touches you again. I can make it so no one ever hurts you again. Just give me the girl, and I will make any wish come true. Hurry, Akna, dear, he'll be back again soon."

Akna touched her belly, always black and blue from Kabil's nightly beatings, and felt her daughter's soft signs of life. Her sweet little daughter; despite everything, she loved her. The baby was a parasite, was the reason for her suffering these past several months, but that didn't change anything. A mother couldn't help but love her child, even if the child was a monster.

She knew what she had to do. The realization hurt in more than one way.

"Anything, at all? Do you promise?" Akna asked tremulously.

"I do. Anything, so long as you give me the girl."

"Then," Akna began, choosing her words as carefully as her fractured psyche would allow. "I wish for my daughter to live a long life... I wish for her to see over a hundred years of life, so that when I get to meet her in the afterlife, my daughter can tell me about a world she's seen for herself. I want you to ensure my daughter's protection for one hundred years before you so much as touch her soul, that is my wish."

Now Akna was smiling at it, stroking her belly fondly as she drifted off peacefully into unconsciousness. She had at least won her daughter – her Ixazaluoh Ku, the name she'd privately dubbed her over the months of silence she'd endured – some time, some protection from the rotten world she was about to enter.

For the first time, Xulub had stopped smiling.

Ixazaluoh Ku (IX-UH-ZAY-LOO-UH K'OO): meaning "Dawn God." Don't worry, the name is supposed to be a bit unusual, but our main character will have a nickname to replace it. This is Death Note, after all.

Akna: Our Mother; associated with fertility.

Kabil: He who has a good hand to sow.

Xulub: Devil, demon, or horns. Usually used to refer to the Devil. In this story, Xulub is simply what Akna's people call Satan.

A/N: This story will be surrounding Ixazaluoh, the child of Akna, and will include some DARK themes, occult references, Shinigami, lots of fun stuff… And, eventually, we'll hit Wammy House and L and all of the people we love, but first I have to go over what happened to Xulub and his merchandise.

So, yeah, expect creepy stories, random allusions to lore all around the world, and a kickass Satan-spawn for a protagonist. I've had this story in my head for a while, so there's at least a method to my madness.

Reviews motivate me to update quicker ~