Disclaimer: The story and characters of Death Note were created by Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata.
Thank you to my dear friend and beta reader Meiyl who helped me fix this up a bit.
Rust
1. Gold
This world is stagnant. I have been here for countless ages without observing any change except for a slow, ever-present decay. No one can count those ages, because reckoning time requires distinct events to come to pass. Since nothing happens in the shinigami realm, it is as though time does not exist. The only means of feeling the aeons elapse is to concentrate on the continually increasing weariness in one's body.
All that shinigami do is watch and wait, occasionally speaking to one another or gambling to distract ourselves from the tedium of our existence. I rarely speak to the others of my kind, but there is one with whom I share a sort of companionship. When I tire of sleeping or listening to the insipid conversations of other shinigami, I go to find him at at the edge of the desert. We often sit in silence together and gaze into the human world.
I can understand why Gelus is fascinated by the human world. It is full of color, fleeting movement, and sparks of life, the opposite of our own dull, listless realm. It is fluid with change, while this world withers into dust. But the human world is also tarnished, ugly even amidst all its brilliance. Perhaps all the worlds are rotting, and every one of them will come to the state of ours in the end.
Gelus does not perceive the blights on the human world, the suffering and filth that have corroded it. Sometimes I watch his face instead of the window to the other world, and I see wonder and beauty reflected in his eye. He recognizes and latches onto the smallest flickers of life. His thoughts dwell only in the world of humans, perhaps because he is one of the lowliest shinigami, and this world holds even less for him than it does for me.
At this moment, he is watching a little human girl playing. I peer through the rift to get a closer look at her. The girl's lustrous hair and shining eyes catch the light from Earth's sun. I do not remember most of the names that humans have for colors, but I know what gems and precious metals are. When I see the girl, the words sapphire and gold come to mind to describe her countenance. She is a glittering treasure.
I gaze back at Gelus. He looks lonely, hugging his knees to his chest with his stub-like arms, but he also seems content. Though his face is only half-formed, he is more expressive than any other shinigami I have met. I can tell that observing the human girl makes him happy.
Watching her, I almost believe that the human world can be full of light and goodness, even though I know that to be a lie. The lie is confirmed when I glance above her golden head and see the numbers outlined in fire. She only has fourteen human years left to live. How could a creature with such vitality and spirit be doomed to a life cut so short?
The name above her lifespan is in Japanese script. I do not know what her name sounds like, since the only thing I would need to know about a human's name is how to write it, and Japanese is a human language with which I have always had difficulty. "Who is this girl?" I ask Gelus.
"Her name is Misa Amane," Gelus says in his soft voice. When he speaks the name, it sounds like a blessing, or a prayer. It is strange that he should understand her name without ever having the intention of writing it. I know he will never allow her name to be written in a Death Note. "I want to watch over her forever," Gelus whispers.
I kneel close to his side, my bones creaking. "But you can't," I remind him gently.
He closes his eye and bows his head. "I know."
