Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note.

This story was adopted from kitoriwitch613 with the same title.

Cover art is by nekonekoazaraku from Deviantart.


LOST MEMORIES

CHAPTER ONE: WHAT WAS THIS PLACE

Death was a horrible, horrible thing and surely this was it, this was death. This was where people stopped breathing, stopped laughing, ceased being. This was—

Sore. Dark. Silent. He felt so tired that he couldn't think, couldn't smell, and couldn't breathe, couldn't—

All he could hear was this swirling in his head, incessantly cloying his senses.

He felt too sore to move and look around but he could feel the surface under him. He felt fabric so smooth beneath his skin. His fingers glided across it, timidly and unsurely tasting the glorious softness of— what was this anyway?

Satin?

Some kind of cushioning for his aching body, it must be. It was rather comfortable. There was something much harder under it when his fingers pressed down.

Wood?

He moved his hand to reach for something, grab something, touch anything.

It hurts badly. He cringed when it felt like little pricks and tingles stabbed at everywhere around, searing his nerves. He halted and slowly moved again when the sensation decreased. His hand didn't go far before it hit a wall.

A wall?

He slid the hand along the lane. Both eyes were open but nothing came into view. It was as dark, as still, and as silent as ever before. His other hand did the same to its own side and he then noticed that it was about the same distance apart. The walls offered very limited space to do any extensive movements. This wasn't good. He lifted his right hand up too quickly and it collided with a ceiling.

Which was only mere inches from his face.

Not good. Not good.

He was in a box.

He felt panic rising, claustrophobia setting and anxiety level increasing. A sound came from his mouth, a breathy moan, nearly inaudible but he heard it so he wasn't deaf and the swirling wasn't the only thing he heard anymore. He did another frantic movement and the result was no different. His left hand found the ceiling as well, his right bumped painfully into the wall. He licked his lips, feeling the dry skin of it scrape against his tongue. His throat felt dry.

He groaned breathily. He hacked a cough and gasped and breathed. His hands grappled again for the wall, knocking the wood, testing the firmness—

He was trapped. Ignoring the pain in his muscles, he proceeded banging his fists on the top of the box, slamming his palm violently against it. Bang. Bang. It didn't budge. The cloying was fervent in his mind as he tried to shout for any attention in his vicinity but what came instead from his mouth was—

"Helfen sie mir!" Let me out!

What… did he just say. He tried again. "Faites-moi sortir!" He didn't know what he was shouting out. "Osvobodite menya!" All he heard was his voice, was it his voice? In his head that cried out for help came instead long strings of sounds he vaguely remembered from confusing fleets of memories. Memories that seem to wouldn't stay, chasing around in his head, surfacing, drowning, clarifying, blurring. Nauseating his mind with incomprehensible thoughts. "Lasă-mă afară!" He banged harder and harder and his fists and palms hurt so badly. "Help me!" Now he was bumping his knees to the ceiling. "Tasukete!"

He was scared. His eyes watered. His throat and tongue felt so dry, so dry. Every sound he made was hoarse. He didn't even know what he was saying anymore. He just wanted to get out.

"Is someone there?"

There was a reply.

He wept. Someone, someone please. "Tasukete!" he shouted, matching the language he heard. "Help me! Get me out!"

"Hold on!"

Oh God, thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

The wood creaked and cracked, then light seeped through the splinters. The person who came to his rescue was using a metal tool. So the box had been nailed shut, no wonder he couldn't budge it.

The top came off. He grimaced when everything seemed to hit him all at once, the sounds, the light, the air, the smell. His senses felt heady. He fisted his hands and blinked repeatedly as blinding neon ray poured down on him. He wiped his wet eyes. There was a stout-looking uniformed man looking down at him. He blinked again.

"Are you okay?" The man had on a bushy mustache and a double chin, the ceiling light behind him made it look like he was glowing. Security guard, his mind informed from under the gossamer of confusion.

"Hey, are you okay?" The double-chinned man asked again. "What were you doing in there?"

The savior's pudgy hands went under his armpits and he lifted him out with a grunt. He cringed when it felt like his arms' sockets were being strained. The man mumbled an apology. He shakily grabbed hold of a shoulder and lifted one leg out. He stumbled. The man steadied him as he lifted the other foot out. He stood on weak, trembling legs. "Steady now boy, lean a bit on me." The man patiently said.

He looked back to the box he was trapped in before and it was a… a coffin. He frowned. Coffin?

It was elegant, the wood done in white and gold. What was he doing in there? Was he dead? No, it couldn't possibly be so. He felt alive. This must be some kind of sick… sick prank.

"What's your name, boy?"

He blinked slowly, like as if he needs to put lots of effort doing it. His thoughts were too far, too fuzzy, and his memories kept scurrying away when he tried to grasp them, his chest hurts, his ears were ringing with bells. Bells. Tolling loudly. Someone was crying.

He couldn't keep them from disintegrating. It was a ravine of futile chase around to find his—

Name?

Nothing. He searched the gaping hollow of his mind for a name or a clue or a hint, anything.

"Anata no onamaehanandesuka?" What is your name? The question was repeated.

He jerked. "Ich… weiß nicht ..." I don't know.

"Onsha?" Pardon?

The man inquired in another language. He felt confused for a fraction of while until he responded with what seem to be the appropriate answer for his predicament which was, "Nani mo." Nothing.

He didn't know who he was, where he was, how he got here. He was a stranger to himself.

The man clucked his tongue. "Don't you remember anything?"

"Nani mo," he repeated.

"Come," said the pork-bellied man. "I'm taking you to the hospital."

As the man half carried him, he looked around, noting that the place was bland. It had only white walls and tiled floors, and when he inhaled a lungful of hair he noticed a horrid stench that also colored the room. Stench of rot. Rotting corpses, blood, eyes missing, limbs scattered, red, red eyes.

They went through the door and there was a sudden change in scenery. It was more elegant even though caskets cluttered most of the space in the room. Elongated rows of coffins, black, white, red, brown.

"Excuse me," he asked. "Where… are we?"

His savior glanced to him. "The Hosho American Style Funeral Home."

He looked down to his feet. So he was dead, supposedly so. Someone had thought he was dead. Or perhaps was trying to put what seems to be a horrible sense of humor into form.

"Let's see who, uh… dropped you off here." They walked silently as he was led into a small office. "Wait," The man ordered and briskly walked into the cabinets. He slouched against the wall, thumb jammed in between his lips. The security guard looked through the files as he worked on his nail with his teeth. He felt unnerved with not knowing anything, and the sound of papers sliding didn't help either. It was rather maddening.

"Here we go," the man took a paper with a flourish. "It says here that a Mr. Yagami was the one who dropped you off. Does he sound familiar?"

He frowned and bit his thumb harder, eyebrows furrowing. Yagami… it felt like the answer was there but far out of his grappling reach. He covered his mouth with knuckled fingers. It was frustrating, Yagami didn't sound familiar.

"No?"

He shook his head.

The man sighed. "Sit there. I'm going to call an ambulance and get you into a hospital, then I'll call this Mr. Yagami and see if he's responsible for you."

He nodded. He sat himself down on one of the metal chairs against the wall. He had his feet on the ground and it felt somehow indescribably uncomfortable. He brought his knees to his chest. Better.

"Here we go!" He looked up and saw the man holding a document. "It says here your name is Ryuuzaki. Hm, no last name. I'm guessing that Yagami is your last name. Does that sound familiar?"

He shook his head. "No," he mumbled, "it…It doesn't…" There was no familiarity with that name either. Yagami Ryuuzaki? No, not at all. "I don't know…."

His savior made a phone call and he nibbled at his thumb again, lids lowering in spinning thoughts. Ryuuzaki didn't sound anything like him. Felt nothing like him. It wasn't his name. Coalesce of unorganized remembrance teased around his being, amiable conversations in different sounds, languages, dates, giggles, the smell of tea, but really. Those were nothing of any importance. He couldn't remember himself.

It was like as if he didn't exist until he woke up in that white and gold coffin.