All right. So this is my first major fanfiction not having to do with cross-overs.
This one, I think, is gonna be FUN.
Anyhow, disclaimer, yadda yadda.
DISCLAIMER; I don't own any of the characters from Death Note. I let
some creativity fall over A's appearance, and B's before he started acting as
L, as well. I don't even own Death Note, and I make no profit from this
fanfiction. I'm just a fan. I OWN NOTHING.
Prologue;
Master of puppets, I'm pulling your strings.
Twisting your mind, and smashing your dreams. -- METALLICA, Master of Puppets
Whether he knew it or not, on the borderline between life or death, stood L's greatest
failures.
The first person was just a shadow, a mere shadow that had chased L for as far as he
could go, until at last Kira, the ghost of the world as of late, crossed paths with his
name. The second was a jittery, weak boy who had broken under the pressure, taken
on by the miseries of becoming the world's greatest detective.
Pale fingers traced a circle of sand around the second shadow, red eyes glinting in
the everlong blackness, glittering with glee and malice. As he did so, the jittery
shadow stopped shivering, blanketed by a sheet of calm that fell over the two,
and glanced around at the miles of darkness, which stretched forever on.
The first shadow had wanted to escape, but it has never, under any circumstance, been easy to
kill a human. Not once has the word "murder" been entwined with "easy". Humans
were built to be sturdy beings, and even the murderer himself had known this as the
last minutes of his life ticked away.
The second had made it long enough to escape, and L knew of this, but he'd never
gone to the boy's funeral, nor said anything consoling to his best friend, who'd
gone insane from loneliness, leaving the boy hateful and uncertain about the man
who he'd wanted to succeed for half of his life.
Now he was dead, and L still lived. It wasn't fair. He had pushed him, too hard.
Far too hard for a fifteen-year-old to handle. And the boy, broken and frayed
underneath his religion and fear, pushed himself onto a limb (quite literally), and
tied his death around his throat.
The next morning, the first spirit had found him hanging from the branch of a
tree, with a note pinned into his palm that said "L pushed me to the edge. I can't
do this."
Now he'd promised the first spirit that he would make them both live. As a
Wiccan, he knew a few things about herbs and spells, and in a spirit-world, a line
between life and death, Nothingness, he could make these things work to create
dark magic. True magic.
Rubbing his hands together, the boy spread the sand across the center while his
best friend watched, remembering to tell him if he'd done anything wrong. He'd
grown used to reading lips, he was sure, for each time the ringing of the two worlds
crashing together sounded, he would lose his voice, and all sound would dissipate.
They didn't talk much though, as most of the spirits in Nothingness decided not to.
It angered the winds, they figured, which were rough during the winter-time (or so
the second spirit assumed), and softer during the spring.
There was still not a way to figure out minutes from hours, summer from winter.
It just seemed that every spirit had different names for different things.
These two spirits, however, weren't like the others.
They were geniuses, always planning to escape some way or another. The others
scorned them for this, but they never listened. They couldn't listen. They felt
deaf.
Empty.
Dead, like they were prononced in reality.
At last the circle was finished. There was a line of sand across the center, which
the second had adjusted by throwing another one over it, and spreading the sand
over the edges, carefully tracing two diamonds at the ends.
Their eyes were unlike most others'.
While the first spirit's had always been, even when he was alive, the second one
had only just recieved them whenever he had found out he was dead, from another
spirit who didn't seem to like talking.
He was just as useless as the others, which the two promptly despised and ignored.
There were only a few girls, and considering the lack of light, it was hard to find
out what gender someone was unless they finally talked to you.
The first spirit couldn't see the second, he just knew that he was there, and knew
that he was a male. He was his best friend. Friends, even in death, knew who the
other was, just as the second knew.
There weren't any animals in this place, either.
It was sand for miles and miles -- black sand, and with their altered eye-sight,
all of the spirits could tell what they were doing if they were to draw with the
sand. It would appear as a white high-light. But they could only see in
black-and-white, which the second spirit still abhorred.
He would've asked the other to leap to the side as he moved a few grains
of sand around, but then was when he remembered they were transluscent;
Figures that couldn't be physically reached.
He also hated this, but chose to keep to himself anyhow.
He wouldn't be reminded of his troubles when he walked through crowds of
the living if he didn't talk.
Moreover, he'd only spoken just a few minutes ago, to explain his plan to his
red-eyed companion, who he was certain was there.
Let me explain: you don't have to eat or sleep or drink or excerise when in
Nothingness, for there's simply no heart in your body. Or, not a beating heart.
It didn't matter to the second spirit, after all.
His friend had never really had a "heart" in the first place, or he just didn't use
it.
He was growing tired of this.
He wanted to stop, stretch out, and go to sleep. Yet there was work to be done.
Knowing it was there, he mentally grasped his friend's hand, and they both
walked into the center of the circle, upon which he whispered inaudible words,
and the circle lit up.
It had worked!
Flames spread about them, engulfing them, until they were both falling into a world
of darkness, much like the one they'd gotten so used to. There weren't any other
spirits fumbling about in the darkness, though, and a numbing feeling crept through
the spineless spirit, when he gazed upon dark velvet skies overhead.
At last!
They were alive!
He actually realised that he could see his friend, the messy-haired adult beside him.
Like siblings, their pale fingers were entwined.
Being older, his companion's fingers were longer, and he was taller, an obvious
sign that he'd lived longer than the first spirit.
A straw doll had materialised in his friend's hands, and he blinked warmly down at
it, like an old childhood companion, or a small animal.
In the first spirit's hands a doll lay, as well, and he smiled triumphantly,
remembering the day he'd first met his friend, his mother's death-date.
His father had left him and his mother when he was three, so there was no point
trying to remember the man. He was a ghost of long memory's past, and he
didn't plan on dwelling on his history right now, anyway.
All that mattered was that, finally, they were alive again, and revenge flittered
in both of their clock-work hearts.