I hate high school. I know, I know, most people say high school was the best years of their lives, but I can easily say they're the worst years of mine. Some people believe the reason I'm failing most of my classes is because I'm not smart enough. But in reality, I just couldn't give any less of a shit.

I've spent my entire freshman year bored out of my mind to the point where I outright refused to do most of the work. And whatever work I did do, I didn't work very hard on, making me get a 20 at most. There were only two classes that I tried and succeeded in: Spanish and PE. Spanish because I was actually interested in the Spanish language and knew it would help me in the long run and PE because it was so easy, I'd probably pass even if I was trying to fail.

However, it was announced that finals was within a few months so, despite hating every second of it, I knew I needed to get my shit together and actually try to pass. If I didn't, I'd be stuck doing it over again, which was not something I was okay with doing. So, I locked myself away in my room with nothing but books, my notebook, a pen, and my computer which was opened up to the school website.

I spent hours writing, studying, and doing unfinished homework, only leaving to eat and use the bathroom. However, I stared in horror as I found my notebook had run out of pages and my parents weren't set to go shopping again for another week or so. And it wasn't like I could go and buy one myself, I was still only 15 years old and didn't have a job to get me the money, nor a car to drive over there. So, I found myself basically fucked.

Biting down on a potato chip, I casually glanced out the window only to see something that made no sense. Before my eyes, a black notebook with white writing on the cover was falling from the sky. Now, had I been in the city at that point, I would have just assumed somebody dropped it while writing on a balcony or something, but as I lived in a suburban neighborhood, no buildings were tall enough for somebody to drop it. A plane happened to be flying by not too long ago, but how would a black notebook fall from it and nothing else?

Regardless, it hit the ground, lying face down. Curious, I stood up and walked out of my room, heading down the stairs and out the door. Did I tell my parents why? Of course not. How would one tell their parents they saw a black notebook falling from the sky without them thinking I'd gone insane? Regardless, I just told them I wanted to get some fresh air before going to pick up the notebook.

DEATH NOTE

Death note? What the hell was a death note? Was it like a suicide note? Perhaps this was something written by some murderer who was allowed to print down his last thoughts before his eventual execution. I opened the notebook to find a weird design printed on the inside of the cover:

Death Note

How To Use It

The human whose name is written in this notebook shall die.

This note will not take effect unless the writer has the person's face in their mind when writing his/her name. Therefore, people sharing the same name will not be affected.

If the cause of death is written within the next 40 seconds of writing the person's name, it will happen.

If the cause of death is not specified, the person will simply die of a heart attack.

After writing the cause of death, details of the death should be written in the next 6 minutes and 40 seconds.

What? Was this some kind of cruel joke? And who was meant to believe it? There was no way a notebook could cause someone to die, unless you were to shove it down their throat or something. Either way, I needed a new notebook to finish writing. I flipped through the pages to find that every single page was empty. I shrugged, figuring it might just be a fan-made prop replica from an anime or something I haven't seen.

I hid the notebook under my shirt, not wanting to make my parents think I stole it or something, and made my way back up to my room. I set the notebook down on my desk, looking at the computer screen to see what I had to do next.

"Write about a person you look up to. Why do you look up to them? 4-7 paragraphs minimum."

Alright then. I clicked my pen and began to write.

"Nicholas Cage is the person I look up to. I love how in all his movies, even in ones that weren't that good, he always gives his all and acts crazy, which works a lot of the time and is extremely funny. I love how he's not afraid to act as himself…" And I continued writing.

About a minute passed when I got a skype notification. Looking up, I saw it was from my friend Brandon. Whatever he was gonna say, I knew it was gonna be interesting. Brandon was always on top of news and fun facts, so any time he finds something he knows will interest me, he tells me. I happily clicked skype, expecting that maybe a new Metroid game had been announced or something happy like that. What I found instead horrified me.

"James! James! Nick Cage is dead!"

I responded, asking him to elaborate. He said that, according to some news site, the famous actor was on set for some movie that hadn't been announced yet when he suddenly had a heart attack and died. Thinking it was some kind of prank, I quickly jumped to google and looked it up. Though I found clickbait that dated a few years, some official news sites were talking about the issue.

My mind then jumped to the notebook. Specifically, the first and fourth rules. "The human whose name is written in this note shall die." "If the cause of death is not specified, the person will simply die of a heart attack."

No, it can't be. There's no way this notebook was real. It had to be some kind of coincidence, right? It was one hell of a coincidence though. No, it was. I know it was. "In fact, I'm so confident in it being a coincidence, I'll write my dad's name!" Flipping a few pages ahead, I quickly wrote, "Johnathan Rook" before quickly looking at my watch. I counted down the 40 seconds. And just as I said "40", I heard my mom scream.