Drip Drip Drip
Ominous black clouds loomed overhead, static and fixed as they stretched on forever. Beneath this dark blanket, milky-white skeletons of creatures from a bygone era jutted out of the field, casting amorphous shadows over an endless black desert. Draped across these moon-bones were chains that likely have origins that lie in murky torture chambers from medieval times. A dark mist blanketed the land, obscuring the mountains and plains in the far distance from view.
Drip Drip Drip
Well, not like there was much to see anyway.
Drip Drip Drip
He sighed with content as he fixed his gem-eyes on his new book and took a puff on his cigar.
A perfectly normal day.
Drip Drip Drip
It was rare for a shinigami like him to have a whole day to himself, considering how often others passed by to make appointments for all sorts of reasons, and he planned to make the most he could out of it. After all, to do hard work, one needs hard rest.
Drip Drip
Right?
Drip Drip
A perfectly good day. The shinigami sat deeper into his chair and took a long drag.
Dri-
"AUGGGHH!" The shinigami slapped his gem-encrusted face and looked through his fingers to see where the accursed sound was coming from. There, a sprawled on the ground a couple feet away was a black thing, covered head to toe in some kind of weird murky goo.
What caught the shinigami's eye was a tiny brown drop of liquid suspended from the thing by a connection so thin that it was practically invisible.
If you drop, I will destroy you.
The drop stayed motionless.
. . .
Hmm.
-ip
"ARGHHHHH!"
YOU DARE ANNOY ME...
He slowly raised a bony index finger at the black thing and hollered:
"Get that dripping thing off of you!"
Suddenly, a strong gust of wind slammed against him, knocking the cigar out of his hand and causing the pages of his new book to mimic a mentally-disturbed bird.
FLAPFLAPFLAPFLAPFLAPFLAPFLAP
Now, for the first time, he could see whatever the thing carrying the dripping thing was.
Oh.
It was just another customer.
"Whudduyou want," he grunted, and fixed his eyes back onto his book. He hated walk-ins, especially ones that ruined his good days. And also ones that ruined his cigars. For sure.
The black thing stood up, dusted itself off, and turned around to face the skeleton shinigami. "Hello! oh, uh... well, uh...I've got a bad problem," the thing said. "I tried talking to the boss, but he didn't care, and...and the others told me to find a "Shiny Justin," and that "Shiny Justin" will help me...wait...you are "Shiny Justin" right? You look shiny enough."
"It's Armonia Justin." Armonia turned the page, took out another cigar, and lit it. "Lost notebook?" he asked. If the problem wasn't a lost notebook, he planned to tell this annoying shinigami to get its behind out of his sight. He took a long drag out of his cigar, letting smoke blow out of his skull.
"I didn't lose that, but I did lose-"
Bye bye. "I'm busy. Come again at some other time." He turned the page again.
"C'mon, Shiny Justin! I gotta get help!" the thing pleaded.
Armonia shut his book close and looked up for the first time since this thing's arrival. In front of him stood a towering black mass of flesh covered in holes, like cheese. A small, lipless mouth full of sharp teeth opened up at the creature's midriff. Long strands of white hair hung in clumps from the top of its body, making the creature look like a dead palm tree. It had a pair of very long black legs and two pairs of thin black arms.
It wore large black boots, a black worn-out leather vest covered with pins and stickers, and a tiny plastic tophat. Two arms were stuffed in the vest's coat pockets, while the other two arms hung at the creature's sides. A black notebook peeked out from inside the vest's chest pocket.
Armonia raised an eyebrow. "I've never seen you before, shinigami. Are you new?"
"Of course not, Shiny Justin. Look, you gotta help me!" The black shinigami opened up his four hands, revealing an eye socket in each palm. Two sockets were empty, while the other two had a pair of small white eyeballs. "I was gambling the other day with my eyeballs, I ran out of stuff to use, when some bastard shinigami took all of our stuff, my eye in tow. Before me and my buddies knew it, the bastard was gone in a blur. I looked in every cave and rock and pools full of nasty stuff and I still couldn't find it!" It gestured at the murky brown stuff, now silently falling to the ground.
"I don't see what the problem is. You still got a pair of working eyeballs, haven't you?"
"Uh...they've been badly damaged. The farthest I can see with these eyes is my notebook, everything else is blurry. Even if I get really close, I still can't see it and I dunno why."
The skeleton shinigami propped his head against his palm. "You're lucky I'm in a good mood today. I usually don't accept walk-ins." Armonia scratched his chin. "I've never had a case like this before. The only spare stuff I've got are pens," He took out a lime-colored pen and spun it around. "I don't even think the King has any spare eyes."
The black shinigami squeezed his head-torso thing with his two hands. "Well, how am I supposed to write in my notebook without any functioning eyes?"
Armonia shrugged. "Can't you just zoom in real close to the human?"
"I told you already, the name's all blurry and stuff!"
"When was the last time you wrote a name?"
"I can't remember...a very very long time ago?" The black shinigami flipped through his notebook and found the last name he wrote. "The ink looks pretty old to me. All I can remember is that the life I took was pretty short. It won't last me much."
"Let me think". Armonia thought for a while and finally said, "I can't guarantee anything, but I suggest you go down to the Human World and find a human who could get names for you. I've heard that they treat shinigami very well, and always obey our commands, that is if they don't get too scared and die, or so I've heard. Once you're sure that your lifespan isn't in danger, you could go find your eyeballs"."
The black shinigami shook his head-torso thing. "I'll have to stick with the human until they die! That's boring!"
"Too bad. Do you possess an extra notebook?"
"Uh, I only need one".
"You'll need a spare notebook to go to the human world".
Armonia held out his hand to the black shinigami. "I do have a spare notebook, though I worked long and hard for this. Do you have anything to trade with?"
The black shinigami rubbed his chin and sighed. "I guess...sounds reasonable." He took out three packs of cigars and threw it at Armonia, who caught it with two hands. "The others told me that you'd love a smoke, so I got some cigars on my way here."
Armonia studied the cigars and chuckled. "Where in the world... You heard right". He put the cigars away, took out several rolls of parchment, and handed them to the black shinigami. "Take these before you go. These scrolls are the list of the rules regarding interaction with Humans. A boring read, in my opinion. I'm sure the King won't mind if you break a few small rules. Just don't go around intentionally wreaking havoc or stuff of that sort, and you'll be fine". Armonia pointed to his right at the vast black desert beyond. "If you fly straight that way, you should be able to reach the portal to the Human World. Who knows, your eyes might even be in the Human World". He took out a black notebook and tossed it to the shinigami. "Throw that into the human world and wait for a couple of days. You should instinctively know where the notebook is in the Human World after that."
The black shinigami tucked the scrolls away into his coat pockets and tipped his tiny plastic hat. "Thanks, Shiny Justin. I'll be on my way now."
Armonia sat back in his chair and waved nonchalantly. "Have fun."
"Shiny Justin was right, that really was a boring read."
The black shinigami reached to the bottom of the stairs and looked down. Misty coils and wisps of light flew out from the light and swirled around him.
"The portal to the human world..."
He took out his Death Note and threw it into the light below.
"Now I have to wait until who knows when...ugh, this is so boring."
"Leisure time's over, folks! Get to the courtyard for roll-call!"
The inmate closed the lid over his small jar of strawberry jam and licked his fingers clean. As he walked across the prison yard, something caught his foot. He looked down.
A book?
He picked it up and flipped through it. The pages were ruled, like that of a school notebook. Half of the notebook was filled with thousands of names in all kinds of languages. The other half was eerily blank.
Odd.
He stuffed the book into his jar of jam and continued forward.
Shinigami are not permitted to extend or end another shinigami's life, nor are they permitted to give human lives to other shinigami.
- I feel that my writing is a little too bombastic. Maybe you could let me know?
:)