Mr. Monster (bleached noise)
prologue, boys and dolls
Staring at his roommate and best friend (his first friend) with two wide, black eyes, L Lawliet noted how ironically serene the other looked in his sleep. His unruly light coffee colored hair was thrown in disarray. His eyelids fluttered softly with the beckoning of beginning stages of sleep. His sun kissed, lithe body was strewn about in such a way he appeared like a broken doll.
But Light Yagami was not a broken doll. Light Yagami broke dolls.
Beautiful men, women, children…he broke them all.
He posed their pretty little perfect limbs, he dressed them up with scars and bruises, he painted their masked smiles with blood and horror.
Of course, L didn't know that for a fact yet. He had his suspicions; those damn suspicions that fuelled his insomnia, but he had no real evidence, no real proof, and in the end, solid proof was all that mattered.
But tonight…tonight L was going to find out about Light's true nature. All the suspicions would be gone tonight.
For some reason Light always seemed to leave at odd hours of the night, all while L pretended to sleep. In reality, his insomnia kept him awake most of the time. 'Most of the time' because L being just as human as anyone else made him require sleep some time or another.
L winced as lightning struck. He hated lightning. It reminded him of horrible, horrible times that he'd much rather forget. As he cautiously peeked out a velveteen curtain, apathetically cursing himself for acting like a scared little child, he heard a barely audible creak.
Light would be waking up soon.
Silently closing the curtains, L managed to ease himself onto the obnoxiously noisy mattress gently, and he closed his eyes as if he was sleeping.
It took most of his willpower not to move any of his facial muscles as a sharp crack of thunder and lightning lit up the darkness beneath his eyelids briefly.
The bed protested underneath his roommate's as (he assumed) he stood up and stretched. His limbs popped unnervingly. His roommate's footsteps echoed throughout the eerily silent room and L was so tempted to open his eyes as they stopped close to his bed. He sensed Light looming over him, and the overactive imagination that kept him awake on nights like these imagined his friend as a blood-lusty monster, acid drool dripping from sharp fangs and endlessly dark sockets where his eyes used to be glaring at him.
L forced the image away and steadied his breathing.
The door to their room shut, and then another muffled door slammed shut.
The raven-haired 'detective' sprung up from the bed and sprinted through the rooms of the apartment they shared to catch up with his roommate.
L stepped out into the cold, gloomy night and shivered as he was drenched instantly because of the thunderstorm. The thunderstorm's clouds blocked the moon, but through the dark grey a few slivers of the moon shone through.
Even with those rays and the occasional crack of thunder, he couldn't make up the image of Light anywhere.
It was as if the man had just simply…disappeared. Briefly L thought of his friend actually turning out to be come kind of supernatural spirit, then admonished himself for humoring such a silly thought.
The sound of grass shuffling in the breeze snapped L back to reality. He knew, in his genius mind, that the cause of the dead, dried up grass's movement was natural, but the hair standing up on the back of his neck told him otherwise.
L turned around quickly to find nothing but an expanse of trees and more dead grass. But one thing caught his eye. One little patch of grass, a barely noticeable patch that was thriving instead of dying like all his brothers, was moving in the opposite direction of the wind.
Now, before I continue, I know, firsthand, what it's like to experience an adrenaline rush. Your body sort of moves on its own and your legs and arms wobble. Your mind is fuzzy; as if someone played a trick on you by planting a smoke bomb in your head. Your heart pounds very hard and the rhythmic noise is carried off to your ears, so you can barely hear anything. I'm sorry, I'm not good at explaining things. Anyways, if you're asking why I told you this, it's because you need to know why L did what he did next. Why such an ingenious mind was beckoned to do something so incredibly stupid. This is your ironic reason why. Adrenaline. The very primal mechanism that's supposed to save your life. It floods your system like a drug and overrides its mechanisms.
L stumbled in the direction of whatever brushed by the grass slowly, as gracefully as he could with his knees shaking.
Those few seconds lasted forever, the rain drenching his abnormally thin body, the wind whistling jarringly in his ear. And when he reached the flourishing patch he realized it was the biggest mistake he'd ever make.
Placed oh-so-carefully beneath a particularly beautiful flower was a message painted in blood:
SHOULDN'T FOLLOW A SERIAL KILLER. :)
L stumbled backwards but it didn't matter because he was tackled from behind anyways.
"You're next, asshole," a tall hooded figure hissed into his ear.
L was strong for his weight, but this person was stronger. His kicks and attempted punches were all in vain, as the perpetrator pinned L's wrists to the ground.
The raven, more frightened than he'd ever been in his life, attempted to open his mouth to scream, but the man covered his mouth with a gloved hand and whispered harshly, "Scream, and I'll rip your tongue out and eat it in front of you."
L's eyes widened. This is what happened to those other victims? Those missing body parts? This madman ate them? Those certainly weren't the types of conclusions he was coming to.
"Understand?" the man asked.
"Yes…" L nodded slowly, his mind buzzing with as much activity as he could manage in this state of fear. He'd heard this person's voice before. Who was it, dammit…? He couldn't think straight at all.
"I apologize for following you (did that mean this person was Light?), please let me go and I won't tell anyone."
The killer cackled. It was high and grating and carried the whispers of the dead in it. L Lawliet, for once in his life, was truly terrified.
"Did you know that every single one of them said that?"
"You call your victims 'them' to dissociate yourself from your crimes. If you're feeling guilty, killing me won't do anything to help," L whispered, attempting to spare his life, or, at the very least, buy time.
Who he was waiting for, he had no idea.
"Is that so…?" the killer traced around L's facial features lightly. "You know about psychology, do you? That's nice. Maybe you can tell me what drives me to kill. Is it that monster than can never be tamed eating away at my sanity? Is it the fact that in the twenty-one years of my life, I have never, ever met one single, good human being?"
"Maybe you just need help. Let me go and I can help you."
The killer scowled and carefully took something out of his pocket. Upon closer inspection it was a piece of cloth. Said killer carefully tied it around his mouth. As much as L willed himself not to, tears started streaming down his face and his previously noiseless whimpers became audible.
A crack of lightning caused L's eyes to automatically snap shut and the thunder made his heart pound even faster.
The killer, who was straddling L's chest, found hilarity in the situation for some reason. He laughed again and whispered in a sickeningly sweet voice, "Shh, shhh….it's just thunder…"
A gentle hand wiped L's tears away softly, and, if his mouth wasn't covered, L would've spit on this creature.
"There. See? Thunder can't kill you; the weather's clearing up soon anyways."
The hand that hadn't been holding his wrist all this time slowly went up to his chin in thought. "Shit. Weather's clearing up soon. Sorry, doll, but I can't soothe you anymore."
His hand went to his black hoodie's pocket, and a scalpel glinted in the rays of the moon.
"Now, stay as still for me as you can. I've run out of anaesthesia and I'm afraid I couldn't steal more in time. Forgive me?" A disgusting grin.
L shook his head viciously, crying and sobbing and losing all dignity and pleading to this bloodthirsty animal.
But despite all this, the scalpel danced along one of his eyes lightly, teasing his conjunctiva but never touching it. Then it went and drew some random lines across L's cheek, marring the pale skin.
L sobbed the whole time; his attempts to stay stony-faced failed miserably and he knew it.
When you're about to die, though, you don't really care what your killer sees you as.
Another crack of lightning and L's eyes shut and he murmured a soft little, "No." as if to deny all the terrible things that were happening to him in his childhood by his very own father were happening again.
The killer sighed and placed the scalpel down next to him.
"Is it the fear or the pain?"
"W-what…?" L asked, confused at this man's question and still trying to figure out who he was.
"Is it the fear or the pain that's making you cry?" he asked, his hooded head cocked to the side eerily, a grin showing from under his hood. It seemed the psycho was generally curious.
"Both." L didn't want to satisfy this man's urges, but he had no choice. L's life was in somebody else's hands, and that somebody else enjoyed it thoroughly.
"Really…." He seemed to contemplate that for a second. His hand's grip on L's wrist never wavered. "I've never been able to feel fear. What does your psychological profiling say about that, doll?"
Under his hood L could make up a wide, disturbing grin. "It means you're a psychopath."
Said psychopath's grin faltered for a second, before his grip on L's wrists tightened tenfold. L's face contorted in pain.
"Sorry, doll, seems like our fun is over."
"What? No! Don't do this, you don't have to!"
A string of murmurs and cries and pleas fell out of L's muffled mouth.
"I'm sorry. You were nice to talk to, really," the killer said, stroking L's cheek with his thumb, "Thank you for being such a good victim."
"No, stop!"
The killer picked up the scalpel next to him.
"Don't. Please."
He examined his own reflection.
"Look at me."
His hair, his eyes, his smug face. It was an act. It was all an act. He was a monster. A flesh-eating, brother and sister murdering demon.
"Look at me, you're not a freak or whatever you think you are!"
And he hated it.
"Don't do it! You don't have to, I promise."
He pressed the knife to his own arm momentarily, experimentally, what did pain feel like?
"Stop! Dammit, don't hurt yourself either!"
He stopped. Chuckled. His victim was simply adorable.
But no good deed goes undone.
"Goodbye, L."
L's eyes widened. The voice. The face. The kindness.
It all made sense.
A crack of lightning behind the two revealed the man under the hood.
"You're…"
And the serial killer raised the scalpel.
Thanks for reading! And yes, as strange as this was, it is a prologue.
That means more chapters coming up, folks. When? Well how fast can you press that review button? :?