Chapter 2
A/n: This chapter is mostly about Mello. And it's kind of angsty and gory. I'm actually not too happy with how it came out but…
Mihael was only seven, but his mother allowed him to walk to and from school every day on his own. Mihael enjoyed his independence from his parents and often boasted about it to the other students.
But to day was one of those days where you really wish that there was someone walking beside you to talk with. Mihael had gotten the highest score on the written test in all of the second grade classes in his school. His teacher had suggested sending him directly to the fourth grade next year and he wanted to tell his mother immediately.
Mihael knew something was amiss as soon he stepped up to the porch. There wasn't anything particularly unusual about the state of the house, but more a vibe that sent chills down the blond child's spine.
Warily he reached out to open the door. At first glance nothing seemed different, and Mihael berated himself for being so foolish. But as he stepped inside the atmosphere became cold. The boy was very aware of the quiet hanging over him.
"Hello?" He called softly, taking a cautious step forwards. He felt something squelching beneath his sneaker. He looked down and let out a cry of shock and horror.
He was standing on the remains of his younger sister.
She was barely recognizable. It looked as though someone, or something, had ripped her open and strewn her innards across the entryway of the house. Her drying blood was black on the green carpet.
Mihael backed away quickly, but he was unable to take his eyes off the horrid mess that had been a breathing girl that morning before he'd left for school.
"Mommy!" He cried out, voice cracking.
No answer.
Mihael felt pressure behind his eyes and knew he was going to start crying. "Dad!" he sobbed out.
Nothing.
The tears began to flow freely and the sobbing boy stumbled blindly to his parents' room.
Mihael screamed.
His mother was dangling from the ceiling. One of his dad's belts had been used to hang the woman by her neck. The blond woman was stripped naked and her skin had been ripped away along her front. Blood was running down her legs and dripping off the tips of her toes to the floor.
The young boy thankfully didn't see his father's corpse on the other side of the bed in the room. The man had been bludgeoned to an unrecognizable mashed thing that looked more like ground beef than the man it was supposed to be.
Mihael fell to his knees and continued to wail. He didn't know that his screams had been heard. He didn't know that his worried neighbors had come over in their worry, calling the police when they saw the gore in the doorway. He didn't even notice when an officer lifted him up to take him away from the scene. He only knew that his whole world was coming to an end. And he kept screaming.
Mello jerked awake, drenched in a cold sweat. He brought his hands to his face and groaned. He hadn't dreamt of his family's murder in years. He realized he was crying and wiped the offending drops away with the back of his sleeve.
"Damnit," he sobbed into his fists. How could he have been affected by the murders when Matt wasn't? It was ridiculous. The man who'd murdered his family (along with four others) had long since been sentenced to death. The guy was probably rotting in death row by now. Mello's nightmare's had even ceased in the years since he came to Wammy House.
"Until tonight…" he muttered bitterly to himself. Brushing more tears away and trying to calm himself down some. His heart was still beating rapidly in his chest.
And Matt had had the nerve to sleep peacefully through his nightmare! 'Some best friend he turned out to be' Mello thought, getting somewhat irked with the red head. 'He should've woke up.' Though Mello never really made any extremely loud noises while sleeping.
Now that Mello was on the thought of 'sleeping noises', he realized that Matt was uncharacteristically quiet that night. The other boy was usually a loud enough sleeper to wake the dead, and then kill them all over again.
"Hey, Matt?" the blond hissed to the darker side of the room. He received no response. Mello pushed his covers down and swung his legs over the bed, debating on whether or not to go check on his roommate. "Matt?" He called, somewhat louder.
The silence made something cold drop into the thirteen-year-old's stomach.
"Wake up right now and get your ass out of bed!" Mello's voice rose to a level just below yelling.
But there was nothing from the red head's side of the room.
Images of gore and death flashed in the back of the young genius's mind, but he pushed them away. He'd locked the window. There's no way…
Mello felt a slight breeze.
Looking over could barely make out the window. It was open.
'Fuck shit no damn hell murderer crap God fucking window'
Mello couldn't move. He wanted more than anything to get up and turn on the light, storm over to Matt's bed and shake him awake, then force the other kid to go on chocolate raid or something. Anything to get them out of this room.
But if he turned on the light then the entire room would become visible. And Matt wouldn't be Matt but a twisted heap of dismantled flesh and blood and Mello needed to leave that mother fucking room right now.
The blond got up and was out the door before you could blink.
'First floor. Rodger's room,' Mello's mind supplied. 'Get Rodger.' His feet headed towards the stairs, taking the rest of him with them. Mello didn't pay attention to where he was going, the direction to Rodger's office room was permanently engraved in his mind and he was being brought there on auto pilot.
He didn't see the other kid coming up the stairs until he bowled over him.
The two tumbled the rest of the way down the marble step and landed in a pile of twisted limbs and groans.
"Mello, could you get your elbow out of my gut?" A voice asked from below him.
The blond looked down to see who he'd trampled. "I-Matt?" He blinked down at the shock of blood read hair and orange tinted goggles.
"No, it's Santa. What do you want for Christmas?" The kid said sarcastically, shoving the older boy off of him. "Where are you going this late?"
"Uh… I need more chocolate." Mello lied, not wanting to let Matt know he'd been scared. He'd run out of the room when he thought Matt was dead. Some friend he was.
"Oh, you must be really deprived then," Matt laughed, "you were going like, ninety miles an hour or something!"
"Yeah…" Mello muttered, distracted.
"Well… I could go with you to get some…?" The younger genius offered.
"That's okay," Mello dismissed, "I think I still have some under my mattress now that I think about it."
The red head slapped his friend on the forehead. "God, you goin' senile or something?"
Mello growled and stood up, grabbing Matt's arm and hoisting him with him. "You wish." He said, "If I went crazy that'd make you second here."
"That doesn't sound so bad," Matt grinned, "Maybe if I keep you from eating chocolate for a few days you really will lose it."
"And how would you get my chocolate without losing all your fingers?" Mello demanded, "It's not like I hide them without laying traps."
"Are you forgetting who designed the traps for you?" came the cocky reply.
"I just like to let you feel useful." The blond waved the other boy off, "I've got my own tricks."
"Whatever," Matt said, running ahead as they came closer to their dorm. He opened the door and disappeared inside.
Mello wasn't far behind; when he entered Matt had already buried himself in his blankets. The window was still open and the over emotional boy had to wonder why it was open again. He shuddered and shut it again, making sure to lock it.
Matt rolled over half way to give his friend a confused stare.
"Too fucking cold." The blond growled, "From now on I want to keep the window shut. Okay?"
"Uh… fine?" Matt said, forming the reply as a question.
"Good," Mello huffed, flopping down on the bed and falling into another fitful sleep.
--
Matt did wake up the next morning, much to the surprise of the other students. Mello seemed to be over whatever had been bugging him the previous night. He was reading through a psychology theory book and eating a bar of chocolate while Matt ate cereal.
The red head was meticulously eating his Lucky Charms, eating around the marshmallows and spitting out any that he accidentally put in his mouth.
"That's disgusting." Mello informed his friend. "Why are you eating them like that?"
"Like what?" Matt asked, confused, spitting a little heart shaped marshmallow back into his bowl.
"Like that!" The blond exclaimed, pointing to the saliva and milk covered cereal bit with a shudder.
Matt just blinked, "isn't that the way you're supposed to eat them?" He asked.
"What?"
"Well, first you have to eat the little wheat things to get them out of the way. But sometimes the marshmallows hide on the bottom of the spoon, and even if you accidentally get one in your mouth, you can't eat it." the goggle head explained, "Then once you're done with the first part you have to eat the marshmallows in the right order."
"And what order is that?" Mello asked, not really caring anymore.
"The way the commercial goes," Matt said between carefully selected bites. "You know: 'Hearts, Stars, and Horseshoes, Clovers and Blue Moons. Pots of Gold and Rainbows, and the Red Balloons.'" He even said it in that annoying lilting way that the children on the television did. Matt really had no shame.
Mello turned away from him. "Okay, I don't know you anymore."
Matt's eyes welled up with big fake tears, "W-what?" his voice was laced with the perfect balance of shock and hurt, and even Mello almost believed he'd actually offended his friend. Until, of course, Matt ruined the affect by tackling the blond and starting to quote friendships speeches from the animes aired on Saturday morning cartoons.
--
"…and the burning torch of our friendship will rise above the darkness of…."
"Matt, I swear to God if you don't get off me I'll rip your…"
"…and even the sharpest blade cannot cut through the fabric of…"
"…not even gonna have to worry about that killer in a second!"
"…can't really remember what comes after that, but then there's this Shining Light of Hope and Justice or someshit that-"
"Are you two okay?" A smooth voice asked from behind Matt.
He straightened up so that he was sitting on Mello's stomach. He looked over his shoulder and grinned. "Hey Near, what's up?"
Mello snarled, "What's that little albino freak doing in here?!" He demanded, as if it were unusual for Near to enter the cafeteria. Which, actually, it was. The young prodigy usually spent most of his time locked up in his playroom. Yes, the playroom is actually his.
"My playroom was invaded," he said simply, "I deemed it safer to move on to a more…" he looked around, waiting for the right word to come to him, "public area."
Matt leaned back against Mello's knees, still half turned to face Near. He ignored the other boy's shouts and death threats. "Who invaded?" He asked.
"Gypsy's little gang." Near replied, twisting a strand of white hair around his index finger.
Gypsy's group, more like pack, had five members total, making it the third larges gang of bullies at Wammy House. Out of the four hundred twenty three students at Wammy's they were among the elite. Four of them were in the top one hundred students, and two of those were in the top twenty. Gypsy herself was eighteenth in rank, and her right hand, Shiloh, was sixth. Bo was the youngest and biggest in the pack, just three months older than Mello, and he was in the bottom fifty students. He was the closest thing Wammy's could get to 'big and stupid'. Though at this orphanage, there really was no such thing.
Gypsy's main targets seemed to be her fellow top twenty classmates, Shiloh received amnesty for being her sister's boyfriend and also a useful member. Mello and Matt didn't usually get bothered by them because, well, anyone who messed with Mello didn't walk away without being horribly disfigured. And anyone who messed with Matt was messing with Mello. The pack so far found them 'not worth the trouble'.
Near, on the other hand, was a perfect target. He was small, physically weak, and annoyingly intelligent. Anything they could do to him to throw him off his game without evoking the wrath of Rodger was done.
Mello finally got annoyed with the striped boy on his gut and shoved him aside roughly. He stood up to glare at his archrival. "So what?" He stated, "it's not like they've never come into your little playroom before."
"Well they…" Near trailed off, something he didn't do often.
"They what?" Mello pressed.
"They started breaking the toys L gave me…" He admitted almost sheepishly.
Matt stood up to stand next to Mello, "Why not just go to Rodger then?" he asked, confused.
"Do to certain circumstances; I thought it best to let them have their way for today." Near said, not sounding entirely convincing.
Matt could tell that Near was upset by the loss of his toys. The twelve year old was an easy person to read, but Matt and Mello had known him long enough to be able to tell when he was distressed. He had to feel sorry for the kid, even if being Mello's friend meant he couldn't help him out.
"So why are you telling us?" Mello asked.
"I'm not expecting you to help me." Near muttered, "I only came over here because you two looked like you were engaging in less than pg thirteen activities. You were the ones whom asked me why I wasn't in the playroom."
Mello colored at the words, grabbing Matt by the shirt and began dragging him out of the dining hall.
"Mello where-"
"Back to our dorm until classes start. Or I swear I'm gonna hit that brat."
"But I wasn't finish-"
"You can gross me out some other time. Now shut the fuck up." Mello barked, effectively shutting the other kid up.
But almost as soon as they returned to their room Mello was leaving.
"Stay here." He ordered.
"Why?" Matt asked, exasperated.
"Because, I need to take my anger out on something. And if I stay here any longer I can't guarantee you'd come out with all your bones intact."
The scary thing was that that statement was probably true.
Matt sighed, "Whatever you say," he muttered, going over to his bed to retrieve his DS. "Just don't kill anyone."
The door slammed without an answer given.
