Demiyue's Death Note: Chapter One

Demiyue Vered-The Rose of the Half-Moon

Demiyue woke up, the next morning. He was laying on his bed, and the window next to it was closed, but the blinds were up. He felt a bit sluggish at first, but then he stretched out and he realized he felt pretty good. He remembered the night before, or perhaps it was early that morning, he didn't remember.

At the intersection where he found the notebook, he stopped reading after the third line of the first page:

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

He chuckled and flipped through it briefly, guessing every white page was blank at first glance. He was about to put it down again when he had a thought:

Why not keep it?

So he tucked it under his arm, fairly certain no one had dropped it. It fell out of the sky, he thought. How in the world did it even get here? Then he started back to his house the way he came.

He knew he shouldn't believe something like this could work. There was absolutely no logical way that it could. You write a person's name in a notebook, and they die. Yeah, that made sense. But he felt odd on the way back; like he was being watched. It was an eerie feeling. And what if the notebook...actually worked?

He considered it only as a hypothetical. What if it did work? Then what would happen? Demiyue couldn't imagine. It was a concept too far away from reality to form opinion on.

He was home before he knew it, and he made sure once again to not wake up the others of his family while going upstairs to his room. He was pleased to find no one had woken up and noticed his absence. So he closed the door behind him, and set the notebook on his desk.

He sat down on the chair in front of it, and opened the notebook to the first page, reading that third line once again:

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

This time, he read on:

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

If the cause of death is written within the next forty 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 six minutes and forty seconds.

Why is it so specific? he thought. This can't be real...so I suppose whoever made this was pretty immature. Curious, he continued reading the rules until he'd read all of them, then he closed it, put it in one of the drawers of the desk, and quickly fell asleep on his bed.

Now it was the next morning, and he looked back at his desk from his bed. That same eerie feeling hit him again: like he was being watched. He looked around, but he couldn't see anything. So he focused his thoughts back on the Death Note.

Well, it couldn't hurt to try it, right? For some reason, he felt the desire to just try it out, once, to see if it was real or not. He still had never considered that it was actually real, he had stayed to the thought that it was fake, but he needed to try it out...but who's name should he write down? He guessed it would have to be someone bad...

No! He was thinking too hard about this. He didn't need to think about that, because the notebook wasn't real. Just write someone's name down! How hard could it be?

He didn't want to believe it was real, but...it could work. Right? So it had to be tested out on a criminal.

So he switched on his TV to a news channel, and a woman was speaking about a man who had just murdered someone and gotten away in a car...the police had identified him, she said. Yes, there was his name...and a face, too...perfect. Daniel Lupous. He carefully wrote the name on the first line of the first blank page.

"All right, Daniel," he said aloud. "Let's see if you die."

He watched tensely, still not believing the impossible could happen. The reporter continued to talk about the murderer, while Demiyue watched, and after a minute, he looked back at the clock and sighed.

"Well, what did I expect," he said quietly.

"We have just received report that there has been a car crash at the location of the scene!" the reporter suddenly said. Demiyue looked over, curious.

"According to the police, the victim just suddenly stopped his car altogether!"

"What...?" he said, quieter. "Nah, i-it's nothing..."

"The murderer is dead! It has been confirmed that he's dead!"

Demiyue stared at his television screen. It felt that he might stop breathing, too.

"They are denying they shot him...they say he suddenly fell on the driving wheel!"

Okay...stay calm. This couldn't have happened.

"Demiyue!" he heard his mother call from a floor below. "Me and your sister are going out to eat for lunch today, you wanna come?"

"Uhh, yeah mom," Demiyue said, sounding normal. Perfect.

He just needed to try it out one more time...

They went to a small restaurant nearby, whose owner was a friend of his mom's. They ordered, while Demiyue also kept watch for crime. Obviously, he'd brought his Death Note with him, hidden inside his clothes (where else was he going to put it?).

Eventually, their food came, but nothing interesting had happened yet.

"Demi?" his mother said. He looked over at her. "Aren't you going to eat your food?"

He hadn't realized his food was even there. "Oh, yeah." Gotta act normal, he thought.

So he tried to blend in with their conversation, like nothing was bothering him. Nothing was happening in that restaurant. He needed another confirmation!

Soon, they had paid, and they opened the front doors of the place to leave. That was it? he thought.

He had a vague memory later that his sister said she was full, when something caught his eye; three short middle-aged men, over one teenage girl.

This was it-what he'd been waiting for.

He tried to walk slower, to see what would happen between the four, and if he could get their names.

"Hey, lady," the one in the middle said. "I don't mean trouble, but what are you doing out here all by yourself?"

"P-please," the girl said. "I didn't do anything to you! Who are you?" She cowered in front of the eager-looking faces of the men.

"Name's Matthew Smith," he said darkly. "This here's Carlos Garcia, and here's Drake Fure." He pointed to the right and then the left of him with his thumb as he spoke. "You happy now?"

"Look where you're going, Demi," his mom said to him. The men and girl were a bit far away from them by now, but Demiyue could still see what was going on.

"I just want to see what happens," he said. He hoped she would buy that.

Those three men were almost asking for it, weren't they? No-remember, it wasn't real. He took out the notebook and wrote the three names, under Daniel Lupous. He waited patiently. His family was just about to turn a corner-but only thirty seconds left!

He carefully hid his Death Note once again, just about to turn the corner, looking for an excuse...

"Mom!" he said suddenly. "We have to help that girl!"

"Oh, what can we do about it?" she said.

Ten seconds...

"There must be something we can do!"

"HELP!"

Demiyue turned over and saw them once again-the girl, and those three men.

Five seconds...

Just as the middle one, Matthew, was about to bring a knife down on her, he suddenly let out a choking sound and fell to the ground.

Demiyue stared once again.

"What's gotten into ya, Matt? OH!" the right one then collapsed like the first. One by one, the three men died of heart attacks. The girl looked frightened out of her mind, and Demiyue could not believe his eyes. It...worked?

He did not remember walking home. His body just worked his way up the stairs and to his room, ignoring all things said to him.

That night, he went to bed early. He couldn't stand the thought that he had just killed people-because of a notebook. No-he did it, not the notebook. Every time he thought about it, he had to remind himself that it was true. That he found a notebook that could kill people. A notebook...of death.

Now that he knew it was the real thing, what should he do with it?

The first thought that came to his mind: hide it.

He wouldn't do anything else with it. He would just make sure that it was hidden from the rest of the world. No destroying it or using it. Easy as that. A book like this was too valuable to destroy, but too deadly to use. He would keep it so it wouldn't fall into the wrong hands.

The first time he saw it, it fell straight through the light of the half-moon. He liked to think that the book was meant for him, because his name, Demiyue, meant "half-moon". His full name, Demiyue Vered, meant "rose of the half-moon". Or was it a coincidence where that Death Note fell that night?

Either way, he knew he would do his best to keep it, and make sure no one found out about it. Especially his family.