chapter 2

disclaimer: I do not own death note

Vanilla opened her eyes. She was lying on the street surrounded by broken glass. She turned her head to see her parents car and the truck that had hit them burst into flames. The front of the car were her parents were sitting was completely crushed. Vanilla had somehow managed to avoid any injury other than a few scrapes and cuts on her arms and legs. 'are they...dead?' the thought caused tears to well up in her eyes. She jolted up into a sitting position when she heard sirens.

'the police' she thought. she couldn't see them but she could hear the sound getting closer. 'if they find me they will take me to some old dirty orphanage. then everyone will know I'm an orphan now! I don't want to go to an orphanage!' She looked around quickly and saw her backpack just a few feet away from her. She ran over and picked it up, slinging it over her shoulders and running around to hide behind a corner. She watched as the police cars and ambulances came around the corner a moment later. She watched as they tried to get through the wreckage. No more than a second later the car exploded.

Vanilla couldn't bear to watch anymore. she turned and ran as fast as she could, tears streaming down her face. She kept running, she didn't know where she was going she just had to get away. She lifted her hand to wipe away the tears but they kept coming. She ran into something soft and fell down. She sniffed and looked up to see an old man with white hair and a kind, gentle face.

"hello little one, are you lost?" she stared at him a minute.

'yes! yes, I have nowhere to go! please help me!' her mind said, but she couldn't make herself say it. She shook her head and stood up. She walked past the man then started running again. Her mind kept screaming at her, 'go back! go back!' but her legs wouldn't listen, they kept moving, carrying her far, far away through the streets of Tokyo. Away from her parents, away from her home, away from the kind old man, and to a destination she didn't yet know. She ran until her legs felt like jelly and her chest felt like it was on fire and her sides hurt from running. She stopped to catch her breath and looked around at her surroundings. she was in a dead end alleyway next to an apartment building. There was a fire escape on the outside of the building to her right and next to her was a big green dumpster. Vanilla suddenly felt really cold in just her little pink dress. She climbed up on some boxes that were next to the dumpster, she opened the lid and looked inside. It smelled horrible but she knew it was her best chance at finding something to keep her warm without stealing. She dug past lots of old food and some soggy cardboard and a shoe with a hole in the toe before she finally found something. It was an adult size black cloak with a hood, 'probably from an old Halloween costume' she thought. The bottom right corner was singed off, but other than that it was in perfect condition.

She put it on over her backpack and tied the strings to hold it in place. It was far to big for her, dragging on the ground behind her at least a few feet, and the hood covered her entire face, but it was very warm. She curled up beside the dumpster and went to sleep.

~time skip~

When she awoke the sun had already set and the alleyway she was in was particularly dark. She sat up when she heard the sound of footsteps. She saw two men push a teenager up against the wall.

"give us all your money!" one of the men said. Vanilla could see the fear in the boy's eyes

"I-I don't have any!" He put his hands up in defense. Vanilla crept silently across the back of the ally, the black cloak she was wearing made it almost impossible to see her in the thick shadows. She got close enough that she could see their faces. Carefully, she unzipped her backpack and pulled out the Polaroid camera. she made sure to turn off the flash before she took a picture of the scene. She put the camera back in her backpack and held the picture in her hand. She studied the faces of the men and the boy, making sure she would remember every detail. Eventually the men found a wallet in the boy's pocket. They took it and left the ally. A few minutes later the boy stood up and shakily left the ally.

Vanilla ran over to a part of the ally where the moonlight was bright enough to see. She dug through her backpack and pulled out her pencil case and notepad. She tore a page of of the notepad and took the glue stick out of her pencil case. She glued the picture to the corner of the page and then took out a red crayon. In her neatest handwriting, she wrote down everything about the mugging she could remember, what the two men looked like, what the teenager looked like and everything they had said. She wrote every little detail, excluding who she was, why she was in the ally, and how she got all the information. She was about to write her name but stopped.

'I can't put my name on here or they will know who I am and find me and send me to an orphanage. I need a code name, and it has to be cool' she scratched her cheek as she tried to come up with something. "ahah!" she said aloud. She grabbed an orange crayon and wrote on the empty space in the bottom right corner, '-Dragon'. satisfied with her code name, she put everything back into her backpack and zipped it up. With the paper in her hand, she ran to the police station, careful not to be seen. Once inside, she snuck past the lady at the desk, witch wasn't hard as she was asleep, and ran down the halls. She was careful to avoid all security as she made her way to the chief's office. Once inside she carefully set the paper on the desk were someone would see it. Cautiously she peeked out the door. Not seeing anyone, she put her hood up and sprinted back through the halls and out of the building into the night.