L stirred from his sleep, his head gently falling to the side. The detective's head pounded and he winced, groaning from the pain.
What happened?
The FBI agents, walking, it raining, and then...
Dead. I must be dead.
His chest constricted with guilt. Watari, Near, Matt, Mello, all those people…he left them in Kira's clutches. That criminal will continue to assert his crazed fantasy upon the world until his protégés prevail against him, whomever he is. He had no doubt they would succeed, for they amounted to him in every way. Matt's quick, sharp reasoning had surpassed Mello's and Near's over the years. Combining his ability to assess situations with Near's technical strengths and Mello's boldness and creativity, they created him, L. There was just one problem, Mello's hardheaded tendencies. He disliked Near and himself. Where Matt and Near functioned in sync with each other, Mello was on another level. He performed at a wholly different pace, part of which was the reason the kid wasn't his sole successor. Mello needed to be grounded by the other two. If not—
The detective's eyes snapped open. His arms were pinned down, one above his head and the other angled over the edge of whatever sort of chair he was laying on, by the dark haired woman above him. His legs were similarly constricted by a male with auburn hair. Relief flooded his body. What exactly is going on? I'm not dead?
He didn't realize he spoke those words out loud, until the male snorted and released his lower half.
"No, you definitely died," The lanky redhead pulled out a chair from the table and sat. "Tell me, how was the other side? Which religion got it right?"
"Shippo!" The woman scolded him. Obviously they have a close relationship. How close, he did not know. He tried to sit up, but the pounding inside his skull only grew worse. He was thankful she forced him back down. "You shouldn't get up just yet. You were in a pretty bad accident."
L cast them a calculating look. He was nearly certain that these people could be trusted with filling him in on his memory lapse. "I was taking a walk, thinking about work, then nothing. What happened?"
The man, Shippo, took a long sip of his tea. She sighed, obviously internally debating about something. "You were hit by some big car, I think. I happened to look down from this window." she gestured to the window to his left, behind the couch, before continuing. "And I saw you standing in the middle of the road, but when I looked back a few moments later, you were in a bloody heap way down the block. I ran down to you—"
His pulse quickened. He could see it now, a clear picture inside his own mind. The headlights came out of nowhere, careening toward him.
"—I'm sorry to say this, but—"
The impact. Eyes scrunched shut, he could feel it all now. The broken femur, three crushed ribs, shattered wrist, broken arm, compressed spine, collapsed lung… he had never felt something as incredibly painful as this before.
"—you died…"
His hearing faded as he absorbed this memory of his death. He was definitely dead, that much was obvious. He looked away from the two ghosts, disgust boiling over at his own subconscious. This was the cruelest joke. Only his own mind could make it all feel so real. From the way he felt the differences in pressure of the two restraining him and the softness of the fabric he was on to the scent of the green tea Shippo drank and the interaction between the two, it all could have only come from him. L turned his ghost head away from the two and sighed, refusing to open his eyes and look at any more of the lies his mind created.
He was without a doubt dead.