Okay, first thing I want to say. I'm am sooo sorry I didn't get this chapter up! I went out of town for a while, and when I got back I got sick. Then I realized I'd lost the notebook this chapter was in, cleaned my WHOLE room only to find out I'd left it at my friends' house when I'd left. So she had to mail it to me, and it only got here recently. So again, I'm sorry I haven't updated.
Disclaimer- I do NOT own Death Note, or the characters. But the song, yea, that one, that's mine. Do NOT use it, thank you kindly.
...
"Echo." Medusa murmured quietly. "Does anyone know where we're going?" The greenette glanced at her. "Oh... no, but I have that taken care of."
Medusa glanced around, wondering what the girl had planned. Then she noticed the white stripes covering the doors they passes. She looked closer at the substance... was that liquid rubber?
Echo giggled. "Oh, they silicone-d the doors shut. Nice." She murmured appreciatively.
Medusa looked on silently.
On the Plane 3 a.m.
"Excuse me miss. Is there anything I can get you?" Echo looked up at the blue dresses attendant from behind her glasses and smiled. "Coffee would be nice, if its not too much of a bother?" She murmured.
The woman left, and Echo turned to stare out the window, humming quietly to herself. Medusa looked at her questioningly. Lost in her own world, Echo sang softly, "I hide behind walls... Built up so high. But I never thought, that you'd reach the sky. You tore them all down, and you laughed, as they crumbled around me. Oh no one found me."
The woman returned, passing Echo a hot foam cup. The girl smiled wistfully at her, obviously not all the way there, and took a sip of her bitter brew, before going back to her thoughts.
Medusa scribbled in her newest notebook quickly, as she wondered with idle curiosity about the lullaby. Almost not noticing, she wrote out the lyrics carefully, and wrote her question under them.
Echo had stopped humming, and Medusa had fallen asleep. Echo glanced at her watch. Shortly after four. She took a sip of her cold coffee. Tomorrow. Tomorrow, she would be meeting Mello's idol. 'I wonder what he's like?' She thought, before, after having remained awake for two weeks straight, her will failed her, and she slept.
Echo's Dream.
Black. All around her. Echo almost screamed. She hated the dark. With a passion! Suddenly, she was looking at a little girl. The girl was staring at her hands, which were covered in red. And then she was the little girl, blood covering her hands. Black and red. Black and red, and nothing but death. Death and duty.
It was her duty to bring about death. Death and duty. A singsong voice, almost oozing insanity, chimed around her, "Death! Oh glorious death! We live for it, to feed our inner demon!" SHe was looking into a mirror. Blood red eyes stared back at her. She could vaguly remember those eyes. She knew them... they... "Death and Duty!" The voice chimed again, coming from the oh so familiar face. "Who- Who are you?" She stuttered. "Why..." The face smiled. Pointed teeth gleamed in a broken smile. "Why my dear, I'm hurt!... Don't you recognize me? I'm you!"
Bodies... battered, broken and bloody, littered the floor around her, and she stared. "I... am YOU!" The voice echoed around her. "NO!" She screamed.
"NO! You can't be me! I am me!"
"Oh, I pity you, my sweet." The voice whispered. "That is not true at all... You are me! Nothing but an echo of a great warrior! You are worthless! You! You were nothing without me! You exist only for me!" Echo screamed. Long, loud and terrified, tears threatened to pour down her cheeks as she shrieked her rage and fear.
A feral growl emerged from her throat, and the face, her face, laughed manically. "That's it! Show me your anger! Show me your power!" Her fist met the face, which shattered like a mirror, little dusty fragments blew away and Echo let loose another animalistic shriek.
"ECHO! Wake up!" Echo became aware of a hand shaking her roughly. "Wake UP!" The girl sat up with a start, reaching for a knife that she no longer carried on her person. She took in her surroundings, her mind still not fully awake, and her body reacted like a well oiled machine, throwing herself off the couch, she landed in a crouch, hand half raised like a cat, baring her teeth, a menacing half hiss, half growl raked itself from her throat.
Three men she did not know, and Medusa were looking at her in shock. A black haired one with a candy cane half hanging out of his mouth that she assumed was L, an old man, Whammy? and a young man looking like Adonis in the flesh.
Suddenly, it all came back to her. Why she was here, and that they had now power over her. She stood swiftly, stock still, and stared at them, noticing her glasses had been removed.
"Mirror." She choked out. Wordlessly, the old man, Whammy, pointed to a door slightly to the left of the room, and she ran for it. Her eyes! Were they...?
No... she stared into the mirror. There they were, the same light violet they had been for since she had gone to Whammy's Home. "Oh... thank God..." She whispered, slumping to the floor, she lay there. She wasn't sure how long, minutes... hours? It felt like forever... and yet, it only seemed to last a second before a knock sounded on the door.
"Echo-chan... are you alright in there?" She mumbled something about needing her bag, and a moment later, the voice asked what she needed from it.
"Third pocket on the outside... plastic bag with little orange bottles... Thank you." The door opened just enough for the bag to be past to her. Instantly, she kicked it shut and popped two of each, then laid back down on the floor.
"I hide... behind walls built up so high... but I never thought... that you'd reach the sky. You tore them all down and you laughed as they crumbled around me. Oh no one found me..." She half whispered, half sang.
"Images, sounds... bright colors and life, but I view the world in black and white... black and white... The music of the world, people gping out of their way to be happy and many don't understand what's happenin'..."
Outside the bathroom
"Medusa-chan... can you tell us why that little girl has Tegretol and Prozac?" Medusa watched the door with wide eyes, listening to the song, and scribbling as the adults talked. She glanced at them when the bathroom went silent.
"No... Near... her roommate Near, he might know... he seems to know everything about her."
L handed her a cell phone. "Can you contact him? We need her help, but if she is mentally unstable, we wouldn't want to risk her health." Medusa dialed the number she hand seen on the back of Echo's hand. It rang twice before Near answered.
"Near.. Its Medusa..."
"Where is Echo?" The boy demanded. "Is she okay? What's happening?"
"Calm down! We need to know... what's wrong with Echo?" The line went silent. "What happened?" Near asked. His voice dangerously soft. Medusa winced. "We were on the plane... I'd fallen asleep around three thirty... Echo..."
"She feel asleep." It wasn't a question. "I.. Uh.. yeah. She did. She was withering around, and talking then she started screaming. We couldn't get her to wake up, so Ryuuzaki and Light-kun carried her up to the hotel. When she woke up... she was screaming, and she... I think she almost attacked us. Her eyes... Oh Near... I never want to see those eyes again!" She shuddered, remembering the cold, calculating blood red gaze that had hit her with the force of a pick up truck.
L took the phone from the girl as she slowly tried to regain her composure.
"Near-kun. Why is it bad when Echo-chan falls asleep?" The man asked. A crackling sigh floated over the speakers. "Echo is... haunted... by what she used to be. Everything she's seen. She takes... medicine, to control her memories, and another to deal with depression brought on my said memories. Did she take her pills today? They, and her will power, are the only things keeping her together right now."
L shivered. He knew what it was like to be alone. "May I speak to her, please?" Near asked.
L nodded, before remembering the boy couldn't see him. "Of course." He slouched over to the bathroom door. "Echo-chan... there is someone on the phone that would like to speak to you." He pasted the cell though the crack that opened in the door, and rejoined the others.
