DO NOT STOP FOR DEATH

I've seen the future, I can't afford it
Tell me the truth, sir, someone just bought it
Say, Mr. whispers! Here come the click of dice
Roulette and blackjacks - gonna build us a paradise
Larger than life and twice as ugly
If we have to live there, you'll have to drug me

- How to be a billionaire, ABC

Sayu first heard about the Shinigami Servants from her older brother. It was a dull grey morning, soon after their father had left for war. She could still smell his black coffee, still could see him getting ready for work in her mind. Back when her father had a job—before the NPA recruited him for a war, before the words 'police man' and 'detective' meant soldier. She missed those mornings—she still missed them.

She had found Light staring blankly at a newspaper, looking far older than sixteen. He had looked too old for a fifteen year old, as well. He had started acting, talking, looking like an old man. But sometimes she forgot, and that morning was no exception.

"Who are the Shinigami Servants?" she asked her brother, reclaiming his attention from the reports of dead journalists, angry riots, and the eternal war. She watched as the newspaper lowered with a sigh, revealing his masked face. She was new to the masks; even though it had been two years, she was still so unused to the masks. Sometimes, she wanted to ask him if he would take it off.

"A cult," he answered shortly before looking at his watch and muttering under his breath. He was sixteen—it was the year he had tried to become perfect. He had more jobs than usual; it wasn't until later that Sayu realized it was the stress. Deep down, she thought he already knew their father wasn't coming back.

Light didn't believe in happy endings—he thought they ruined the story.

"Like what kind of a cult?" asked Sayu, her whining voice causing Light's angry muttering to increase. Soon would come the swearing; he always swore in the mornings, right after he had the cup of coffee.

"The kind full of idiots." He paused, still clutching the mug exclaiming 'Number One Dad' in one hand. "Oh, wait. That applies to all cults." He moved towards the coffee maker, trying to get his fill before their mother once again warned him of the dangers of caffeine overdose.

"That's really descriptive, Light. Aren't you supposed to be telling me these things? What if I joined the Shinigami Servants? It would be all your fault because you didn't tell me." She smiled and giggled as he reached for the newspaper to swat her on the head with the headline exclaiming the 'hopeful' end of the war.

"If you joined the Shinigami Servants, I might have to kill you," he threatened, his brown eyes glinting with the thought of murder. It was in moments like these that Sayu realized Light never had a chance to grow up.

Underneath the swearing and pessimism, he was still the fifteen-year-old boy dressed in clothes to big for him with shoelaces dragging behind as he walked—the fifteen-year-old-boy whose father left for war.

"You couldn't kill me—I'm your sister." Underneath all those harsh words, Light really was a softie; people just couldn't see it. Light had always been good at wearing masks.

"You want to bet? As long as I dispose of the witnesses and evidence properly, I don't see why not." He smiled. A good start to the day—no swearing, no anger. His bosses would be happy as long as Light stayed happy.

It was one of the last good days Sayu remembered.

"What are you going to tell Light? When he finds out where all the money goes?" asked Sayu, confronting the blonde priestess in the doorway. Misa paused to look up at Sayu before moving past her.

"Do you know that we're broke? You gave everything—every little bit of money we had! Light's going to kill you when he finds out what you've done to us. Do you know that?" Sayu could hardly suppress the urge to hit her sister-in-law, the desire to send her flailing to the floor. She'd slapped her before, when she found the bills unpaid, when she discovered how deep in debt they were.

"I had no choice," said Misa slowly, her voice hesitant, too unused to make much of a sound. The depression had caused the blonde to decay; there were no more flashy outfits, no more interviews. All she did was shut herself up in a church and pray—pray and donate.

"You had no choice? Really, Misa. Do you think I'm stupid? My mother can't go to the doctor's because of you; my mother is sick because of you. My mother is old and could die because of you." Sayu turned as she watched Misa make her way through the dirty, collapsing apartment room—just where they used to be, just what Light had worked so hard to get them out of.

Light had tried to defeat the poverty trap. He'd failed.

"If Light were here…!" shouted Sayu, but the threat went unfinished because Misa whipped her head around and cut off her sentence with a sneer.

"Light isn't here. That is the whole problem—your precious brother isn't here. He hasn't been here for months and he isn't going to be here until they bring him back in a coffin. So don't go telling Misa what Light would do if he was here, because he's not." Misa made her way past the furniture they had left, the furniture she hadn't sold, and into what she called her room.

But she was right. Light wasn't there; he wasn't going to help her cheat on a test, this time. This time, it was only Sayu, and no matter how many times she asked, 'What Would Light Do?' he never answered.

The shock had gotten her mother sick. After all, how was she to know that Sayu had to organize a move to a cheap apartment? That, she had learned from Light. She had watched every time he tried to move somewhere better, to some place with neighbors that wouldn't try to kill her, to some place where she couldn't smell the crack through the walls. Sayu didn't want to go back there, those places, those rooms, but Misa had left her no choice.

Misa had forgotten to pay the bills, all of the bills. Every day, Sayu would find her locked in her room, clutching a small golden key and repeating the words, "May God have mercy on my soul."

Sayu thought it was depression. She'd seen it before—they had told her that her brother was depressed. But he hadn't become a living doll. He had become worse, yes, grown horrid and cantankerous and downright nasty—he had become the light of the fire that flares brightest before fading away into smoke and ash. Even in desperation, he would not become like Misa; he would still burn—burn away into nothing, burn out the eyes of anyone who dared to look. Light was a fighter; Misa was not. Depression broke Misa like a toy and left her hidden in the corner, and Sayu was left to find her.

She didn't talk, she didn't eat, she didn't move. But most important of all, she didn't pay bills and she gave, gave everything away, to Kira. To the God that had never answered anyone's prayers—especially not Sayu's.

Misa was right. Light couldn't help her.

She stepped outside the apartment so she didn't have to listen to that damn repeated phrase, so she wouldn't have to see Misa sitting in her corner, rocking back and forth, doing nothing but praying.

That's when the pamphlet caught her eye. 'Shinigami Servants,' it said in bold lettering. Her brother had hated the Shinigami Servants because they were afraid—afraid of the gods, afraid of the humans fighting them. But Light had failed to mention that it paid to be afraid. They paid you money to be afraid of the Shinigami.

And even though Sayu didn't admit it, she was afraid of Death Gods.

If Light couldn't help her, she'd have to learn to help herself.

Months passed, and she knew how.

The church frightened her sometimes. The people wept in there, their masks stained with tears. They killed people in there—sacrificed them to appease the thirst of the Death Gods.

If we sacrifice one, we will save the whole. Humans can survive without one person. Your life is not so important as humanity's survival.

If they gave themselves up, there would still be hope. Still, sometimes, even as Sayu stood among the pews, watching the poor homeless people die one by one… sometimes, she wondered what she was doing there. Money, desperation, spite? Was it worth killing for?

Sometimes, the sacrifices screamed. They said they weren't ready, that they didn't really want to die. The beggars, they were called. The ones who tried to leave once they had decided, once they had decided to become a sacrifice to appease the thirst of the gods. And there was something reassuring in their pleas—they did not want to martyr themselves for some other's fool's life, did not want their hearts to burst, did not want to die for humanity, did not want to save humanity. They were human, they were selfish, they were flawed.

Sometimes, she thought she saw Misa being dragged in, saying nothing, looking at nothing, eyes glazed as they read her rights as a sacrifice—as they lied and told her that she'd go to heaven, that she'd have riches beyond her wildest dreams, that all her wishes would come true.

The worst were the ones who said nothing at all. The self-righteous triumph in their eyes, the conviction that they would be a savior, an honored redeemer—they were the ones that believed the lies, devoured them as a starving man laps wine (drinks blood) from the streets. They would say nothing; not a tear would fall from their eyes as they looked skyward, just waiting for that killing blow.

And somehow, they always seemed to be looking at her when their masks were ripped off. Their dark brown eyes found her face as they whispered one final word, one final sentence.

Please, save me.

She couldn't save them—her mother, they needed the money. She had to hide the money she earned so Misa wouldn't find it, wouldn't give it away like she had everything else. She was scared, she was young; it was horrible. But that's why she was there—because they were scared, too.

The worst was when they made her move the corpse of the old, dead man—when they made her carry it out to the dumpster where they threw him away, left him to rot in a landfill. It wasn't murder, anymore. It was sacrifice. The police didn't care. The police ignored the Shinigami Servants, just as they ignored everything else—just as they ignored the stench of decaying bodies on trash days, they ignored the white-robed Shinigami Servants as they sauntered down the street in search of new victims.

It wasn't murder if they sacrificed themselves, and people were far too busy to care about suicide. Assisted or not.

Sometimes, Sayu wished it had been her drafted in the war, so she didn't have to carry the pale, heavy corpses—so she didn't have to look at another dead man's eyes. But at the end of the day, with her wallet nicely filled and her mother's medicine in her pocket, she didn't have the heart to lie and say she regretted it.

Scourge's Note: Well. There's that. Things are starting to pick up, now. Mm. It'd be interesting to hear what you readers are thinking-your speculations on what will happen next, what has happened... Ideas are what fuel writing, and it'd be wonderful to hear your opinion of ours-not so much the writing itself, as your opinion on the things that the characters are saying, on their actions, on why they do it... It's worth our time, if you feel like it's worth yours. :) If you feel up to dropping a word or two on some subject matter or another, it'd be awesome.