Disclaimer: I do not own Death Note.
To the surprise of hopefully no one, I did not sleep that night.
My father stuck his head into my room several times, probably to make sure I hadn't jumped out the window or something. He was right to be concerned, because from the moment I knew L was dead I had considered it more than once. Many more times than once. I'd even thought of all the different ways I could make it happen.
But no. I didn't even bother closing my eyes. Instead, I simply lay there, wide-awake, on my stomach with my face buried in L's pillow. It still smelled like him. I wanted to pull away, because it hurt, but I couldn't. I was probably hyperventilating, because I couldn't even bear to exhale for long before I would slowly breathe back in, inhaling as much of the scent as I could...
I was beyond tears. I hadn't had anything to drink, and there simply wasn't enough fluid in me anymore to create the necessary liquid. For a moment, the bright idea of calling Matt flashed through my mind. It was stupid on several levels. Mostly because I didn't know his phone number, but also because, even if I did, I didn't deserve to be comforted.
All my fault, all my fault.
And, almost as if to spite me, the withdrawal was getting worse.
I reached for the little patch where I had attached it on my leg. It was still there. Yep, it was just flat-out getting worse.
I stood up, inexplicably furious. There was no reason to put up with the damn withdrawal symptoms. Like I didn't hurt enough? Like I needed another thing to think about, when my mind was already spinning? And as my head was already spinning?
I fell weakly back onto the bed, clutching my skull, and took a few deep breaths, but the pain didn't lessen.
What was I thinking? I deserved every moment of this.
I swore to myself that I wouldn't give in as I got up and stumbled down the hallway, to where I suspected he had stashed it.
Just like I had thought. Just like with those pens, I didn't have a chance. I couldn't change.
I just couldn't.
And I just wanted the pain to stop. If not all of it (because I didn't want to forget him, no), at least the physical pain.
I found it without too much trouble, knowing the way L thought. It was right where I had guessed it would be, in the second-best hiding place in the Building. It would have been too obvious to hide it in the best place.
The fact that I knew him well enough to figure this out made my eyes sting.
My stomach heaved but I managed to not vomit. Screw it. I'd had enough of feeling like this. Wasn't it bad enough that my emotions were like this? I had lost the one I loved. Wasn't that enough? Did I need to feel like crap physically, too?
Did I deserve it? Yes. But I didn't need it.
I picked up the notebook.
I felt instantly better; even the pain of the stitched-up cuts on my back was diminished. Addiction is a fascinating thing. Okay. I was just going to tear off a tiny piece and tape it to myself...
Relieved but uneasy, I flipped through the simple, sleek black notebook.
So many names. And most of them were written by me. So many names, so many faces, so many deaths.
And the beginning of my own name.
For a moment, I considered finishing the last five and a half letters. It would be so easy. Cross the 'T.' Then a Y... a... g... a... m... i...
Just some letters, and then... nothing. Ever again. Maybe I'd see him, although I doubted it. Mu, right? Nothingness?
That sounded pretty good at the moment.
And there was always the chance... the possibility, not offered in this world, that I would see him again...
No. I couldn't write my name. I'd told him I wouldn't do it, so I wouldn't.
No, I couldn't write my own name... but other people's...
Didn't we all deserve death? I would still be killing criminals, but I was starting to realize that the innocent deserved it as a reward. Because this life...
Well, it was certainly nothing worth preserving.
And I could fix it. I could fix it all, everything I had done. I couldn't take it back, obviously, but I could fix it. Make it not matter. If I could kill everyone, I could erase all the pain of lost loved ones that I had caused. I could finally, finally do what was right.
It was so simple that I couldn't believe I'd never thought of it before. Couldn't believe that L and I hadn't come up with it together.
I found myself laughing.
It was so simple.
All I had to do was kill everyone.
I laughed harder. Seriously! How could I have never thought of that? I'd had it wrong all along. Killing criminals to protect the innocent? Criminals deserved to die, yes, but the innocent deserved to not have to live! It was perfect!
I almost didn't bother getting a pen, but I knew that, as symbolic as it would be, writing in my own blood wouldn't be energy-efficient. I ran to my desk, grabbing a pen from my orderly piles, and immediately got online. Got on MyFace.
It was too easy. Kira hadn't gained enough attention to make people delete their profiles yet, and so many people used their real names and faces online...
I stayed up all night. Social websites, group photos of clubs or companies online. School websites. Anything I could find that had a name and a face. Men, women, children, old people, sick people. Anyone. They'd all be dead before anyone could even notice that thousands of people had died in one night, all over the world.
A gravelly, all-too-familiar voice sounded from behind me. "Very interesting."
It was the Shinigami with the boredom complex.
"Where have you been, Ryuk?" I asked, not pausing in my writing.
"Watching Beyond Birthday. He was interesting too. Then you got the Notebook, but I wasn't obligated to follow you right away. You've been very boring lately, Light. I didn't know you'd be using it like this when I got back or I would have come sooner." He chuckled.
I was barely listening, focusing more on the faces I had to have in my mind as I wrote the names. There was a certain place you had to hold the image in to be able to think about their face and write their name at the same time, and I was a bit out of practice getting my brain there.
"So, Light," Ryuk continued unprompted. I already knew what he was going to ask. I'd have to look for a human he loved or something... the monster needed to die... "Looks like you finally managed to kill L."
I only managed to not scream at him because I had predicted those exact words. But it still hurt.
"I was hanging out with L in that glass room. Saw Birthday torturing you. I gotta say, Light, I got a certain enjoyment out of it."
"That's nice," I sneered, flourishing the ending of another name.
"He seems to think you loved him. And he definitely loved you. I mean, I may not know much about humans, but you should have seen him up there... pacing... crying... shouting at me, asking what to do... Well, I suggested he kill you, of course. If looks could kill, huh? I guess he was just like a Shinigami too. He killed someone to extend the life of a human he loved, and then died himself."
Only extreme self-control allowed me to refrain from snapping my pen right in half. I took a deep breath and kept writing, channeling all my anger and hurt and love into those words, knowing I was finally doing the right thing.
"So, anyway, are you gonna make Misa trade for the eyes again?" he asked.
"No."
"Why? Don't tell me you care about her since last time I checked."
I almost laughed at that one. "Hardly. I just don't need the eyes, and I don't need her climbing all over me."
"Those eyes could get you out of a life or death situation," he reminded me.
"Another reason not to make her get them," I mumbled.
I jerked my head up to check Ryuk's expression, but luckily he hadn't heard me.
"Well, whatever. I don't really care, anyway." He drifted away, shouting something about apples, which I ignored.
I was exhausted, but I kept writing. In my head, instead of 'Kira,' the name that was developing was 'Mercy.' No one was beneath this, I started to see as I wrote more and more names. Even evil people deserved this mercy.
I tried giving someone an infectious disease- that might not count under the subsequent deaths rule and it may still work. It was worth a shot. Disease was the only thing that could kill more people than I could.
Laughing and crying, I transferred myself to my room. Our room. It was almost morning, and the others would be waking up soon. I wanted to be caught eventually and killed (I would be executed if I was caught, period. Law would go out the window), but not yet. I still had more people to free.
I didn't sleep. I didn't need to. My father knocked on my door and I told him to go away. The tears/hysterics in my voice must have made him think I was breaking down about Ryuuzaki (which I was, in a way), so he left me alone.
Ryuuzaki wouldn't have. He would have known that leaving me alone was the exact wrong thing to do. He would have handcuffed me to him again. My father couldn't be expected to know- I'd never let him get close.
This, too, was my fault.
Sobbing now (apparently I had a reserve of tears in there somewhere), I kept writing. I was killing so many people, drenching my soul with blood as L's clothes had been stained red when he carried a lifeless Mello back to Wammy's. I had gotten to hold him that night, I remembered, but he was dead now. Because of me. For me. No. No.
If I was going to Mu, I might as well do it thoroughly. And take all these people with me. If everyone was dead, then no one would have to be alone.
It was the only way to atone.
And at ten in the afternoon, when I finally paused, I picked up my phone and replied to the unknown text:
'Yes.'
"There's a hole in the world like a great black pit,
And it's filled with people who are filled with shit,
And the vermin of the world inhabit it.
But not for long...
We all deserve to die.
Tell you why, Mrs. Lovett, tell you why.
Because the lives of the wicked should be made brief,
For the rest of us death will be a relief.
We all deserve to die."
-Epiphany, Sweeney Todd
