Chapter Five: Thin as Paper

Erin was dreaming again. She could tell, although there was a certain disconnect between thinking she was dreaming, and acknowledging it. She was too busy wandering mindlessly through the dreary landscape. No matter how far she traversed, it felt as if she hadn't actually gone anywhere. Nothing changed around her.

That was probably what had given it away as a dream; that frustrating desire to move, but being unable to do so. Even in her dream, she could feel the stress building up, roiling around in her gut like snakes. It was awful. She pushed herself harder, willed herself to move forward. She had never been one for lucid dreaming, partly because she had suffered from long, sleepless nights so much so that when she finally did catch a few hours of rest she found herself waking up far to soon, after a much too short period of oblivion. Needless to say, she found she had very little control over the realm she currently found herself in, and was completely at her subconsciously peculiar sense of humour.

Personally, she did not find it funny, and tried shouting out said sentiment. She was surprised when her irate complaint echoed on for several minutes over the open expanse. Weren't you not supposed to actually hear anything in dreams? As far as Erin was aware whenever someone 'said' something in a dream, it actually just registered like a thought. It was weird that she could hear… But then, maybe it was just a very realistic dream, and she wasn't actually hearing anything, she just thought she was. Certainly she was a victim of much weirder circumstances in real life. After life. Whatever the hell was going on in the waking world.

"You mortals. You'll do anything to hold on to your fragile little minds."

The young, very disturbed and startled woman whipped around in shock. For as long as this dream had been going on, she had been completely, utterly, alone. Only now she wasn't. She was standing in the vast expanse of some truly wacky scenery her imagination had cooked up, staring at something even stranger. She had no idea why she was so shocked. If her brain was telling her that she was currently in world of Death Note, then it really should not have come as a surprise that she would start imagining a Shinigami too. Yeah. In fact, that's as actually totally reasonable.

Although why she hadn't just spawned Ryuk into her dream, she didn't know. What was the point of fabricating some random being?

"Hah!" The being scoffed. "As if that buffoon could manage anything so complex as this. Not that he would ever be given license for it." It blinked lamp-like yellow eyes at her, bulbous and watery, and leaned forward with an unsettling leer on its face. "Maybe I should have found someone with a modicum of intelligence. You're clearly not much better than a maggot."

Erin found herself feeling affronted, although she figured that there were worse insults. However, getting called a maggot by the thing in front of her was somehow deeply aggravating.

She had to wonder where it got off directing so much disdain towards her when it looked like it was probably infested with all sorts of nasty creepy crawlies. Honestly, seeing it made her worry about her mental state. Well, more than she already did. It looked like her mind had taken some horrible version of the Chucky doll, a scarecrow, and mashed it together into an ungodly construct of pure nasty. Bald, with cracked and peeling skin, it looked like it was being held together by uneven stitches of mouldy yarn. The clothing it wore sagged and bunched around its awkwardly plump, disproportionate body, and Erin really was sure she saw part of it wriggle with a nest of larvae or something.

If she thought too long about it, she thought she might gag.

"Honestly," the thing went on after giving her a sharp, accusing glare, as if it had heard her thoughts, "It took forever to get through to you. You little brain is so sluggish I thought I had made a mistake, and let you get brain damaged before bringing you over."

That gave Erin pause. She had been trying not to think about it, other than loosely brushing over the surface thoughts with a detached sarcasm, and wit. That did not change the fact that she had been freaking dumped into another reality for one reason or another, either as some coma dream, a form of eternal punishment, or, god forbid, the psychotic machination of the cosmos. It was starting to sound unfortunately close to the latter. "'Bring me over'?" She hedged.

"Yes, you twit. That's what I said. What, who did you think had done it? No. Wait. Let me guess. You thought you were insane. Or maybe in hell. You humans seem to love condemning yourselves. Or perhaps you thought this was just all some big accident." It scoffed gain, and spat to the side.

Erin grimaced and shuffled away from the slime now clinging to the ash laden ground. "Fine. Okay. So… This is not a dream?"

For a moment the creature seemed to swell, it eyes growing even more bulbous, its face turning a surprising red colour for something that was… Not really living in the sense that Erin was. "WHY? Why? Why was I forced to do this? Forced to mingle with you stinking, wriggling, disgusting things? Why? Anyone else would have worked. But no. No. Let's get Ilmort to do everything. Ilmort never has any work to do. It's not like he's vastly overqualified for the work he already does. No. Not at all. I'm sure Ilmort would love the experience. Ilmort the happiest of all." It cursed in a strange, guttural, raspy language that hurt Erin's ears like nails on chalkboards, and spat once gain, this time noticeably close to her shoe.

Erin resolved not to ask the Shinigami if this was a dream again, although she decided to maintain her reservations. Instead, she waited for the thing, Ilmort, to calm down, which it did after some time.

It cleared its throat and eyed her with even more disdain, if that was possible. "You. Maggot. Grovel and show your gratitude. Your death has been put on permanent hold until you fulfill a mission on behalf of the Lord and Overseer of Death, the King, Death."

It was about to go on, but Erin, caught onto one specific point. "Wait. My… My death… On hold?" What the hell was that even supposed to mean?

"Yes. You died, but in order to establish you as an agent of his will, it didn't get processed, and won't until either he deems you to be as useless as I already know you are, or you somehow, by some miracle, manage to use that insignificant little brain of yours to accomplish what you are ordered to do. Which I shall now advise you of, so I recommend you listen closely. I'm not going to be holding you hand and whipping you bottom the whole way." It may or may not have said something about how degraded it felt that it had to do it as much as it was, but Erin did not hear that part.

She was rather caught up in the fact that she had just been told that she had died. As a piddling mortal, she figured she was entitled to a few minutes of mindless gibbering. Dead, after all. She was dead.

"No, you melodramatic moron. You are not dead. Weren't you listening to anything that I said? I told you that it hasn't been processed. Your files are being held. Otherwise, do you really think you would be resting all comfortable in your cushy hospital bed, rather than on a slab down in the morgue? Maggot." The Shinigami loomed in even closer to her so that she could see the rotting, festering gums between its jagged, unevenly placed teeth.

She staggered back, her foot catching on one of the gigantic rusty chain buried underneath the sooty ground, and tumbled backwards. "But, you said that…" She cut herself off before she could go any further. She did not want to think about it. Lord, she did not want to think. So she didn't. She ignored all the confusion and burning questions, and instead focused on the fact Ilmort was smirking down at her.

"Good. Don't bother asking questions, it's not like you, with your considerable inanity, and weak mortal constitution could possibly grasp the complexities of life and death. Your kind certainly tries, but it's too sad to even be funny. The very thought of you, a maggot, attempting to absorb the complex, inconceivable actions taken, just to get you here is laughable. The inside of your head would surely turn to slush, and leak out of every orifice of your body."

The maggot thing was really starting to grate.

The being lurched away from her, its back turned. She wasn't really sure how it moved because it left no tracks in the ash, and she wasn't really sure the way its legs moved counted as normal movements for walking. However she saw nothing to suggest it was flying either. She wrote it off as just another impossibility, though she concentrated hard on not thinking of it as a dream because she was realizing that he could read her mind, terrifying as that was.

"Well, obviously. I'm in your subconscious right now, dimwit."

She scowled down at the ground, hoping that her outgrown hair would hide the foul expression from it. Not that it mattered. Apparently it was in her subconscious. It probably knew that she was graphically fantasizing about strangling it. She had never really considered herself a particularly antagonistic sort of person. In situations of conflict, she was very much prone to avoiding taking one side or another altogether. She was a lazy sort of person after all. Getting riled took a great deal of effort, and arguing was worse. The thought of it was exhausting. Yet, here she was, contemplating attempted murder on a Death God.

Ilmort muttered something about her being a failure of a living creature, and spat to the side once more. It was worse than some old fart chewing tobacco with not the slightest bit of concern for manners or decorum, which also made it a hypocrite, the way it went on like her very existence was an offence to it. Maybe it was. She was pretty sure dead, but not dead counted as some sort of abomination.

"If you're done, I'm moving on. I don't have all day to just sit down and walk you through your existential crisis. We both have work to do. That moron human with the Death Note is causing all sorts of overtime. While everyone else is being completely useless, as per usual, and the king is being stubborn of course all the work falls to this Ilmort. Surprise, surprise." The creature sneered, it's face twitching in agitation. Erin went to interject, but it was far from finished it's tirade.

"Honestly," Ilmort continued, "he acts like he's so overworked. Yeah, I'm sure it's so burdensome being an immortal entity with all the time in the world. He's got more used up Death Notes than the rest of us combined, you know. Have you any idea how many lives he's cut? From how many realities? No. You don't. You wouldn't even be able to fathom it. Simply put, it's a lot. A great deal more than myself, and with all the paperwork he insists on offloading on me, I need more time myself. Does that matter though? No. No, apparently it doesn't. Instead, let's send Ilmort off to find some mortal, in some other dimension, who might be able to fix the mess Ryuk's gotten us all in. Never mind that it was Death's fault for getting tricked. No. Never mind that he should be forcibly retired by now. No. Never mind that. Let's make it so that Ilmort has to do all the hard work."

Somehow the Shinigami managed to kick up small whirlwinds of ash as his fit of dissatisfaction persisted. "Wandering around in your stupid world, looking for some idiot from amongst the drooling masses. Really, how am I supposed to know high one of you maggots has the right prerequisites.? You have to have been exposed to all the information disguised as fiction. You can't be prone to the Death Note's influence, or prone to acting like some sheep over that deluded killer, and you have to be slated for a natural death. Do you imagine it was easy finding someone like that? From all you squalling infants, I found only thirty eight who matched the criteria. Thirty eight! Out of seven billion!"

That was a lot of information being presented at a very rapid pace, and Erin had a hard time keeping up. "Wait… if there were thirty eight others… why… why the fuck was I the one you picked? And what do you even mean, immune to the Death Note?"

"Not immune to the Death Note you, plebeian! Although in this case, I suppose it wouldn't actually work on you. Yes, since currently you haven't got a lifespan. It was already used up, after all. You're very lucky, you know. That should make things easier for you since you seem to need all the help you can get. No, immune to its effects. As I am sure you are aware, since you have been previously notified on how the Note works, any who use the Death Note do not get to experience a normal death. They neither go to Heaven or Hell. Obviously it is because the minute one starts to use it, nay, I would dare say from the minute they touch it, they start to become one of us. Of course, the effects are reversible if they haven't written any names, but once pen touches paper, then their fate is set. I digress. The point is, the Death Note compels people, corrupts them from the minute they touch it. It twists logic until that seems to be the only choice left. It's a tool in the hands of us Gods, but for you weak little creatures, then it becomes a power, nearly sentient in nature. I needed to find a human who would not be nearly so susceptible. It's not difficult, the person simply has to be aware of its influence on them, and quite a few of you who have been exposed to information about this reality have formed theories about how the Notes work. Combined with the other criteria, I managed to narrow it down to nearly three dozen, luckily."

"That still doesn't explain why it had to be me. And it doesn't explain why you needed any of us in the first place." There were theories, of course, buzzing around in her head like errant hornets. She couldn't be sure though.

"Stupid humans, always needing a reason, or some proof that you are special. Maggot. You just happened to be close by when the deadline was nearing. Don't go thinking that there was something which set you above the rest, or that there was something lacking about the rest. Honestly, given how little you have managed to accomplish in the ample time you have already had, I really do think I should have picked someone else. It just so happens that I don't have time for overtime is all. As for why we needed you, the matter is a simple one. The old—ahem— Death wishes for you to stop the one known as Light Yagami, or, Kira, from using the Death Note."

Ah. That was the answer, the crux of this whole matter. "Why doesn't he stop Kira himself? He's the King, right? Death itself? Shouldn't he have the power to do that. Or, I mean, couldn't you, if you're powerful enough to drag me in from another reality?"

A strange, wracking shudder consumed Ilmort's form for a second, and when it passed, he was staring at Erin with narrowed, twitching eyes. "Yes. Well. There are regulations regarding these things, you know. This is a business. We can't just go messing with the natural course of events as we please. That would involve a truly horrendous amount of paperwork."

That sounded incredibly fake. "Wait, but couldn't it be considered messing with the natural course if you freaking don't let me be dead, and instead drag me to another universe?"

Ilmort reared back, blatantly offended by something she'd said. Probably all of it. "I'm not surprised that you are incapable of catching on. Put it this way. The King wills that it be this way, and so it is. The King orders that you put a stop to the mortal with the Death Note before he kills too many people, and causes an even greater calamity than he already has."

"So why not drop me down in front of the Death Note before he ever found it, like I already said?" She had long since given up being surprised, and at this point had taken to asking questions more for the purpose of irritating the foul creature into oblivion if she could, rather than a real desire for answers. She had already concluded that none of this made sense in any way, shape, or form. It was completely nonsensical, and if it were something like, say, a fanfic, she would be accusingly pointing out the innumerable plot holes of the entire scenario. Too bad it wasn't.

It seemed Ilmort was only growing more flustered by its own aggravation, and her interrogation of it, and its boss, and their combined logic. "You do realize that we did attempt that, but we greatly overestimated your fortitude. You spent an unnecessary amount of time unconscious while your piddling corpse adjusted to its new environment." The being spluttered, exceedingly unimpressed.

"Oh."

"Yes, oh, you thoughtless, useless speck. You've already let a great deal of inconvenience slip by, so I hope you rectify the situation in short-order. I care not how it is done, so long as it is prompt.

Erin had a great deal more thoughts she felt like lobbing at the Shinigami, and with vengeful spite prepared to do so. Unfortunately it seemed as if Ilmort had realized her intent, and abruptly stuck it's face far too close to hers once again, crouching over her like a particularly disgusting and invasive freak. "And now I really must be going. I certainly have no desire to prolong my contact with you. Remember. Stop Kira. Be prompt. I shall be checking in."

She opened her mouth to retort-

And jolted straight up in bed, feeling very much like she had not slept a single iota.

X.x.X

A/N: Woo hoo! Look at this! Two chapters in less than a month! And, don't get excited, but the next one is half written! What really slows me down is the editing. I loathe the editing. Checking for flubs in consistency and what not. Making sure I have not somehow overlooked some horrible plot hole. Which, I think, when it comes to Inserts especially, is bound to happen. But. Like I said last time, it's self-indulgent writing anyway. To my new followers, all of you who have favourited, and my reviewers, a HUGE thank you. You wonderful people you. You make me so happy. As usual, sorry for my spelling and grammar mistakes, as well as any typos.