Chapter Seven:

Erin had not really been sure what the fallout of her remarkably temporary escape would be, only that there was bound to be some. L seemed to be a person of extremes (not that she was one to talk) and given his surveillance of her he likely had inferred something about her 'case' from her behaviour. She was not sure, exactly, what he might have inferred, but was deeply convinced he could read her guilty conscience as if it were an open book based entirely on whatever information he could discern through the lens of a camera. The feeling was deeply disconcerting, and not at all dissimilar to how she imagined a dissection might be. Except, of course, that she was still alive while she was being filleted, and that whatever fate awaited her was still pending.

Still, she did have some hopes that he did not have her story entirely figured out. She could still remember the scene from the show where he had been finally convinced of the fact that Shinigami were real. The sheer level of surprise he had shown then was a sign of his more pragmatic belief system. Although in her mind his intense reaction might have seemed a little forced and out of place, she reasoned that this was the result of the fact that he very rarely displayed any emotion, let alone to that extant. With that thought in mind, she really doubted he was thinking anything along the lines of her being reincarnated from another reality in order to put a stop to the deranged machinations of the criminal he was currently pursuing.

She, herself, was having a hard time grappling with that fact.

Despite her fears, the young woman found that very little changed. No one carted her away in a van with blacked out windows to some underground her in a prison cell. As far as she could tell, there was no increased surveillance around her either. Of course, she was not at such a level that she would even be able to tell if someone had hidden cameras all over her hospital room. Still, the lack of noticeable observation or pressure somehow made it worse, as Erin found herself constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop. Paranoid that she was being scrutinized even more closely than before, she was hesitant with every move she took. Somehow she could not help but overthink each of her actions, even though they mostly revolved around her treatment.

Her doctor had been switched to one with better English, and because of this they managed to explain her situation to her more clearly. Mostly, it seemed as though they were convinced whatever had ailed her was psychosomatic, as they could find no trace of actual injury. Still, they tried to press her for details of what sort of traumatic incident had caused her to fall into such a state. Of course, she was reluctant to tell them that it was a result of being turned to jam by a truck in another world, and instead of being allowed to die like a normal person, she had been shipped off to a fictional world. Having a psychosomatic condition seemed at least slightly less likely to get her thrown in a mental hospital.

Although her doctor did still strongly recommended that she see the on-site therapist.

Which, while a perfectly reasonable suggestion, she was deeply troubled by the prospect. Normally she would not be nearly so opposed, as she had seen a therapist fairly often before her apparent death. However therapists very much liked to dredge up all the things that were having an adverse effect on her mentality. When whatever it was plaguing her fell with in the realms of a relatively expected criteria for emotional instability, this was less of an issue, if not somewhat unpleasant. However, the last thing she wanted was anyone sticking their nose into her current problems.

They were far and away too absurd for that.

Fortunately, the language barrier proved to be an excellent defence mechanism against most unwanted meddling. There were not many therapists around with a good enough handle on the English language to have a particularly deep and meaningful conversation about the human mind and its many complexities. Sure, most of the staff at least seemed capable of basic greetings in English, and it had been pretty impressive how well the detectives had done when speaking with her, despite the occasionally screwed up tenses and mangled pronunciations. For her part her Japanese only extended as far as what she could remember from anime, and really, that was more of an insult to their language than anything else.

As such, she was left mostly to her own devices. It left her far too much time to dwell on the axe hanging over her neck, on her limited future, and to just think. She could not complain though, as she was not being put under constant pressure to come up with lies, excuses, and to play mental chess with anyone.

Interestingly enough, she had to wonder why she was being allowed to stay in the hospital. As far as she could tell, technically there was no longer anything wrong with her. Sure, she had trouble sleeping, and her appetite was off, but that was hardly something new. She did occasionally feel a sort of pins-and-needles sensation across her skin when she woke up, as if her body was no longer quite so in sync with her, or more accurately, it was still struggling to keep up with the fact that it was still functioning. She likened it to some sort of reverse phantom limb syndrome, or something. Whatever it was, while disconcerting, it was neither long lasting, nor debilitating. There really was no longer any reason for her remain, except perhaps for her doctor's own professional curiosity and pride.

She ended up assuming it was because it was easier for L to keep an eye on her if she stayed in one place. Perhaps that was just her being paranoid. Perhaps it was because the hospital was just being very cautious about her release.

She doubted it.

Well. It wasn't like she had anywhere else to go. And just so long as L continued to observe her from a distance, well, the whole ordeal would be over before any of them knew it. Ilmort wasn't going to be 'patient' with her for forever. Given how fundamentally irritable he'd seemed, she was figuring that his patience would run out sooner rather than later. No matter how much he had gone on about how difficult it had been for him to nab her from her world, he seemed pretty results oriented. At the cost of getting his job done, it didn't seem like too high a price to pay to do a do-over. Next time he'd know better and grab some deeply devoted L fan willing to rise to the occasion.

The mere thought of all that work and emotional strain made Erin simultaneously feel both nausea, and pity for the other party.

The nausea might actually have been a result of the unappetizing hospital meal she'd forced herself to eat. The nurses got crabby when she sent back food. Honestly, she preferred it when they had silently and awkwardly avoided her. With the loss of the heavy pain meds she was in, she was a lot more lucid, and less prone to staring at them like some sort of zombie from a horror film. In response to that, they seemed keen to exact their revenge via overly oppressive hounding. She had no idea what they were saying, but whatever it was it seemed to involve a lot of disapproving clucking, sighing, and sharp, pointed staring. Erin wasn't quite oblivious enough to not get the hint.

Left over apple in hand, she pushed herself off of her bed and headed over towards the window. Not only did the nurses also dislike it when she lingered in bed all day long, Erin had developed something of a fascination with the view outside her room. It was foreign, and deeply caught in winter. All day long she could watch strangers, real people who weren't even really supposed to count as actual characters where she had come from, march staunchly along the sidewalks. Some travelled in groups, some alone. Some looked happy, some looked sad. All of them were real. Alive. They had distinct faces, which, in lots of anime she had seen, was usually neglected for background crowds.

She wasn't really sure if this was a past time that she enjoyed partaking in, or if it was some sort of masochistic mental-scab picking. All the same, in the several days after her brief escape, she caught herself regularly perching on the windowsill, staring out at the world. It was cold, the winter air chilling the glass that she leaned against in a way that her thin hospital clothes could not compensate against, but at the very least it was a better way of wasting her time than anxiously trying to scan her room for hidden cameras.

Staring out, as evening began to descend and it became harder and harder to see beyond her own grim reflection against a dark background, Erin saw to familiar eyes.

Lamp-like. Bulbous. Horribly yellowed.

She grimaced, but did not turn.

"Maggot." The word was horribly drawn out, the last syllable snapped short so that it bit into the quiet between them almost violently. "You're wasting time. Get to work."

The girl tried not to react too visibly, because she never knew when they were watching, or what they would see. All the same, she could not help the way her shoulders curled inwards, defensively, as she tried to shrink unhappily into the darkness of the window she was leaning on. She could not help the way her fingers tightened, leaving crescent moon shaped gouges on the dull red fruit in her hands.

"Maggot!" This time it was hissed, sharply, an unmistakeable command.

Her eyes slid reluctantly in its direction, though she did not turn her head, or say anything. She hoped her face had remained neutral, hoped that somewhere far away, in some dimly lit hotel room, the world's greatest detective was watching something else, pouring over some other wealth of information for the most challenging case of his life. She hoped his eyes were not fixed on her, taking note of every twitch and shift in her behaviour. She hoped that compared to the Kira Investigation she was low enough on his list of priorities that this moment would at least be overlooked.

After all, even if she was being watched, even if her case was a weird coincidence that he could not let go of, it wasn't like he could spend all of his time watching her. It wasn't like he could focus all of his attention on her circumstances. No matter how suspicious of them he might have been, there was so much more going on.

At some point she had squeezed her eyes shut. Maybe she'd been trying to block out the spectre looming in the darkened corner of her room. Slowly she peeked them open again, trying to steel herself, scrambling for someway to deal with all the shit she was in.

It was right in front of her. If it had breathed, she probably would have felt the brush of air on her cheek it was so close. If she had thought it a foul, disgusting thing before, now her stomach heaved, and her mouth dried she was so deeply repulsed. It's skin was thin, stretched too tightly over its skull, and she could see dead, purple veins webbed beneath the semi-translucent grey pallor. It's lips were drawn back, not in any sort of smile, but as if they simply could not cover the jagged teeth and festering gums that were cracked and oozing some sort of puss-like fluid. It was eerily still, stiff like a wax statue, not even blinking. And then, in an instant, a section of its flesh heaved, as if a wave of maggots were surging up.

She cursed, harsh and hissing, as she promptly flung herself away so far and so fast that she smacked her head against the wall, and knocked over the small stand next to her bed. The dull, already much injured apple fell from her grip, and bounced weakly gains the linoleum before rolling to a gentle stop in the middle of the room, and she had the errant thought that she hated apples, and the she wished it wasn't there at all.

"You answer when I speak to you, you repugnant waste of my time." The dreaded thing sneered where it still lurked by the window, although it drifted forward a little, apparently pleased by the reaction it's proximity to her had earned it, and not willing to give up its advantage.

Erin was too busy trying to steady her breathing to think of a suitable response. She'd always been jumpy, but apparently her current situation, the isolation, and pervasive neurosis had served to elevate that. Never mind how devastatingly horrid it was to look upon Ilmort's putrid face.

In the dream world he had been ugly. Wrong in a way that had made her mind rebel against it. In real life, under fluorescent lighting that could have made the dreamiest of stars look like a used piece of toilet paper, Ilmort was enough to invoke vomiting, tears, and a mental crisis.

Fortunately, Erin did crosswords with all sorts of mental crises' over breakfast, and so after a few seconds she did manage to collect herself. Just in time too, as the noise had drawn the attention of a nearby nurse, who slid the door of the room open just as Erin was straightening away from the wall. She must have looked a sight, eyes wide, hands trembling, her breath still slightly uneven. It wasn't as bad as it would have been had she actually started crying and retching on the floor, but apparently the nurse was not entirely satisfied.

She took a long moment to peer about the room, before turning her attention back to Erin, brows furrowed. "What wrong?" She asked, curious enough to attempt conversation.

"Oh. Uh. Thought I saw a bug. Bug. Spider?" Erin tried, and wiggled her hand jerkily in a sad imitation of some sort of creepy crawly, before pointing broadly across the room. "Surprised me. It's gone now though. Sorry. I'm totally fine. You don't need to worry. Okay?"

Out of all that, it was only the last word that the baffled nurse seemed to understand. She parroted it sounding very confused and held up her hand in the universal sign for 'okay' the tips of her thumb and index finger pressed together, which Erin nodded at and mimicked. After another bemused, admittedly concerned and piteous stare, the nurse retreated, though slowly and with a frown.

Erin sighed, and went to take back the apple that was lying innocuously out in the open, aware of the way her fingers stuttered and trembled.

A set of snarled, stubby fingers swung out and snatched up the damaged fruit first.

"For my troubles," Ilmort snapped, and shoved the entire thing into his mouth at once with a horrible wet crunching sound, chunks of pale flesh, and sprays of juices splattered around his mouth, and dripping off his chin. "Don't forget, maggot, we put you here. We can take you back. Do your job." Despite the threat, his voice was oddly jubilant, and he offered her a disturbingly hearty wink before he snapped out of existence, as if he had never been there to begin with.

For a moment Erin remained frozen, at once offended by his eating habits, as absurd as that was, and equally offended by the wink which made her want to dig out her own eyeballs and burn her own brain with a strong acid. Then came the indignation, the hot swell of bitter resentment and rage. She was filled with a seething desire to strike back at the despicable, hateful blight tormenting her. It was Ilmort's own damned fault for getting lax and picking her of all people. It was his own stupid fault for not doing his job properly, the hypocritical sack of shit.

She staggered, not entirely accustomed to the anger. She had no outlet, no way to vent. Not when she was being watched. Yet, she was inclined to think that if she didn't, she might very well explode. She tried to calm herself down, tried to reign it in by breathing in, deeply, and counting back from ten. It felt woefully unsatisfactory, and only served to make her that much more irritated.

In fact, the fact that she couldn't even do anything about the swirl of negative energy made her sort of want to hunt down L and violently shake him. Which was stupid, she knew that. She'd be much better off punching Ilmort straight through his smug face whenever he showed up again. Also, on her shit list was Kira, as she suddenly became a lot more okay with her discarded plan to attempt assassination on him.

But just like that, the tension drained away as she was reminded once again of the dumb position she had been put in. Of the stupid waiting game she was playing, the game of chicken she was under taking with the bloody reaper that apparently also like apples.

Honestly, was it some sort of racial thing?

She stumbled back over to the window and slumped against it. There were tears welled up in the corners of her eyes, waiting for her to give a little, to let them fall. She was getting pretty tired of it, the emotional rollercoaster. The tears, the crying, the despairing. She had a sneaking suspicion that, while she was royally pissed off at Ilmort, mostly she had just been hoping he would get it over with already. Put an end to this stupid undead bullshit they were putting her through. At least then she could just be dead, and stop feeling so pathetic, so sorry for herself. At least then, she could stop hating herself for just that.

Then, she could at least stop thinking.

Down below, people went about their business. Most of them were probably hurrying home from work or heading out to spend time with their friends and coworkers. She imagined that somewhere far away there was a boy judging people and bleeding their lives from them with every touch of ink across cursed paper. She imagined that somewhere else greedy eyes stared into the impassive light of a computer, absorbing it all and reflecting nothing back. Each of them sealed away in their towers, like demon kings, struggling for control. And then there was her. In her own tower. But she wasn't a demon king, wasn't even a demon.

She was just a dead girl walking.

Then again, maybe the three of them had something in common after all. Because if death was waiting for her, it was certainly waiting for them. She knew that already. Knew it as well as if she had gone and sold half her life for the ability to see names and numbers. Her end would come sooner, perhaps, but their's was hovering right around the corner, waiting in the wings for even the briefest hint of weakness on their part. It was the gun they were pointing at each other, and like dominoes they would fall, one after the other.

Her eyes slid closed for a moment.

When they opened again, several moments later, they were dry of tears. They were cool and blank, and they stared unseeingly at her reflection. But only for an instant, as she passively turned away from it and the world that lay beyond.

Death. To some degree they had all already come to terms with it. It was a little bitter, maybe, but the best medicine always was. She could not help but smile then, a wan, sad thing that slipped away like hot wax nearly the moment it appeared, leaving a deeper, more tired frown in its place than before.

"A spoonful of sugar, huh?"

X.x.X

She should have known that with her bleak streak of luck, that it would not be so simple. She should have been prepared for her quiet waiting to get snatched away from her. She should have expected that, when she was a pawn on a chessboard where the players were too clever, too stubborn, and too insatiable to just go and forget one of their pieces, that she would find herself moved against her will. It had been fanciful of her to think that she could just escape as she pleased. A naïve, depressingly optimistic fancy.

Erin had been right in her fear that her momentary loss of composure inspired by her infernal visitor would have its consequences. She had hesitantly managed to convince herself that it would be fine. That it would simply be regarded as another mark against her already questionable sanity. Indeed, it almost was, and likely would have had it not been L doing the scrutinizing, had Light not used Shinigami and apples in his underhanded, cocky taunt against said detective. She might have been fine had it not been an apple she'd held that day. Might have managed to remain mostly insignificant had she not cussed out a specific word in her moment of shock:

Fucking reaper.

It's a funny thing, fear. Especially the instantaneous, instinctive kind. It tends to bring out surprising bouts of honesty in people. Little things, things they might forget, or not notice. Stupid things that they would not have done or said otherwise.

But no matter how small, how inconsequential it might have been. No matter how unbelievable, no matter how ridiculous, it was enough.

Enough that, a little over a week later, while L stared at messages written in blood, as his mind carefully churned through a web of a thousand possibilities, he remembered. Remembered a scene that he had carefully filed away, just waiting for him to take some time to fit it into place. And suddenly whatever plans Erin had to simply vanish, an unanswered question never to be quite resolved, went up in smoke. Because suddenly she went from being a passing curiosity, a peculiar note of interest, to a much more dangerous unknown.

Because it's always the little things that get us in the end.

A/N: This is a re-uploaded chapter with some minor edits made, however, I guarantee that there are still bound to be all kinds of mistakes. thank you as always for review and support.