Chapter Twelve:

CONTENT WARNING: mild body horror, and also implied ideation of death?

To be honest she had expected L to respond with a little more drama, though she didn't know why she thought that. However, the minute the words left her lips, she braced herself for the tension. For the words to fill out, take up space, and steal air until she got crushed by their mass, followed the weight of L's reaction.

That was not exactly how it went.

"Hm. Interesting. And you no longer feel the resolve to allow that to happen."

Erin huffed. She might have laughed, in any other type of situation. She could feel that sardonic, bitter humour lurking like an unwelcome and intrusive guest. But she was far too tired for that, and the sound died before it could be born. Even her face felt like stone. Numb. But that might have been the panic with its firm hold on her. She felt like she was slipping down a hill, the momentum building until it was near impossible to keep her feet under her.

"Yeah. Trust me. I know how that sounds," she informed the detective. "And I'm not asking you to understand. I'm… this is all so terrible and impossible, and I just want…" she paused, trying to will away the traitorous catch in her throat. "I'm the last person this should have been left to. The whole set up is ridiculous. There are an infinite number of better ways for this to have played out."

The voice on the other end remained silent, waiting her out.

"I—so, the thing is…" she grimaced, and tried to dredge up the words. But her mind blanked. There was just so much. The fact that she was dead. That this was an alternate reality. The Death Gods, and their notes. Kira, and his stupid, shitty smug face and his dumb freaking god complex that just absolutely ruined everything for everyone else. The second Kira, the pivot on which everything had changed. "Ha. This is a lot. God. I don't even know if you're going to believe me. No. Nevermind. You won't believe me. That's what you do. You're suspicious of everyone and everything, you pick at them, take everything apart, break it down to its raw bones, and then, maybe, just maybe then you'll believe it." Well. She didn't know if that was true. It sounded like one of those true things, but it also sounded lofty, and shallow. Something you would say to sound clever.

She wondered how he felt about her speculating over his personality like that. It had to be strange to hear her making assumptions on behaviours she really had to have had no way of witnessing. Perhaps he thought she obsessed with him. The idea was mortifying, especially because she could see how it would be a reasonable conclusion for him to draw. Especially given that she could see him taking advantage of it. Heck. Maybe to some degree she was obsessed. At least if only because he was her only point of contact, and the source she had to go to if she wanted to end this dreadful limbo and pass on.

"Ha. So, you know how we talked about Death Gods? Shinigami? Grim Reapers? Whatever. The first thing you need to do is accept that they're real, which I imagine is going to be… awkward. It was supposed to take you a lot longer to get to that point, and heck, maybe it will. I hardly think that it's easy to just, like, readjust your whole world view without evidence. Then again, you're reasoning skills are weird. Maybe you'll think around it because you see a thousand other factors that make it so. The main thing is that I have no idea how to prove it, but if you can believe in things like Shinigami that'll maybe make the rest of all this easier. Shit. Damn, I wish I knew how you started to believe it before. Fuck I wish I could remember. I think it had something to do with the second Kira. Oh! Fuck. Yeah. Technically that's how you get killed. A copycat shows up, and then ends up teaming up with Kira. Well. Gets used by Kira? Manipulated? And technically it was her Death God that killed you because they wanted to save her. Ah—you had had almost revealed the truth, and that would have been the end of it, and that Grim Reaper was. In love? Obsessed? I don't know. Emotionally attached. Shit, I said this was a lot." Erin bit down on her lip and scrubbed her face with the palms of her hands. She was rambling hard, her thoughts spiralling off into tangents her words clipping past her lips, tumbling together in their rush to be free. She had to wonder if she was even speaking intelligibly. And there was still so much to cover. "Fuck. Fuck there's no proof of this yet. Half of it hasn't even—it's not even real yet. Jesus Christ, I sound so freaking crazy right now, oh my god. I swear, it's not like I think I can see the future or whatever. That'd be stupid, because if I could there's no way I would have ended up here."

Which. It wasn't like telling him that she saw it in an anime was going to be any better. God, that sounded so trite and silly now.

There was a very long round of silence following her burst of garbled honesty. She could imagine L sitting there, staring at her image on a glaring screen in a dark room, his eyes wide and focused and bottomless. Or maybe he had collapsed off his chair like that one time in the anime. But as the silence stretched on and on, she had to wonder if maybe he had just shut off his computer and was calling up a mental hospital to check her into as soon as was possible.

There was one way she knew she could get him to take her seriously. Something that would make him listen to her, no matter what, if only out of fear. That or he would hide her away in some basement far below the earth to be forgotten and collect dust until she died. Which wouldn't be the worst outcome all things considered, and that thought alone made her consider doing it for a moment. All she had to do was say his name. All she had to do was prove just how much she really did know.

She considered it, still and quiet. The storm quieted for just a moment, and she looked at the choice she could make. Stared it in the metaphorical eye. Even then, she knew that she would not do it. Could not. There was some part of her left from before this had all happened, from when she had the luxury of inaction and ignorance—of compassion, and something like honour. There was nothing more dangerous to L than his own name. Especially once he revealed himself to Kira and gave him a face. But she just wasn't willing to go that far. Couldn't risk putting that piece on the board, or even really considering it a piece at all. For all that she had done and not done, that was where she would draw the line.

They all had them. Even Kira, and his stubborn refusal to never trade out half his life for the eyes. Hers would be this. She had no great reason for this other than some strange emotion that was small and not particularly grand or strong at all. It was completely arbitrary, and she knew she was probably only making things harder for herself. But still.

She blinked and glanced in the direction of the camera again. "Yeah. I know. That's a lot to process. But I'm sorry L. There's more than that, and I'm not so kind that I'm going to help you sort all of it out. You can keep up, or not. Either way, let me know so I'm not sitting here talking to myself, yeah?"

"Continue" the voice said, and she wasn't sure, but it sounded subdued. Distant. As if he was distracted. Probably overwhelmed.

She grinned and surprised herself that she could manage that much, though the expression was tired and unhappy and guttered out before it could ever reach her eyes. "Yeah. So, here's the thing. I'm actually a dead person who has been tasked with stopping Kira before I'm allowed to move on." Honestly, the idea of L having to try and digest all this was pretty funny, now that she was saying it all. If she had to guess, she'd bet on him getting offended and assuming that she was lashing out at him. Or that she was crazy. Grimly amused, she decided to continue to push it. "And the reason why I don't have any records in this world is because I'm from a parallel reality, so technically I'm not supposed to exist in this one. And I have information on what happens in one version of this whole Kira case, and the course of Kira's career because of that. Through a story. Which—" She cut herself off when she feels another laugh building. This one in sheer amazement at how stupid this whole thing was. "Oh, and Kira is Light Yagami, the son of Chief Yagami."

She said it and it was… just so freaking anti-climactic. Disappointing almost. Heck, it rather felt like it didn't mean anything, like she was saying gibberish, just absolute nonsense.

"He has a magical book that he keeps in a drawer in his desk that he writes names and the cause of death into, and then it happens. Oh. The drawer is trapped to combust if it's not opened properly."

Erin never did hear back from L that night. All she got was a quiet bzzt of the mike cutting out.

Eventually she pushed herself to her feet, stiff and creaking like an old tree. She considered going back to bed. She was so tired after all, drained more than she had ever been. A thin stream of milky pale light was stretching from the crack in the curtains, across the floor towards her, almost as if morning was desperately trying to get to her, to chase off the night she had just made it through.

She inched away from it with a weary sigh. It was too late. The dark had already unwound her, and the morning light would bring her no consolation. No. Instead it would only make all the things she had done that much more visible.

Erin wandered away from the soft glow, towards the bathroom, where she closed the bathroom door firmly against it. She did not meet her hollow eyes in the mirror. She knew what she would see—that familiar wraith, a sad worn rag imitating life.

She peeled off her sweat soaked clothes and staggered into the shower. It was warm. She turned the water up a little higher, and then higher still until it was almost unpleasant. And then, without much thought she slowly sunk into a crouch, and then dropped into a ball amidst the clouds of steam.

For a very long time she did not think of anything at all. It was like static had taken over her mind, but it was muffled, and she was muffled.

She blinked the water from her eyes and gazed blankly at the ceramic wall in front of her.

A thought struck her out of nowhere, one that she rather wished had stayed away.

Even if L did follow up on her tip about Light, it wouldn't work. Based on the logic of the original, there was no way she would count as a reliable source of information. Light could just deny having ever seen the notebook. He could claim it was plant, and there was nothing they could do to prove that it wasn't. Her unbelievable, crazy testimony wouldn't count for anything. Even if L did end up believing her by some miracle, no one else would.

To the rest of the world, she was an impossible, insane person. Heck. Chances were that they would think shewas Kira. L knew she wasn't because he was just that good. But would anyone else accept that? No. No they wouldn't. Especially not with the deteriorating trust between the investigation force and L, and the cowering global forces who were likely receiving so much backlash that they'd persecute the first person they could get their hands on—like regular old witch hunt.

She thunked her head dully against the floor of the tub.

After a while she gathered herself together off the floor and stepped free of the now lukewarm water. Once she might have opted to just lounge around in her towel, too lazy to bother with clothes. In fact, she almost did the same thing anyway, but then she was reminded of cameras, and the constant watching, and grimly went out to find clean clothing before retreating again, feeling a surge of irritation.

When she stepped out of the bathroom again, she caught herself peeking in the direction of the camera automatically. It was unsettling, the sudden radio silence. Was it another test? Had L just written her off completely? Or was he of the mind that he was going to have to resort to more extreme measures, because obviously she had lied to him, duh, no way would such a story be possible?

Erin didn't know, and frankly, constantly trying to figure out what L might be thinking was exhausting.

The bed waited for her, inviting and soft and promising rest. Her eyes felt like salt and vinegar, and her whole body ached. She fell into it, but didn't remember crawling under the covers, or getting comfortable. Instead, she was swallowed up by a deep, deep darkness that she rather hoped would take a hold of her and never let her go. She wished that the truths she had spilled would have enough of a butterfly effect that the Shinigami would count her task as done.

They did not.

Instead, she was plagued by a very strange dream.

X.x.X

She stood atop a dune of ash and cremated bone. The sky was grey and stretched on for eternity, though the land she stood upon dropped away into a void of nothing—shockingly, that was as grey as everything else. Except for the rusted chains which were dark like drying blood, and what looked to be a titanic bleached ribcage that jutted out of the ash which fell away from her.

Hovering next to her was Ilmort, with its patchwork face looking even more upsetting than usual. She realized it was because it seemed genuinely happy. For once it's face was vacant of its characteristic sarcastic sneer, or its disapproving leer. Instead Ilmort was trying to uphold a strange, jittering expression that shoved the strangely cakey flesh—as if a mortician had done poor job with its make-up—around it eyes which were creased as if against some sort of glaring light. Its teeth were too dreadful to look at for even a second, so Erin turned her gaze back out the baffling landscape.

"Can I go yet?" She asked, and the words drifted out into the air and joined the wastelands.

"Soon," Ilmort said. "Let's wait and see, shall we? No guarantees the good detective listens, yes?"

Erin grimaced. "Why am I here? Don't tell me you've been lonely?" The quip came easy, but without much vitriol.

Ilmort might have hissed at that. Or it might have been some form of a laugh. She could hardly tell. "No, maggot, don't miss you. Don't want you here at all. You wander here all on your own, seeking death—or the closest you can get to it right now."

"Oh". There wasn't much to say to that. "Do human's end up here a lot when their dying? Or. I don't know. Coma patients?"

"No," Ilmort's response slid back into a more disparaging tone, and it was almost comforting given its what she had come to expect from him. "That's completely different."

Well. Yes, she could see how that was true. She blinked slowly out at the grey expanse and wondered if this awkward encounter could end already—she rather wanted to wake up. She had a feeling that this really did not count as restful sleep. She closed her eyes and hoped that opening them would be the switch that would take her back over to her side.

And then they snapped open at the uneasy swoop in her stomach. She wanted to throttle herself, really what was wrong with her?

"Maggot?" Ilmort's voice distorted, rippling through the air like an audio glitch had been layered over his vocal track.

She blinked and glanced at him.

The look he was giving her almost made her snicker. He looked like one of those huge eyed chihuahua's—freaked out and about to scamper off in a panic. Well. Except for the fact that his skin was undulating, as if there was a swarm of agitated flies under his flesh. Actually, that wasn't even particularly unlikely.

"What?" Erin asked, but the words wheezed out of her like someone had a grasp on her throat—like there was smoke in her lungs, and soot clinging to her throat.

She blinked, coughed, and then shook her head at the harsh ringing in her ears.

And then the air was on fire.

Not literally.

It's just that there were pages fluttering down out of nowhere, and they were on fire, bright points of light in the monochrome landscape, flaring and blackening and curling in on themselves and crumbling to ashen fragments across the ground.

And then she blinked, and the world flipped on its axis, and she was tumbling through the grey abyss, and the pages were falling upwards. Or maybe she was falling up. She could not tell.

Eventually she collided with a surface, but it was not clear whether or not it was the ceiling or the ground; only that there were ripples lapping out around her, spreading far into the distance where she could see them turn into tsunamis instead of eventually levelling out again.

She hacked and coughed, her lungs trying to expel whatever it was clogging them until bile surged up her throat and stung her cracked and dry lips. And then something horrifying happened. She felt a strange lump in her throat and with a heave she vomited it out onto the surface in front of her.

The butterfly twitched pathetically on the ground, its wings wet and straining to move, struggling as if in its dying throes. It looked like no butterfly she had ever seen, bigger, and with black and white wings that looked like an x-ray of human hands.

Erin gagged again and scrabbled backwards from the thing.

"And you no longer feel the resolve to allow that to happen," the thing said, in a freakishly familiar voice.

For a second Erin considered crying. And then she did, because she felt having to deal with some sort of internalized guilt manifesting as a butterfly with L's voice was valid cause for tears.

It continued, unflinching in the face of her reaction, which was also uncomfortably in character. "You seek death and steal it from others. Thief. Wrong doer. Your crime will be undone. I am justice."

And then she woke up.

A/N: *cough*. Sorry. Anyway, here we go with the aftermath. I'll be interested to see what you all think (please be gentle). As always my editing is TRASH. I went back and reread the whole fic, and wow. Just. Wow. It's a miracle any of you stuck around. I did do that playlist though! Don't put too much weight on every lyric. A lot of it is just moody vibes, though there are some very pointed things. It's on Spotify and is called the Dead or Dying, and the creator is inkscribbles. If you want it provided in a different manner, let me know some ideas and I'll see what I can do. Also, the cover for it is some art of Erin that I did. I'm trying to think of the best way to make that available to you all if you want. It is on my instagram, but I go by a different name there, and I don't want to shamelessly plug myself. I won't make any promises about when the next chapter is coming, because apparently that just makes me a liar. Meanwhile YOU ARE ALL MY FAVOURITE PEOPLE! STAY STRONG, STAY HEALTHY and pursue your dreams and your happiness. You all deserve that. Thank you.

pmugis: I'm so flattered to have received another delightful and insightful review from you. Warms my heart. I'm glad the unravelling lived up to your expectations; I think one of the things that draws me to insert stories is just the sheer complexity of the situation they have to contend/grapple with. I love exploring that. I certainly made the entire premise of this difficult to write, which makes me stagger a lot, but I feel so proud all the same when I get comments like yours. I think Erin would be delighted by you routing for her too. She's got so much going on in her head, and for all her misanthropy she really is so squishy inside. I can't say more because spoilers, but my deepest gratitude.

I Lost Civilisation I: I'M SORRY I KNOW! I feel so cruel, so guilty. But still not as cruel as L. I'm looking forward to progressing their opinions about each other and their relationship from here on because a major stop gap has started to crumble. And I did start writing this as huge fan of L. So. Obviously that means i have to dissect him and demonize him. Eheheh. Also, thank you. Gratitude. From the bottom of my heart. Reviews bring me back, even if it late.