"I give it up," I say to Hades, who chuckles. I see his blurry fingers reaching for the notebook, and suddenly my life flashes faster than one would believe.

It started back when I was a young lass of sixteen. The world was too busy to notice a shy girl like me, and so I never felt mindblowingly important in the universe. But it didn't bother me much, or at least that was the lie I fed myself to keep away my loneliness.

Instead, I told myself I was better than everyone else. To those who knew me, I was known as a freak. To those who had never met me, I was known as gifted. To myself, I was more than a freak and talented, neither of those, and yet those alone. To myself, I was known as God.

I spent most of my life in a daze. I would get grades that most of my classmates were envious of while drawing all during class. Not doodles or anime, but sketches and portraits. My greatest work, Harlow*, which was finished when I was nineteen, was placed on display in The Museum of Asia's Modern Marvels* in my early twenties. Within six months, it would be stolen, found, and burned, along with the entire museum in an accident that would cause the death of the museum's owner, a swindler and con artist that got stolen, priceless paintings through black market for almost nothing and sold them for a high profit, leaving the artists broke and homeless.

Another one of my paintings would not become famous within my lifetime, but that is almost over now. The heart monitor is slowing, and my daughter is screaming for me to hold on. Hades comes ever toward me, one hand holding his notebook, the other holding a pen with which he was writing a name. A mysterious name.

I suppose you would realize that it was no accident that he was killed. Kira was alive and thriving at this time, after almost three years fighting an L that had gone severely downhill as a detective. It had once been a battle of wits that had kept me all but glued to the news for a good few months. Then, out of nowhere, L suddenly became clueless and Kira reigned.

I wasn't suspicious at the time that L had died, but I would come to learn this after I met Light and Misa, who saw me as a great threat because of the notebook I possessed and the love of killing I had.

I don't know why I liked to kill them all off. It was mostly news reporters. It was funny to watch someone die just because I wrote their name down. Hades would watch over my shoulder and just shake his head chuckling. He called me naive. Maybe I was, but I found no wrong in that. I was sixteen, and having the most fun I had ever had in my entire life. I didn't do drugs and I didn't have sex or party or drink or anything. I hadn't even had my first kiss yet. Life was pretty boring until a black notebook simply fell from my ceiling onto my bed with a soft thump.

I would have screamed, but I figured my father had taped it to the ceiling and it had finally given way. There was no tape or residue on the book or the ceiling, but logic told me it couldn't have come through the ceiling. I opened it.

Suddenly, I looked up to see a horrid thing. It was terrifying far beyond words. It was tall, about seven feet tall, and a sickly green color. It was so skinny that its ribs protruded from its body and its stomach was flat. It wore a Scottish kilt over its slimy, limber body. Two little horns stuck out of its head like a devil, and its eyes were empty and black, and to look into them was the same as looking into the eyes of a dead person. Its frame was skinny and its arms and legs were lanky and awkward. He had on a golden mask, as if he were going to a masquerade. It had a walking stick made of wood with a skull carved into the top.

I didn't move or speak. I told myself it was an illusion, but I didn't believe that stupid lie. I wasn't crazy, and there was a monster standing before me!

"I am Hades," the monster said. "A Shinigami."

"Shinigami?"

"Did I stutter?"

I smirked at his smartass remark in spite of my fear.

"You have a Death Note in your hands. If you write someone's name in it, they will die within forty seconds of a heart attack, unless you put in all of the details. But you have to have their face in your mind when you write their names. It belongs to you. Do you want it?"

I told myself to say no. I didn't really want to kill anyone, but then something came to me.

"Is this how Kira kills?"

"Ah, Kira. Yes, this is how it's done, but that is all I can tell you. You can also trade half of your life for the Shinigami eyes, with which you can see the names and the lifespan a person has left above their heads. However, you can't see the fate of anyone with a Death Note."

Half of my life was a stretch. "No, thanks."

"Well, I dropped this in here. It was an accident, if you'd believe it. But it hit the human world, and you've touched it. There's nothing I can do now, unless you give it to me. Then, your memories will be erased."

"Do you need it?"

"Not necessarily. My life span far exceeds yours."

"By how much?"

"A few lifetimes."

"How long do I have?"

"I can't tell you that."

I flipped the leather book back and forth in my hands. "It'll really kill people?"

"Yes."

I thought back to earlier that day, to a bully who had been mean to me since I entered high school. He was into drugs, so an overdose wouldn't seem too far'fetched. I closed my eyes and pictured the bastard.

Makino Hiro, overdose

"Forty seconds," Hades said. "Then you'll see. But now, you are damned."

"Damned?"

"You can't go to heaven or hell."

"That's alright. I never believed in those, anyway. I expected death was the end of it."

"It might be, for you. Honestly, I don't know what happens to a person who uses a Death Note, other than what I just told you."

I shrugged. "It'll be fine. As long as he's dead tomorrow."

I almost fell to my knees weeping from realization of power and the pain of guilt when the loudspeaker announced Makino had died the night before.

*- Harlow (the painting) and The Museum of Asian Modern Marvels (the museum) don't exist. If the do, it's a coincidence they're mentioned here.