I wasn't woken up, which wasn't exactly the strange thing. No, the strange thing was that I woke up in a hospital waiting room. As per usual, no one saw me as I drowsily stumbled out the door and attempted to find my way back to that guy's house to ask what happened while I was sleeping. Unfortunately, well into the afternoon, all I managed to find was that cafe. I decided to go a bit down the street to a sweet shop, but immediately regretted it when all I did for two hours was stand there wishing I could eat the delicious looking deserts and failing to terrorize and yell at the people eating them. When I was leaving the store, I noticed that guy and rushed to catch up to him, even walking through people in the crowd to do so. It felt weird, but I was in a hurry.
"Hey! Light!" I shouted, catching his attention and making him look around. Formalities be damned, this was the only person I could talk to.
"What do you want?" He muttered, acting as if he hadn't been called out to as I approached him.
"Harsh. I want to know what exactly happened when I went to sleep yesterday." I crossed my arms, walking backwards in front of him and pouting. "Do you have any idea why I ended up in the hospital waiting room?" I asked seriously despite not expecting an answer.
There was a flash of confusion and slight surprise on his face, but he didn't respond, as much as he looked like he wanted to. I rolled my eyes at him and pointed to his messenger bag.
"You've got a cell phone, don't you? Pull it out and call this number. It'll pick up, but no one will be there. Act like you're talking on the phone. No one will notice anything odd about that."
He gave me an odd look, but did what I told him to anyway and put the phone to his ear, glancing around for people who might've noticed his suspicious expressions.
"I just turned around and you were gone. Is that where you went last night?" He asked, still glancing around uneasily.
I held up my hands in a shrug. "I have no idea. I was asleep until I woke up there this morning."
He thought for a while. "Maybe that's the place you died?" He suggested. "Maybe it reset when you went to sleep and put you back? Did it happen before?"
I blinked, surprised when I suddenly remembered that it had happened before. "Every time I went to sleep I would end up in that hospital, but…" I bit my lip anxiously.
"What?" He urged me to finish.
"I never ended up in the same place in the hospital, so that's a stretch to say I go back to the spot I died."
"Did you ever search the hospital?"
I gave him an irritated sigh. "Yes. It's too big to search entirely though."
"Well, did you find anything?"
"Not really. By the way, that stalker you have is probably listening, so I would mention you're talking about a video game or something right about now. He's got a weird look on his face."
He gave me an odd look, obviously resisting the urge to look back. "Well I don't know, I've never really played many video games. Maybe you missed something there." He said, although it sounded a bit annoyed.
I grinned and made a motion of patting his head, even though I couldn't touch him. "Good boy." I recomposed myself and got back to the subject at hand when I saw the stalker looking a bit relieved. "Now, here's the thing. I always skip the third floor and I don't even realize it until I'm lost and can't find my way back to the hospital."
"How many times have you been there?"
"I don't know….Two hundred, maybe?" I shrugged. "I couldn't keep track."
"Two hundred?" He repeated, obviously rather surprised, though I don't know if he was putting on an act for the stalker or not. "How long have you been there?"
I blinked, realizing I hadn't really thought about it. "Well, it's been like this for over three years, probably. Why?"
"How old are you again?" He said it jokingly, but I knew that one was an act.
"Sixteen." I answered immediately, but then scrunched up my face in confusion. "But…I haven't changed over the time I've been here. I think I'm sixteen. At least, I think I was when people stopped seeing me." I grabbed my head, a sudden pain preventing me from thinking about it further.
"Are you alright?"
"Fine. I just can't make myself think about certain things or it gets worse."
"What gets worse?" He all but demanded.
"I…don't know." I muttered, reluctant to answer him now.
"Well then don't do that." He said lightly, supposedly still acting like we were talking about the game.
"Anyway, I'll try and remember some stuff, but for now, is it cool if I follow you around? You and Ryuk are more interesting than sitting around at a place I used to work wishing I could eat the food."
"Sure. It's no problem. Oh, one more thing. Where did you get that number?"
I gave him a bitter smile and shook my head. "No idea. I just had that paper in my pocket. Weird when I'm a ghost and I have a paper in my pocket, huh?"
"I see. You're as odd as ever." He gave a small chuckle and continued. "I need to go now, so I'll talk to you later." He was about to take the phone away from his ear.
"Hang on a second!" I stopped him.
"What is it?" He put it back to his ear.
"How old are you? You asked me, so it's only fair."
"Nineteen." He answered bluntly, then hung up and put away his phone.
I pouted at him, then gave up and just quietly followed him. Apparently, this guy was a senior in high school. My college assumption from the first impression was wrong and apparently he just had prep classes on top of the high school. He sure had a full load. Halfway through the school day, I decided to take off with Ryuk and play video games in Light's bedroom with him. By the time Light came home, Ryuk was laughing at me after I had lost for the umpteenth time.
"No fair! You totally cheated!" I shouted at Ryuk before noticing the raised eyebrow Light gave me while he locked his door behind him. "Oh, welcome home." I smiled sheepishly.
He sighed and sat down. "Sometimes I feel like a babysitter with you around."
"Hey! I'm not that much younger than you!" I argued.
"You don't have a reliable memory, so you can't say that for sure."
"Damn. He outsmarted me again." I muttered, biting the side of my index finger.
"I have things to do." He dismissed me, going to his desk and pulling out the familiar black notebook.
"Hey, what if you wrote my name in there? Would I ghost die?"
He gave me a smirk that made a shiver run up my spine. "Do you want me to try it?"
"N-Not really. I was just curious, you know."
"It's not supposed to work on anything but living humans." Ryuk said in a bored tone.
"Well, that answers that question." I sighed, feeling a bit disappointed.
"What? Were you expecting something complex?" Light asked, obviously knowing more about what the Death Note was even used for.
Ryuk cackled. "Shingami take the rest of a person's lifespan by writing their name. It would be useless to use it on a ghost with no visible lifespan or name." He pointed above my head for some reason.
"What? Lifespan and name? You know any person's lifespan and name?"
"Shingami eyes." Light answered shortly.
I sighed. "Well then, I guess I could've lied about my name and you'd never know."
Ryuk chuckled and more or less jumped off the balcony. I watched as he took off into the sky with wings appearing out of nowhere for a minute before running over.
"Where are you going?!" I shouted after him, but it was useless. I sighed and turned to Light, pointing with my thumb to where the shinigami took off. "Does he always do that?"
Light just shrugged and continued what he was doing.
"Well, I'm going to sleep. Give me a piece of paper." I said, holding out a hand.
He gave me an odd look, but handed me a ripped page from his school notebook. I made sure it wasn't from the Death Note, even if it wouldn't have mattered either way. I took his pencil and wrote, "Find the hospital name" on it in big letters. At least I've gotten better at actually touching non-living things, even if it is exhausting. I folded up the paper and stuck it under my tongue.
"What are you doing?" Light asked curiously.
"Reminder." I mumbled around the paper as I went to lay down. It took a bit longer to fall asleep, but I eventually did.