1
The Very Troubled Boy
Ever since Crazoa Canely had been only very small, there had always been something irregular about him. When his mother had give birth to him, hers and her husband's lives instantaneously went down the drain. Crazoa had already been a troublesome baby that needed constant attention, but honesty, which weren't? At two years old he was much worse. He bullied other toddlers, slapping and biting them, and even breaking their toys as well as his own.
The one and only time Crazoa had been baby sat; he had run away from the young girl as she had turned around to retrieve a new diaper. This resulted in the neighbors calling the police and child welfare agency reporting that there was in fact a half naked toddler waddling along the street and urinating on their cat.
As Crazoa's pranks became worse with age, Mr. and Mrs. Canely continuously denied there was anything wrong with their son and insisted it was simply a phase, and he would grow out of it.
When Mrs. Canely went to pick up her son from his first day of Kindergarten, his Principle informed her that he had lifted the skirt of a girl, kicked a boy from the class above him in between the legs, threw all the sports play equipment in the dumpster and played multiple pranks on his teacher; including the classic whoopee-cushion and pin on the chair. He'd even hidden her purse; all in his first day of school. The principle proceeded to accusingly ask Mrs. Canely if this was some kind of sick joke, and told her never to bring her son back to the school again.
By the time Mr. and Mrs. Canely had sent Crazoa to five different schools which he had been expelled from all, they finally decided that their son was indeed a troubled child.
They had already attempted every punishment they could think up of. When they tried to spank him, he stuck newspaper in his trousers and faked the pain. When they took away his toys, he stole somebody else's. When they put him on restriction, he ran away from home. And heck, they'd even tried hypnotism, but Crazoa had point blank refused to look at the odd woman.
Of course, this was all Crazoa had come across a Death Note.
Years went by and Crazoa had to be homeschooled. Ironically, just as his parents had earlier predicted, Crazoa's antic's decreased and he acquired a pleasant and well-mannered masquerade.
Now at fifteen, he had finally been able to catch up on his education and was at last fit for school.
Crazoa strolled through the gate after having his parents drop him off. This was technically his second day of school, his first day was slightly hazy and yet he still received a chilling satisfaction when he thought about it, remembering the look on the teachers face when she sat on that pin. He chuckled to himself cruelly. Oh he was going to pull up a heck of a lot of drama in this high-school. This time he wouldn't be discovered.
Crazoa was a tall and gangly looking teenager. He had dark, sharp features. He had sunken eyes and cheek bones and very pale skin. His face gave off a pointed kind of appearance, thanks to his impossibly straight nose and pointed chin. He had jet black hair, which was gelled into a spiky style. His eyes were also piercing obsidian.
As he walked along the path towards the office, he went by quite unnoticed. A few kids gave him a glance, knowing he was probably the weird new kid the teachers had told them about. They didn't seem to give him much notice.
A small bell rang as he opened the door to the office. The woman behind the counter was reading a book. She looked up briefly at his entrance, put down the book and took off her glasses. "Can I help you?" She was young and pretty; probably an assistant of some sort.
Crazoa closed his eyes for a moment then looked slowly up at her and with a small smirk he replied to her, rather snidely. "I'm not sure, can you?" How cruel. He was just as picky as an English teacher.
"May I?" she laughed briefly, correcting her mistake. Crazoa wondered what was so funny. He assumed this had to be some kind of attempt to be friendly. Well Crazoa didn't need it. He took out a sheet and slowly with a boney hand he slid it across the counter toward the woman.
"I am a new student this school. Today shall be my first day." He said. Very slowly, yet smoothly; he often spoke like this so that all the abominable people around him would understand.
The woman briefly read the sheet and nodded, "Crazoa Canely?" she asked "What a peculiar name. Well then, I assure you, you will be well looked after at this school."
I doubt it. Crazoa thought.
"Here is your time table and a map, have a nice day." She said as she handed him some pieces of paper, "If you have any questions, feel free to ask a fellow student. I'm sure they will help make you feel at home."
She said all this just as the bell rang; just his luck, late on his first day. Without speeding up his casual and well postured pace, Crazoa walked out the office and through the corridor. He noticed something in the corner of his eye near a locker. Apparently it had toppled out of someone's locker or they had dropped it.
He walked over and realized it was a black notebook. He smirked; someone's diary?
Crazoa looked around briefly, and after confirming there was nobody in the corridor, he picked it up and flipped it over. It had been upside down.
"Death Note?" Crazoa said out loud curiously. It probably belonged to some emo kid. The right thing to do would be to return it to the lost and found. Of course, that's what he should do. But since when did Crazoa do the right thing? He decided to read it later, right now he had to go to class. He stuffed it in his backpack before proceeding to his class. His first subject was Math. Crazoa was intelligent, he would have no problem in this class, but that didn't mean he would enjoy it.
Crazoa knocked on the door frame and the teacher looked up from some papers. "Ah! You must be…" he glanced at a role on his desk, "Mr. Canely?"
"That is correct," Crazoa gave a brisk bow to the man as some students looked up from there work and stared incredulously at him. He wondered why, but was not intimidated. He was used to weird looks.
Crazoa strolled into the room and scanned it. Now everyone was looking at him. He took a mental snapshot of the room, taking in everybody's faces and where they were seated.
"Please take a seat, Mr. Canely, today we are working on Algebra. I assume you know the theory, the work is on the board."
Was this some kind of joke? Crazoa had covered Algebra six years ago. Oh well, that way he could easily finish quickly and then do whatever he wanted, or maybe leave class early and have time to check out the diary.
The only free seat was next to a girl with ludicrous curly red hair. He slung his bag over his chair and began pulling out his books and beginning to get to work when the girl spoke to him in a hushed whisper.
"Hi." She whispered.
"Greetings," Crazoa replied politely.
"How come you talk all funny?" She whispered back.
Crazoa winced at the bad English and proceeded, "By that question, I assume you are curious of the way I go about communicating, correct?"
The girl stared blankly at him, mouth slightly agape.
Crazoa rolled his eyes. "Well why do you speak like an illiterate cat? Not that cats are literate in the first place."
"Touché," She nodded. "My name's Annie. You don't need to tell me yours, I already know it. Everybody does."
"Is that so?" Crazoa asked dully, beginning to get frustrated with the nosy girl.
The teacher cleared his throat and looked expectantly at the new student. "Is there something you would like to share with us Mr. Canely?"
"Yes, actually sir," Crazoa replied, grabbing at the opportunity, "In honest truth, I have already covered Algebra and learned it thoroughly. I see no need for myself to go over it again, is there perhaps some extra work that you could happen to assign me?"
The teacher blinked. "Oh I'm sorry but no, you may proceed to read a novel or take a nap."
A nap? What kind of school was this?
A few seats away, Crazoa heard a snigger. His eyes snapped briefly to a burly boy who nudged his friend. Crazoa leaned back against his creaky chair casually, and propped his legs on his table, lifting his arms and placing them behind his head. He watched the pair from the edge of his vision curiously. They seemed to be scheming something and they kept throwing Crazoa mischievous glances.
He wondered what this had to mean. Crazoa had no idea of average child behavior, and obviously he was very different to the other students.
The bell rang shrilly, and Crazoa was the first one packed and he immediately rushed from the room, remembering the diary stashed in his bag. He was eager to kick up some blackmail on someone for his first day. On his way out, he noticed everyone's table had a name tag; curious, he glanced at the burly boy's. His name was Jake Trident, and his friend's was Mason Ripley. Crazoa had made his way to the lunch area outside, sitting at a solitary bench far from the main area, and without even thinking about food he pulled out the notebook and opened it up with slender fingers.
It was empty. Completely blank.
How useless! He thought disappointedly. Wait a minute, something was odd about it. Further inspection of the notebook told him that pages had been torn out. And not well, there were still chunks of paper at the spine. Obviously, whatever had been written in it, the owner of the book didn't want anybody to read it. Then they had promptly abandoned the thing. Curious.
For the first time, Crazoa glanced at the inside cover. There was white text in the same style as the title on the front. There was a skull at the top, how eerie. Crazoa read it aloud.
"The human's whose name is written in this note shall die." He couldn't help but laugh aloud. Some students who had come spilling out of the building glanced at him but took no more notice when they saw he was reading something. A funny book, perhaps.
Well it was funny; in a macabre kind of way. Crazoa continued reading.
"This note will not take effect unless the writer has the person's face in their mind when writing his or her name. Therefore, people sharing the same name will not be affected.
If the cause of death is written within 40 seconds of writing the person's name, it will happen.
If the cause of death is not specified, the person will simply die of a heart attack.
After writing the cause of death, details of the death should be written in the next 6 minutes and 40 seconds." This was exceedingly well thought out for a stupid gothic prank, and it was also exceedingly ridiculous.
Just as Crazoa was about to toss it into a trash can, a large shadow loomed over him.
He slowly and cautiously turned around. There was a large metal skull belt in front of him. He looked up and saw a very tall… man (?) above him. But it didn't look like a man. It looked like a monster. Something like knight's armor with a skull for a head and very long grimy looking hair. It even held a scythe.
"Why hello." It spoke in a small croak sort of voice. "It looks like you found my notebook."