Author's note: So, this is my first time writing a fanfiction, and English is not even my first language. If there are any spelling mistakes, I'm really sorry! I checked multiple times, and I think everything is fine (?), but I can't be 100% sure! I noticed that OC fanfictions aren't very popular in the Death Note fandom, so I thought, why not write one myself? And that's exactly what I did! I'm actually really excited about this, even if it probably won't get much attention. But for those of you who are reading this, I hope you enjoy it!

— First chapter: Dawn in the mind —

She sat on the windowsill, her warm breath fogging up the frosty window. She was covered in an old comforter she'd found in the atti—it was a little musty, but she didn't care. It was comfortable, after all, that was all she needed. She watched the children outside playing with each other: making snowmen and snowballs, chasing each other, playing hide-and-seek. They were so carefree—laughing without a care in the world and talking without thinking.

They were really…silly. That was the only way Lyra could describe them. Just naive. Unaware of the world they were part of. Strange, considering they were in an orphanage, and yet they still found the strength to live. So why couldn't she? Since the massacre of her family, she hadn't felt anything. It was all boring and uninteresting. She wondered how many times she'd told the staff at Wammy House that 'no, I don't want to be a detective, leave me alone.'

She had been raised for it — they had shaped her for it — but she hadn't chosen it, and she couldn't have cared less about what they thought she should be. She had simply ended up in the orphanage because she was a "prodigy." Her high grades as a child and her intelligence had earned her a place in Wammy House, where only the little geniuses lived, including her.

When she first arrived, she was immediately pressured to do her best, but of course she didn't listen to them at all — that is, she locked herself in her room and stayed there for days on end, only coming out to use the bathroom and eat, and even when the teachers dragged her to class. Things didn't get any better as time went by, and their pressure to 'study, mind you! ' faded completely, as they realized it was pointless, and that Lyra would never change.

She had been there for six years now — unlike most of the others who had arrived as toddlers, she had arrived when she was about ten. So it was quite a dramatic change for her, actually — where one day she was in the living room with her mother's arm protectively around her, and the next day she found her dead body and the bloody floor with bits of her brains on the floor, and the next thing she knew they were taking her to the orphanage. She hadn't grown up at the Wammy House, she'd come in much older than most of the other orphans.

Maybe that was why she was so alienated from all of them. It had been a strange place for her, she'd had no familiar people around her, no one had been willing to help her, but only to squeeze, squeeze, and squeeze her until she showed her potential — potential of their choosing, by the way. But she never did. She was considered an average student because of that, based on her grades of course. She wasn't an "average" student at all, but she saw no reason to show it. She was actually bored by it all.

She didn't see why she was still alive, she was just exhausted by it all — and yet she did nothing. Amazing, right? But that was it. And she couldn't help it if just living tired her to death. She didn't miss anything—not her parents, not a guide, not her big sister, not anyone. Not a single thing. But she felt empty. Empty as a canvas without paint, without colors. Oh, how she wished she had something interesting happening in her life, something that would finally make her feel alive, after years of nothing. Maybe then she'd finally find the will, that everyone seemed to have but she didn't have, to live.

Knock, knock

Ugh, what do they want now? Lyra thought in her head, but she didn't move from her position leaning against the cold window, and she didn't say anything. It was strange that they were knocking, though, usually the staff would come into her room without warning if they had to carry her to class. It must be Roger.

The door, predictably, opened, revealing Roger — the man who ran the affairs of the orphanage, and he began, after looking at her for a while, to speak. Usually he called the one or the one he needed to talk to, but in Lyra's case it was different, because he knew she wouldn't move from her room. So he had to go into her room if he wanted to tell her something.

—"Lyra, I know you're not interested in becoming a detective, but I think this case is for you, really."— He said in a serious and dark tone. What a scene, Lyra thought annoyed. They always said, this case is for you, but in the end, it always turned out to be bullshit that could be solved in two minutes. But did they think she was stupid or smart? First they told her she was "brilliant" and that she should use her intelligence, and then they found ways to attract her attention that were just so ridiculous that it almost made her burst out laughing.

The truth is that they just wanted to exploit her and treat her like a machine for their own purposes — or, as they put it, to "make the world better." But that was just a lie. If they really wanted to make the world better, they would have treated all the orphans at the home like human beings. But they never did. What did it mean to them to be geniuses? That intelligence took away their humanity? Well, if that was their idea, then they were very wrong.

Roger, after waiting a few seconds and seeing that Lyra had no intention of answering, but only of staring at him with those empty, seemingly black eyes of hers, pursued the matter further.

—"Lyra, this case is not like the others, I mean it. I admit, in the past I have said that with the other cases to get your attention, but I am not dramatizing the matter now. I don't know if you've heard of the Kira case—although I doubt it, you're always locked in your room and not talking to anyone—but Kira is a mass murderer who's killing hundreds of criminals a day with heart attacks all over the world. L's already on the case, but I thought maybe you could help him out. What do you think?"—

Lyra threw the others wide open and let out a giggle.

She had to correct herself, their way of getting attention didn't almost make her laugh, it actually did! A murderer who kills from a distance with heart attacks? And they thought she believed it? It was just impossible and absurd.

Roger, hearing the giggle, immediately said,

—"No, it's not a joke. If you listened to the news, you'd know it's true. Try turning on the television once in a while, then at least you wouldn't be so alienated from the world. Lyra, listen to me for once. This is your chance to finally do something important." —

After he finished speaking, Roger looked at her irritably and closed the door with a sigh. Lyra looked for a while at where Roger had been a moment before, and then turned her gaze back to the window.

Was he really serious? She had a doubt. It was very unlikely that it was true, but going to find out couldn't hurt, right? As soon as she found out that it was a lie, if Roger came to talk to her about this 'big case' again, she would spit in his face.

So, she got up from the windowsill, and walked over to her desk in the corner where there was a small television and, further forward, a dusty unused computer. She didn't know if it worked, but it was worth a try.

She pressed the power button, and after a few minutes, it turned on, so she immediately started looking for information on the case Roger had told her about. And, unexpectedly, she got tons of websites about 'Kira the Savior', and pages and pages about the scandal the world had caused by all these deaths in a matter of days.

And Lyra stared at the screen, shocked. 'How is this possible? It can't be a coincidence, all these heart attacks, but how could it be the work of a human being? It's not physically possible. But I seriously doubt that it's the work of some kind of avenging god. If there were a god, I don't think he'd care about killing all the criminals, to him we'd be more like puppets than anything else. It must be a human who caused this, but how?'

Curiosity grew — something she hadn't felt since she was a child — and, seeing that the media didn't have much information, she decided to go straight to Roger's office. A novelty. But maybe it was worth it. She must know how to kill Kira. Such power in the hands of a human being… it would be pure chaos! And if L couldn't catch Kira, then the world would be a full-blown dictatorship! That would be horrible, but so, so interesting. She had to ask Roger for more information. If they had already discovered new information about the killer, if there were events not reported to the media, if they already had suspects… Who knows, maybe L had already identified a suspect.

In her impatience to know, she threw open the office door, and Roger, who was writing on some papers, looked up in alarm.

—"Oh! Lyra. I didn't think I'd see you again so soon?"—

—"You were wrong then. I want to know more about the Kira case. Tell me everything you know."—

—"Of course, I'm glad I finally got your attention after all these years."—

Lyra stared at him with furrowed brows and half-closed eyes. 'But will you stop and get straight to the point?'

Roger cleared his throat, and began to tell her all the information he had so far on the case. The more Lyra listened, the more she felt her ears prick up and her eyes widen like saucers. Roger told her that L had already discovered where Kira was and proved her existence with a fake L that had provoked him and had been killed with a heart attack soon after.

'Hmm, a bit of a sensitive ego, it seems.'

As he continued to talk to her, he also found out that apparently L suspected Kira of being a student because of the hours he killed — which were typical hours for a student — and not only that, but also that he was part of the police because when the Japanese police wrote L's suspicions into their database, Kira immediately changed the hours and killed every hour.

'L has already discovered so much in such a short time, if he continues like this, Kira will be caught in no time. It would be a real shame. I need to get added to the investigation immediately. Maybe I can even sabotage it to slow down the resolution of the case, I need to find out who Kira is and how he kills, but I can't let L know, otherwise he will simply be arrested and sentenced to death, or at best, to life in prison.'

Roger stared at Lyra's thoughtful face with satisfaction and asked her:

—"So, what do you think? Do you want to join L?" —

Lyra gave a firm nod, and Roger told her to return to his office in the morning, so that in the meantime he could tell Watari about the new investigator on the team, and to pack their bags to leave and meet L.

As she climbed the stairs to her room, Lyra was mulling over his words. She definitely didn't want to catch Kira — his idealistic idea of purifying the world by killing all the criminals was, while silly, very interesting. She wasn't a big fan of morality or ethics, so the only reason to join the case was to find out what was going on. She couldn't follow the case through the media for sure — L wouldn't let that kind of information get out, so her only way to know was to be part of the investigation.

She realized, as she walked into the room, that nothing in her life had ever piqued her interest this much. Even before her parents died, everything had always been… boring. Nothing motivated her, she had no hobbies, or preferences of any kind, she was not stimulated by anything, she never really felt anything. It was as if she had always been disconnected from reality. Since she was little, it had always been like this, but then she tried to appear normal, and she succeeded quite well, but after the death of her family, the mask had fallen, and now she had no reason to even pretend.

Why should she continue this charade that she felt part of the world? What did she care about? She had no one anymore. She was no longer disconnected only with her head and emotions, but also with her body. Everything she had and learned to "love" had been taken away from her suddenly and brutally. So, what was the point of playing a role for someone who would inevitably leave you?

All these years, she spent them locked between two walls. Alone, and with nothing. But now, she had finally found something that made her feel human and not an old, battery-less robot. She had felt curiosity fill her, her mind sharpen, and agitation shake her. She had to know. She had to. Because otherwise, she would return to that colorless and lifeless world, and she had no intention of staying there.

Either she would find out everything about the case and Kira, or she would die trying. She had finally made up her mind. Now she could enjoy the chaos that would either be there, or else it would be created by her. She was not their puppet, and she would prove it to them.