"Zzz…" Light was fast asleep.
"Wake up, idiot!" a hoarse voice called out to him in an intimidating tone.
The unconscious Light slightly frowned, and then slowly opened his eyes while rubbing them in discomfort.
He had opened his eyes expecting to see the usual ceiling of his bedroom, but to his surprise, above him was… nothing. Not only was his ceiling missing, exposing him to the open sky, but the sky itself was empty as well.
There were no stars or the moon, nor was there a sun. It was just complete darkness.
His back also didn't feel like it lay on the soft, comfy mattress of his bed. Instead, it ached against the roughness of a rocky plain.
"Where the hell am I?" He asked.
"There is no hell for you. You're in the realm of Shinigami, idiot." An unknown voice answered.
For some reason, Light ignored the rest of what was said and focused on one word, 'Who is he calling an idiot?!'
Light tried to turn his head and look at the source of the voice with his usual cold stare, but as soon as he tried to move, he felt a piercing wave of pain flood his chest. Ouch!
He continued lying down, still and quiet, for a bit, and decided not to move his body too much lest the chest pain return.
He took in a few deep breaths, then asked while continuing to look up at the sky.
"Realm of Shinigami, huh? Interesting imagination you have there…"
There was no reply.
So he continued, "So uhm… Why did you bring me here again?"
The hoarse voice laughed, "Bring you here? You willingly bought yourself here, idiot."
'Who does this guy think he is? Have I been kidnapped and brought here? Why would anyone kidnap me, though? I am a star student with a crystal clear record… Maybe someone with a gripe against Dad? Police work does get you a ton of enemies.'
He cleared his thoughts and replied, "I brought myself here? I'm not sure I follow… Sir."
The hoarse voice asked, "You are the one who wrote his own name in my Death Note, right… Sir?"
Suddenly, a string of memories appeared in Light's mind. The last memories he ever had.
After a while of motionlessly staring at the empty sky, he broke into a cold sweat. Gulping in fear, he asked with a crooked smile, "That was just a prank, right, and I am not really in the underworld... or the realm of Shinigami, right?"
The hoarse voice laughed, and then dozens of more laughs with horrifyingly hoarse voices followed.
With each passing second, Light's eyes grew darker and darker. All of them laughed for a whole minute, nonstop.
"Oh boy, Ryuk! You weren't lying, this is the funniest! I haven't even seen this many shinigami gathered in one place for an eternity, let alone laugh with them all together."
"Real! If I had eyes, I would tear up from all this giggling, Yohoho!"
After the chuckling dwindled, the original hoarse voice spoke up again in a commanding tone, "Stand up, human."
Light answered in a shaky voice, "Uhm, I am feeling a sharp pain in my chest right now. ,I would rather rest, sir."
"Oh, that, it's just phantom pain, don't worry about it. It doesn't actually affect you… Well, more like it can't."
Light narrowed his eyes and asked with a low tone, "What do you mean? Why can't pain affect me?"
When the hoarse voice spoke again, it was as though the world grew quieter. "How can pain affect someone…
Who is already dead?"
…
The world grew silent. It was as if even the heart in Light's chest had stopped beating. No, it was not as if; he really couldn't feel his heartbeat.
But he couldn't believe it. How could he be dead? He had to see the people talking to him with his own eyes before he could believe in anything.
He gritted his teeth and fought through the sharp phantom pain in his chest. He pressed the ground with his right arm and tried to stand up with his support.
But as soon as he turned to lean on his arm, his eyes saw the unholy sight that he had expected but hoped not to see. Even with all the efforts to mentally prepare himself for this moment, his arm buckled, and he fell back down on his horrified face.
A few meters away from him stood an inhuman figure with spiky hair and big, glossy eyes. He was hunched yet taller than any human Light had seen. His dark and sharp clothes were jarringly unusual for his pale white form, yet they were also some harmony in that contradictory sense of fashion.
'Is he in a rock or a metal band or something?' He tried to lampoon away his fear.
Behind the hunched shinigami were two more, one with a reindeer skull mask and another with hollow eye sockets. And their whole group was surrounded by dozens of grotesque shinigami from all directions.
All were looking at one puny human in the middle with amusement in their dead eyes.
Shivering with fear, Light breathed in and out for a bit. He was trying to examine and comprehend the situation he was in.
As unbelievable as the circumstance was, his adaptability helped him cope with it. Then, he used both arms to pick himself up.
After cleaning the dust off of his fit, he calmly looked at the shinigami closest to him. "I assume you are Ryuk."
Ryuk nodded, prompting him to continue, "So Mr Ryuk, can I ask what is going to happen to me?"
Ryuk lingered, an insidious grin growing on his face. "Sure, I'll tell you everything in detail. But before we do that, let's hear your story first. How the hell did you end up killing yourself with my Death Note?"
The rest of the Shinigami intensified their attention. Feeling their gazes, Light shivered a little with fear. But another emotion was overwhelming his mind; his head was down, and his cheeks were red.
'So it was this demon's book, huh… Well, I was at least not wrong about its previous owner being an emo maniac.
Avoiding eye contact with the glossy eyes of the hunched shinigami, Light replied. "Okay… I found that book while walking back home from school. I thought some idiot- I mean, a quirky student dropped it from the rooftop, I guess it was falling from the heavens itself instead."
Ryuk nodded, prompting Light to continue under the unrelenting and ever more curious gazes.
"After that, I took the book home and sat at my desk to check it out. But before reading its rules, I thought I should write my name as the new owner- I mean, a new user of the book.
Light closed his eyes, and even while standing in the middle of a ruined and ravaged world filled with gods of death, his biggest pain was… embarrassment.
"After writing down my name, I went back to reading the rules and realised the grave mistake I might have made. But rather than panicking, I just deluded myself into thinking the book is obviously just a prank, 'What idiot would believe writing someone's name in a book would kill them?' I thought."
A few giggles sounded from the back, breaking Light's self-esteem even further.
"So I continued reading the next rule with false amusement. The next rule stated that one must think of the person's face while writing their name for the Death Note to work.
"This initially brought me some reassurance, I believed I hadn't been thinking of my own face while writing down my name, so even at the nonexistent chance that this book was real, I would have been safe, or so I thought…"
Light then scrunched his eyes as much as he could and puked out the last sentence of his monologue while grinding his teeth.
"That's until I realised I was sitting in front of my desk mirror…"
Another round of grinding laughter ensued, this one lasted even longer. But unlike the last time, Ruyk himself did not laugh. Rather, he was ominously quiet.
Scratching the back of his head, Light said, "For a moment after my realisation, I was shocked. After some hesitation, I just left my doubts and tried to erase my name from the Death Note. But I had used a pen to write. So instead of going for the eraser, I just tore off the page from the book."
He sighed, "In the next moment, I felt a sharp pain in my chest and realised my last gamble did not work."
A moment of silence veiled the dark world. Then, Ryuk sighed, "How disappointing…"
Light took a deep breath in, and looked in the direction of the hunched shinigami. "I am sorry for disappointing the gods of death."
His previously embarrassed face suddenly grew a subtle grin that was impossible to notice. "If I had another chance, I would make you proud of choosing me…"
Light had not expected to go back to earth alive, but maybe being of use to the gods of death might give him some privileges he wouldn't have had otherwise.
Ryuk laughed, "Choosing you? Not I nor any other slave of death chose you."
Light slowly raised an eyebrow
'Slave of death?'
"Then why did you give me your Death Note?"
Ryuk didn't linger; his reply was ominously serious, "I merely dropped it in the human realm by accident, the power that actually chose you was… Fate,"
'Huh?! Fate?'
But before he could ask what Ryuk meant by Fate, the ground violently shook. A huge cloud of dust exploded behind Light and almost made him fall over.
Stunned by the sudden turn of events, he tried to turn back to examine the source of this rumbling. What he saw was an enormous silhouette obstructed by the cloud of dust.
An unknown entity had landed behind him. He tried to focus and see the creature more clearly as the dust settled with time.
Soon, he saw something vaguely resembling a human skull with writhing tentacles around it. But then something deep inside of him, a primordial instinct rooted deep within his soul, made him turn away from that ungodly sight.
He didn't know why, but he felt like the creature was not something humans were meant to lay eyes on.
He instinctively understood that he was in the presence of a king.
The King of Shinigami.
…