Chapter 5: Chapter 4

Chapter 4

 

When you’re used to something, no matter how hard it is, it is easy. That sounds like a bit of a contradiction, but you know it’s easy. So many people live their life in a way that is extremely difficult. They don’t drink enough water, even where it’s basically free. They don’t sleep enough, even when it’s under their control. And sure, some of it can be chalked up to the trappings of society. Everyone is too worn down to take care of themselves. 

But is that really all of it? Or is that a convenient excuse for the fact that it is easier for you to do the hard thing, because that’s what you’re used to? Is there another layer? You could take care of yourself. You could love yourself. But self-loathing is easier. It fits like a glove, like slipping on the comfy robe, like sliding into a lukewarm bath. 

No matter how hard it is, it’s easy once you’re used to it. And Aaron was used to fear. Sure, not immediate fear, the fear a rabbit feels as teeth and claws come for it, he hadn’t been chased that often in his life. But he knew existential terror. The fear that he didn’t really matter, not even in the small picture. 

That everything he’d told himself about himself was a lie, that he wasn’t better or smarter or more interesting than anyone, that he would never amount to anything and that he’d fade into obscurity, and that that was right, that he deserved to fade into obscurity. 

He would have loved Nietzsche. 

So when he saw the toothy grin out of the corner of his eye and he remembered the rest of Death Note, and how it wasn’t a story about a superhero but about a sad, self-important idiot dying in an alley, unloved and unknown, Aaron felt a familiar fear. He just felt it harder. He felt it all through his body, spiders under his skin, ice in his veins, a vice grip on his heart and chains around his lungs that squeezed out every breath he had ever taken. 

Sprinting down the suburban streets at night, all he could think was to get away. He was familiar with that, too. Getting away, or trying to. Consciously, he’d know he was running away from the inevitable, but that didn’t matter. For one, he wasn’t thinking consciously, he was running for his life. 

Two: Aren’t you?

He heard a gentle chuckle in his ear, and a part of him, a part that vaguely remembered an overhyped anime from the early two-thousands, knew only he’d be able to hear it. There was a shadow overhead and he knew nobody else would be able to see it. It didn’t matter. He needed to run. Once he heard it speak, once he answered, it would be over. His life and his mind would shatter into a million pieces and he’d never be able to go back to how his life had been before. 

He saw the shadow head him off and he took a left turn into an alley, and realized he was still holding the notebook, and his phone. Okay. Okay, maybe he could salvage this. He opened his browser as quickly as possible, leaning in the shadows against the brick wall. 

There had to be a wiki about this. Shit like this always had wikis, didn’t it? Okay, okay, okay, here we go. There it was. “How to read” page. “This note shall become property of the Human world—” No, that wasn’t it. Scrolling further, his blood ran cold for a moment. 

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“The Human who uses this note can go to neither heaven or hell.” He stared at those words for a second. The Death Note in his hand was real. That meant the whole “Death God” thing was real too. He had never really believed in anything, and today was a terrible day to get started, considering he had apparently just signed over his soul to nothingness. 

There was a footnote. His finger trembling, he tapped it. 

“It is confirmed by the manga’s creator that there is no Heaven and Hell in the Death Note universe and humans just go to Mu (nothingness).” 

Good.

Wait. Was that good? Was the fact that everyone went to nothingness a good thing? Was that even a fact? Did some mangaka really have it all figured out? How would he even find out? In one breath, Aaron had worried that his soul was doomed, and now he found out that his soul might not exist or that heaven and hell didn’t, and a hysterical cackle rose up in his throat. 

Aaron leaned his head against the brickwork, and let it out. A throaty laugh that was all the pent up fear and anxiety, and before long he was laughing so loudly tears were rolling down his cheeks. Sure. It was the laughing. No other reason for those tears, no sirree. 

He laughed, so loudly he didn’t initially realize there was an echo. No, not an echo. A harmony. Someone was laughing along with him. And that voice bounced around his head like a cold breeze. His voice froze in his throat and he was glad for a moment his eyes were closed, because once he opened them, it would all become real, and he couldn’t have that. He stood in silence. There was no sound but his heart hammering in his chest and his rasping breath. 

“What are we laughing about?” the voice said. The voice was like someone running their fingernails across his scalp. The kind of voice that is pleasant in theory, horrifying if you think you’re alone in your room. 

Aaron opened his eyes. He knew what it was. “Shinigami.” He’d seen the name in the wiki just a moment ago. Death God. It looked like it. Tall, gangly, wearing what looked like an old-timey tuxedo of all things. It had a grin that was teeth from end to end. It was slightly hunched over, and its long fingers ended in talons. 

“You know what I am,” the Shinigami said. It wasn’t a question. Not that Aaron was in a place to argue if it had been. All he could think was to run, run, run away again. So he did, much to the creature’s confusion, cocking its head like a dog as it observed him. Sprinting to the end of the alley, Aaron escaped. Well he tried to, anyway. He heard a low, husky voice say something. 

“I think it came from down here,” the voice said, pointing an arm forward. It was an arm clad in leather and studs, and it was at head-height. Aaron crashed into it at terminal velocity and his world turned upside down, literally this time. 

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