Fic - The Irregularity of Death - Chapter Four - Questions
Thursday, March 20th, 2014 01:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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mindcracklove(also, fun fact, the first three chapters of this fic were written within the course of a week)
Chapter Four: Questions
“The note shall become the property of the human world once it touches the ground of (arrives in) the human world.”
Etho walked. He stumbled through yards and streets, past stores and houses. He was dead tired (though not dead, thankfully) and each step was on autopilot. He was all but asleep on his feet.
Almost surprisingly, he somehow avoided getting lost. It helped, certainly, that he had lived in Crofton all seventeen years of his life. Even when coming from such a distant corner of town like the mines, it was less than an hour’s trek before the dulled white shingles of his home’s roof finally came into view.
And there, parked in his driveway, was a familiar cherry red convertible.
“HEY!” Andrew Davion leaned out of the car, waving his hand high in the air to get Etho’s attention, blue eyes wide and alert. “You were late, so I thought I’d drop by!”
“It’s… I’ve had a long, tiring day,” the white haired boy sighed. “I got only a little bit of sleep, I just walked like four miles across town, not to mention running around in perpetual fear for the few hours before that… Can I just go to sleep?”
“I can take you by the coffee shop on Main?” Davion grinned.
He got a slow blink in response. “You’re not going to leave me alone unless I go with you, right?”
“Yep!”
“Fine.” Etho pulled open the back door, got into the car, closed it, then curled into a ball on the warm leather seating. “Wake me when we get there, or when we die because you crashed into a building. Either seems just as likely.”
“You got it.” It briefly occurred to Etho that he should’ve checked inside his home, talked with his parents, even recharged his phone, but they were flying into the street before he got the chance. Davion hadn’t even turned off the measly side street that the two had come from before he had already drifted off to sleep.
---
Etho found himself thrown to the floor of the car as it skidded suddenly to a stop. “Oof!”
Davion loomed over him, the morning sun’s rays backlighting him almost dramatically. “Wakey wakey, sleepyhead. We’re at my place. Figured it’d be easier for you to relax here.”
“Ughhhh I hate you so much right now,” he groaned as he pushed himself to his feet.
“So do most people I know. C’mon.”
The two headed into the house. Rather than head through the second set of doors to the kitchen, the black haired teen hopped along the tall set of stairs. He peered down from the balcony.
“Up here - we’re going into my room!”
After ascending the stairs and leaving the foyer, Etho made note of the hallway around him. Each pristine white door was open, almost as if in display. The rooms inside were large but vacant, some only containing a chair and a table, maybe even a fireplace if it was lucky. He could spot a bathroom, equally clean, in the room at one end of the hall. Davion led him to the sole closed door at the opposite end.
As he got a good look around his companion’s room for the first time, a few things immediately stuck out. It was a smaller room than the rest, for one - there wasn’t enough space for him to lay down on the floor, let alone someone who had a few inches on him like Andrew. The room was also the same sparsity as the others, except where a fireplace might’ve fit, there was a simple wooden bed. A doorway (to what he assumed was a closet) sat in the back of the room, although with the size of the room versus the space it had, it would need to be a very, very large closet. It also lacked a window, despite all the other rooms having at least one.
Davion flashed him a devious grin, heading into the closet and indicating with one hand that Etho should follow. Meanwhile, he slid his free hand along the seam of the wall until it reached a specific spot - he pushed hard against it and the closet’s wall came free.
The duo entered the hidden area, a much larger space stashed away behind the simple front of the previous room. It boasted a nicer, comfortable bed; a beautiful mahogany desk and chair (as well as a beast of a PC sitting on it); a fireplace, already lit; and a monstrous zombified pig-humanoid lounging on the bed and downing himself another bottle of beer.
Etho scanned the room curiously. “You’ve got a secret room hidden behind the other one?”
“Yep.” Davion plopped down into his chair, lazily spinning around a few times before facing Etho. “And I’ve got a secret.”
“Can I just fall asleep on your bed, then, or do you want to listen to my complaining first? Is there some other reason you brought me here other than you wanted company?”
Andrew reached under the desk, the sinister clicking of a mechanism following the action. A camouflaged drawer revealed itself, the Death Note fitting comfortably inside. He pulled it from its hiding spot and flipped through it. He settled on a page halfway through the note before turning it so that Etho could see.
A long list of names and details scrawled down the page. The last name, all the way down at the bottom, was eerily familiar.
Paul Soares Jr., suicide.
He looked back up, only to find that Davion had donned his goggles once more. He wore a disarming smile. “I know all about the trials of your last few hours, so save your breath. I’m sure you’ve figured it out by now… I am Vechs.”
A foreboding silence.
“Y-you… You kidnapped me,” Etho stated, fury building behind his voice.
“Yep.”
“You tried to kill me!”
This elicited a shrug. “Either of you would’ve sufficed, actually. I’ve got hidden doors scattered about the place, and lights along almost every floor. So long as there’s one winner, I don’t really care.”
“So - so this was never about teamwork, or us both surviving? What was your game, then, Davion?”
Davion - Vechs - whoever he was, tilted his head slightly but kept grinning. “My game is called Super Hostile. Like I said before - I find two people that I deem less than worthy for one reason or another and pit them against themselves… Although, of course, it turns out best when they don’t know that they’re in competition. For you, it was just to be sure you can handle whatever I end up throwing your way.”
He gestured to the bed. Zisteau shifted himself over slightly, and Etho warily sat down next to him.
“And then, your dear friend Paul - or whatever his name may be - broke a rule, which results in his immediate death. But he didn’t die, which in turn breaks yet another rule. Namely, that what I say, goes.”
“When I asked if you were using the Death Note, you said you were kidding…”
“You also asked if you were on my list. I was only kidding about one of those things.” Vechs adjusted his goggles with one hand. “My point is, dear Mister Slab, now that you’ve won the game, I’ve got a proposition for you.”
Etho raised an eyebrow behind his sunglasses. “What… kind of proposition?”
“You help me avoid a similar problem to the one we had today, using your curiously unique Shinigami eye to see the real names of my competitors.” He put the tip of his pen to the next blank page in the Death Note, but without turning his head to look at it. "Do that, and I won't kill the people you care about the most."
They sat there, eyes locked, for several seconds. Vechs held out his free hand. "Do we have a deal?"
Etho studied him for a moment more… and then took it.
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Date: Thursday, March 20th, 2014 06:18 pm (UTC)I came back from school, read this, and thought this was awesome. Then posted this :D
AWESOMENESS!
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Date: Thursday, March 20th, 2014 06:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Friday, March 21st, 2014 04:17 am (UTC)...But I like it. *Cackles*
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Date: Friday, March 21st, 2014 05:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Saturday, March 22nd, 2014 01:40 am (UTC)