Death Note: Blood Ties - 1. EVOLUTION

Chapter 1: EVOLUTION

Ethan:

My life must be the epitome of boredom, I thought as I walked the streets to Brisbane State High School.

I adjusted my thick glasses. Navy and red striped blazers and maroon shirts crowded about at the school gates up ahead. Nothing exciting ever happened in Brisbane. Outside of school I had an either dying or dead social life, I hadn't had a girlfriend since Year Eight (that was three years ago), and the only thing I could do with my spare time was study for the exams this semester not that I was any good at school either.

Having no particular academic gift and not being particularly sporty my time was spent avoiding my family by locking the door to my room and playing online computer games. As I walked through the crowd of teenagers, brushing my dark fringe aside, I heard snippets of gossip, hushed conversation and excited plans for going out drinking on the weekend. It was all so pointless.

I stopped when I noticed Joel Robinson in front of me - a big Year Twelve kid who was shoving around some small Year Ten. Thankfully he hadn't noticed that I almost walked into him. Being the coward that I was I pulled up the bag strap around my shoulder and walked past him and through the school gates. The bell rang. Just in time, again. The deputy principle, Mr Harris, was trying to usher students over twice his size along to their classrooms and they blatantly ignored him. It was Monday morning and a lot of students were filled with an apathetic feeling of constraint. School held no interest for me but at the same time I wanted to be here. Anywhere was better than being home. Anything was better than being near my abusive step father.

Just let something interesting happen today, I silently prayed, good or bad I just want to feel something to get me through the day.

Jack:

The bell rang. Fuck it, I ain't going. Mr Harris, being a total loser was trying to get some guys to move off to class. One of them should deck him, that would make my day. I really wished I was smoking some bud right now. Whatever the kids here called it: pot, grass, marijuana, cannabis. I wanted some. People gave me names too: dope-head, space-head, crack smoker, whatever they didn't understand. I wasn't like the other kids at this school that smoked weed cause they just wanted some fun or to look 'cool'.

If your life was as shit as mine you did whatever you could to survive. That's why I took risks and went joyriding and did all that crazy stuff. Anything to make you happy, so that your own life would be interesting enough for you to want to keep living in it.

I stayed leaning against the fence with my hands deep inside the pockets of my trousers. As most of the teens started pouring through the school gate I reluctantly decided to push off the fence and go inside before a teacher told me to.

Emma was supposed to meet me by the front of the school gates but she'd missed me again. I was thinking about dumping her. I probably would if things didn't get better soon. She was fun to be around when I was high, but when I went down again I remembered she was self-obsessed and patronizing. She was hot but that only went so far in a relationship, I was noticing that she was losing her appeal. We hadn't fucked or done anything yet apart from making out. I found my roll call room and lined up, keeping a distance between me and the others. I leaned my buzz-cut head against the brick wall and closed my eyes, trying to zone out the noise around me.

Hannah:

My silver Toyota economy car swerved between two other parked cars and I unbuckled and opened the door. Frick! The bell had already rang and the last of the students were walking through the gates. 'In the End' by Linkin Park was blasting at full volume and got a few stares from students. I rilly rilly didn't want to get caught for being late again... I twisted the key and pulled it out of the ignition, shutting off the music. I swung the door closed and locked it with the beeper. I then immediately inserted my head phones and started playing some Three Days Grace.

Music helped me think - I was always listening to music loudly and because of it my hearing had become more than a leetle affected. I knew that my choice of music differed from the digitally-raped fake techno-music most girls my age were into, and I suppose my nails and bracelets I wore were all black and my mascara was a little too dark. However I was by no definition a freaking emo or goth!

I just reflected my inner emotions through the style of clothes I wore, but really, which teenager in Brisbane didn't feel at least a little angst and disappointment with their life?

I tucked a strand of dirty-blonde hair away from my face. School was agony. Not just because you had to listen to teachers go on and on and on about whatever, but because I had this horrible hole of loneliness inside me... There was no one at this school that seemed to have even an iota of similarities with me. All of the girls were stuck-up bitches and self-gratifying whores! I really needed a freaking boyfriend.

Even though I felt this emptiness I knew I wouldn't talk to anyone, social interaction was something I'd given up on back in Year Seven. I wasn't about to change that part of my life now...

Billy:

I sat in roll call at the back of my class with my head down, quietly. Silence. I turned over my arms to examine the cut marks I'd given myself the night before. I'd cried so much then. It was great. The word came back to me again: Fag. It came to me in my father's voice and I shivered then pulled back the sleeves of my blazer to hide the self-inflicted wounds. They were only shallow. I didn't really want to die. Mostly I was afraid of what it would be like on the other side. My honey-brown hair obscured my face with its long fringe while I stared down at my desk. I liked it that way. The roll call teacher, Mrs Lee, started calling out names off the roll and the students responded with the standard 'Yep!' when they heard their names called out. When I heard Mrs Lee call "Ethan Jones" I looked up to where I heard him respond.

"Here."

I stared wide-eyed at him. He stared ahead with a very serious and cold expression. There was a hint of boredom. His hair was night-black and kind of long. He wore black rectangular glasses. His dark eyes turned to stare back at me and his expression didn't change. I lowered my gaze back to the desk and a blush started warming my face. Excitement. A short while later Mrs Lee called "William Taylor".

I replied with a timid "Yep," like the rest of the students.

After all the names were called Mrs Lee read out pointless notices that didn't relate to me. The bell rang again indicating the start of first period. I wouldn't have noticed the announcements even if I'd been paying attention. I was sitting there with a mixture of embarrassment and euphoria. He looked at me. Infatuation. I stood with my other classmates and was one of the last ones to leave. Environmental class was first but thankfully I now had something to think about to keep me from getting bored for the rest of the day.

Gallu:

I sailed the skies above cursing myself for my own foolishness. I could already foresee the faces of my fellow Shinigami laughing at me, especially Ladon. I envisioned Ladon's skeletal figure shaking with laughter.

"That stupid fool Gallu! Didn't I say it? Didn't I say that if ever there was a Shinigami stupid enough to drop their death note in the human realm, it would be him?"

I settled on a resolution: I was simply never going to return to the Shinigami realm. I would remain in the human world to avoid the degradation of having to beg the Shinigami King for another notebook. After a few centuries, Ladon and the other Shinigami would probably assume I was dead. I knew, however, that although the human world was beautiful I would eventually become too disinterested having no one to converse with and then I would have to return. I started sailing closer to the ground, my red bat-like wings beating occasionally against the whipping wind, giving me bursts of speed. I knew I'd dropped it along this area, somewhere. I just had to ensure I salvaged the notebook before a human touched it. If a human got a hold of my death note it would become their property and I would be unable to take it from them. I would be subjugated to following around him/her until I saw them die, but for all I knew that might be enthralling. It would be a change from sitting around and just playing cards all the time with the other Shinigami.

In fact, if that happened I could probably tell Ladon and the others it was a plan of my own devices, a strategy to quell the boredom. They'd never believe me. I kept flying until I noticed a human school up ahead, directly beneath where I'd flown before. I'd been about to return to the Shinigami realm presumably with my own death note before I'd realised it was absent. I started scanning the grounds of the school carefully with large yellow eyes.

Ethan:

For Earth and Environment studies my teacher Ms Leroy had taken her class out to the school sports oval to collect samples of earth for chemical testing of nitrogenous trace elements.

It was quite boring, and pointless. I started twirling a strand of my dark hair behind my ear as I absent-mindedly registered what my teacher was saying. Ms Leroy was mid-forties with long brown hair. The tinge to her skin and her slightly accentuated words implied that she had some kind of exotic ethnicity but I didn't have a clue what it could be. I pushed my glasses up my nose when they started to slide down my face and waited for Ms Leroy to stop going on about whatever she was saying. She had the annoying habit of pausing after saying something and waiting for a response from the class that they'd understood before continuing.

I started fiddling with my glasses again like I usually did when my mind was wandering. I hated having to wear glasses all the time. I had put it off for as long as I could when I was younger but by the time I was twelve I was about as blind as a bat. It was a little disconcerting that without these glasses I wouldn't be able to see someone's face even if they were standing right in front of me. At least they were stylish: thick, black and rectangular shaped. Not nerdy looking glasses.

Eventually Ms Leroy told us to go collect dirt samples in the test tubes we were carrying and record the abundance of plants around the sample. I walked off into the small forest of trees that surrounded the sports oval. I could see to the left of me sports students running around the oval in their maroon PE shirts. The sun shone through the trees and the air I breathed in was cold and smelt of morning.

It was so dull.

The sky was a blanket of grey and the sun was barely visible, only peeking through a gap in the cloaked sky. It was cold, but considering it was in the middle of April that was to be expected. It was miserable to think it would only get colder as winter came closer. I hated this time of year, I liked weather to be hot so I could go to the pools. When the sunlight was barely visible and only partially flowed through the canopy of leaves overhead I stopped. I looked back at the other students, the closest group being about ten metres away. Lots of space for me. I knelt down beside a tree and dug into the damp earth with my test tube. I shook it around until it stopped sticking to the sides and fell to the bottom. I frowned at the black dirt and then walked off to a different location without going any deeper into the forest. I decided for my second sample I'd find a space of earth with no life around it to compare to my first when we got back to the lab.

I kept walking and then entered a beam of light that came from above. I stopped and looked up, shielding my eyes from the bright light. Then I noticed something strange. There was an outline of a shape in the tree top. It looked square so it stood out from the leaves around it. Is it a book? How'd it get up there?

I turned around and saw that the students before had wandered off. It appeared I was alone. Approaching the tree that the book seemed stuck in, I examined the strange object more. It was too far up for me to pull out so instead I stood underneath and started shaking the long branch it was caught in. Unfortunately I was reminded of how hand-eye co-ordination was never my forte as the book slipped out and whacked me in the face. I cursed and clutched at my nose. Luckily the book wasn't very heavy, but it had knocked the glasses off my face.

I knelt down and started searching blindly with my hand. I found them and put them back on, luckily they weren't damaged. I looked around and found the book lying on the ground beside me. It was black and thin, a notebook. On the front written in some strange font, all in capitals and white against the black cover were the words: 'DEATH NOTE'.

I blinked and stared at the book. Then I looked up, still no one was anywhere in sight. Good thing too, that would've been embarrassing if I'd been seen. Reaching out I picked up the book. I opened it in the middle and saw it contained blank lined sheets of paper. I started flicking back to the start until I saw handwriting. I had no idea what was used as a writing tool or the language that the obscure symbols belonged to. It looked like two words were written down every line in different languages and then after them was information scrawled in the same weird pictographic language. I noticed some words were in English, that's when I realised that these were names and that next to them was something written in code.

All these names were in different languages, some I recognised as different Asian languages while some were Arabic and Indian as well. It seemed as if names from different languages all over the world were written in this book, I wondered what that mysterious script was written after each name.

I kept flicking back and found out the first ten pages were filled with names, then I found black pages with different writing on them also in English. The page was surrounded by a white border and under the picture of what looked like a skull within a sun was random notes saying something about gods of death. The page read 'Death Note – How to use it XVIII'. I skipped to the very front and opened it from the beginning. 'The human whose name is written in this note shall die'. It was the first instruction in the book.

A smile started to spread across my face. Something interesting had happened to me, I guess. Who would have gone to all the trouble of making this and then leave it lying around here? It was an interesting prank, although kind of pointless. There could be no way someone left it in the forest hoping someone would coincidentally notice and take it. Also, as soon as someone used it they would know immediately that it was fake when the person whose name they wrote down didn't end up dying, so it wasn't very convincing as a prank.

I closed the book. I might want to use it when I got home, not that there was any chance it worked. It still looked pretty cool. I might end up using it as a journal, my old journal was pretty battered. Deciding that I didn't want anyone noticing me leaving the forest with the book I hid it under my blazer. I hurried out of the trees before Ms Leroy could get angry at me for disappearing on her.

While heading home I was excited at the prospect of reading what else was inside the death note. I wanted to read all the things the crazy person who made this book had written. My house was small and the white paint was peeling. There was no comfort at the sight of it. No warm childhood memories, even though I'd lived here all my life. My most painful experiences had happened in this house. It was definitely not a home to me. When I fetched my key from my bag and unlocked the door I'd intended to go straight to my room but the way was blocked by my step father. I never called him Dad, my real father was dead. I didn't even call him 'step Dad', he was always just Reece. Balding and in his late forties, he was several heads taller and towered over me when I looked at him. His massive beer gut would have given him over three times my body mass without the additional height.

His eyes were glazed and his nose was red. He swayed where he stood and I could tell from the smell of him that he was drunk, on cheap vodka. I wondered idly why he wasn't at work but then figured he'd probably taken one of his weekly sick days.

"Have you got yourself a job yet?" he demanded.

"You asked me last night," I told him calmly. "I haven't had time between then and now to apply for a job anywhere."

"Don't be smart with me, boy!" he was trying to pick a fight with me. What kind of a bully picks a fight with someone less than half his age, let alone his own step son? I tried to appease him though, so that I could get to my room.

"I'll try harder and start looking for work."

"You better. You're almost seventeen, I want you out of this house soon! You cost too much to take care of!"

I didn't point out the fact that most of the food in the house was eaten by him and that most of the money was spent on his constant supply of booze. I had no idea what my mother saw in him. Reece staggered away from the door and went into the living room. I opened my door and entered my tiny room. I closed it and clicked the lock into place. Falling back onto the bed I unzipped my bag and pulled out the death note. I held it in my hands and just looked at it for a while. Then I opened it from the beginning and started to read more. 'This note will not take effect unless the writer has the person's face in their mind when writing his/her name. Therefore, people sharing the same name will not be affected.' That made sense. I continued to read.

The next rule, 'If the cause of death is written within 40 seconds of writing the person's name, it will happen' was followed by the rule 'If the cause of death is not specified, the person will simply die of a heart attack.' I kept reading, my interest growing the more I found out about the death note. 'After writing the cause of death, details of the death should be written in the next 6 minutes and 40 seconds.' Whoever made this had put a whole lot of detail in just for a prank. I wondered who in the school was clever and morbid enough to create something like this. Then it occurred to me that the book could have been hidden years ago and only just been found now. The writer could have intended the book to never be found. Now there was just one thought going through my mind. Who should I kill?