“It cannot be seen, cannot be felt,
Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt,
It lies behind stars and under hills,
And empty holes it fills,
It comes first and follows after,
Ends life, kills laughter.”
- Tolkien
D a r k n e s s.
She was surrounded by it- drowning in it.
So long had she been locked away, tangled in
the night's embrace, she feared that it would
consume her.
How long had she been here?
The absence of light all but drained
her, physically and emotionally. She was
exhausted, hungry, thirsty, and the girl's
perception of time was all but skewed.
It wasn't that she was unhappy with her life. In fact, compared to the life that she'd lead in the past (two lives, if one broke it into a series of similar consecutive time periods) then the life that she had now was rather good.
She lived in a pitifully tiny apartment, barely large enough to house both herself and her belongings comfortably. But at least she had belongings; collections of manga, movies, memorabilia, cosplay material, things she'd sought after for years and amassed into the grand assortment that she had now.
Aside from this she also had three very dear friends to her, in whom she could unendingly trust regardless of where her path took her.
No, it wasn't that she was unhappy, but she was always seeking after the idea that she didn't want to become unhappy.
The very first part of her life was... quiet. Unassuming. Gentle. She was a growing young lady in a house with two upper middle class parents, both of whom always strove to seek society's favor. They wanted little more than to conform to its comforts, and so onto Erika they pushed their ideals, values, and their terribly, terribly boring life.
This lead Erika to seek her 'second life,' that second part of her existence that increased her adventure tenfold in the worst kind of way. She'd always been an inquisitive creature, wondering what more life had to offer. When she was first introduced to the underground she thought it was a game, she thought it was adventure. The only thing waiting for her at the end of the road was a set of destroyed limbs and organs and abandonment.
Because what sort of conformist, upper middle class parents wanted anything to do with a problem child? They left Erika and fled to another city; and never told her where they were. They left her to her evil deeds and to the organization of which she'd become a part. She used her hands and her growing sadism to twist the knobs of humanity and wring from (perhaps innocent) bodies the kinds of cries in which she found her pleasure.
It wasn't until years later that she found her third, and most recent life; the one in which she was allowed to be the person that she was always meant to become without any sort of judgement against her.
In front of her was a world of adventure, and behind her was the world of chaos; but one's past was so rarely left in the past, especially a past like hers.
When Erika finally left her organization she had left under the impression that she was free to go. After all, she wasn't more than a teenager when she worked for them and she hadn't been granted any sort of 'sensitive' information. They dealt in several forms of illegal activity though performed so far under the radar that they attracted little attention to themselves. It was all the better for Erika to leave quietly, peacefully, without aiming their resentment at her.
Everyone made mistakes, though, and it only took a few ill-performed murders for the organization to catch the eye of one "Detective L."
Of course, at the time, Erika had little idea of who that was. She was no longer an evil sort of person but she did work in the underground and it was best to stay far away from the eyes of the law. She remembered her time in the organization but those years were behind her now, she had nothing more to do with them.
Doo! Do-dodo-doo-DUM-DAA-doh--
"Hnnn?" Erika looked down at the chiming phone in her hand, though she could not say that she recognized the number. However, being part of the 'Dollars' gang it wasn't so unusual to receive calls from people that she didn't know.
Her thumb clicked the button to receive the call, lifting the phone to her ear, "Hellooooo--?" she sang, rocking up onto the balls of her curious feet.
Don't look up. Just don't. After the day she had had today the last thing she wanted was to see when these two new strangers were going to die. Needless to say that their introduction was not needed after seeing their names, but just to not look rude or reveal anything, she would hear them. But after bumping into them like that, the least she could do is to apologize. "Sorry, I wasn't watching my steps." Sekai bowed, keeping her sight down as she straightened her back.
Naoto took a moment to examine the newcomer briefly. He looks like he haven't slept in weeks. Still... "Hello." She greeted, tugging at her hat slightly. "How may I be of assistance?"
L Lawliet. The one man in the world who knew B almost as well as he did. That was merely one of the reasons why they didn't exactly see eye to eye. But B had changed, probably for the worse, and now was his time to revisit L although he probably knew Beyond was still alive.
However, he still pressed the buzzer and waited, looking around for any security cameras.
