Alrighty! So this is the debut of my dark, evil plottin-- ahem I mean, writing. So, let me know what you think, etc. in the form of a review. (I really don't care if it's 'I liked it' or 'I hated it,' but if you want to leave something meaningful, say WHY.) Please enjoy it!

Letters

1

--M--

June 16, 2007

Matt sighed.

It was one of those heavy, drawn-out sighs accompanied by the smoky vapors of his cigarette. He stared contemplatively at the ceiling, his debooted feet hanging off the edge of his mattress and his hands ungloved, as if he no longer approved of the black leather of his normal outfit. His auburn hair would have been in his eyes, if not for the biker goggles that tugged his bangs upwards every time he uncovered his eyes. It was dark and quiet in his room and he found himself missing the small lights from the various game systems on pause. Damn, he hadn't been to the Wammy's House for over a year, and yet he still felt uneasy without the little bits of life that he had gotten accustomed to there. A muffled pair of footsteps passed by his hotel door and he sank deeper into the mattress and his despair.

Tomorrow, he hoped to meet with Mello. That in and of itself forced a convoluted mix of feelings to rise into his throat. It had been years since they had last seen each other, and Mello had made a rather hasty departure even then. Matt had been trying to first find him, and then contact him, but Mello had done a neat job of disappearing off the face of the earth. Until, of course, Near had decided to let a few words slip. Then Matt felt like an idiot for not checking the mafia sooner. Although, considering he'd been in a loose kind of contact with the crippled boy for nearly a year, he figured it wouldn't have hurt either of them much if he had given out Mello's whereabouts sooner.

Matt took another pull from his cigarette, letting the drug calm him. He had hacked his way into the LA base—no easy feat—and left a private message for Mello. Matt had easily recognized where the blond would have placed himself within the organization and by his screen name: a single gothic M. Not entirely original, Matt had thought, but he knew his former something had his reasons… Matt suddenly felt a little lost in trying to describe what Mello was to him. Former, yes, as they certainly had nothing to do with each other now, but… what exactly had they been? Friends? Colleagues? Rivals? Lovers? Enemies? Or had they simply been children… no, Matt knew that if anything, those few special students at Wammy's had never been children.

Taking a deep breath to clear his head, Matt realized there wasn't much point in trying to figure it out right now. It would all change tomorrow anyway. Today was the day he would always remember for a different event from his past. Matt was only that much more depressed that he couldn't be in England for it, setting alternating black and white candles out on the railings, watching the light flicker on the black latticework over the white buildings. He would even take his goggles off to watch them after the sun went down behind his back, ignoring the strangers who gave him even stranger looks before hurrying on their way. Yes, he'd rather be back where it had all started.

Although, he certainly could hold his ninth annual silent vigil wherever the hell he pleased. It wasn't as if anyone had ever tried to stop him. And he'd be damned if a cheap motel in Los Angeles wasn't the proper place to remember how his family had died.

--M--

"Here's the day you hoped would never come,

don't feed me violence,

just run with me

through rows of speeding cars."

June 16, 1998

His father, Adair Jeevas, was an artist. He saw life in its infinite detail and painted it, turning everyday objects into masterpieces. Every year since he had met Cara, he had painted her portrait and exclaimed how much more beautiful she had become with the passing year. Mail had always loved hearing the story about the third year that he had finished painting her portrait: Adair had asked Cara to marry him, painting a golden ring onto her finger when she accepted. In kindergarten, Mail had always used the finger paints to adorn his own fingers with rings, but naturally he had gotten the greens, blues, yellows, and reds all over his dark glasses instead. Now that he was in third grade, Mail knew that no one would ever propose to him and that rings were, for the most part, reserved for women to wear on their fingers, not men.

But that didn't stop him from liking the story and understanding as only an 8-year-old genius could that his parents loved each other, him, and his little sister. And that just as importantly, he loved them all back… even when Blair Rose had been two and cried all the time. Having no friends at school, Mail had always depended on his family for social interaction and had developed a habit of not caring about public opinion, especially when it pertained to the way his peers perceived him. He knew it didn't make him any more likable, but had given up hope years ago that he would be anything but unpopular.

So Mail smiled, holding his mum's hand tightly, even though he knew his way all around Chester's tourist spot, the Chester Rows and that a normal 8-year-old would be embarrassed to hold his mother's hand. The traditional architecture of the two-tiered galleria of shops was contrasting black on white, except for whatever signs the shop-owners had put up or the bright colors of tourists in summer wear and sun-burned shoulders. His father owned the shop second from the corner and sold his paintings, most of which depicted the famous landmark shopping center, but there were still a great many other English scenes, found to be quite popular with foreign tourists.

Being summer, Mail found that his dark glasses kept sliding down the sweat on his nose, causing his eyes to water. Instead of wasting his time pushing them back up every few seconds, Mail simply decided to shut his eyes and trust in the sweaty palm guiding him. Even if he let go, he was pretty confident he could find his way to the store with his eyes closed. Sunny days and being outside in the heat were somewhat like the bane of his young existence.

Of course it was only a few seconds later that he tripped over a curb. He didn't fall, but only because his mum yanked aloft his arm, his sixty pound body following its erratic appendage. Mail heard more than felt his glasses slip off his nose to clatter to the brick road where his face might have gone if his mother hadn't had such quick natural reactions.

"Are you alright, Mail?" Cara asked gently, releasing her son's hand to place it on his tiny shoulder. Mail could feel her shadow crouch down in front of him, his eyes still closed.

"Yeah," he mumbled, peeking through one eye now that he was decently sure the she was blocking the sun.

"Oh, Mail, are your eyes hurting again?" She frowned and pulled a tissue from her pocket to wipe at his face and the water that leaked from his eyes. Mail hadn't noticed that his eyes were watering. "I can carry you if you don't want to walk, love. You can shut your eyes that way."

Mail should his head emphatically as Blair Rose interrupted from her seat in a child-carrier-backpack. "Buh mum carries Bwair Rose!"

"You don't need to carry me; I'm old enough to walk by myself," Mail replied succinctly. He closed his eyes to point his head in the direction of his little sister, silhouetted by rays of sunlight behind her. "See Blair? I can walk on my own because I'm independent."

"Waz induhpendant?" Blair Rose asked, the last syllable rising far more than necessary. Mail cracked an eye open to see the quizzical expression on the little blonde's face. Blair Rose blinked back at him like she had recently begun doing when she expected an explanation from her older brother. Mail had secretly hoped that she would be even smarter than him so he could have someone to talk to on an equal level, and so had begun teaching her everything he could. However, he often heard his parents whispering a discussion in the kitchen about her development in terms of the rather ordinary and expected for children her age. They were always happy to talk about how Blair Rose was at the correct stage, which made Mail a little jealous and somewhat lonely. Still, he hoped that if he tried hard enough, Blair Rose would be just as smart as he was and so never stopped trying to teach her.

"Independent means I can take care of myself."

"Alright, alright," Cara said, placating her children, but Mail caught her slight smile, and wondered if his mum was secretly happy that he was trying to teach Blair Rose not to be so clingy. He had noticed that it was exceedingly difficult for his mother to resist acquiescing to her children's demands for attention, time, and money. Mail himself had taken advantage of this fact by urging her to buy him a Nintendo 64 and most of the ensuing games he wanted. He knew that the Game Boy Color would make its way to Europe over the course of the next year, and had already begun dropping hints that it would be an appropriate present for his birthday or Christmas, depending on which was closer to the release date. Cara picked up Mail's fallen glasses, and brushed them off before holding the plastic lenses out to him. "Now, Mail, if the light's bothering you again, you can go ahead and say so. We're almost to Da's shop, so once we're there, he can turn off the lights for you if just being inside isn't enough. How's that, love?"

"It's fine, mum. Don't worry about it," Mail said, embarrassed that his mother was fussing over him still, especially after he had just told Blair Rose the meaning of independent. His parents, teachers, and classmates had always made a big deal over his hypersensitive eyes, and whether it was to try to make special accommodations for him or to make fun of him, he always hated the extra attention paid to his 'disability.' He opened his other eye, squinting badly.

His mother handed him the awkwardly large glasses and he replaced them on his face, hating them as much as he needed them. He got a new pair for every holiday or whenever the previous one broke or was broken, but they always obscured about half of his face, which was mostly what made it difficult to get friends. It might not have been too bad, but he had never learned to connect well with anyone else his age from the very start. Having never gotten down the art of acting his age, looking like a freak had never helped. Mail, with his strange disability and his even stranger intelligence, had learned on the first day of kindergarten that he was vastly different from the other kids. And although it had been hard to accept and he had cried to his parents, gone to four year's worth of parent-teacher conferences, refused to wear his sunglasses and dumbed down his speech for a week, none of it had changed how the other children teased him. He had no choice but to realize that until they grew up, he would just have to live with being separate. It still hurt sometimes to watch the other children playing some kind of silly game during recess and never including him, unless it was for some kind of taunting. To the other students he was either the ever popular "four-eyes" or "teacher's pet," even though he had learned to stop raising his hand in first grade. He tried to tell himself that he didn't want to be friends with people who couldn't see past his glasses and thought intelligence was a factor to be scorned, but he sometimes wished he weren't so different from them.

Replacing his hand back into his mother's, Mail reminded himself for the millionth time in his life that he only needed his family. They treated him like a person and not a frail and frightening abnormality. He smiled tightly and ignored the sunlight as best he could, realizing that his father's shop was in view.

Mail strained ahead in his excitement, trying to pull his mother across the street and up the ten steps onto the covered porch hallways that stretched along the building. The real tourist season hadn't quite hit Chester yet, but in preparation for the upcoming weeks, his father had decided to rearrange the interior and switch out some old paintings with newer ones that he hoped would sell better. Upon reaching the door, Mail felt a little swirl of excitement and pride; a handmade sign proclaimed the store closed, but he was still allowed to enter and see what went on behind the scenes. He reached up and grasped the doorknob before Cara could get to it and pulled open the door, dropping her hand.

"Da-aa," he called, his feet pattering across the wooden plank floor as he scurried into the adjacent room.

"There's my Mail!" Adair called, turning around and sweeping the small redhead into his arms. "Oops, watch you glasses!" he said jovially, the movement upsetting the enormous lenses so that they sat crookedly on Mail's face. Mail found himself laughing as he looked around at how the room had been set up in his absence.

The walls, which had been a dark cream, had been painted a stark white, making the room seem brighter without a real light being switched on or breaking a hole through the ceiling. Mail could smell the drying paint and realized that there were spots of it on his father's clothes… that had been conveniently transferred to his own shirt.

Of course that was the first thing is mother noticed.

"Adair Jeevas! Put your son down before you get anymore paint on him!" she scolded, addressing him by his name rather than the usual "Da," although Mail could tell she wasn't really mad. Mail's father smiled sheepishly at his wife and set the young redhead back on the ground.

"It's good to see you too, Mum," Adair told her, a glint of mischief hovering in his green eyes. Then they alighted on his daughter and he strode across the room to give her a loud kiss while the three-year-old was still in her carrier.

"Mum, I wan down now," Blair Rose said carefully. "I'm induhpendant, too."

Mail saw his da raise an eyebrow at his mum, who met his glance and bobbed her head in Mail's direction. He wondered if his parents knew that he had caught the reference to himself teaching Blair Rose words she couldn't use properly yet. But his mum was already unstrapping the now-squirmy girl from her back and lowering her to the ground. Blair Rose found her feet easily and pattered over to her father to give his leg a hug.

"Hi Da," she said, looking up at him, her blonde ponytails swinging.

"Hey there, my Chester Rose," he said, looking down at her and using the nickname that was a pun on the galleria.

"Well, the walls look nice, Da," Cara said, looking around the room in admiration. "What else were you planning on doing with the place?"

Mail's father pursed his lips, staring into space pensively. "Well, I imagine I'll put up some paintings, you know?"

Cara tried not to smile, to prove that she had not been fooled by his tongue-in-cheek answer. Mail nearly laughed, enjoying how his parents were teasing each other and also eager to hear what the next step in the decorating would be.

"You should put a picture there, Da," Blair Rose said brightly and pointed to the middle of the opposite wall. Mail could tell that she really wanted to be a part of the conversation.

Adair looked down at his daughter and smiled helplessly into her blue eyes. "Of course, love. I'll put a picture there. But first, I'll need a few of those tablecloths to drape along the tables." He looked up from Blair Rose and to his wife. "I was thinking of that striped one from the back room. I used it a year or two ago?"

Cara nodded, thinking. "I think it was three years ago, Da."

"Really?" he asked, although it was obvious he didn't really mind. Mail decided it was okay for him to join the conversation.

"Can I help, Da?" he asked, knowing the answer would be yes anyway.

"Certainly, my man," his father replied, giving him an appreciative nod. "Let's see…."

"Mail, you could go fetch the striped tablecloth for Da," his mother supplied gently. She came down to Mail's level, leaning forward with her hands on her knees, and looking through his awkward dark sunglasses to his pale green eyes. Mail found it suddenly uncomfortable when she did that, as if she still thought of him as a child closer to Blair Rose's age. He tried not to let his annoyance show on his face, because for he most part, he enjoyed being treated like a normal child by his parents… but then again, that normality had been stifling when he had tried it at school. It was probably just the situations. 'Normal' was a rather subjective word that depended on the situation.

Mail nodded to his mum's question, and Cara stood up, ruffling his auburn hair as his head bobbed. She turned to scoop and swing Blair Rose into her arms energetically, detaching her from Adair's leg and surprising the three-year-old enough for her to burst into giggles. Mail scurried off, glad for the excuse to go into the dark room behind the counter where he could take off his sunglasses and rub the sweat away from where they rested on his nose.

Mail pulled the wooden door open, closing it firmly behind him before he took off his glasses. It was cooler in here and the soft darkness soothed his hypersensitive eyes in a fashion similar to how the closed door muffled the sounds of his mother and sister laughing on the other side. He sighed, hating summer days and leaning his child's body against the door before he remembered he was supposed to be looking for the striped tablecloth.

Pulling open a cabinet drawer, Mail dug around through layers of linen for one that had stripes. He found several, realizing than that he didn't know what color his father wanted. He could either go ask, or he could choose one for his da. He looked down at the fabric underneath his hands, and then to the door, slivers of light piercing around all four sides. He blinked and looked away.

He had red and black stripes, black and white stripes, and one with nearly all the colors of the rainbow in various thicknesses. Mail put the last one down, thinking of his father's latest pieces. They were of the Chester Rows itself, the lattices gleaming in various shades of light, a kind of light that Mail could actually look at without the sharp stabbing pains in his eyes. Thinking this through, Mail realized the logical choice would be the black and white stripes. Red wouldn't look good with all the stark contrasts between the black and white and would only draw a viewer's eye away from his father's paintings.

Mail was replacing the two cloths that he had rejected when he heard the echoing boom and a terrible scream. His heart froze for a moment, all sound gone, until it jumped back in like someone had suddenly plugged in speakers. It was joined shortly by the high-pitched screeching of Blair Rose, the shrieks of his mother incoherent and a stranger's deep male voice yelling angrily in an unfamiliar language.

Mail raced to the door and peered through the cracks before recoiling because he had forgotten his sunglasses. He shoved them on his face, blinking away tears, and feeling the floorboards rattling with the patter of footsteps. His heart racing, Mail squinted, trying to find a position in which he could see what was happening. Nothing helped.

Another boom sounded, and Mail wanted to run from the room, the sharp crack echoing ferociously throughout the building. What was happening? He felt like he should call for his da, for his mum… but knew instinctively that doing that would only result in the strange voice finding him. Fear drove his sneakered feet to scramble to the corner the furthest back from the light, his small hands covering the back of his neck as he had learned to do in earthquake drills at school. His teacher had told him that this position would keep him safe, and he believed it now, even though he knew it wasn't an earthquake… this was worse… this was….

Two more cracks reverberated in quick succession and Cara's hysterical cries stopped suddenly. Mail's breath came faster, like silent sobs, and he pressed his hands over his mouth, scared that someone would hear him. Blair Rose squalled harder, and Mail could understand her repetitive syllables calling for their mother. No longer caring if someone heard him, Mail squeezed his hands over his ears, not wanting to hear his sister screaming, because if he heard it, he would have to make sense of what was happening. And while his grade school teachers and loving parents had always said he was a brilliant boy, Mail could not—perhaps would not—comprehend the immediate situation. He had heard about hallucinations, perhaps he was experiencing one now? His mum would wonder what was taking him so long and maybe his da would come in to make sure Mail had found the right tablecloth, and they'd all wonder what those noises had—

A final resonating bang silenced Blair Rose's wailing along with Mail's desperate hopes of normality. The heavy footsteps receded towards the exit of the art shop and Mail raced to the crack in the door. A black silhouette was leaving the shop, the stranger's hat nearly scraping the top of the little doorframe and the trenchcoat covering everything else down to the black shoes that flashed ominously at Mail in the dying sunlight. The door jingled pleasantly as it closed, a result of the bell his mother had hung several weeks before.

And then it was over, and Mail retreated back to his small corner. It was surreal, the way the dark was still soft and quiet, soothing his battered mind, and yet, he felt broken, the only witness, the only survivor, the only one… left alone. He knew with clarity that his family was dead, knew logically that a man had entered the closed shop and fired a gun five times, knew undeniably that there had been nothing he could have done to prevent it, and yet… he… couldn't… had never… wouldn't… accept… this, this, this event, this criminal act, this horrible falseness. He wanted his parents, he wanted his sister, and like any other eight-year-old boy, Mail wanted them now.

Back to the door, Mail flung it open as he cried louder than he could ever remember doing, squeezing his eyes shut against the cruel light and in the hope that he could open his mouth wider and make his voice louder.

"Daaaaaaaaaaaa! Muuuuuuuuuuuuum!"

Silence greeted his plea and Mail carefully opened his eyes, somehow already aware of what he would find, his heart thumping, his subconscious pleading that he look away, that he not notice how red the blood was pooling under his mother's hair, making it look orange in comparison. How Blair Rose's small fingers were still clutching the fabric of his mum's blood-stained dress, but it was his sister's blood, and both of them were still leaking from holes in their bodies, the crimson fluid crossing another floorboard, moving closer to him, but he couldn't let it touch him, and it was still moving closer, expanding, reaching for him.

Hyperventilating, Mail stumbled backwards into the closet, shutting the door tightly again. The images in his mind twisted into monsters made of blood and they were going to attack him, break down the door, and let the burning light into his sanctuary. In desperation, Mail picked up the striped tablecloth and threw it over himself, trying not to whimper from under the heavy material.

Mail crouched in the dark and waited for the unknown, shaking uncontrollably, hands over his ears and hot tears trailing from under his sunglasses.