Chapter Two

"In which reality turns out to be stranger than fiction."

Fiona was flabbergasted. Clutching the edge of the desk and swearing under her breath, she continued to stare at the book. There was a moment of quiet contemplation: how odd that just the previous day she had held that same book and, now, after waking up somewhere unknown, it seemed to have appeared out of nowhere.

"What the - ?"

She looked around; there was no one else in the room with her. The items and clothes scattered around the floor were obviously hers, - how they had appeared there alongside her was a mystery – Fiona would recognize her own mess anywhere. It was a matter of fact quirk of hers, in fact. Probably it was stupid, pointless, irritating beyond belief, that she still managed to refuse tidiness, but Fiona had to admit to herself that it was a good reminder, no matter what may have happened, that there was something familiar she could recognize.

After all, Fiona had elevated a simple mess to the form of an art.

Fiona examined the Death Note's book cover, seeing nothing out of the ordinary. It was like any other of its kind: the same font and the same drawings she was used to, the book did not appear in any way suspicious. Then, she placed it again on the desk, torn between giving in to curiosity and the feeling of dread rising every second. As it happens in many situations, curiosity won out.

She opened it.

Eyebrows shot up, jaw dropped and eyes wide; Fiona stared at the Death Note with unmistaken confusion. It was blank; not just the usual blank, but the sort that glows in all its virgin white blankness, contrasting heavily with the dark cover. While it should have something written on it, the words seemed to have disappeared into nothingness which was odd on its own accord. Published books were known for having some form of content inside.

It took a while before Fiona could tear her gaze apart from the book, terrified thoughts racing through her mind. She wasn't able to form a coherent, logical explanation; everything seemed so odd, so… unbelievable that she found herself fervently wishing it all to be a part of a dream. Fiona could deal with dreams; they all had to end, eventually.

There was still a sizable stack of documents sitting on the desk that she had not gone through. Perhaps it would give her a better insight on her situation? Fiona hazily considered this option, her thoughts not all gathered at the moment as she started to flick through the documents. One by one, they were seen to, trembling hands holding the edges, a solemn frown plastered upon Fiona's face.

As she neared the bottom, Fiona concluded most of them were written possibly in Chinese (she kept those to the side, not even bothering to attempt reading them), thus making it impossible to disclose important information. The few written in English contained her personal data. Had this been an official situation, she would have remarked at how outstandingly thorough her records were.

At last, Fiona found a document which was, lacking a better term, creepy. Her frown deepened even further as she read out loud the words 'transfer student' and 'To-Ho University, Japan' in a hiss, not quite knowing how to react. It was absurd, she could never afford going abroad nor would she leave her home country for another of which she had almost no information about. This, of course, not to mention her lack of knowledge regarding the Japanese language.

How terribly appalling this dream of hers was turning, as she kept placing herself in such tricky situations. She had heard the human mind was indeed a complicated maze, but, as far as Fiona was concerned, this was ridiculous. She could only wonder how long it had taken her to concoct a dream of this caliber in order to be so vivid.

Virtually, she had no information about Japan except that its people seemed to have developed a liking towards eating raw fish. Why anyone would want to taste uncooked food was beyond her, but Fiona was not one to dwell on other people's eating habits especially if a different culture was involved. Between the whole samurai gibberish, the only good thing she could think about were Japanese cartoons, and even those had more cons than pros.

Again, Fiona looked down at the Death Note book as she considered pinching herself once more. The whole thing was just getting stranger by the minute and she felt awfully tense, startled by the uncanny turn of events.

Outside, the people crossed the white path towards the building she was currently trapped in. She wondered if the people beyond the window really were students or all part of a humorless "Truman Show" where she had to figure everything out for herself. Although it seemed stupid, a part of Fiona couldn't help but to wish that was the case; at least then she could be sure of something.

All of a sudden, Fiona jumped: the sound of laughter just outside the door – her door, for god's sake! – had startled her. It was a passing thought, but Fiona did not discard the idea of running out of the room, screaming, calling out for the police. The worst case scenario would be that she was sent to a mental institution, her parents notified and she would be returned to the United Kingdom as soon as possible. On a second thought, Fiona gave rejected it when she came to the conclusion that not only it would be brash as it would be stupid. She was in no condition to make mistakes; at least she could still have a clear head and see that. Dreams were dreams, no matter what was happening at the moment.

It had to be a dream, it was too stupid in order to be real, and therefore the possibility of her experiencing one of such vividness was quite high. If it were not for her rising dread and trembling limbs, Fiona would have thought about exploring further.

After several minutes of thought, Fiona folded the last document carefully and tucked it inside the Death Note. Then she threw the rest of the documents to the floor with a swing of her arm, a fit of rage she felt entitled to. The anger had been building up, rising with every ounce of fear that she had been fighting so hard to suppress.

She turned to face the room. In all its uncleanness, it would be the worst nightmare of someone suffering from an Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. However, Fiona paid no attention to such details and moved across the room straight to bed and sat down, her head bowed. Although she felt a slight urge to cry, the reminder that everything was bound to be but a dream gave her enough hope to put aside the tears.

Doing her best to ignore the nauseating thought of succumbing to weakness, Fiona once again considered her options. As of that moment, the best thing she could do would be to discover the reason behind this situation. Ergo, her natural cowardice would have to be overcome, for the time being at least, and she would have to step outside.

Fiona began to stride blindly around the room, opening empty drawers and picking up items that seemed suitable for self defense. If she was going to venture alone, then surely she was not going unarmed. Eventually, she found a pair of scissors in a drawer and took them.

After getting dressed in regular street clothes, Fiona sat down hard on the bed. The Death Note still lay unmoving, on the desk. She wasn't expecting it to exactly fly around, but judging by the course this dream of hers was taking she figured anything could happen. A quick glance at the door made her realize that the moment of truth was closer than ever. Would she find strange creatures beyond the room? Such an idea made her shiver, but Fiona clutched the scissor harder in her grasp and started moving towards the door.

It was now or never.

Shifting uneasily, Fiona took a deep breath before raising one hand to the door knob, as the other still clutched the scissor inside her coat pocket. She opened it ever so slightly, peeking into a deserted hallway. The sound of footsteps was nearing, but Fiona did not dare to close the door, as she raised her left hand still grasping the scissor hard, the other on the knob –

A black haired boy strolled down the hallway, ignoring her completely and kept going towards some unknown place. His features were, without a doubt, Asian. Fiona did not require hearing him speak to know that she would not understand a word.

Utterly dazzled, Fiona swore under her breath, the concept of having a vivid dream slowly starting to fade. The situation was ridiculous, how in the world –

"Of course!" She gasped, closing the door shut. Fiona hurried to the desk, tripping on her clothes during the way. Then she opened the Death Note and stared at its blank pages, a look of dread upon her face.

Fiona did not know much about Death Note, apart from some major characters and crucial events. In fact, she had never read the whole thing; although Japanese manga certainly held an appeal, too much of it annoyed her. She just didn't have a stomach for exaggerated silliness.

Now, the Asian boy had reminded her that something was even more wrong with the name 'To-Ho' than she thought. Previously, it had meant nothing more than a ludicrous attempt to sabotage her sanity but now she was placing the pieces together. If anything was certain, then she had the perfect explanation, one that was less bothering but, still, mildly eerie.

Perhaps she was dreaming of Death Note? Well, it could only mean that this was an even more stupid dream than she had imagined. On the other hand, it was a much better hypothesis; while a kidnapping seemed uncertain, a prank gone wrong was even more so.

Fiona was now filled with a new sense of hope, although she was still quite shaken with the whole thing. Somehow she had the feeling that dreams did not feel this real, but she quickly dismissed that thought. That was how vivid dreams were supposed to be like: stupid, pointless and very, very real.

She wished this would be the last dream of the like. Fiona was getting peeved and she did not enjoy it one bit.

Sometime later, she strolled down the hallways without knowing where to head. Fiona might not have a destination, but she sure had a scissor. That students of Asian ethnicity seemed to have been giving her funny looks made her recoil a little, even if she kept reminding herself that she was only dreaming. All in all, Fiona had never considered herself capable of imagining such great environments: the inside of the University was much better than anyone could hope for and the students seemed fairly pleasant, apart from the looks she was receiving. Maybe it was due to her being Caucasian? Fiona did not possess any Asian trait.

As she reached for the front door, Fiona took in the beautiful view. Had she really been a student at To-Ho, she would have loved to wake up every morning to a white stone path surrounded by willow trees. Judging by the fields of freshly mown grass, it was Spring in the land of Imaginary Japan.

'Nice,' Fiona snorted, smirking all the way as she neared the front gates. No wonder she had felt under the weather the previous day, her brain had been concocting a highly detailed dream! Maybe this was how a hallucination felt, too vivid and, still, so unbelievable?

The students all blabbered in fast Japanese, so Fiona couldn't understand a word. Not that she was thinking about even trying, she had never been very good with languages. It had actually taken her twice as long than her peers to learn the basics of French in school. Fiona suspected this was one of those hereditary issues.

Suddenly, Fiona heard applause from the other side of the campus. She hurried towards the source, a crowd gathered around a great tennis court where two boys currently played. They were the center of attention, both fierce in their match. Even though Fiona did not enjoy sports, she had to admit their showdown was quite intense.

Also, it seemed vaguely familiar. Maybe it had something to do with the Death Note series? Well, Fiona decided she didn't want to think about it much, the dream would have to end soon. It was all a matter of patience.

Then, one of the players, a boy clad in a white sleeved shirt, dived for the tennis ball. His defense did not turn out as expected and, the second both hit the floor, a man sitting on a high chair bellowed over the crowd. He must have announced the end of the game because the crowd cheered enthusiastically and the two players moved towards the center of the court to shake hands. The winner was a handsome boy with a dazzling smile and seemed fairly athletic, while the other stood awkwardly hunched. Either he had a back problem or was downright miserable for having lost.

Fiona wouldn't blame him. If it were her in his place she would probably have died of embarrassment in the presence of such a crowd.

As she turned to leave, Fiona heard the voice of the man who had been keeping score of the match. Since his voice boomed over the rest of the crowd, it was not impossible for her to hear his unintelligible Japanese; though this time she certainly understood the name 'Yagami'.

Now, that shouldn't have made her blood run cold, Fiona was already aware that there was something wrong and that it was, somehow, related with Death Note. Light Yagami was the protagonist and anti-hero while L was the antagonist, the detective on a mission to catch him. The thing was, that was all jolly good when it came to fiction. It had no impact whatsoever in her life. When she was dreaming it, on the other hand…

"Oi!" She bellowed, as some indistinct student practically pushed her to the ground. Fortunately, Fiona managed to get a hold on a tree nearby to catch herself from falling and scrapping her knees. No one turned to help, though. That was a usual occurrence when it came to a great number of people trying to exit through the same path.

Fiona grimaced. Her shoulder had endured a rather hard encounter with the tree log. It was likely that would leave a bruise, though it did not hurt nearly as much as the scratch she had on her hand. Making a mental note to avoid large crowds in the future, Fiona glanced at her hand: the scratch formed a small wound that was now bleeding. Marvelous.

Rolling her eyes, Fiona wiped the blood with a handkerchief she kept hidden at all times in her coat pocket. The scissor was still there, but it was not like she wanted to attract attention with it, even if this was all a dream. There some things she just refused to do and acting on pure lunacy was one of them.

As she pressed the handkerchief on the wound, Fiona thought about the boys in the match. Something just wasn't right; if that was Light Yagami then the other was L. She could see them from where she stood, leaving the tennis court together. If Fiona recalled correctly, then L already suspected Light? She could not be sure as her memory on the matter was rather foggy.

She grunted, looking up. How wonderful, a bright blue sky in a perfect Spring day and there she was, dreaming every single bit of that stupid thing, standing next to a willow tree with her hand bleeding. If Fiona did not know better, then she would have thought someone was laughing at her induced misery.

When she thought nothing could get even more ridiculous, Fiona felt her blood freeze for the hundredth time that day. She suddenly realized another wrong thing in a long list of extremely wrong and even more wrong things. It wasn't as though she had seen it coming, but as Fiona wondered how on Earth anyone could feel pain in a simple dream – not that anything about that dream was simple – her incontestable theory seemed frail all of a sudden.

Thus, for the second time that day, Fiona Putnim felt a pressing urge to cry. The wound on her hand had nothing to do with it, it was bearable pain as it was, but the more she tried to convince herself that everything would be alright the more those thoughts found a way of turning completely unfounded.

Closing her eyes, the only thing Fiona could think was that the whole situation was terribly unreasonable. She had done nothing wrong and therefore did not deserve it. It was unfair having to bear not knowing what was happening to her, how she had got to a place that did not exist and start bleeding from her hand during a dream.

It had to be just a vivid dream. It had to be, there was no other explanation and she just wished there was a possibility to wake up that instant.

Heading to the front gates were the two boys who she would have recognized as Light and L. How odd it was that characters from a fictional series suddenly seemed so real, it was almost impossible to describe her feeling towards the matter. In fact, had she been asked about it, Fiona would immediately reply that it was complete nonsense. Fictional characters were just that, anyone who argued they could actually exist was mental as far as she was concerned. There was no sense to it and Fiona refused to believe that possibility.

Everything had to be part of a dream. It just had to.

A/N: I just wanted to thank everyone for reviewing and favoring "Divided". If you have any questions feel free to ask, though I must say this will be the official length of the remaining chapters yet to come. Don't worry about short chapters anymore; they were short on purpose at the beginning. Constructive criticism is greatly appreciated!