Chapter 1

Aaron Anders ran. He knew how to run. Not that he was particularly athletic. He was very much a “picked last in PE” kind of guy. But running in PE wasn’t running. Real running means almost tripping and landing on your hands and pushing yourself off of brick that chafes your knuckles. Real running isn’t just a way of going forward. Real running is falling and catching yourself at the last second, over and over again. Get away or die. 

His heart hammered in his chest. Not that he thought he was actually going to die. He was pretty sure the worst thing that was going to happen to him was some bruised ribs and maybe a bloody nose. But it wasn’t himself he was worried about. It was his books and his cheap, barely-functioning laptop, a fourth-hand patch-up job that had been managing to hold itself long enough for him to do his assignments and stay up too late talking to strangers online. And if they got him, he doubted they’d have a lot of pity on his personal belongings. 

He rounded a corner and considered his options under the light of the street lamps. Alleys this close to the school looped around and were dead ends. This late at night, there was no foot traffic. There was a convenience shop a little bit down the street, but that was a temporary refuge at best. There was a fenced off yard, he knew, which connected to a back street that got him out of this neighborhood. 

Thanking his lucky stars he was good at analyzing his environment, Aaron ran, his bag clutched in front of him. Lucky. Sure. Yeah. That was one word for it. If he’d left sooner or later, he wouldn’t be in this mess, of course. But that wasn’t luck. That had been a mistake, and he was paying for it now. If he’d left sooner, he could’ve walked with his friends.

Not that Eddie and Mason were really friends. The three of them sticking together was a survival mechanism, like a herd of buffalo traveling in a pack to avoid predators. When you’re at the bottom of the social pyramid, everyone else is either a threat or a shield. But he wouldn’t have been running.

He heard the cackling of the bullies coming from behind him, just around the corner, reminding him he didn’t have the time to consider his lot in life. With a concerted effort, he threw himself up onto the fence, and pulled himself up.

That’s what was supposed to happen. But all the adrenalin in the world wasn’t getting him over a seven foot fence with a bookbag in his hands. A hand grabbed his collar and yanked him down with a cruel giggle. 

“Where do you think you’re going, A-A-Ron?” the tallest one demanded. He had a head that, even in the evening light, was red. That wasn’t to say he was red with exertion, although that was definitely true too. But he was one of those people who had a permanently red face. He smelled faintly like cigarettes, although Aaron didn’t know if that was him or his parents.

Aaron looked at him, and at his three compatriots. The other three seemed to be subservient to Tomato-head, and they all seemed to be waiting for his answer. He knew he had to do something. No matter what he said, they were going to twist his words. This wasn’t a negotiation, this was predator toying with prey. What he had to do, Aaron realized, was strike while they still thought of him as Prey. 

“Sightseeing,” he said as he dropped his bag, sticking out his foot to catch it and avoid his laptop from shattering on the pavement. He lashed out as quickly as he could with his left elbow. 

The human body is remarkably sturdy and fragile at the same time. It is a machine, perfected over millennia to be hard to stop and harder to kill. However, that machine will keep going, no matter how the driver feels about it. 

As such, it is very easy to make that machine very, very miserable. Fingers are easy to break. Limbs snap, no matter how quickly they heal. Eyes are very vulnerable. The throat and groin are particularly vulnerable. A single strike to the nose can cause temporary blindness, enough for a follow-up attack. A broken zygomatic bone might never heal well and, for the rest of its owner’s life, hurt every time they blink. 

Aaron knew all of this. He aimed for the middle of the Tomato’s face, without pity. 

It didn’t matter. Before he knew what happened, his arm was twisted behind his back and his face was smashed into the wood of the fence. He was confused and his forehead hurt. He smelled oak and blood. 

“Jesus, he almost hit you, Steve!” one of the bullies jeered. “That elbow was nasty.”

“Balls nasty!” one of the others said. There was a moment of silence.

“Stop trying to make balls nasty happen, Carter. It’s never happening.”

“‘Tmight,” Carter mumbled.

“How did you know he was going to swing?”

“Are you kidding me?” Steve asked and twisted Aaron’s arm a little harder. He tried not to let out any sound. If he cried out, they’d only be more emboldened. “I’ve never seen a more telegraphed strike. Weeb thinks he’s going to get one over on me by glaring and taking up a fucking kung-fu matrix stance? Nah, man. Dad taught me Jiu-jitsu. I could snap this little bitch in half.”

“Nice. He’s got a laptop in here!”

“D— Don’t touch that!” Aaron suddenly cried out, forgetting himself. Maybe, if he wasn’t going to fight his way out, he could appeal to r—

His forehead was slammed against the wood again. “Shut up, A-A-Ron. You don’t get to talk to us like you’re better than us and don’t expect to get your shit kicked in.” Steve twisted his arm a little harder.

Aaron gritted his teeth. He might have let it slip on his way out of the school that he had the highest grades in the class (again), and with finals almost done he was guaranteed to get a commendation. But that’s why they bullied him in the first place, wasn’t it? They were jealous of what he was capable of, and they had only violence to resort to. They were lucky, really, that he didn’t have violence to rely on, and had to use his intellect instead. All he had to do was wait. 

In 5, 10 years, when they had nothing but their high-school “achievements” to fall back on, they’d come begging to him for handouts. And he’d entertain the idea, of course, before turning it on them and saying no. He was briefly lost in his imagination, when he heard his books and papers hit the ground, which seemed to greatly entertain the howler monkeys that tormented him. A car stopped by the curb, and suddenly the pressure on Aaron’s arm was released and the four boys immediately scattered, their footsteps disappearing into the quiet evening. Aaron turned around, catching his breath as he rubbed his wrist. 

“Are you okay?” a soft woman’s voice said. He looked up. She was… Aaron didn’t have words. She looked like royalty, framed against the moon, wearing a white dress with a fur collar and elbow-length gloves over long, thin hands. They were holding several of his books, as well as a clearly broken laptop. Yeah, he figured as much.

He took the pile with an unsure smile, and mumbled a “thank you.” He tried to look her in the eye, but the light of the moon or the street lamps — he wasn’t sure which — made it hard to make her out. 

“What’s your name, boy?” she asked.

“Aaron,” he mumbled.

“Well, I’m sure you’ll be able to do better than that some day,” she said with a weird tone in her voice. “Will you get home okay?” He nodded. “Then you best get walking, before your friends come back.” Doing as she told him and not asking any questions, he ran the rest of the way home. He knew better than to talk to a stranger standing next to their car, even if they chuckled with a voice like crystal glass when you ran away. Everyone heard stories growing up of strangers offering candy, and he wasn’t that gullible. 

He went up to his room, his parents either asleep or still at work — he didn’t care — and threw himself next to his backpack onto his bed, his books spilling out. Hold on. 

There was a flat black cover among them. That wasn’t right. He didn’t have one like that. He picked it up. The dull gray lettering on the front reflected the light of his desk lamp. 

“No fucking way,” Aaron said as he looked at the Death Note.