I remember the day They first came. The sun was high in the sky. They were fucking brazen to come nearer noon than midnight, that’s for sure. I remember the screams first. Gutteral screams of those I knew and loved. I had never heard a thing like it. Then I remember the shouting, and then the metallic ~shing~ sound of a blade slicing through the air.
Or something more solid.
Fuck.
I don’t remember how old I was, but I remember I was just a kid, and here we were, faced with the prospect of either bowing to Them, or meet our deaths. My parents, they tried to tell me all I’d need to know to remain safe if They came to our house. They said “Do what they say and they will spare us…”, and they said “alive and captured is better than dead and free”.
I totally fucking believed them, so of course, when They came to our door I stayed quiet.
I remember a man dressed all in black with some kind of fucking mask on walked slowly up to us and talked to us in a menacing voice. He looked down at his little black book and smirked and he said. “This book here is full of names, and every single name in here will die, unless they follow Our Way”.
I couldn’t see the coward’s face but I stayed quiet, head bowed.
“Go away, nasty man”, my sister said.
So They sliced her in half.
Then They turned to my parents, and said “you raised a disrespectful daughter, that reflects badly on you.”
And They sliced them too.
I felt a single hot tear burn a trail down my face.
“What about you?” they said. “Are you a good little boy, will you obey Us?”
I stayed quiet, and lived. But I lived a life of such misery. There was no joy in my life from that day until the day I arrived here, in this world. My mother had told me that being alive and captured is being better than dead and free but shit, she was fucking wrong. I spent every day of my life wishing they’d taken me too.
And all because of that Little Black Book.
So now, confronted with another man with his Little Black Book, also on a power trip, I choose differently. I do not choose silence. I do not choose to acquiesce to his fucking charade. I choose to fight. I choose to speak the words I couldn’t that day.
Deathnote, I choose to tell you “Go away, nasty man”. But this time, you don’t have the blade like They did. This time the weapon is all mine. Because I’ve had a lifetime to rue the chances I missed and my vengeance is sharper than any fucking sword you could find in this world or any other.
I party because I can and I party in the memory of my sister and parents, who died so I could live.
So let’s do it now, and do it loud!