Far Too Interesting

Interrogation room.

The air froze.

Static crackled through the speaker. L's synthesized voice sounded again, speaking extremely fast.

"Continue.

How does this weapon work? What are its limitations?"

Shrimp slumped in his chair, gasping for breath.

Chen Lei's methods had utterly terrified him.

"The name... you have to write down their real name.

You also have to picture their face." Shrimp swallowed a mouthful of bloody saliva.

"People with the same name won't die.

After you write the name, if you don't write a cause of death within forty seconds, the person dies of a heart attack. If you do write a cause, you get another six minutes or so to write out the details of their death."

Chen Lei stood beside the table, staring into Shrimp's eyes.

Dilated pupils, a racing heart. These were physiological responses to extreme fear. Shrimp wasn't lying.

London. A basement.

L crouched on his swivel chair, biting hard on his left thumbnail.

"Forty seconds. Six minutes and forty seconds."

L mulled over the two intervals, precise down to the second. "An extremely rigorous set of programmed rules.

This doesn't sound like a madman's fantasy. It sounds more like a product manual."

L looked at Chen Lei on the screen. "Officer Chen, ask him where the weapon came from. Who left the brown paper bag in mailbox number two?"

Chen Lei approached Shrimp and braced his hands on the interrogation chair's armrests, looming over him.

"Who gave you the notebook?"

Shrimp shook his head frantically, making the chains rattle. "I don't know! I really don't know! When I got it, there was a slip of paper tucked inside with the rules on it. But..."

Shrimp paused. A flicker of fear crossed his eyes, deeper even than his fear of Chen Lei.

"But what?" Chen Lei demanded sharply.

"But this notebook... belongs to a death god." Shrimp's voice trembled.

The interrogation room fell silent for two seconds.

"A death god?" A trace of mockery crept into L's synthesized voice.

"Is that the code name of an international crime syndicate? Or the leader of some hacker organization?"

"It's not a code name! He's a real death god!" Shrimp shouted desperately, spraying spit.

"His name is Ryuk! He's over two meters tall! He has black wings! His eyes are red!

He floats around beside me, and he has to eat apples every day! If he doesn't, his body twists up like a pretzel!"

Chen Lei straightened, his brow deeply furrowed.

He turned toward the one-way mirror. "Has a psychiatrist assessed his condition?

Did we overdo the memory-restoration treatment and make him hallucinate?"

"I'm not crazy!" Shrimp struggled violently. "You mortals don't understand anything!

This is a notebook a death god dropped into the human world!

Whoever picks it up can pass judgment on the world!"

In front of his screen, L picked up a sugar cube and tossed it into his mouth.

"Classic persecutory delusions accompanied by delusions of grandeur."

L rapidly tapped at his keyboard, bringing up Shrimp's psychological profile.

"Under extreme psychological pressure, he invented a supernatural entity to share the burden of his guilt."

"Officer Chen," L instructed, "don't get hung up on his hallucinations.

Focus on investigating physical traces around the Red Star Meat Processing Plant."

Chen Lei turned back to Shrimp.

"You say this death god is right beside you?" Chen Lei sneered, sweeping his gaze around the empty interrogation room.

"Where? Why can't I see him? Tell him to come out and take a few steps."

Shrimp froze for a moment. His eyes darted around the corners and ceiling.

Nothing.

"He... he might be hiding."

Shrimp stammered out an explanation. "That monster has a really twisted sense of humor.

He loves watching humans match wits. He's definitely staying hidden on purpose so he can watch you cops flounder!"

Chen Lei shook his head. He walked back behind the table, ready to put away the patched-together diary and end this absurd interrogation.

Chen Lei's fingers had just touched the edge of the diary.

More precisely, his fingertips had pressed against the yellowed pages glued into it.

"Heh heh heh."

A bizarre, grating laugh, like rusty gears grinding together, erupted beside Chen Lei's ear without warning.

Every hair on Chen Lei's body stood on end.

The sound hadn't come from the speaker.

It had come from behind him.

Less than ten centimeters from the back of his head.

Chen Lei whipped his head around.

His breathing stopped completely.

A humanoid monster over two meters tall, wrapped in black leather and tattered cloth, hung upside down from the interrogation room's ceiling.

The monster's face was paper-white, his eyes bulging, his pupils an eerie scarlet. Sharp fangs filled a mouth that stretched all the way to his ears.

Two enormous black wings were folded behind the monster's back.

"Hey there, Mr. Policeman."

Ryuk swiveled his red eyes, staring straight at Chen Lei. His long tongue swept around his lips.

"Got any apples?"

Chen Lei's brain crashed in that instant.

Twenty years of criminal investigation experience and his unwavering faith in materialism shattered before this creature that defied the laws of physics.

Bang!

Chen Lei instinctively drew the pistol from behind his waist, gripping it in both hands and aiming squarely at Ryuk in midair.

Safety off. Finger on the trigger.

"Don't move!" Chen Lei roared, his voice distorted by extreme tension.

Chen Lei's actions startled Shrimp. He followed the direction of Chen Lei's gun and immediately shouted in excitement.

"Death god! Ryuk! You finally showed up! Quick! Kill this cop! Write all their names in the notebook!"

The basement in London.

L stopped chewing his sugar cube.

He stared fixedly at the screen.

The display was divided into two panes.

The left showed the interrogation room's surveillance feed; the right showed the view from Chen Lei's body camera.

On L's screen.

There were only two people in the interrogation room: Chen Lei and Shrimp.

Chen Lei held his gun in both hands, aiming at an empty corner of the ceiling. Cold sweat covered his forehead, and his arms were rigid, his tactical stance showing he was ready to fire at any moment.

"Officer Chen," L's voice cut in quickly, "what are you doing? Lower your gun. There's nothing there."

"Shut up!" Chen Lei shouted without turning, his gaze locked on Ryuk.

The monster slowly flipped over in midair and landed lightly on the interrogation table.

His spiked leather boots touched the tabletop without making a sound.

"You can see me?" Ryuk crouched on the table and leaned toward Chen Lei's muzzle, curiosity filling his red eyes. "Heh heh heh, I see.

You touched those pages just now.

Human rules are such a hassle."

Chen Lei tightened his finger on the trigger.

"What are you?" Chen Lei asked through clenched teeth.

"Didn't he just tell you?" Ryuk pointed at Shrimp in the chair.

"I'm a death god."

L stood up in front of his screen.

He didn't think Chen Lei had gone mad.

On the contrary, an unprecedented fervor blazed in L's eyes.

He pulled up Chen Lei's heart-rate data. One hundred and sixty-the upper limit of the human heart rate when faced with a lethal threat.

Chen Lei hadn't gone mad. His optic nerves had genuinely detected something.

But electronic surveillance equipment couldn't capture it.

"Officer Chen." L spoke as fast as a machine gun.

"Describe what you see. Height, physical features, location."

Chen Lei's Adam's apple bobbed.

"Over two meters tall. Humanoid. Black wings, red eyes, sharp teeth. He's crouching on the interrogation table right now." Chen Lei stared fixedly at Ryuk. "Less than a meter away from me."

L rapidly compared this with Shrimp's earlier statement.

An exact match.

Two mentally sound people on opposing sides had, at different times, described the same higher-dimensional being that did not exist in the physical world.

"Interesting. Far too interesting." L crouched back on his swivel chair, hugging his knees, his thumbnail bitten bloody.

"Gods. Higher-dimensional entities. A perceptual barrier."

L issued instructions into the microphone.

"Officer Chen, don't fire. Physical attacks are very likely ineffective against a higher-dimensional entity. Try communicating with him."

Chen Lei didn't lower his gun.

Ryuk extended a withered finger and gently pushed Chen Lei's gun barrel aside.

"Relax.

I'm not interested in your lives." Ryuk yawned. "I'm here for this loser."

Ryuk turned to Shrimp.

Shrimp's face was full of fervor. "Ryuk! Save me! I'm the god of the new world! You can't just watch them arrest me!"

"A god?" Ryuk let out a strange laugh that echoed through the interrogation room.

"You're just a penniless loser who can't even afford apples."