Warmth

EXTRA: This Is It

A long-awaited, readily-available answer to the question, "How did L die?"

CW: self-harm, drugs, suicide.
_____________________

12 April 2013

Dear Light,

I am writing this because I will die tomorrow. I am writing this because I never told you how and I never told you why. Most importantly, I am writing this because I love you.

I suppose I'll give you this story from the beginning. It all really started on 6 April, the day after they took you to the hospital.

I was sat outside in the storm. It was a big one. I've always loved big storms, but I could feel nothing but numbness then. All my lighters had run out of fluid from the burns I'd inflicted, but none of them could pull me from the darkness. I can't tell you this story without telling you how I felt, what I thought. So, here it goes.

You didn't love me. You had been lying about everything and I was the idiot who believed you. I trusted you, and that was my mistake. I swore I'd never trust anyone again, but I was enough of an idiot to let my guard down for you. That is what went through my mind, a continuous soundtrack of everything that was wrong with me.

I had a needle. I kept it near me at all times, though only in a way so as to make it go unnoticed. In it, there was a medicine that took seven days to reach its full fatal effect. Once it was injected, it was impossible to stop it.

I took out that needle and looked at the grey-green liquid inside of it. Some part of me wondered if I would really be able to go through with this. All the rest of me knew that if I'd tried it before, nothing could keep me from trying again. I knew it would work this time, and that there was no turning back once the medicine had been injected.

I made the decision there and then. There was nothing left for me here on this Earth anymore. Everything was done. I rolled my sleeve up as far as it would go and turned my arm over. There was only one place that wasn't burned; one place, just over the vein, where I could stick the needle.

I put the needle to my skin and pushed the top. After all I've inflicted on myself, the sting of the needle entering my vein felt like an ant's bite. I watched the medicine drain out as it slid sluggishly from its holder and into my arm. Almost immediately upon removing the needle, I felt very tired. Perhaps it was the medicine -- its sluggishness, like that of molasses, seemed to slow everything down. Perhaps it was simply something psychological, though I'd like to believe that nothing of the sort could affect me any longer.

Tell me, Light, if you could've taken the drug for me, would you have done it? The chances of the answer truthfully being "yes" are actually quite slim. If you could have stopped my injected the medicine, however, would you have done that? I'd hope the answer to be a truthful "yes," but with you I've come to stop expecting such loving things.

You could not have stopped me, I need you to know that now. First, you must know it. Then, you must understand it. And finally, you must believe it. None of this is essentially your fault. I am rather impulsive, as you well know. Too quick on judgement and not quick enough on thought, if it makes any sense to you. I suppose it is all the same to me, though; judgement, thought and impulse. They all fall into the one quickly-drawn category of human mistake.

I've come so far as to believe myself almost incapable of said mistake, but it all goes to show in the end, does it not? I'd wager you've had enough of my rhetorical questions, though, haven't you? And right I follow it with another!

Perhaps I should get to the point of this. It was not to tell you what went wrong. Nothing went wrong, essentially. It was all before we began, in that dark time only you and Watari know of, where it all went wrong. You can't fix the broken, Light. We're a bit of a lost cause by now.

This letter was written, more or less, to tell you that I love you and that, while it was too late for me, it isn't quite yet too late for you. Save yourself, Light. Save yourself like no one could ever save me.

And -- if you never remember any other thing -- remember this one, most important statement: I love you infinitely.

Yours Forever,
L Lawliet