L x Reader oneshots 1 // series 3 • Death Note

How to disappear

A case that had baffled investigators world wide, and had almost zero evidence or leads even several years later. The disappearance of (y/n) (l/n), also known as the vanishing person case.

One day seemingly out of nowhere, (y/n) (l/n) completely vanished into thin air with no signs of struggle, no evidence of a runway, nothing. Police were stumped, FBI were stumped, private investigators were stumped. No one knew what happened to you.

Despite the news coverage, your face plastered on missing posters and billboards, being mentioned in true crime YouTube videos and mysterious unsolved cases podcasts, it'd been 3 years and no one had found any trace of you. Which is exactly what you wanted.

You'd been planning this for years, you knew you needed to completely vanish off the face of the earth if you wanted to survive. When you have family involved in drugs and the wrong person gets double crossed, your life could end at a moments notice. You never did drugs, but you were surrounded by family members who did. And while the investigators did find that out, they couldn't link that to your disappearance, it was only a theory.

When your deadbeat parents angered the wrong person by stifling them out of drug money, you were threatened with your life. The gang said that if your parents ever pulled that shit again they'd kill them, and you. You knew that deadbeat parents absolutely would do that again eventually, so you knew you had to disappear completely. They'd track you down and find you if you simply ran away, so just moving to another town wasn't an option. You needed to vanish.

So over the course of a year, you anxiously went about your day to day life looking over your shoulder in fear that this day would be your last. All while you planned your escape.

You used cash to pay for a cruise ticket so there was no digital bank trail. Used a false name and only packed up the bare essentials, and you did it slowly so no one would notice things going missing from your room. You left your phone, laptop, wallet, everything. The only things you bought where some clothes a burner phone and toiletries. The night before you boarded the cruise, you took a bold move and completely shaved all your hair off, put in coloured contacts and gave yourself a stick and poke tattoo and piercing. Changing your appearance as much as you could.

You got on the cruise under the name Alex Andrea and waited. After a few days it stopped in a tourist rich tropical island and you got off and never got back on. The thing about these locations is you're able to find work without any permits easily, as people who run small family owned businesses in the tourist areas are always looking for a helper. The money isn't great, but using the money you'd already been slowly saving up you were able to get by taking odd jobs and staying in cheap hotels for a while.

You watched the news about your own disappearance, and sighed in relief when no one had any clue what happened to you.

Eventually, you saved up enough to rent your own small apartment in a fairly safe area. One of the families you'd been working for in their little tourist shop liked you enough to help you get some ID that was valid in the county, allowing you to use their family name so it was legitimate. So you became Alex Gomez. The family was very kind and helpful, they figured you must have run away from an abusive relationship or something and never asked what happened. But they knew from your vague comments it was a dangerous situation you escaped.

Your hair grew back out so you dyed it and kept in a style and length you never used to wear. You got more tattoos and piercings here and there to alter your look even further from the one you vanished as.

And three years later, (y/n) was still considered missing. Likely dead. But Alex was thriving, safe, had friends and an almost adoptive like family, decent money and a place to live.