Death Note: The Next Kira (Part One)

Chapter 78 (FINAL PART): A Surprise Party

FEBRUARY 26, 2006

TOKYO, JAPAN

AT: 4:00 PM 

                                                                                   MARIE

"Surprise!" I heard all of my friends shout. Khloe howled as they shouted that. Any person would react with a surprised happy face and say, "Wow, you all surprised me." or something like that. Unfortunately, that was not my reaction. Instead, I had a terrified look on my face and screamed as if I had just seen Michael Myers staring at me through my window. I fell to the ground screaming my butt off. All of my friends looked at me with shocked looks on their faces. Maybe it was the way that I screamed or maybe it was just how I reacted to it, but regardless, everyone looked scared after they saw me react the way I did. I was on the ground huffing. Everyone continued to look at me the same way that everyone in Final Destination looked at Alex after the plane exploded. Everyone stayed silent after that; the only audible sound was the sound of my huffing. Khloe whimpered as she looked at me on the ground. I stopped huffing after that.

I watched as Christy slowly turned to her right and looked at Steve. "I told you that was a bad idea!" she exclaimed. "You scared her!" Steve raised his arms. "Well, how was I supposed to know that?" he asked. "You told me she likes scary movies so this was the best way to lure her in." I got up from the floor. "Geez, Steve," I said out loud. "What in the world was that?" I placed my flip phone in my purse. "You could have just done this the other way where you sent Christy or someone else to the house to take me to the party instead of scaring me into thinking that I was going to get captured by a terrorist group." Steve sighed. "I'll keep that in mind next time," he told me. "Sorry." "It's okay," I told Steve. I watched as Steve turned and looked at the crowd. "Well," he said to them. Everyone in the crowd looked at me. "Happy 18th Birthday!" everyone shouted. Khloe howled as they said that. 

AT 4:20 PM 

                                                                          MARIE 

I was feeling much better several minutes later. Everyone chattered to each other, playing video games on the PS2, and ate pizza. I sat there and ate some pepperoni pizza at the table when Near came to me. "Hey," he greeted me. "Hi," I greeted Near. "Are you sure that you're okay? You were screaming when we surprised you." "Yeah," I answered. "You all just scared me. Well, Steve's prank scared me." "I'm sorry," Near said. "To be honest, Christy didn't want Steve to go through with it." "I'm aware," I told Near before I took a bite of my pizza. "I wouldn't want anybody to lure me in with a scary phone call to a surprise party," Near commented. "Anyway, I bought a whole pack of the DVDs of The Murder Notebook. They're all in Japanese since the English version hasn't been released yet, but the good news is that the creators of the show were kind enough to write the manga series in English and add English subtitles to the show." Near picked up his first slice of cheese pizza and ate it. 

"So, I did some research on the show," I told Near. "Turns out they don't know about you, but they know about Mello." Near swallowed the piece he had in his mouth before he looked at me with his his wide open. He coughed a little bit after I said that. "Oh my God," I blurted out. "Near, are you choking?" "No," Near answered. "It just went down the wrong pipe." Near took a sip of his Sprite. "Well, they don't know about Mello and Matt," I corrected myself. "But they know that he and Matt were best friends along with the fact that they were part of the mafia. It's a shame that you're not in the show." Near stopped sipping on his Sprite and placed it on the table. "I wouldn't look at it like that," he told me. "Both the show and the Kanto Region American High School Performance for their play think that some girl that goes by the alias called Life is L's successor. I'm glad they made up a character who took my place in the show." "You have a point," I told Near. "If some crazy person were to go on a killing spree and kill the survivors of the real-life event, then they would be led to believe that Life is a real person."