(Note: I don't own any part of Death Note, at all. Deal with it.)

Code L: The Hidden Past of L Lawliet

Prologue: En Medias Ras

Ashes. All the young boy could see was ashes. Cluttering up the sky, landing at his feet, nestling in his midnight hair. The grey tuffs were so numerous, they seemed like they'd be able to cover all of England. It fell from the sky like a dusty rain, clouding his vision, asphyxiating all of his senses. The ashes, the heat, the light. It all made it hard for him to think.
It was the first time it had ever been hard to think.

The boy was sitting on the sidewalk. At the young age of seven, no one would have expected the boy to understand quite what was going on. But this boy knew full and well what the situation was. He knew what danger he was in being so close to the burning house. But he couldn't move. Nothing was being recieved in his brain. It was all to chaotic for him to comprehend.

The fire raged on in a sickening twist of red and yellow, burning to a crisp everything that the boy was familiar with. The handsome two-story house, with white paint and black shutters was engulfed in flames. He envisioned his room, with his favorite little chair and his favorite little tea set, going up in flames and coming down as the ashes falling from the air. He imagined the kitchen, which had the cupboard and refrigerator that always seemed to hold the right kind of cake and sweets that he loved to eat, catching on fire and melting away like ice. But the most horrifying image was his parent's room.

Mother and Father were still in the house.

He clenched his tiny fists, trying rub that image out. He hadn't been asleep when he became aware that there was a fire in the house. Instinctively, he had fled the house as fast as he could, but as soon as he made it out onto the sidewalk, the thought occured to him: his parents were still inside, asleep.
After that, all of his thoughts seemed to cease.

A portion of the burning roof caved in and collapsed, loudly. The boy pulled his knees closer to his chest and shut his eyes as tight as he could. He knew that even if he shut them as hard as he could muster, he wouldn't be able to make the situation go away. All he could do was sit there, trying to get a decent thought out of his confused head.

Since he could remember, the boy thought. It was what he was best at. Thinking was the only thing that made sense to him. Sometimes, he thought so hard and so much about something so large-scale that he even blew his mother and father away. But Mother and Father weren't here right now, and neither were his thoughts. Without his ability to reason, to devise, to ponder, the little boy was just that. A little boy.

The terrible clatter of the rest of the flaming roof falling in on itself rang into his ears, and the boy shivered. He just sat there, crouching on the sidewalk, unable to move, unable to think. A single tear slipped down his pale cheek and trickled to the pavement. The handsome two-story house, with white paint and black shutters could do nothing to comfort him, and kept burning into the night sky. In the distance, he could hear the sirens of fire trucks sounding, coming to the rescue, but he knew that it was too late. No thought told the boy this, but instinct. He just knew. He didn't need to think to figure it out. Mother and Father were gone now. He was all alone.

L Lawliet was completely and utterly alone