Author's Note: This story is actually part of my headcanon as Beyond Birthday. Yes, I roleplay as him and adore every second of it. I suppose one might say I wrote this because I felt the need to show people just how much poor Beyond has been through in his lifetime, and why he became what he did. One simply isn't born insane. They may be born into insanity, but it's obvious from this that he wasn't. There was something more.

To make things a simple for those who read later chapters, I'll list the mental conditions I believe Beyond to have. I think he has OCD, anxiety, manic depression (Bi-polar disorder), PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder), and arsonphobia (a fear of fire).

Now for the main event. I hope everyone enjoys reading!

Beginnings of a Memory

Present…

Black sheep, black sheep… have you any wool? Yes sir, yes sir. Three bags full.

Quiet humming passed his lips as he washed his hands clean. In a bathroom where a leg was present, no less. It was a silly little thing, and oh how he laughed. The police had nothing on him. The perfect crime might even stump L. If he couldn't get all the clues and capture the culprit, he'd lose the game. That was what it was, after all. A game between the two of them to see whose skills were more honed. To test who was the better out of the both of them. There were quite a few other reasons he was doing this, though.

A's death was one, and his own slipping sanity being another. Loneliness and loss drove him to madness. According to others, he'd been a demon. That said – he became one simply to appease their fantasies about him. To make their lies truth, simply so it wouldn't nag him anymore, he became what he was. Backyard Bottomslash had been a pretty woman. It was a shame, really. The people he'd killed had already had their death dates determined. He'd known how one of them was going to die, because he walked in on it, and changed the course of what happened. Was it so monstrous to grant to a child what they wished? At that, he laughed. A practiced laugh that simply wasn't natural.

Quarter Queen had been holding a knife to her wrist, whimpering imperceptible things to herself. She'd never suspected that instead of managing suicide that day, she'd be murdered. According to her babbled mutterings, she'd been bullied at school for having bad eyesight, as well as other things. That in itself almost made Beyond frown at himself. She reminded him of himself. Maybe that was why he'd chosen to leave the specific clue he had at that scene. He'd dropped the necessary clues on purpose. He'd crushed her eyes. She wouldn't need the contacts anymore, and so he took them away. As if to make some cruel joke, he put glasses on her. He only wished someone had crushed his own eyes. Then maybe he wouldn't be killing men, women, and children. All were equally horrible, equally disgusting, but he did what he did.

To some degree, maybe he even liked it.

Enjoyed the feeling of blood trickling between his fingers.

Screams of agony.

Breaths stopping.

He might have envied it to some degree, as well.

Oh well. From the beginning it had been part of his plan that he'd be the last to die. He'd be the final victim of the perfect crime. Because suicide can be classified as murder.

If his past had been different, maybe he wouldn't have been like this. If L had done everything differently. But no, he was a demented shell of what he'd once been. A broken, lonely, hateful being whose desires could have been called selfish.