My given name is Near. I was formerly known as Nate River. I was born on the 24th of August in the year 1991, but that is of little consequence. My mother is an Albino Brit, yet my father remains a mystery. He was most likely a Russian, but that is just a hunch that I am working on.
If you have not yet guessed, I was born as "an accident." And yet, my mother cared for me very much.
I grew up in a house on Westchester Drive, in London, England. The house was small, a one story townhouse, but neither of us cared. I grew up adoring my mother, a normal child, yet with a heavy mother complex. I had friends, a mother who loved me, even though it alienated her from her family and friends, and I was not too bad off. Even though times were rough, I thought that my life was the best that it could possibly get.
And I was correct.
On September 29th, 1996 my mother was murdered in front of me. A man had come into the house, and my mother saw him before he saw us. She put me into her closet, since I had endured a nightmare earlier in the night and had climbed into bed with her I was in the room at about 2 in the morning, and told me that no matter what happened, I had to stay silent.
So that is what I did.
This man, I was too frightened to be able to register what he looked like, came into the room, calling my mother a tramp and that a child of God would not be such a "slut" as to get "knocked up" by "some bar pimp."
I had no idea what most of that meant at that age, I was 5, but I knew that it was bad since he was so angry. My mother tried to retaliate, saying that she was "young" and "foolish" and that by "taking in a bastard son" she was going to get back into "God's good graces."
I knew what that meant.
My mother not only didn't love me, she was trying to use me to get into Heaven. Yet, I still could only love her in those moments of recognition.
I had to bite on my left arm to keep from screaming as she was killed. The man shot her in the gut three times, then once in each shoulder. I watched through the small cracks in the closet shades as she stumbled back towards her bed, blood dripping on the tan bed sheets.
After she fell, he came over and whispered something in her ear, and sliced her throat with a pocket knife.
To any aspiring murderers, do not cut through the jugular veins. Blood will fly everywhere, in an impossible looking manner. It is impossible to think that so much blood can come from the same body, but the fountain of blood will keep exploding as you ponder these morbid thoughts.
When the man left, I don't know. I went into shock, and then into a comatose state.
When I woke up, I was in a hospital room for the bites on my arm. I had apparently almost bitten through the major veins in my arm, missing by millimeters.
For about a week, I wouldn't speak. I was still in shock. As I came out of my shock, quoting the reports, "all hell broke loose." I started thrashing, pulling the needles out of my arm, and tearing my stitches. I had to be put under so that they could fix me.
The next time I woke up, I was in a white room. White walls, white ceilings, white floors, white jacket, white everything. Except for a single, yellow rubber duck, everything was white. I knew immediately that I was incarcerated.
I started crying. And after the crying, I started getting angry and started thrashing about, trying to get out of my uncomfortable "jacket."
This became a routine over the next few years. Cry when I woke up, eat, then try to attack the plate of food by rolling on it (though, after the first few times the doctors would end up feeding me), and then fall asleep. I would repeat the pattern for lunch and dinner as well.
On July 17th, 1999, I was visited by one of the teacher's at Whammy's. Let me explain, while I was in incarceration, I was forced to take many tests, which were almost all inconclusive. Except for the IQ tests, that is. I scored a 172, which is unheard of for someone of my age, or of any age really. I was way above genius level, but very unstable emotionally and mentally.
The woman who came in was named Laura, and she was very kind. Tall, light brunette hair, and hazel eyes. She talked to me about being able to leave if I behaved.
So I got angry.
I yelled at her, asking why I should be able to leave this prison if my own mother didn't even love me.
The next person who came, came three days later.
That person was L.
He told me that the place he wanted to take me was full of kids just like me, and that there I would be able to learn about how to put people like my mother's killer behind bars.
Listening to him, so calm and precise even when faced with talking to an emotionally unstable, thrashing little boy, gave me an epiphany.
The only thing more worthless then I was the emotions that I carried. They held me back from my potential, and this man knew it as well. This man, who was not too much older then me, barely over 10 years older was what I had guessed, knew just how far I could go if I just released myself from my emotions.
And that is just what I did.
Every time that I caught myself in an emotion, anger, sadness, jealousy, even happiness, I would punish myself accordingly. I would stand by the window for an hour for anger, getting severe sunburns because of my albino blood. When I was sad, I would eat 12 straight sugar packets, throwing up from the ingestion of so much sugar at once. For jealousy, I would destroy one of the toys that I had.
And happiness was the worse one to deal with.
When I was happy, I would make myself anger Mello intentionally, saying something snarky or degrading to the boy, and that would remind me of who I was. Mello would remind me of how annoying, useless, petty, and ugly I really was.
I never had anything against Mello, in fact I enjoyed how witty and intellectual he was when he was calm, but I never allowed myself the luxury of a friend. I was not worth it.
And that is how I lived until that fateful day, November 6th, 2004. That was the day that me and Mello were called into Roger's office, told of our idol's death the day before.
I tried to kill myself that night.
I was going to do it.
And then Mello came into my room, wanting to talk about what he could not talk about with the other orphans of Whammy's.
He nearly caught me tying a noose with some cord from the art room. So, me being as prideful as I am (I allowed myself the luxury of pride, since it reminded me of why I lived), I let him in.
He said that he was angry at me for being so emotionless when Roger told us the news. He said that he was angry, but very jealous. He explained that he was never one to be able to control his emotions. In a moment of weakness, he slipped up and said that this was probably the reason why I was better then him.
I had another epiphany at this moment.
Mello, one of the few people whom I secretly respected, thought that I was better then him? He thought that I wasn't affected by L's death?
This was something that gave me a new purpose. I wasn't going to prove Mello wrong by allowing one man's death, a man who I barely knew personally, cause my own death. I would stay alive, if only to keep my peer's admiration true.
Mello left that night, and I swore that when I met him next, I would have the killer of L either dead or caught.
That is how I lived my life as a child.
