Warning: This story is is going to be very interesting, hence the title. I actually sort of want to work to poem in some how (Lewis Carrol is wonderful ^^) The rating is for a reason, it will MattxMello, their will be language, and very intense psychological exploration. I hope that everyone likes it ^^

Also a HUGE thanks to Alien ABC's and her story Martyr for inspiring this story ^^

Note: I don't own Death Note...


So, this is death? It's not like what you read in the books. There's no tunnel of light, no one waiting for me at the end. No heavenly river has come to meet me, no stars in the darkness to guide me. There's merely… nothing. What a bizarre creature death is, telling you there is so much beyond the gate of life, and yet when he comes for you he drops you into a pit of darkness and laughs as you try to claw your way out. How truly… horrific.

Mello died for the first time when he was three, in the same car crash that callously ripped his parents out of his life. In a hospital in Bucharest he was given a second chance; torn out of the chasm of darkness by cold doctors and unfeeling drugs that forced his little heart to beat again. But the world he was brought back to was infinitely more miserable than the one he had left mere minutes ago.

He had asked where his parents were, but none of the doctors answered, none even seemed to listen to him. It was his ailing grandparents who told him his parents were dead when they came to take him to Moscow. The two were hardly capable of taking care of a young child, but they were determined to try. It was what their daughter would have wanted.

After only three months Mello's grandparents followed their beloved daughter to Paradise and he was once again left with no one. Once again there was nothing, just an empty void where something was supposed to be, but wasn't. That point was driven to painful realization when he saw the only two people he had left in this world lying in their caskets. They looked so peaceful, just as his parents had, almost as though they were just sleeping. A childish voice deep inside wanted Mello to try to wake them, beg them not to leave him behind, but another voice told him how idiotic it was to try to wake the dead. So he merely stood as his grandparent's feet, staring at them as if they were museum curiosities, all emotion drained out of him at the tender age of three.

As a Romanian citizen Mello was soon deported back to his homeland, to rejection by an uncle, and finally to an orphanage in the city that had brought him back from the dead. His grandparents had told him that God had brought him back for a reason (they had given him a rosary to always remind him of that), but what reason was that? As Mello rotted with other forgotten children, underfed, beaten, and tied down to anything at hand, he wracked his brain for a reason as to why God had sent him back. What was the point? After many sleepless nights he decided there wasn't one. When he was four Mello decided that his life was pointless, and a purpose had eluded him. His entire future was merely a sick joke to entertain the demons who crawled through the shadows that lay forever at his back. And so, with nothing left to live for Mello began the motions of life, with no soul behind it, merely because he couldn't kill himself if he were tied up.

A wretched existence, scraping by on what little food he was given, had been Mello's life for the past year, but today everything was changing. A kindly looking old man stood in the corner, watching as one of the orphanage workers untied Mello's wrist from his bed. The worker spoke in a hasty tone, telling him that this was his chance to get away from everything; that this man was going to give him the things they couldn't, food, proper shelter, a future. A future? Mello had no future; he had decided that long ago. What could this foreigner do to change that?

Mello pondered this question as he was pulled to his feet, wobbling slightly since his muscles had begun to atrophy. He continued his thinking as the worker spoke in quick, simple Russian (the old man obviously didn't speak Romanian) telling him to give Mello a good future, that he didn't speak any English, and a number of other paltry details. The man of course ensured the worker that he would grant all those requests, but there wasn't really anything else he could say, was there? Giving false hope to the hopeless is perhaps one of the worst sins that could be committed. After what his life had been for the past few years Mello had a hard time believing that this man could keep such a weighty promise. It couldn't be possible. Could it?

The doubts continued as Mello watched the epicenter of his suffering disappear into the distance, and his homeland disappear into his past. However, as a new world appeared from the chrysalis of the old hope slowly edged its way through the cracks. When Mello arrived at Whammy's House he felt for the first time in years that maybe, just maybe life was worth living after all.


AN: Yes, it's quite short, but this is sort of a prologue to the actual story. Just a little background to get the story up to the point where I would like for it to formally begin. I hope that everyone enjoyed ^^