Hi everyone! Quick question: How do I add chapters to a story? I got a request to continue writing the other fanfiction called Merry Christmas Mentor, but i dont' know how! (can someone please explain to me step by step how to add chapters to one story? I'm still new to this! Thankies!) Anyway. This is about Beyond Birthday and is told from his perspective. It is rated for blood and gore and extremely angsty thoughts.
Disclaimer: yeah, yeah. I'm american, not japanese, therefore i do not own anything! And that includes 1kidsentertainment...

Chapter One: Reasons

There was always something nagging at my brain when i was in that institute in London. Something that would often scare me, actually. The way i perceived knives and cutting boards and the way that a knife could cut through something like a chicken's flesh as smoothly as butter. Yes, it was probably in that institute that I first was seen as an unstable child.

I did not go immediately to Wammy's House. No, no. That came later, when i was about 10. I only spent 5 years at Wammy's house. The rest of the time i was at a Mental Institution in London, getting 'help' for my 'special needs'. But all i needed was out of that place that was more like a junkyard for the children that were abandoned because of their mental incapabilities.

It would be a more truthful thing to say if I said that I was probably the most sane one there, no pun intended. These kids couldn't even hold a knife on their own...let alone get to one the way I could. I could sneak around in the shadows, slink like a coyote in the dark, watching the cattle and choosing just the right one to pick on. IN this case, i would sneak around the kitchen, crawl beneath the shadows of the fake plastic plants in their, snake along the linoleum floors and choose my knife. Once i had this knife, i would take it back to my room...no. I would take it back to my cell and just wait for them to find me with it. In the meantime, i would carve poems and prayers on my wall. Sometimes I would do math equations, and figure out by the position of the sun when the next lunar eclipse would be. They'd never even look at my works of word-art, only reprimand me for grabbing a knife.

When i said earlier that I viewed a knife's ability as beautiful, you probably thought i meant i enjoyed the laceration of flesh. You were misguided, and it was my own fault for not wording it correctly. And using a chicken's flesh was probably more of a mentally disturbed image than any. For that, i am sorry.

What i meant was, i was amazed that a knife could be used for more than just cutting. It could be used for sculpting, for carving, for shaving, for engraving...but to them, it was simply something else...something that looked dangerous. To me it was just art.

But there was also another reason; somewhere along the line of my short time on Earth I must've said I could see when people would die. You see, I have what are called Shinigami Eyes. These eyes give me the ability to see a person's real name and the date and time that they will die. Well, i can vaguely remember being in a foster house. One of the kids was in his swim shorts and was getting ready to go back outside to the small pool that the foster mother had in her backyard. He was soaking wet and his feet were slippery on the cool tile. I looked at his lifespan, and noticed in an almost fearful glance that it was going down by the second. I hurried to stop him from reaching for the cookie jar. I didn't want to see what was going to happen.

"Hey! Beyond, move out of my way! i wants a cookie!" The kid, named Evan, pouted. His lifespan was lingering between 2 minutes and 3 minutes. I wanted to see if I could get it back to where it was. Had I been around longer than 4 years i would've realized i cannot change what has been fated. But i was persistent to save this kid from an untimely death. He was only 4 years old, like me.

"No! If you reach up here you'll die!"

"What? That's not even funny. I just wants a cookie!" Evan argued.

"You can't! Your life span says you have 2 minutes to live! Move backwards. Maybe it can get to 70 years again."

"Life sp-what the heck are you talking about, Beyond? I just want to get a cookie that Baisley made," Evan said, pointing outside where the foster mother was sitting reading a book to the group of girls in the backyard.

"I can't let you!"

"Move it, Beyond," Evan growled. He pushed me out of the way, reached up for the cookie, and slipped on the wet ground beneath his feet. He grabbed something, anything, to stop his fall, and got a grip on the towel laying underneath the cookie jar and the cutting board where a fillet-knife was laying, from last night's salmon.

"Stop!" I cried. Everything from there went in slow motion for me. I heard the squeak of skin on tile, i heard a gasp as Evan fell, i heard my own cry of dismay and i heard the cookie jar lid shatter on the ground. Then i heard something that would forever haunt me...I heard the cookie jar fall next to Evan, and just as Evan was reaching for one, the fillet knife and cutting board fell. I heard his yelp of pain as the cutting board crushed his arm as it fell vertically in the crevice between his forearm and his upper arm, and then i heard an ear-splitting, blood-curdling shriek as the fillet knife fell, vertically, into the space between his bare shoulderblades, along with a sickening 'squelch' and subtle 'thud'.

The way it fell with such ease...how it buried itself through the four layers of skin, a thin layer of muscle, and through a tendon such as the brain-stem...it was disgusting and fascinating at the same time.I was frozen, though. I was 4 and had just witnessed a 4 year old get himself killed right in front of my red eyes.

Baisley ran inside and shrieked. The girls all screamed and I took it upon myself to herd them all outside and calm them down, saying Evan wasn't actually hurt, it was a trick we were playing on Baisley to see if we could scare her. They all seemed to believe it, and i told them to shush and stay outside. I'd tell them what happened if they'd listen to me, but they had to keep quiet outside and not peek in the house until i gave the signal.

I went back inside and stood next to a sobbing Baisley. I told her what i'd told the girls. But we both knew that it was a lie just to calm them down and rid of any possible trauma they'd feel later on...being girls and all, they were more prone to have that sort of trouble in are just so...emotional like that.

"Beyond...how did this happen? Did you do this to him?"

That hurt. How could she even POSSIBLY put this sort of blame on me? I was 4!

"No! I told him not to do it. I told him his life span was 2 minutes and that he should walk backwards and go back outside. But he wouldn't listen to me!" I was sure she'd believe me.

But she only stood up with wider eyes and a mouth slightly agape.

"What?" she asked again in horror.

"I told him not to reach for the cookies because his life span was going down. I told him he only had two minutes on his life span and-"

"Beyond, what did you DO!" she screamed, holding a hand to her mouth in horror, and leaning against the counter, one hand out in front and a flat palm toward me as though shielding herself from me.

"I just told him his lifespan was shorten-"

"Stop playing games! Beyond this is NOT funny! What did you DO to EVAN?" she shrieked. I could see her shaking. her seams were coming undone and she was slowly losing her sanity for a moment.

"I can see lifespans, Baisley. You have 10 more years to live and interestingly enough the all the girls out there are going to die on the same day in 40 years-"

"GET AWAY FROM ME! GET AWAY! GET OUT OF HERE! AND DON'T COME BACK TO THIS HOUSE! EVER! YOU HEAR ME! YOU'RE A SICK CHILD! A SICK, SICK CHILD! GET AWAY! YOU'RE FROM HELL! THAT MUST BE IT! YOU'RE NOT HUMAN!" she screamed at me, jumping up and grabbing the broom. She shoo'd me out of the house, tears and raging screams coming from her mouth. She got me into the bathroom in the garage and locked me in there. She grabbed Evan's body and locked it in there with me, making me grab the handle of the knife and then locked me in there alone with this corpse that was starting to smell.

I could hear her on the phone, sobbing, "He's psycho! this kid in my house killed the other one! Take him away! Just save us from this psycopath! he needs to be locked up!"

I started to cry when four men in jackets came to the house and opened the door. I was curled up into myself on the floor in the shower, hoping they'd not find me. When they reached out to grab me, I screamed, petrified. I shouted for Baisley, but she wasn't coming to my aid. She was being comforted by a counselor who would later become my counselor in the institute where i would remain for 3 years before being taken to the place where i would become the World's Greatest Detective's successor.

So, one day, when i was sitting in my ...erm...'room' at the institute, reading Dante's 'Inferno', someone came to visit me...which was a first because no one in their right mind came to this place...again no pun intended.

"Beyond? This man is Quillish Wammy. He's-"

"Old?"

"Beyond. That's very rude. Apologize to Professor Wammy at once," my female counselor scolded me.

"I'm sorry, Professor Wammy," I said in spite of myself.

"That's quite alright, son. I must say, even I'm aware that i am old. But let's just say that I'm 35 and leave it at that, yeah?" he said. He really wasn't that old, actually. He had black hair with subtle grays beginning to emerge from his scalp, and he had wide brown eyes. He wore glasses that were black rimmed and that would turn dark in the sunlight but would be clear in the dark. And he had a small goatee. I looked up above his head at the red letters i saw there. He really was only 42, and i looked at his lifespan. He had 36 more years to live...which really wasn't that much. But he looked kindly enough and so i trusted him.

"Aren't you the inventor?" I asked.

"Yes, I am. And i'm also going to be the founder of the Wammy's House Orphanages. You see, i have been looking over your records from the schools you have visited on occasion. And i am quite suprised by how remarkable your ability to decipher and logicate such intricate equations and scenarios is."

"it's just deducing and placing a percentage of possibility on things. It's really not that difficult to do, sir." I said quite boredly. I wished that visiting time was over. I was feeling tired and was just in the midst of my daily feeling-sorry-for-myself phase (it always happened around 12:59...I like the number 13 and would spend 13 minutes just wishing that it was 13:13 rather than 1:13)

"Well, Beyond, I was wondering if you'd like to be placed in my Wammy's House instead of being kept here. Wammy's house is an orphanage, not an institution."

I could hear my counselor give a growl of dissaprovement, but I must've been beaming. Finally, getting out of this place and getting back to the outside world!

"Sir, yes, sir!" I cried enthusiastically.

I hated it here. I hated the fact that my only real friend, whose name was Arthur Friedrichson but whom everyone referred to as A, had recently hung himself because he felt too pressured to become the new L. And this L character...I'd met him. I'd actually spent quite alot of time with him. I could tell i was his favorite, and I loved the fact that everyone thought that 'L' was just an alias of his real name, when in actuality, it was his real first name. his lifespan read "L Lawliet". Law-lee-et. He must've been Irish. I'd later find out that his name was pronounced "Low Light" when we went to Japan and everyone's names changed from English letters into Japanese Characters. There, it became clear to me that his name was Ro-Raito, prounced in english as Low Light.

In a personal sort of celebration for myself at finding out how to properly pronounce his name, I'd found a stray cat and decided that maybe Lawlipop would like to taste cat.

So i'd slit the cat's throat and had carried it back by the tail to the group of boys (me, L, Mail and the youngest of the group, Mihael [near was still in the infant center])

"Hey, L!" I called excitedly. The 17 year old came running to me with a smile on his sweaty face and a chest covered in sand and salt water from playing beach volleyball with Wammy and Mail and Mihael.

"Yeah, Backup? What's up...whoa...wha-?" he had spotted the red on my hands and arms, probably. I was holding the cat behind my back. "Are you hurt?" he asked me, bending down slightly to get eyelevel with me.

"Nope! But i was wondering if you wanted a jelly-coated, chocolate marinated cat for lunch today," I said with a smile, holding out the cat. he yelped in distress and fell backward. The noise and the action of him falling made the rest of the group run to his aid, Wammy seeing the cat in my hands.

"BACKUP! WHAT ARE YOU DOING!" he scolded, taking the cat from me and holding me by one bloodied wrist.

"Just seeing if L wanted it for lunch," i shrugged. The other boys shook their heads in disgust at my offer.

"That is very wrong and very inappropriate of you, Backup." Wammy scolded me. "Go wash off and then you're going back to the vacation house with Linda."

Linda was the infant care taker who often came on these trips with Mihael (or Mello) just to make sure he didn't forget to take his calcium pill. he'd been malnourished as an infant and Linda had been giving him calcium pills every day twice a day. Often times she would have him eat milk chocolate, which contained alot of the same calcium levels that were needed for a child of his age and build.

"But i wanna stay on the beach," i whined.

"You killed an innocent cat, Backup. No one wants to associate with a murderer," Mail barked.

"That was uncalled for, Matt," L said, rubbing the back of his head where he'd nearly hit a rock when he'd fallen. "calling someone a murderer."

"Isn't that what he did?" Mihael asked, swallowing the pill he was handed and then grabbing the Granola bar Wammy held out for him.

"Consider it what you want to consider it, but Backup? This was NOT a display that a detective should ever show. I hope you'll remember that for the future." L said to me. I frowned.

"Maybe A was right in doing what he did. At least he got out of your shadow!" I snapped.

I heard gasps all around as i turned on my heel and went to the vacation house on the hill, blood dripping onto the sand with each step I took.

It was almost soothing the way it hit the sand and made it darker in the spots it hit.

Interested I looked at the blood coating my hands and shook them hard. Blood sprayed everywhere like a sprinkler, darkening spots all over the place, making a soft 'thud' noise as they hit the ground.

I was thirsty suddenly. And when i opened the door to the house, i went to the refrigerator and spotted Fruit Punch. The closest color to the liquid coating my hands and the only thing that could quench my sudden thirst.

I was called a murderer, but i was not always a murderer.

But being called that only fed into my already known fascination with how easily a knife could slip into something. yes. This was the reason for what i did.

And as all people say for things they do:

I have my Reasons and my Reasons are my Own.