"-But now I've learned to trust myself and I don't need anyone else. No one's here to light the candle, no one's here to light the way. It's something I will have to handle my way. I've got to open up my eyes, find a way to kill the boredom. Watch the time go by, now it's time for me to get mine."

-Trapt: Stay Alive


My 'name', as some people would call it, is Near and I am currently exactly fifteen years of age. Thirteen years ago, I was two years old and living in a family of three, inclusive of myself. Back then, I was known as 'Nate River', the only son of a twenty-seven year old woman who quit her full-time job as a nursery-school teacher to pick up the role of being a full-time house wife as well as a full-time mother, and a thirty-two year old man who had a flourishing career as a doctor. I was born, lived and was raised in a quiet place in Thailand, even though I am quite certain that both my parents had no Thai blood running through their veins. Most likely, both of them had been immigrants who for one reason or another drew up plans to settle down and enjoy married life in a foreign albeit peaceful area in the outskirts of Thailand, and so carried out in doing so.

This may come as a surprise to you, but if one were to ask me right now how my parents looked like or what their names were, I would be incapable of providing an answer. This is merely because both of them had an untimely death contracting a deadly virus back when I still lived in Thailand.

If someone would ask me what I felt about it, I would simply tell them "nothing". I wasn't devastated about it, I wasn't even sad. And no, it wasn't because I had a bad childhood full of abuse and gore and bloodshed and whatnot. From what I can barely remember, my mother, being quite a fan of children due to the nature of her career, tended to shower me with gifts of toys such as action figures, building blocks, stuffed animals which emitted a low, comical growl whenever you pressed down onto its belly. My father brought home books, which I instantly took an interest to, despite my young age. It's a faint memory, a five-second long flashback if you will, but I could remember sitting down by the window, using the sunlight beaming through the glass to aid in my new-found interest in reading.

However, that's all I can recall. Nothing less, nothing more. That's probably the most probable reason as to why I do not have much to add to this topic; my parents were practically strangers to me, like a fading, distant memory that happened but I felt like I wasn't really there to experience it first-hand. The virus took over and spread like a crashing tsunami coursing through the town and well over half the population was wiped out before a cure was eventually found. But as I have mentioned before, it was already too late. My parents were gone and I was brought away to a orphanage nearby with the rest of the children who survived the disaster when it was realized that I had no other connections to turn to. They accepted me and no one really paid any special attention to me after that.

That is, until I surprised everyone in the orphanage by preferring to sit alone in a corner with my books- books as thick as dictionaries, and often too heavy for my small hands to lift, books that normally adults would have to spend a week finishing and that children my age back then would have probably tossed aside after ruining the small fine-printed pages by streaking thick, colourful lines across with crayons.

"Do you actually read and understand all those books, Nate?" a surprised adult would often question and I would just silently nod and surprise them further by calmly reading a paragraph out loud with words I should have by right have even have trouble pronouncing at my age.

They would then huddle away in amazement from me, whispering words to each other, like 'genius' and 'prodigy' and 'unbelievable'.

I kept quiet and didn't bother about them. I wasn't particularly flattered or appreciative of the compliments since it didn't matter to me what people thought. I never had an interest in people at all, strange as you may call it. It might've just been the personality I was born with, or the basic reason that I didn't know how to react to people. My parents weren't there to teach me plus I had no brothers or sisters, during the time when I was expected to learn how to make friends. I was rendered clueless. I didn't know how to play in the dirt, didn't know how to run around screaming and laughing, didn't know how to approach others even if I had wanted to. So I didn't. I was perfectly fine with that.

Was I lonely? I wasn't sure. I was content, I suppose. It was true that I hardly spoke a word if I could help it and the other children quickly gave up trying to get me to join in their games. I was too busy. Too busy reading and reading, trying to finish the books that once belonged to my father and too busy playing with the toys my mother had gave me before her death that I had managed to bring along. Then, one day, when I was left by the others who had gone outside to bask in the warm sun and play in the playground outside, I glanced around the empty room and down at the toys scattered all around me and the thick novel placed in my lap. The far-away laughter of children echoed in my ears from the outside and the wind blew into the room and the thin curtains flapped along with the breeze.

I... felt sad. It was a feeling I was not quite familiar with. I didn't know why I suddenly felt sad or why I did. It was just there for no apparent reason at all. I picked up the closest action figure next to me and examined it closely, remembering that this was the fifth toy my mother had given me. I looked down and also realized that in the middle of the seventh chapter of the book, the page was dog-eared. My father never got to finish this novel. It was true that I never really knew the strangers I called parents, but that never stopped the tiny part of me who wished I did. However, I eventually grew to get over that, and learned to accept that from there onwards, I truly was on my own. My deceased parents quickly faded away in my memories and all the remaining traces of sadness faded away with them.

I was close to five years old when he finally showed up. Quilish Wammy. That was a much more solid memory of mine. A kindly-looking old man with round-glasses and a graying mustache had appeared at the doorsteps of the orphanage I was housed in one day, claiming to be on a search for "gifted children" he could bring back to Winchester, England for God-knows-what reason. All fingers were pointed at me and I was brought into an empty playroom to take a written test, having to sit on a chair with books to prop me up so I was able to write on the paper properly.

I answered question after question calmly, some of them being mathematical sums which just required a little thinking, and some of them questions which answers I have came across in books I have read before. Easy. Too easy. Majority of the answers came almost automatically to me and I finished the one and a half hour paper in forty minutes and even Mr. Wammy was surprised. He checked and graded the paper, turned to me with the biggest smile anyone has even shown to me and patted me on the head, saying in a pleased tone, "Well, Nate, it looks like I'm taking you back with me to Winchester after all! These are the absolutely highest scores I have seen in a long time even amongst kids trice your age! Incredible, really..."

We flew to Winchester by plane and he took me back to the orphanage he owned the very next morning. While we were still sailing through the air in my first plane, Mr. Wammy had told me to address him as 'Watari', since according to the new rules I had to abide at Wammy's house, an alias was required. I nodded silently like how I always did whenever I agreed to a question and he smiled warmly. He then explained to me why he was traveling the world to sought out 'geniuses like myself'. Apparently, at Wammy's house, you were given the opportunity to be trained to inherit the title of becoming 'L'.

Watari told me all about 'L' and I listened quietly, putting my hand in my hair due to a habit I had developed since my hair curled at the ends and always tickled my face. I twirled my hair absentmindedly as he explained to me that 'L' was a person, a detective and a role. He wasn't just a detective, he was the best detective in the world. Everybody wanted to be like L. I learned that every day, every night, for every minute, every second, every moment that passed by in that orphanage, was dedicated to improving one's self to live up to the properties of L. He was a legend, an almost Godly title waiting to be taken, if anybody was brave or good enough to climb that high. The more Watari spoke about L, the more I grew interested. Slowly, that mild interest became a burning desire and for the first time, I suddenly had a goal in life. I wanted to surpass L.

The plane landed and we were made to grab our things and take a cab to the orphanage. When we were in the cab on our way there, Watari said to me words that played a big part of making me who I am today. "Near," he chuckled, a twinkle in his eye. At first I didn't get what he meant until he told me. "That shall be your alias from now on. Your new identity. Near; because for the first time in well over a dozen years, I have never seen anyone having the potential to be so near in having the chance in surpassing L."

From that day onwards, Nate River, the orphaned boy who was always alone and never said a word to any one out of his own accord, died. I was reborn as Near of Wammy's house, the first one in line to succeed L.