Now, before I tell you the story of my murders, and I promise I will tell you, let me tell you a little bit about my past. As you may have already guessed, as a child I was a freak. I didn't understand why other people seemed creeped out when I called them by their names or why they reacted the way they did when I mentioned their death dates. Couldn't everyone else see it too? I learned very much the hard way that this was not the case.
Unaware that I was doing something wrong, when became old enough to understand what the numbers meant, I began to mention them to people. Of course no one believed me. One day, however, my family was meeting up with some friends when I noticed a man with only three more weeks to live. Upon seeing him, I sadly announced how sad it was that he would die soon. My family was livid. I was told in very explicit terms to knock off this morbid obsession with death and behave myself. And I tried, I really did, but when the man died three weeks later after being hit by a car, any hope I could have ever had for a normal life was gone forever.
It finally occurred to my parents that maybe the reason why I kept talking about people's deaths was because I could somehow predict them. Even if they didn't want to believe it, my parents couldn't quite convince themselves that it wasn't true. And that's where everything fell apart. When I had told my parents their death dates, these dates weren't all that far off into the future. Both of them were doomed to die young. Even if they claimed that I had no idea what I was talking about, the possibility of early deaths scared them.
My house grew into a violent and toxic place to live. Items were thrown, blows were exchanged, and fighting became an everyday occurrence. Eventually my mother couldn't take it anymore. She packed her bags and left. She didn't make it far though. Just a few hours into her journey, the breaks on her train failed. There were no survivors. When the news reached home, I didn't even try to talk to my father. I simply ran. I was 6 years old at that time.
Once I had escaped from home, I tried to make sense of my ability. By this point I knew that no one else could see the names or numbers. I also knew that warning someone did not seem to help prevent it. In fact, both people who I told had died. Was it possible that their deaths occurred because I told them? After all, had I never said anything, the fighting and worrying never would have happened, and if they never happened, she never would have been on that train.
I spent the next couple of years trying to understand my curse. I scouted people out who were destined to die soon and interacted with them in different ways. I quickly realized that the deaths would occur whether or not I told the other person. Much to my dismay, I learned that the deaths would happen no matter what I did to help the person. It truly seemed to me that it was not possible for me to save someone once I had seen their death date.
Yet there was one theory that I was never able to test. A small part of me always wondered, what if by simply looking at this person I am causing their date to change? Is it possible that simply by meeting me, a person's entire future could be altered? It seemed as arrogant thought. Who was I that I could affect someone's life so much simply by looking at them. But the thought never went away. The truth is that a small part of me still wonders that today. Would they all still be alive today if I had never met them? I don't think I will ever truly know the answer.
It was during one of my experiments that Watari found me. Apparently when a child gets himself involved in enough strange death cases, he tends to get noticed. Especially when he is homeless and living on his own. Watari offered me a safe place to live and a chance to make something of my life. How could I possibly have known what would go wrong?