Okay, just so you know, this chapter will be an an entire flashback, so if you're wondering why it's all in italics, that's why.

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Chapter 9-White Memory

The boy that would later be known as the world's greatest detective ran through the white hallways of the Institute. Nurses chased him. This happened nearly every day. L's parents had left him here when he was four because they were unable to care for him and the nurses could see why. The parents had hoped that perhaps the Institute could care for him, since the Institute was built to care for the mentally or terminally ill. The boy was ten, but he never spoke, never made eye contact with anyone, he didn't seem to like being around other people, and he hated being touched. If he was touched, he'd scream and have a fit.

Every day, they would do therapy with him. And every day the therapist would get frustrated at the boy for not cooperating with her, the boy would then run off into the hallways. However, this day was different. The nurses chased after him, but soon lost sight of him. They split up. Little did they know that L was crouching behind an abandoned food cart. He sat there for a few moments, chewing on a small piece of cake he had snagged off it, but then noticed the door behind him.

He opened it, hoping that he could hide in the room. Hide from the nurses and the thereapist. He hated his therapist. She was always trying to get him to say things, language was meaningless, but the therapist didn't seem to get that. Eventually, she would start yelling and screaming, he hated it when she did that, it scared him and hurt his ears, so he ran. Ran in hopes of escaping this awful place and never have to return.

The room he was in was white and padded. He had seen padded rooms before and the people that were kept in there were often wrapped up in something. But this one was slightly different. To the left side of the room there was a bed, a shelf with books in them, a small white table, and scattered stuffed animals. Nothing on the other side.

"I know you're in here." said a voice. He looked and about five yards in front of him sat a girl in a white chair, only the chair and the girl were facing the opposite side of the room. The girl had long black hair and was wearing a white gown, but that was all he could see, for he couldn't see her face. "Are you here to play with me?" she asked him. he didn't answer. Surely this girl would turn around and hopefully would be able to tell by the expresion on his face that no, he did not want to play with her. "What's your name?" Another stupid question.

If this girl really knew he was in here, she could at least turn around and look at him like everyonelse did, but no, she didn't look at him at all. "Do you have a name?" His leaned against the door. This girl was different. Nothing like the nurses, the therapist, or even other children. Children avoided him, he wans't sure why. This girl was actually speaking to him. "Do you talk at all?" He remained silent. "Do you even know how to talk?" He wished for the girl to just turn around. Most people were able to tell what he wanted just by looking at his face.

"You don't know how to talk, do you?" she said in a sad tone. This was true. He had never spoken a word in his life. He found them annoying. If someone told him to say something, he would ignore him and think of more important things, like leaving this place, numbers, which he understood better then words, and solving problems. "Come here." He didn't, for every time some said that, they would also say 'I'm not going to hurt you'. "Please? There's something you should know." That was different.

He stood up and walked to her and then sat right in front of her. She appeared to be at least eight. Her skin was almost white, something he had only seen in sick people, and her eyes, they were a cold, lifeless, blue. They bothered him, he had never seen anyone with eyes like hers.

"You've never seen a blind person, have you?" Blind? He didn't know what that meant. Was that why her eyes were so strange. "Blind means I can't see." That explained why she had not turned around, she couldn't see him. "I forgot, I haven't told you my name." He could care less about the girls name, he was a little more concerned on how she could live without sight. "My name is Amaya, what's yours?" Once again, she wanted to know his name. He didn't understand why she kept talking to him. "Don't you have a name? Something they call you by?"

Of course he had a name, he just didn't like it. In fact, he found names useless. Names were just words that were tagged onto people in order to identify them. For him, it was easier to identify people by their appearance, not their names. Why couldn't other people undertsnad that? "Please tell me your name." Why was she so intent on finding out his name? Then he remembered, she was blind, names were the only way she could identify people.

He desperately tried to remember how they pronounced it, how they would say his name. "L." That was the first word he had ever said, which shook him up greatly. Now he hoped she wouldn't ask him anymore questions.

"L? That's an interesting name. I like it." She said happily. Her voice, it was sweet and innocent, she looked at him with a smile on her face. She didn't look as pale when she smiled. She then stood up and placed her hand on his head. Immediatly, he backed away, he hated being touched. "You don't like being touched, do you?" He didn't answer, he didn't want to.

"I'm sorry, I was just trying to figure out what you look like. You have a alot of hair." That was true, he did have a lot of hair. "Do you know how to say anything else?" He knew words, he just wasn't entirely sure what they meant or even how to say them. "If you do, say 'yes', if you don't, say 'no'. " This sounded simple enough. 'Yes' and 'no'. the words sounded easy, nothig like those long words the nurses would try to get him to say.

"N...no." He managed to say. Forming words and then saying them was not easy for him, but it wasn't hard either.

"That's bad. How do you talk to people if you can't talk? Do you use sign language?" Sign language? He had never heard of that before. "Sign language is when you talk with your hands using weird signs, or at least that's what I've heard." she said as if she had been reading his mind. "Say 'yes' or 'no' if you use sign language."

"No." He managed to say again. Speaking was getting somewhat easier for him. The words 'no' and 'yes' were obviously complete opposites in meaning. Now he knew how to respond to 'yes' or 'no' questions.

"How come you came in here?" Now he didn't know what to say. He started searching through his mind for the right words. His mind was full of words that people had said, he was wasn't sure how to say them. They were like pieces for a puzzle, numbers in a problem. He just had to figure out the right words and he could answer.

"I..." Well, that was a start, now he had to finish. "I...was...r...running..." That was the best answer he could come up with.

"You're getting good at talking." she said. "What were you running from?" He searched through his mind again and soon came upon the word.

"N...nurses..."

"You were running from the nurses? Why?"

"I..." He didn't know what to say.

"You don't know why, do you?" This was true, he didn't know the answer. "Do they scare you?" Scare? He wasn't sure what it meant, but he knew it had something to do with fear.

"Y...yes."

"They scare me too, but sometimes they can be really nice, you just have to give them a chance." As if he would, he didn't trust them at all. Everything they said wasn't true, it was all false. Everything about them was false.

"False."

"What?"

"Nurses...they are...false."

"Is that what you think of them?"

"Yes." Suddenly, the door opened and a nurse holding a food tray came in. He immediatly hid behind Amaya.

"Here's your lunch, Amaya, I'm going to put it on this table, okay?"

"Okay." The nurse put the tray down and was about to leave, but then noticed L hiding behind Amaya.

"What? L?"

"It's alright, he's my friend." Friend? He didn't know what the word meant, but it was obviously something good.

"Amaya, he doesn't even know how to talk, he hardly even behaves himself, I'm sorry, but he has to come back with me." She then turned her head to L. "Come on L, you need to go back to your room now."

"No." he said. He didnt want to leave. He didn't want to leave Amaya.

"Did you just..."

"He can talk now." Amaya said as if it were no big deal.

"This...this is incredible...Amaya, wha..."

"I didn't do anything." The nurse looked at him in shock. "Can he please stay?"

"I suppose, but only for a little while."

"Thank you."

After that day, L was allowed to visit Amaya. He soon began speaking in complete sentences, reading, and otthe things that most normal ten-year old boys would do. Though, he still didn't like it when people touched him. Over a course of two years, the two developed a brother-sister like relationship. Sometimes Amaya even reffered to him as 'aniki'. Unfortunately, he learned that Amaya was terminally ill, and her illness soon began to take its toll. Sometimes she couldn't even get out of bed. But that didn't stop them from talking to each other. The last day of her life was probably the worst for him. He sat there next to her bed. She was laying down, for she was too weak to get up. He was crying, crying because he was losing his friend.

"Don't cry."

"Why? I'm losing my only friend."

"Youll have others, besides, I won't be gone forever."

"What do you mean? When you're dead, you're dead."

"That's not what I think."

"What?"

"I think that maybe, maybe after you die, you become an angel."

"But, angels don't exist."

"How do you know?"

"Well, how do you know they do exist?"

"I just do." She then started coughing, but soon stopped."When I die, I'll become a white angel, white because it's the opposite of black and black is all I ever see. And maybe I won't be blind anymore, I could see you for the first time, maybe I could help you someday."

"Amaya..." She then started coughing again, but stopped after about ten minutes, her eyes closed and her head tilted at an angle, her body went completely limp. "Amaya?" No response. Amaya, his only friend, was dead. Tears fell down his face as he stared at her body.

"Don't forget me..." a disembodied voice whispered in the air. A nurse came in and walked him out and left him out in the hallway as she went back in. This was his chance, to leave this place and never return. He started running, running down the emergence stairs, and towards the door. When the nurses finally realized what he was doing, it was too late, he was already out the door.

Snow fell. L wandered through the empty streets. He was exhausted from running. It was night. He collasped. He was too tired to go on. He soon fell in to a deep sleep. Unknown to him, a limo had pulled over. A man in his mid-forties stepped out and looked at the uncounsios boy.

He opened his eyes. He was no longer laynig in a snow-covered sidewalk, but a large bad instead. He heard a chuckle. He turned his head to see a man in his mid-forties sitting on a chair next to his bed.

"Good to see you're awake." the man said.

"Who...who are you?" L asked.

"I am Mr. Quillish Wammy. You're lucky I found you, a couple of hours out there and you would've been frozen solid."

"Thank you."

"By the way, what is your name?"

"L." From that day on, Akira live with Mr. Wammy. They stayed in England for five years and then went back to Japan where L became a detective and Mr. Wammy became known as Watari. The memory of Amaya haunted his mind, so he decided that the best thing to do was to forget about her, for whenever he thought about her, the painful memory of her death came up. Right before he died at the age of twenty-five, the image of the little girl with the long black hair came to his mind, but unfortunately, he had forgotten her name or just who she was.

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This would be the end of flashback part. Hope you liked it. BTW, update will be slower from now on due to the fact that school has started today. CURSE YOU SCHOOL!!!! CURSE YOU!!! Anyways, please review.