A human who dies within 6 hours of birth and is then brought back to life shall have no numbers.

Chapter 2: Discovery

I was 1,227,600 seconds old when I was brought to an orphanage. 20,460 minutes, 341 hours. I would stay there until I turned 18. Not because the courts ordered that I wasn't to be sent to a foster home or adopted, but because every time a family would try to adopt me a strange shroud would seem to engulf them. They would then move onto a child who didn't seem to give off a feeling of impending doom. Those were only the families who choose not to try. The ones who did bring me into their lives found family and friends dying.

The ones who ran the orphanage learned quickly that I shouldn't be adopted.

I was 129,254,400 seconds old when I was found to be mildly autistic. 2,154,240 minutes, 35,940 hours, 1,469 days, 213.12 weeks, 4.09 years. I can communicate and get along with others excellently but I prefer to be by myself. I just have extreme urges to keep track of how long I have been alive.

This urge started before I could remember, but I believe it has something to do with Mauk. He was with me all 24 hours each day from the moment the robber had been killed. He says it was because I was the owner of his death note. I disagree with this argument because I never even saw his death note until I was ten.

Yet from a young age I would keep track of how long I had been alive. I became excellent at arithmetic. This also led to an increase in understand language because when I ran into a word or symbol that I did not know I would look it up. This would then lead me to looking up words that explained what I hadn't understood in the first place. I always continued doing this until I understood every word used in a description.

The orphanage just believed this was a symptom of my autism, but in fact Mauk encouraged me to do it. When I used to tell them that Mauk told me to do it they just believed that I had made up an imaginary friend to push blame onto like many other children. They said I would grow out of it, but I never did. I guess the fact that my invisible friend was actually real might have had something to do with that.

So they continued to believe my thirst for knowledge was a symptom of my autism while Mauk continued to encourage me to learn. He helped me learn things that were light-years away from what a child should learn. I never realized this until I started high school though. In fact I only found out because when I entered through the doors my freshman year I found that I already knew most of the material. This led to me testing out of most of my classes and generally only taking artistic and foreign language classes. However, that is a story for another day.

These are all pointless facts in the big picture though, for the real story begins when I was ten.

It was my birthday when Mauk gave it to me. A plain black Notebook with two words on the front; Death Note. He said this notebook had belonged to me since I was little and that I was finally old enough to take responsibility for it. He said that with this notebook I could kill anyone I wanted as long as I knew their name and face. That there are other notebooks like the one he was giving me in existence but they could not harm me. That I was immune to their power.

He told me that many of the tales he had weaved into stories had actually happened. That humans such as Adolph Hitler had gotten a hold of death notes and gone crazy with power. That he had used this object to keep me from being adopted.

I then proceeded to look him in the eye and tell him to hold onto the Death Note a little longer.

On my eleventh birthday Mauk asked me if I would like to make a trade.

He asked if I would like to be able to see the numbers above people's heads and if I would like to understand them. That if I wanted to I could trade half of my lifespan for that ability. I told him that I would never trade any second of my life for anything. He shrugged and snapped his fingers.

From that day forth I could see the numbers of humans. I asked him why he gave me the ability when I said I would never trade any of my lifespan for it. He replied that it was a birthday gift. That it would increase how much I amused him. I disliked this answer, but didn't push it.

My twelfth birthday brought the greatest gift I had ever received from Mauk.

It was small, white, and seemingly insignificant. It would mean nothing to someone who didn't already know what it was capable of. To others it would seem like a school or art supply, but to me it was a way to save lives.

It was an eraser.

An eraser that, according to Mauk, could bring back those who had been killed by a death note or stop a death from happening. When he gave me it he told me there was a rule that came along with the eraser. That if a name was written and erased four times a death note could not kill that person. But by writing the name in the death note in the first place you can neither go to heaven or hell.

My sixteenth birthday didn't bring me any gifts from Mauk. Instead it brought forth a question from my mouth.

I turned towards Mauk.

"Can I erase what others have written in death notes and still go to heaven or hell?" I asked. His answer?

"Yes."