Day after day, it's all the same to me. I wake up. I eat. I smoke. I play my games. If I'm feeling particularly adventurous, I'll go down to the strip club, and if I'm feeling up for a real thrill, I'll bring a dancer home with me. Either way, by the time the sun rises, I'm in my bed alone again, ready to start a new cycle of nothingness. I don't have a job. All my money comes from a fund, set up by Wammy's House. The top three students were supposed to be set for life with the money L left for us, but when Mello left, he refused help from the House, so I get his share too. It's enough to live my lifestyle. Sooner or later, they won't even have to pay me. I won't be alive for that long. I'm sure that sooner or later, my destructive behavior is going to get me killed.

Someone once said, "To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all." That's how I've seen my life so far. I'm surrounded by people , who, like me, only exist. None of us are truly alive, just riding the cycle. My cycle hasn't changed for five years, when I left shortly after him.

They tried to stop me from leaving, just a few weeks after he had. Wasted talent, I heard. I didn't care, and still don't. I'm numb on the inside. I'm comfortable in the numbness, the loneliness. I don't talk to people, and they don't talk to me. As far as everyone is concerned, I'm just that weird guy who lives alone and plays his games.

It struck me as odd when I heard the little voice declaring that I had mail come from my computer. As I mentioned, I don't talk to people. I assumed it was spam, but turned to check it anyway. Inside, I felt the strong desire to break the monotony with anything. Anything at all, even if it was only some spam. Imagine, if you can, my surprise, when I find, instead of a Nigerian Prince Requesting My Help! A message from an unknown email address, with the title : M.

Someone from Wammy's House? I wonder. Very few people know about the whole alphabet thing they've got going on there, so I figure this much actually be important. I open the email. By the time I'm done reading it, I'm trembling. With shaking hands, I light up a cig. After a few minutes, I feel better, but I'm still shaky. I look at my phone, laying to the side. With hands that are suddenly ice cold, I begin to dial in the numbers at the end of the email. Here goes nothing, and everything.

I sat there, staring at my crappy wall phone. No, I can't afford a fucking cell. I'm nervous, and the anticipation is getting to me. I unwrap a bar of Hershey's Chocolate that I've been keeping in my freezer. I haven't had any of this for months, when I realized that if I got teeth problems, I don't have dental insurance of any kind to pay for fixing my teeth. But it's like an addiction for me. It's been far too long since my last bar. When I taste the sweetness of the chocolate, it's like sex for me. This is my addiction, and having it awakens my senses, just a bit.

Then, the phone rings. I stare for a minute. Can it be? What the fuck am I thinking? Of course it is. I answer the phone.

"I-is this Mel-"

"This is," I said, cutting in. I don't need him to say my name over the line. Who knows if his side is tapped or not? This isn't the time for friendly greetings.

"I need your help." He starts to say something, but I interject.

"Don't say anything. Let me talk.

I need your help. You once told me, years ago, that you would always be by my side. You promised. Even though we were only kids then, I need to take you up on that promise. This is a matter of life and death, and I can't allow you to say no. Too much depends on this."

I explain to him a bit more about my plan. "Are you in?" I ask. I realize I barely needed to when he answers.

"You know I am," he says. I have to crack a smile. I recognize that voice even after five years and, from what he sounds like, a lot of drugs.

"Good."

I email him the instructions, a plane ticket, and my address. I'm nervous about doing this, but then again, I'm fucking justified. For someone who works for the mafia, as well as searching for one of the most dangerous criminals ever to walk this earth, giving out personal information like this is almost painful. But it has to be done.

I put down the phone, and print out everything he sent me. I don't believe it, but I have to. Mello. He wants me to come to him, after all this time. I wonder if I should be mad. He left me. He left me alone to fend for myself in a world where he knew we needed each other. I should be angry, I suppose. But, the thing is, I'm not. I feel like a puppy that been kicked away, but loves its owner anyway.

With Mello, I think he could have destroyed everything I own, cut off my cock and ate in in front of me, and have been the one who killed my parents, and I still would've come running back to him. It's pathetic.

I'm pathetic.

Yet somehow, I don't care. I throw a pack of cigs, some of my clothes, and my gameboy into a bag. It's so easy to just walk away from my life here. I'm glad I'm walking away. I don't belong here.

I look around my miserable apartment. He'll be here within two days, and I've just realized that I only have one bed, and one blanket. He'll have nowhere to sleep. God up there, why are you so cruel to me? I live in the smallest, crappiest apartment in Los Angeles. I might as well have a sign like the one leading into hell from Dante's Inferno: Abandon all hope, ye who enter here. But you know what? Even if this is hell, I created this for myself.

I think that yes, it is better to rule in hell then serve in heaven.

Can you see how I suffer, L? Give me the strength to go on, just a little while longer. I can't take this. You'd be able to tell me what to do. You're more of a God to me then the man up there ever was.