A/N: Sorry for the late chapter guys but I had writer's block like crazy. I hope this chapter will make up for lost time and hopefully give me some time to think up a better one. :)

(Mello P.O.V)

I woke up in a cold sweat. My heart was racing faster than it ever had before. Though these weren't the nightmares that usually tormented me… it was equally terrifying.

I hadn't told anyone about them. About the more recent nightmares. Mostly because they had involved my rape, but I still wish I had said something. It wasn't right for a kid my age to suffer through this kind of trauma day in and day out. I was ten for Christ sake! Ten and already I had been beaten, raped, and forgotten. What kind of kid needed to go through all that?

They still hadn't caught him yet. The man that had… god how I hate the word. It always felt like a dagger word to me. Like every time I said it, it pierced the skin like a needle. It never sound right to me, but I was far from cowardly to just hide from it. If L or Watari ever tried to speak to me about it, I would always demand that they not side-step the word to spare my feelings. I was ten years old, but far from stupid. I knew what had happened to me… only I was allowed to ban the word from my own vocabulary.

I calmed down quite a bit before I freed myself of my blanket. Matt was sleeping soundlessly in his own bed, Gameboy still lit from the game he'd fallen asleep to. I wished I could tell him, but I doubt he could understand what I was going through. I doubt he could even keep those nightmares away despite past experience.

I silently made my way out of bed and out the door. There was no possible way I was getting back to sleep tonight. As I wandered the halls of the Wammy house I began to think about God once again. I hadn't worn my rosary in quite a few years, yet still I remembered what the priest had said. He had told me god shined on me more than any other. That god was watching me closely. Yeah right.

God and his infinite wisdom. He created all in his image, yet he only shined his light on those he thought worthy. And no matter what that priest said, I would never be worthy. If god shined his light on me, like that damned priest had said, I wouldn't have been raped. I wouldn't tortured by the very word 'rape', and my nightmares would cease to exist. I swear, part of me wanted to find that priest once again and beat him to a pulp for all his lies.

I was quiet as I roamed the orphanage, making my way to the main foyer where a large window opened up the room. It was a clear, starry night. The air was cool and hardly a wind to it. For some reason or another… I wanted to be outside that night.

I opened the door and quietly stepped out into the soft air that awaited me. It wasn't until I looked up at the sky that my mind had forgotten all about the negatives. There was only me and the sky… and I instantly felt at home.

I smiled as I started to follow the North Star. I didn't have any shoes on or anything to protect me from the autumn chill, but I hadn't cared. Anything that released me from my hellish nightmares was a pure dream to me. And as I followed that star, I began to run. I ran as if I were meant to chase it. That I was meant to be here among them and leave all my nightmares at Wammys. And for once, in what seemed like a very long time… I was happy.

It's a little sad really. Growing up with nothing but nightmares, and having one spark of true happiness all to yourself. But I was just a kid. I hadn't known what fun was or what it was to actually be a kid. From observing others around me, I knew how to act like a kid. But, actually being one felt so much better than acting like it.

As I followed that star I got happier and happier. I don't really know why either. I just felt happier looking at it.

I slowed down to a walk when I noticed that fireflies had begun to dart around me. I could suddenly remember all the times me and Matt had captured the little bugs to make lanterns for campouts. We always had fun making contests on who would capture the most, or who's lit up the brightest. Matt never really liked the outdoors much, but was so interested in bugs it verged on being creepy. The only way I ever got him away from his games was saying some kind of bug was involved, and he usually followed without hesitation.

I smiled at the thought. There were times I wished I was like Matt. Always happy, having fun, and just being a kid. Somehow he always found the joy in life, the diamond in the rough. Whereas all I found was the negative. A trait I knew brought him down sometimes, but yet he remained my friend. How could he be so loyal to me when I didn't even deserve it?

I began to follow the star once again, but this only led me to a cliff. I couldn't follow it anymore. I had to remain behind and watch it from afar. So I sat down… and watched.

And I thought.

And I remained as still as a statue. Never moving.

And suddenly, I remembered an old song my mother once recited to me. The thought of her made me cry some days, knowing she had completely forgotten me, but the poem made my heart remember her before I left. Before her daughter. Before I was Mello.

Before everything.

"Mama, sing the song!" I begged her. We were in the garden, among her favorite sunflowers. The ones she planted when I was born.

"Mihael, my little sunflower, you've heard it over a hundred times today."

"Just once more? Please, mama."

She smiled at me then. The way a mother should smile at her son. The way she always did, just to assure me that there was one person to love me in my darkest hours.

She held my bruised arm as gently as she could as she began to soothe the pain.

"I see the moon, the moon sees me
shining through the leaves of the old oak tree
Oh, let the light that shines on me
shine on the one I love.

Over the mountain, over the sea,
back where my heart is longing to be
Oh, let the light that shines on me
shine on the one I love.

I hear the lark, the lark hears me
singing from the leaves of the old oak tree
Oh, let the lark that sings to me
sing to the one I love,

Over the mountains, over the sea
back where my heart is longing to be
Oh, let the lark that sings to me
sing to the one I love."

My heart clenched in my chest remembering that song. It was when she loved me. When she cared. Now she had someone else to sing it to. Only, they would never appreciate it as much as I did. Her daughter would hear it every day and never know how much it healed me when I was much younger. When I was beaten savagely by her older brother, or spat on by her father, I would remember her mother's song and instantly feel safe once more.

Now that I remember it again… I didn't feel safe. I only felt sad. Sad because that little girl would hold the place in my mother's heart that I only wish I could hold. Sad, because my father would never love me, because my brother would forever have what he wished since I was born.

Still, even if there was sadness… there was pride.

Pride, because even with my father's beatings, my brother's stupid insults, my constant battle with depression, being raped, and worst of all… being forgotten…

I was still standing.

Life threw all it could at me and yet here I was. I hadn't needed them to get here either. I got here on my own, by myself. Even when I got knocked down, I got back up, looked life right in the face, and mockingly told the son of a bitch it hit like a girl. Why? Because it's who I am.

Yes, I missed my mother terribly. I wanted to know why she had forgotten me, why she didn't care. But at the same time… I couldn't care less. I was free. Freer than I had been in the longest time.

As I noticed the sun peak over the horizon, I felt my chest start to hurt. But not in a bad way. It was as if I had let go of all the stress that bothered me, and I was free to breathe openly once more. It was the best I had felt in a long time. And this gave me strength.

My family. They were gone now. Hell, they weren't even my 'family' to begin with. They had been replaced. Forgotten. Utterly abandoned.

Like they had done to me.

I smiled at that thought. "Who was forgotten first? Me? Or them?"

A/N: Kinda wanted a happier chapter for Mello than what I've been giving him so... hope you enjoyed.

Reviews are appreciated.