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It's quite astonishing, really, how no one ever figured it out. Or if anyone did, they never had the guts to come right out and accuse me. Not enough evidence, perhaps. In which case I suppose it would be my fault; but it isn't as though I would make it easy for others to capture me, is it? No one should expect that; I can't be blamed for being a living organism with a survival instinct.

A few people like Hattori and detective Takagi have given me strange looks before, and even Hakuba has sent the occasional leery stare my way. However, if they had any suspicions they never acted on them. And that's just depressing. Or it would be, if it were possible for me to feel anything. As it is, it certainly makes me question the continued survival of the human race.

It should have been simple enough for them to reason out. Pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate: Plurality should not be posited without necessity. And what would be a more simple explanation: Hundreds upon hundreds of coincidences resulting in as many dead bodies dropping at my feet? Or that the cause of it all was none other than me?

But I ramble. Good stories should begin at the beginning, unless one is attempting to set up a frame story. Looking back on everything, I suppose it all started when I was four years old….

It's difficult for me to remember the less important particulars, like the time of day or the location. I was at that age where memories can begin to be stored long-term, but their details are vague, clouded by that veil of childish incomprehension. I can at least remember the critical components, however.

My mother and father had invited Ran and her parents to dinner. Being so young and therefore having smaller stomachs, Ran and I finished early, leaving the adults to their boring conversations in order to begin exploring. If I remember correctly, the restaurant was attached to some fancy hotel or other. There was no dearth of customers, and Ran and I giggled uncontrollably as we weaved through the tables of the restaurant and the legs of people loitering in the lobby, playing those mysterious games understood only by the young.

The two of us had managed to convince several other bored children to play with us, and our antics were inspiring smiles and annoyed glares alike. Two people, however, were paying no attention to our child's play. I paused momentarily in my running around to observe a pair of men, arguing in whispers. One was becoming red in the face and gesticulating wildly while the other, younger man had a calm, perhaps even smug expression. Before I could examine them closer, someone ran into me from behind and the two of us nearly fell over.

'Ow! Shinichi you stupid-head! Why'd you stop all of a sudden?' Ran's voice asked.

'You're the stupid-head, stupid-head! Watch where you're running next time!' I retorted. 'Anyways, look at those two. What do you think they're arguing about?'

'I don't care, and you shouldn't either. C'mon, everyone else is waiting!'

I might have said something in reply, but I can't remember if I was agreeing to go with Ran or if I was going to tell her to be quiet so I could eavesdrop better, because at that moment, the red-faced man pulled a pocket knife out of his coat. Before the younger man's eyes had finished widening in surprise, he had been stabbed in the chest, probably through his lungs if the blood that he later coughed up was any indication.

Oh, but I didn't think, 'He's probably been stabbed through the lungs' at the exact moment the victim was attacked. I mean, first of all, he didn't start coughing up blood until he had fallen to the floor and tried feebly to crawl to safety. And second, I was only four at the time, and not many four-year-olds see a man stabbed in the chest start coughing up blood and calmly think, 'Oh, he's coughing blood. Coughing is a result of the body's efforts to clear its airways, and since he was stabbed in the chest as opposed to say, his windpipe, the most probable explanation is that the knife pierced his lung.' No, no, I was still normal, back then.

Where was I? Ah, right.

As I was saying, before the younger man could react, the red-faced man had plunged his blade into the other's chest and pulled it out. The former collapsed and began coughing up blood as he tried desperately to drag his body across the carpet, but was stopped by the knife being sheathed in his shoulder blade.

At this point, everyone was probably screaming and calling for help or for the police. I say 'probably' because at that point I was in shock, and could hear nothing over a roar of static echoing through my ears. Vaguely I sensed Ran tugging at my sleeve, but I was too busy watching the knife be thrust over and over into a body whose struggles were gradually becoming weaker and weaker.

'…out of here, Shinichi!' I heard as my ears began working again.

'R-Right!' I gasped. 'Let's run!'

Her hand and mine instinctively reached for each other and we tore through the lobby together, following everyone's wild, pathless flight.

Everyone minus one. While no one was really running in the same direction, we were all moving in unison away from the butchery, our paths radiating from the epicenter of the chaos. This made the solitary presence of a young boy running towards the two men very odd indeed. Odd enough to make me slow to a halt and turn to follow his path, the grip that Ran and I shared nearly snapping apart like a frozen rubber band.

I think Ran almost yelled at me again, but I suppose she noticed what I was staring at before she got anything out. We were probably both wondering, What does he think he's doing? Does he think he's going to be a hero or something? But now that I'm thinking about it again, perhaps a better question would have been 'Why didn't I do anything to help?' For what happened next….What happened next preoccupies my dreams to this day.

I'm not sure why that man did it. Perhaps he was too caught up in the emotion of the moment, or perhaps he was surprised and simply reacted automatically. But, for one reason or another, in the blink of an eye the knife had been sunk into the boy's torso.

For a moment, it felt as though everything had gone completely silent. The red-faced man's eyes grew as he realized what he had done. Then the boy screamed, and sound returned to the hotel lobby once more.

The man sprang to his feet and stumbled as he ran for the exit. I saw this all peripherally, as I was too busy focusing on the boy crying weakly, curled around the blade now encased in his stomach. I followed Ran limply as she dragged me towards the other child, tears spilling from her eyes and incomprehensible blubbering pouring from her mouth. The two of us collapsed to our knees as soon as we reached him, and while I can't speak for Ran, I was surprised at the time that my legs had been able to keep me up for so long.

Ran trembled and shook like a leaf as she asked the boy, me, someone, anyone, what she should do. Or at least, I think that's what she said. She was a bit difficult to understand.

'I…It hurts,' the boy whimpered. He had his hands clasped around the knife's handle. As I watched helplessly, I noticed a slight twitch of the boy's arms. He was trying to pull the knife out.

'Stop it!' I cried, grabbing his wrists tightly enough to break his grip. It was distressingly easy to do. 'Don't pull it out, you'll only make it worse!' Tears were spilling from the boy's eyes, but he nodded once in response to my command. As I pulled my hands away, I looked down to see that they were covered in red.

Ran said something that I assumed meant she was going to get help; it was still difficult to interpret.

Me, I was unable to do anything. I have never felt so powerless, before or since. All I could do was sit there silently, watching as blood began to fill my vision.

When I came back to my senses, the first thing I noticed was the red stain smeared over the faux-marble floors of the hotel, labeled with a yellow tag upon which was printed the letter 'D'. A few feet away, a larger puddle of blood sat, congealing, similarly labeled. The boy had disappeared from my line of sight. I looked around and noticed red and blue lights flashing through the windows. The police, probably, and perhaps even an ambulance. That could be why the boy was gone; he was being taken to the hospital. But in that case the lights outside would be coming only from the police cars; the ambulance carrying the boy would, hopefully, be long gone. Although, deep down, I could feel that he would not make it. And as it turns out, I was right.

My chin rubbed against something soft and warm that smelled of my father, and I looked down to see that someone had draped his coat over my shoulders. It trailed onto the ground, but it was mercifully warm. For a moment, I felt cocooned in paternal comfort.

All around me the murmurs of people comforting each other or trying to rationalize the night's events lapped across my ears, one conversation receding to be replaced by another. The continuous noise was almost comforting, in a way.

'I overheard that the murderer…'

'…-one know where Fumi-chan is?'

'…caught cheating with…'

'There, there, just try not to think…'

'…lost his job…'

'Has anyone seen…'

'…says that he knew the victim…'

'Do you think the police…'

'…shame about the little boy…'

I stopped listening when I realized that I had been biting my lip to keep from crying out. My teeth had left indentations which I ran my tongue over to keep myself occupied. No matter what the justification the red-faced man had, it didn't change the fact that at least one person, probably two, had died in an untimely and painful manner in front of my eyes. And of those two, one of them had been a child, innocent of any crime apart from being in the way. It wasn't fair, I thought. It just wasn't fair.

And so it was that, at the tender age of four, my eyes were wrested open to three facts.

First: That the world did not consist entirely of happy, smiling people to be trusted and befriended.

Second: That death was not some sort of peaceful, deep sleep, from which one could be awakened with a kiss of true love or some magical spell.

And third: That life was not fair.

I blinked furiously, tilting my head up so that the tears quickly forming in my eyes wouldn't fall out. The light from the chandeliers above, however, was bright and only made my eyes water more. I didn't want anyone to see me crying, and so pulled father's coat over my head.

It was in this state, shivering and sniveling, that Ran and our parents found me. When my mother pulled away the coat I had curtained over myself, I hastily scrubbed my face, fearing Ran's ridicule, but when I looked up, it appeared that she had also been busy crying. She was clinging vulnerably to Mouri-ojisan's leg, and didn't seem to be in the mood for teasing at all.

'Shinichi, are you going to be okay?' my mother asked, for once eschewing the use of 'Shin-chan.'

I didn't entirely trust my voice, and so nodded in response.

She smiled at me, in that way that adults smile at children when they're not actually happy but don't want to upset their young charges. It didn't comfort me. Even then I could detect the insincerity in that expression. 'Will you be okay if we go back home now?'

Another silent nod.

'Alright then, up we go…' she said as she picked me up. From my perch in mother's arms, I watched Ran lift her arms toward her father in that universal children's gesture for 'pick me up.'

Our group made its way towards the parking lot, not quite in silence, but in that buzzing drone of adult conversation that I held no interest in. When we passed the police cars, a question popped into my mind.

'Tou-san,' I asked, 'what happened to that guy with the knife?'

The murmur of boring conversation halted as my father glanced aside to me. He had a grim look on his face.

'Unfortunately, when we managed to corner him…'

'Tch! The bastard was hiding a cyanide capsule in his mouth. Bit down on it when it looked like he'd be caught,' Ran's father finished. 'He's dead now.'

I tightened my grip on my mother's arm. 'And…' I started. My voice broke off and I started again. 'And what about that boy? Is he going to be okay?'

There was a moment of silence as the adults hesitated to answer. But that silence was all the answer I needed.

Eventually, it was Mouri-ojisan who spoke up. 'Oh just tell the kid the truth already. Look,' he said, voice surprisingly gentle as he looked me in the eye, 'he was wounded pretty seriously. The ambulance was a little slow in arriving. While it's possible for him to be saved, I wouldn't get your hopes up.'

There were a few indignant cries at his blunt honesty but I wasn't paying attention.

All that was on my mind was the fact that there was a problem in my world, and I was turning all of my mental capacities towards solving it.

Description
It's quite astonishing, really, how no one ever figured it out. Or if anyone did, they never had the guts to come right out and accuse me. Not enough evidence, perhaps. In which case I suppose it would be my fault; but it isn't as though I would make it easy for others to capture me, is it? No one should expect that; I can't be blamed for being a living organism with a survival instinct.

A few people like Hattori and detective Takagi have given me strange looks before, and even Hakuba has sent the occasional leery stare my way. However, if they had any suspicions they never acted on them. And that's just depressing. Or it would be, if it were possible for me to feel anything. As it is, it certainly makes me question the continued survival of the human race.

It should have been simple enough for them to reason out. Pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate: Plurality should not be posited without necessity. And what would be a more simple explanation: Hundreds upon hundreds of coincidences resulting in as many dead bodies dropping at my feet? Or that the cause of it all was none other than me?

But I ramble. Good stories should begin at the beginning, unless one is attempting to set up a frame story. Looking back on everything, I suppose it all started when I was four years old….

It's difficult for me to remember the less important particulars, like the time of day or the location. I was at that age where memories can begin to be stored long-term, but their details are vague, clouded by that veil of childish incomprehension. I can at least remember the critical components, however.

My mother and father had invited Ran and her parents to dinner. Being so young and therefore having smaller stomachs, Ran and I finished early, leaving the adults to their boring conversations in order to begin exploring. If I remember correctly, the restaurant was attached to some fancy hotel or other. There was no dearth of customers, and Ran and I giggled uncontrollably as we weaved through the tables of the restaurant and the legs of people loitering in the lobby, playing those mysterious games understood only by the young.

The two of us had managed to convince several other bored children to play with us, and our antics were inspiring smiles and annoyed glares alike. Two people, however, were paying no attention to our child's play. I paused momentarily in my running around to observe a pair of men, arguing in whispers. One was becoming red in the face and gesticulating wildly while the other, younger man had a calm, perhaps even smug expression. Before I could examine them closer, someone ran into me from behind and the two of us nearly fell over.

'Ow! Shinichi you stupid-head! Why'd you stop all of a sudden?' Ran's voice asked.

'You're the stupid-head, stupid-head! Watch where you're running next time!' I retorted. 'Anyways, look at those two. What do you think they're arguing about?'

'I don't care, and you shouldn't either. C'mon, everyone else is waiting!'

I might have said something in reply, but I can't remember if I was agreeing to go with Ran or if I was going to tell her to be quiet so I could eavesdrop better, because at that moment, the red-faced man pulled a pocket knife out of his coat. Before the younger man's eyes had finished widening in surprise, he had been stabbed in the chest, probably through his lungs if the blood that he later coughed up was any indication.

Oh, but I didn't think, 'He's probably been stabbed through the lungs' at the exact moment the victim was attacked. I mean, first of all, he didn't start coughing up blood until he had fallen to the floor and tried feebly to crawl to safety. And second, I was only four at the time, and not many four-year-olds see a man stabbed in the chest start coughing up blood and calmly think, 'Oh, he's coughing blood. Coughing is a result of the body's efforts to clear its airways, and since he was stabbed in the chest as opposed to say, his windpipe, the most probable explanation is that the knife pierced his lung.' No, no, I was still normal, back then.

Where was I? Ah, right.

As I was saying, before the younger man could react, the red-faced man had plunged his blade into the other's chest and pulled it out. The former collapsed and began coughing up blood as he tried desperately to drag his body across the carpet, but was stopped by the knife being sheathed in his shoulder blade.

At this point, everyone was probably screaming and calling for help or for the police. I say 'probably' because at that point I was in shock, and could hear nothing over a roar of static echoing through my ears. Vaguely I sensed Ran tugging at my sleeve, but I was too busy watching the knife be thrust over and over into a body whose struggles were gradually becoming weaker and weaker.

'…out of here, Shinichi!' I heard as my ears began working again.

'R-Right!' I gasped. 'Let's run!'

Her hand and mine instinctively reached for each other and we tore through the lobby together, following everyone's wild, pathless flight.

Everyone minus one. While no one was really running in the same direction, we were all moving in unison away from the butchery, our paths radiating from the epicenter of the chaos. This made the solitary presence of a young boy running towards the two men very odd indeed. Odd enough to make me slow to a halt and turn to follow his path, the grip that Ran and I shared nearly snapping apart like a frozen rubber band.

I think Ran almost yelled at me again, but I suppose she noticed what I was staring at before she got anything out. We were probably both wondering, What does he think he's doing? Does he think he's going to be a hero or something? But now that I'm thinking about it again, perhaps a better question would have been 'Why didn't I do anything to help?' For what happened next….What happened next preoccupies my dreams to this day.

I'm not sure why that man did it. Perhaps he was too caught up in the emotion of the moment, or perhaps he was surprised and simply reacted automatically. But, for one reason or another, in the blink of an eye the knife had been sunk into the boy's torso.

For a moment, it felt as though everything had gone completely silent. The red-faced man's eyes grew as he realized what he had done. Then the boy screamed, and sound returned to the hotel lobby once more.

The man sprang to his feet and stumbled as he ran for the exit. I saw this all peripherally, as I was too busy focusing on the boy crying weakly, curled around the blade now encased in his stomach. I followed Ran limply as she dragged me towards the other child, tears spilling from her eyes and incomprehensible blubbering pouring from her mouth. The two of us collapsed to our knees as soon as we reached him, and while I can't speak for Ran, I was surprised at the time that my legs had been able to keep me up for so long.

Ran trembled and shook like a leaf as she asked the boy, me, someone, anyone, what she should do. Or at least, I think that's what she said. She was a bit difficult to understand.

'I…It hurts,' the boy whimpered. He had his hands clasped around the knife's handle. As I watched helplessly, I noticed a slight twitch of the boy's arms. He was trying to pull the knife out.

'Stop it!' I cried, grabbing his wrists tightly enough to break his grip. It was distressingly easy to do. 'Don't pull it out, you'll only make it worse!' Tears were spilling from the boy's eyes, but he nodded once in response to my command. As I pulled my hands away, I looked down to see that they were covered in red.

Ran said something that I assumed meant she was going to get help; it was still difficult to interpret.

Me, I was unable to do anything. I have never felt so powerless, before or since. All I could do was sit there silently, watching as blood began to fill my vision.

When I came back to my senses, the first thing I noticed was the red stain smeared over the faux-marble floors of the hotel, labeled with a yellow tag upon which was printed the letter 'D'. A few feet away, a larger puddle of blood sat, congealing, similarly labeled. The boy had disappeared from my line of sight. I looked around and noticed red and blue lights flashing through the windows. The police, probably, and perhaps even an ambulance. That could be why the boy was gone; he was being taken to the hospital. But in that case the lights outside would be coming only from the police cars; the ambulance carrying the boy would, hopefully, be long gone. Although, deep down, I could feel that he would not make it. And as it turns out, I was right.

My chin rubbed against something soft and warm that smelled of my father, and I looked down to see that someone had draped his coat over my shoulders. It trailed onto the ground, but it was mercifully warm. For a moment, I felt cocooned in paternal comfort.

All around me the murmurs of people comforting each other or trying to rationalize the night's events lapped across my ears, one conversation receding to be replaced by another. The continuous noise was almost comforting, in a way.

'I overheard that the murderer…'

'…-one know where Fumi-chan is?'

'…caught cheating with…'

'There, there, just try not to think…'

'…lost his job…'

'Has anyone seen…'

'…says that he knew the victim…'

'Do you think the police…'

'…shame about the little boy…'

I stopped listening when I realized that I had been biting my lip to keep from crying out. My teeth had left indentations which I ran my tongue over to keep myself occupied. No matter what the justification the red-faced man had, it didn't change the fact that at least one person, probably two, had died in an untimely and painful manner in front of my eyes. And of those two, one of them had been a child, innocent of any crime apart from being in the way. It wasn't fair, I thought. It just wasn't fair.

And so it was that, at the tender age of four, my eyes were wrested open to three facts.

First: That the world did not consist entirely of happy, smiling people to be trusted and befriended.

Second: That death was not some sort of peaceful, deep sleep, from which one could be awakened with a kiss of true love or some magical spell.

And third: That life was not fair.

I blinked furiously, tilting my head up so that the tears quickly forming in my eyes wouldn't fall out. The light from the chandeliers above, however, was bright and only made my eyes water more. I didn't want anyone to see me crying, and so pulled father's coat over my head.

It was in this state, shivering and sniveling, that Ran and our parents found me. When my mother pulled away the coat I had curtained over myself, I hastily scrubbed my face, fearing Ran's ridicule, but when I looked up, it appeared that she had also been busy crying. She was clinging vulnerably to Mouri-ojisan's leg, and didn't seem to be in the mood for teasing at all.

'Shinichi, are you going to be okay?' my mother asked, for once eschewing the use of 'Shin-chan.'

I didn't entirely trust my voice, and so nodded in response.

She smiled at me, in that way that adults smile at children when they're not actually happy but don't want to upset their young charges. It didn't comfort me. Even then I could detect the insincerity in that expression. 'Will you be okay if we go back home now?'

Another silent nod.

'Alright then, up we go…' she said as she picked me up. From my perch in mother's arms, I watched Ran lift her arms toward her father in that universal children's gesture for 'pick me up.'

Our group made its way towards the parking lot, not quite in silence, but in that buzzing drone of adult conversation that I held no interest in. When we passed the police cars, a question popped into my mind.

'Tou-san,' I asked, 'what happened to that guy with the knife?'

The murmur of boring conversation halted as my father glanced aside to me. He had a grim look on his face.

'Unfortunately, when we managed to corner him…'

'Tch! The bastard was hiding a cyanide capsule in his mouth. Bit down on it when it looked like he'd be caught,' Ran's father finished. 'He's dead now.'

I tightened my grip on my mother's arm. 'And…' I started. My voice broke off and I started again. 'And what about that boy? Is he going to be okay?'

There was a moment of silence as the adults hesitated to answer. But that silence was all the answer I needed.

Eventually, it was Mouri-ojisan who spoke up. 'Oh just tell the kid the truth already. Look,' he said, voice surprisingly gentle as he looked me in the eye, 'he was wounded pretty seriously. The ambulance was a little slow in arriving. While it's possible for him to be saved, I wouldn't get your hopes up.'

There were a few indignant cries at his blunt honesty but I wasn't paying attention.

All that was on my mind was the fact that there was a problem in my world, and I was turning all of my mental capacities towards solving it.