"I'm sorry." His heavy steps carry him through what used to be a gorgeous field of lush beauty. It still is that same field, but the dead bodies make it hard to tell.
"I'm terribly sorry." The words that fall from his lips have more meaning than the whole world, the universe, a dictionary of sounds that roll away with their melancholy. Every ounce of feeling left within his alive body - for he is no longer living – is being continuously poured out in an unsteady stream of sorrow.
This is the last time he will allow himself to feel.
"It shouldn't have ended this way." He kneels down beside them, beside his fallen comrades. He isn't able to differentiate between the bodies; they blend together like the dull strokes of a brush on paper.
He remembers a time in which names could be put to faces he recalls in his memory, but his contemptible mind has already worked its way through his heart and has done what he has never had the will to do.
Blood. So much blood.
All that remains is sorrow.
"It wasn't supposed to end this way!" His head is thrown back with the power of his cry, tears that have not yet been shed forming in the corners of his eye. He sobs and he finds that he can't stop. And now that it's all over and done for, now that he is all over and done for, he realizes the small black patch over his eye is a useless obstruction and he claws at it until the band snaps and three red lines mar his already marred skin. He tears the headband from his hair and clutches it tight to his chest, for it is a part of his uniform, a gift from the Order that he will, must treasure for the rest of his short life. Soon even that is gone and he isn't able to comprehend the blurry state of the world around him until the biting of a voice.
"Lavi." Bookman is grim and his face turns grimmer when he sees the liquid fire raining around Lavi's face. "I release you. You are no longer my apprentice." With that, Bookman is leaving and Lavi is still crying and everyone is dead and everything is lost.
"What am I supposed to do?" He says to Bookman's retreating figure. He slams his hands on the ground, not noticing the blood spattering his face. "Tell me, damn it!" The old man stops and turns but Lavi doesn't look up. "All that knowledge in that ancient head of yours… all that brilliance… and you don't know how to stop this?" Because Lavi isn't looking up he doesn't see the sorrowful gaze, but he can feel it and he knows he can't prepare himself, can't hope to prepare himself to see it.
Lavi is alone.
Lavi is alone and the world is ending.
Fairy tales with happy endings cannot possibly exist in a world so full of despair and horror. They will never be able to peel themselves off their pages of sickly white and raise the spirits of those with destinies of death and misfortune, for these destinies lie within all humans. Shining armor is never without the blood of the dead and love is a disease that can be sweet but bitter in torturous ways.
The Earl has won. The world is fading. And Lavi can only hope the cold body he curls up beside is one of his friends.
I'm sorry.
The earth is warm.
Will you-
Lavi is shivering but it is too warm.
-please-
The ground is rumbling and it's all so loud, way too loud, and the skies are crying along with Lavi and they're all dead and and and…
Darkness.
Forgive me.