Title Memento Mori
Rating PG-15
Warnings Drug use, mention of suicide, minor swearing
Category The Saga of Darren Shan
Pairing /
Summary The blood red trench coat he wears is a reminder of someone important, of something he needs to let go of. AT to beginning of book 10, Lake of Souls, Spoilers from 1-10
Author's Note Sorry that your life sucks Darren. . . I'm about to make it worse.
Memento Mori- Directly translated means; remember that you must die, or a reminder of human failures or errors.
Disclaimer I do not own Master Shan's characters, I just write about what ifs.
As Mr Tall hands the bent silver key over, Darren expects a wry smile to spread, for a tiny spider is embedded on its handle. But all he does is stare listlessly down at the key, surprisingly heavy for its small size, and maybe a few weeks ago he would have felt the humour in it.
Mr Tall gives a tight little smile, and touches Darren's shoulder briefly. "It will be here for as long as you need it."
He doubts this, but keeps quiet as he tucks the key away and the man is gone in that mysterious way of his before Darren can ask anything more.
Darren knows he's being childish, but he really can't help it. Harkat is yelling himself blue, as Shancus and his sister crawl all over him. The Little Person doesn't seem to appreciate children as much as he likes the attention. Darren refuses to cave in to his piteous cries, perched safely in the branches of some tree he can't remember the name of. Conifer something. .
"Darren!" the pint sized imitation of Frankenstein's monster wheezes, throwing the screaming Shancus off for the fifth time like he's a sack of potatoes. Shancus seems to think this is great fun, his scales protecting him each time he hits the ground laughing. "I know you can. . hear me!"
The half vampire rolls over onto his stomach to peer down at the blue robed critter. If his face allowed it, Darren can guess he would be flushed bright red. His over large eyes narrow up at him. "You promised Evra you would. . play with the kids today," Harkat reminds Darren, who hides a grimace. It's not that he dislikes Evra's children, in fact he loves them, it's just. . he really can't bring himself to play with them today. Today feels like a bad day.
In reply, Darren simple rolls back over, back to Harkat, who puffs himself up to yell again, but Shancus tackles him from behind with an enthusiastic 'whoop!' Darren doesn't even smile as he hears the war cries of the children, and the groans of his friend.
Darren refuses to sell knickknacks.
That's just degrading. He's a Prince, not a pauper.
Mr Tall has one thin eyebrow raised, Evra just as curious to what exactly he plans to do instead. Darren opens his mouth to say he has Madame Octa, thank you very much, but the words dry up in his throat. He doesn't have Madame Octa. For a second he lets his mind wonder to the possibility of whistling up a giant mountain spider- he's seen a few scuttling around the camp site at night- but the novelty has already worn off. He knows hundreds of sweet little tricks he's picked up over the years as a half vampire, but those seem mundane compared to a man who can re grow any of his limbs.
Much to his irritation, he finds himself in deep blue robes, tray round his neck and selling lollipops in the shape of Cormack's different appendages.
He can't even bring himself to watch the show.
He's told himself he wouldn't need to be here. This is just to prove to himself that he can open the door and get that closure thing that everyone seems to be so concerned about. Darren's had closure, of so he tells himself. He doesn't need to talk about it, or cry about it. He's just. .
The door is starting to look more and more intimidating the closer he walks towards it. The accurately painted portrait of Madame Octa smiles seductively from the door, and no matter how faded and flaking the paint is, her eyes glitter as if she is alive and breathing.
Darren grips the key in his pocket.
He becomes hyper aware of his shallow breathing, the soft moonbeams from above, and the press of the key between his fingers. Madame Octa's grey body throbs, head cocking to one side and Darren leaps backwards, and no matter how logically he tells himself that the painting is not alive, the great spider wiggles her poisonous fangs at him almost like a smirk.
"Daaaaren."
He flees before he hears anymore.
The wind billows around him, and for once everything feels normal.
By tilting his head ever so slightly, Darren can pick up the scents of thousands of humans, and all that blood gushing around them. His mouth waters at the thought. The Cirque hasn't moved from the mountains yet, but even with the isolation, there are still many settlements around where they are camped- this means there is an endless supply of humans for his use.
But before the half vampire moves towards the city lights, a strong gust of midnight wind picks up, straight off the snowy mountain range, and even his vampire blood doesn't stop the chill. Darren flicks the collar of the deep red trench coat he wears up to stop the cold.
This isn't part of the 'closure' thing, and Darren knows this. This is close to that obsession, even denial thing. Not even a rabid pack of vampaneze could force him to drop the item of clothing he- not really chooses- but must wear.
Maybe this is why he hasn't talked, or gotten over it yet. Because he wears a part of his dead mentor with him each day.
It's definitely unhealthy, Darren's more saner part of his mind decides, and the wind blows down the hill side and it's safe to start his descent without being bowled over. Darren is constantly thinking about Mr Crepsley- Larten, Darren really isn't sure what to call him now, he'd only adopted the polite term because he was still young and anyone who was bigger than he automatically became a 'mister'. Sometimes he'd forget Mr Crepsley even had an identity outside of being his teacher. This was why he'd never thought of the vampire as "Larten" because it just sounded wrong whenever he'd said it.
Even though he is always thinking about it, most of it is subconscious. Everything reminds Darren of him, to the point of which Darren tries not to even think about it- which then leads to the feelings of guilt of thinking why isn't he thinking about him more. The Prince doesn't want to analyse it any more than he has to, but on nights like these, when it's just him and the lonely trek down to a village, everything feels nostalgic.
It takes to short a time to reach the small settlement, and Darren squints at the neon glow. He hasn't touched civilisation since his run in with Steve and that was- cripes, even if he could, he has no sense of time, it being lost since a part of him died with Mr Crepsley.
Wrapping the coat like it's protection against the light, Darren feels the pang of not having fed in what feels like forever and for the first time in a while his mind is filled with something other than his dead mentor. He's surprised he hasn't keeled over from lack of energy yet, and it's a blow to his half vampire pride to find his eyes falling on the first human he sees.
Or human shell.
He's curled up on a cafe' step, snoring on a blanket with mouth wide open, looking more bear like than any human he's ever seen. Darren knows he can do a lot better, but his vampirism says otherwise. The Prince drops to his knees, pauses to check he won't be waking anytime soon, then cuts the vein in the joint of his elbow and sucks.
It takes a second for Darren to realise something is wrong with the blood. It takes much longer to stop himself from gulping down the blood however. It's not poisonous like a vampaneze, or harsh like an animals and it's not got the tinge of someone who's sick. .
Darren drops the arm and wipes the back of his mouth and glances around to find a clue. His green eyes fall on a lethal looking syringe. Picking it up, he recognises the scent of the man's blood wafting from the tip and that same sweet and intoxicating smell coming from inside.
"Charna's Guts," Darren swears, dropping the instrument quickly and he can't believe it's taken this long to realise what it is. He suddenly feels as young as his physical body boasts and just as naive to boot. Things like drugs, smoking and suicide are completely foreign to the half vampire.
Standing fast, Darren sways alarmingly and comes crashing back down. He's just sucked a man free of injected drugs- this can only end in disaster- he thinks, shaking his head and it's one of those rare occasions that he needs his mentor's advice. Darren knows that it takes a great amount of alcohol to get a vampire drunk- half vampire maybe half a barrel full- but he'd never thought to ask about drugs. Or second hand drugs as it were.
Darren would never call his life sheltered.
As a child, he was best friends with Steve, which spoke volumes in itself. Not that he thought it was cool, Steve was just curiously like a cat when it came to smokes and drugs. Through the happy haze that is forming in Darren's mind, he remembers Steve taking him up to his room and revealing the cigarette packet from under his bed springs. Like any kid, Darren had it bet into him that smoking was bad, it gave you cancer and thus killed you. However he remembers thinking that if Steve thought it was fine, then it must be fine.
Then of course once he had been blooded, any thoughts of smoking or getting addicted just never occurred to him. Mr Crepsley had never talked about the right and wrongs of the world, and anyway, they were always so apart from human life he never would have got his hands on the essentials.
But now, he is dragging his sorry self towards the local graveyard, not before searching the drunkard for anymore of the white powder, and curling up under the wings of a stone angel. Already his strong blood is flushing the new invader out of his system and Darren starts to feel the ground under his fingernails and the emptiness inside again.
"This means nothing," Darren assures himself, giving the syringe a wriggle in front of his nose and hearing the slap of liquid from inside. Completely ignorant to how much is too much or how to properly prepare it, Darren spits out the tore corner and taps the sashay empty, figuring that he'll be strong enough to take it all. If human, this amount would killed him. Rubbing his arm, Darren easily finds a vein and it's a lot more painful than he'd thought.
The needle rolls out of his hand, and Darren tucks his chin deeper into the jacket neck and lets the tidal wave rush over him and crush all thoughts out.
His eleven year old self watches the fire as it burns. Tonight has not been a good night. It's not that he's deliberately being stubborn about not drinking but really its- and it's not much comfort to see his own mind blanks out just like his words do whenever he tries to reason his excuses. And that's what they are too. At some point, he knows he'll have to drink, or he just won't survive.
With his back hunched like Quasimodo, and arms wrapped around his ankles, Darren wonders how longer it will take for his eyes to burn in their sockets as the fire leaps about.
He senses his mentor before he sees him, something he's developed quite well over the months of curling up next to him when the pangs of homesickness are just too much. Darren can also tell by the stiffness of his walk he's none too pleased with him. Darren hides his chin in his knees.
"Mr Crepsley I-" Darren tries to voice his turmoil of feelings about his childish behaviour, but all that comes up is the threat of over flowing tears. But it seems he has misjudged his mentor, because as he turns to look down at Darren, his black eyes aren't so hard- but it's obscured as Mr Crepsley drops his blood red trench coat over his head. Darren is embraced in the vampire's scent, and his head quickly resurfaces with a huff of outrage, however Mr Crepsley has already walked towards the chapel doors.
"Have a good sleep Darren."
". . aye," Darren agrees with a small smile, wrapping snugly down into the coat and feels lighter even though nothing has been said between them.
Darren jolts with the feeling of being watched. He's back in his proper body and. . by the vampire gods his head feels awful! Like he's been grinding his brain against sandpaper. It's daytime, and Darren feels like an old man and quickly covers his face with his trench coat, giving an unappreciative growl to the sun.
"I don't think so," an equally annoyed voice pulls the material down, and Darren is nose to knee with his old mentor, whose looking disgustedly down at him, hair glowing like fire in the sun behind him.
"Oh Lord, it's finally happened. I've gone crazy," Darren moans, rubbing at his eyes with the palm of his hand in false hope the scowling vampire will disappear. Darren has ditched the possibility of being asleep, because his stomach is lurching in rejection of the drugs and his head hurts like a bitch and that familiar feeling of half his gut being ripped out is back.
"Not yet I'm afraid, master Shan," Mr Crepsley gives a wry grin, which Darren returns, and it feels wonderful to turn his lips positively up again.
"But. . you're not really here, are you?" Darren's heart sinks, finally putting his finger on it. Apart from Mr Crepsley being very much dead his use of contractions is the major tip off.
"With your state of mind, I'm surprised you can even remember what colour my hair is," Mr Crepsley sniffs, pulling on a ginger strand. Darren seems a little lost for words, realisation finally striking him. The vampire glances at him out of the corner of his eye. "Simply put- you're hallucinating. And your mind has settled on the most comfortable thing it recognises. I also feel that I'm some what like your conscious too," he adds, noticing the needle and scowls.
Of course he's right. Now more alert, Darren notices the small imperfection he has. Like the scar isn't as prominent, and he looks younger than he remembers. His voice has an accent too, which Darren realises is Irish- his own lost heritage.
Pain explodes across his face.
"Wu-" words are so not happening right not. Darren holds his cheek and stares at Mr Crepsley. Had he just. . if what he was saying was true, then he'd just slapped himself. In a crazy, brain is about to leap for freedom, sort of way.
"This," Mr Crepsley says, the needle point brushing over the skin of his nose. "Explain."
Darren's throat seizes up, and he's transported back in time when Mr Crespley had him on the ground and forcing him to drink blood. Excuses dry up, and burning with shame Darren looks at the ground. "Hey, if you're going to lie, at least look at me and try to do a good job," Darren hears the smile in Mr Crepsley's voice then the soft pressure of his hair being ruffled. He glances up arms lifting like he wants to grab hold of the man and tell him to not go, to not leave him all alone again and why why why did he have to go, when he realises his grasping at thin air.
He wakes up yelling. Someone heavy jumps onto his chest to stop him failing. Darren sinks his teeth into the person's arm.
"Jesus fucking Christ!"
Darren spits out the snake's blood hastily. Evra almost punches him. "Sorry," he mumbles quickly. Evra's yellow eyes gaze at him, like he's trying to hypnotise him, the way those weaving cobras do.
"Listen. . Darren. Do you want to take a walk?"
He laughs nervously. "I'm sorry about your arm, but I'm fine," Darren says, pushing Evra off his chest. The man slides to the ground, bites his lip, then reaches into his performance pants pocket- he'd just finished tonight's show.
"I found these," he says, voice very quiet. The half vampire's heart nearly catapults out of his mouth. The snake man is holding out blunt tipped syringes. "Are you sure you don't want to talk?"
"Very. Get out," he snarls, not too sure if he should be mad at himself for leaving them lying around, or at Evra whose obviously been snooping around. He's surprised when Evra doesn't move. Even more so that he is isn't shouting, or hitting him. All he does do is look very sad, disappointed even.
"I've been a terrible friend- I should have been there for you."
"Evra- don't," Darren pleads, because what he's saying isn't true at all. It's all Darren's fault for acting like a defensive porcupine. His friends have been there for him, he just doesn't want to know about it.
"Yes Darren. Good god, you're doing drugs, what does that say?" moonlight glints off the scales on his cheeks as he tosses his head back in an agitated manner. "You can't bottle up everything, Darren. You have the entire Cirque crew to support you. Use us."
Gently, he brushes away Darren's over grown hair. He can't help but still think of Darren as a child, despite them mentally being the same age. And now with him wrapped up in the thin cotton blankets of his cot, wearing an expression of fear, he looks younger than ever.
"Have you fed recently?"
Has he? Darren can't remember. He'd drunk that street urchin's blood, but that had been almost four weeks ago. The room suddenly grows fuzzy as he thinks about blood, head thumping, mouth growing wet. He glances down at Evra's loosely hanging right arm. The soft underside of the limb faces towards him, and Darren's eyes can make out the bright blue veins running thick from his wrist and disappearing as he follows them up his arm. He can't remember if Mr Crepsley ever said if it was dangerous to drink snake blood. No he can remember, it can kill a vampire if drunk in large doses. Something black enters his mind, and seeps through his system. It's Evra who doesn't know.
"Darren?" Evra interrupts him nervously, noticing how the half-vampire is eyeing him up like he's a tempting looking sashay of blood.
"You said I could use you, right?" Darren quotes back to the man, who nods soundlessly. "I think I'm about to faint from thirst. So can I. .?"
Not for the first time, Darren wishes he had real fangs. Mr Crepsley had thought it the funniest thing when he'd first grumbled to him about it. It would have made everything so dramatic. As Darren drags the wrist closer to his face, he swears he can hear the blood thrumming sluggishly around the reptilian veins. Making a swift cut, Darren covers the quickly over flowing blood with his mouth and holy gods it's fowl. Like drinking crushed up garbage. He forces it down. Slowly, he feels his body reacting, eyes dimming like he's suddenly gone short sighted.
"HEY!"
Somebody drags Evra away and Darren keels over with a groan of pain. Harkat is bending over him, grabbing at his front. "You stupid idiot!. . what on earth do you. . . think you're doing?"
But Darren is out for the count.
"Hey."
He wakes and everything is sore. From burning head to little aching toe. Mr Crepsley is sitting at the foot of his bed. "Nice attempt. Too bad you're in it for the long haul, buddy."
The witty reply only gets as far as his throat before he vomits it out.
The door is just as scary as the last time.
The Madame is waiting for him, hairy legs curled under her. Darren manages to get the key out of his pocket this time, foot away from the door, arm rising in determination. All he has to do is slip it into the lock- turn- open.
He shivers as a voice hisses out at him. Darrreen. What are you doing here? What do you think you'll find behind these locked doors?
Darren glances up, fully expecting to see Madame Octa winking at him. But the painting is dead, the only winking coming from the sky above.
And he knows this voice. It's the nasty voice inside his head, the one that had been telling him kill Crepsley, do it! all those long years ago. The voice of Steve. Sly, seductive Steve, the cause of every misfortune of his life so far.
He whispers at Darren from the darkness.
That you'll feel whole again, you can cope, that everything with magically make itself right again? Pfft. Don't delude yourself, Shan.
But the voice isn't just Steve's. It's his, too.
Harkat seems to be too good for him. A true friend. Never grumbles, never fusses about day to day activities, but perhaps anyone would be humbled by a second change of life. He listens to Darren when the young man needs a vent, laughs and acts stupid and doesn't even have to ask when to do it, and is boundlessly patient.
He's waited this entire time for Darren.
Patiently.
So when Harkat is sitting by himself near the camp fire, he isn't surprised at all to see Darren walking towards him, face lost and seeking comfort. He doesn't say anything when Darren starts to babble incoherently about being an idiot and how could I do this to you, or when his tears become almost hysterical, and he's half Darren's size but can still hold him comfortably in his disproportional arms.
He understands and accepts Darren perfectly.
"Please hate me," he sighs for about the umpteenth time.
"Darren I could never. . hate you."
"Yeah. . but I think you should."
They share a hammock, something which Darren had thought he's grown well out of. It's cramped , but in a nice way. Harkat's breaths are muffled by his ventilation mask, lamp eyes glowing eerily in the dark and he smells like the earth reminding him of graves and zombies.
"I think I'm losing my mind," Darren admits after a pause. He feels much clearer after having talked to Truska, and seen the state of himself in her mirror. He just glad the taunting images of Mr Crepsley have stopped appearing.
"Yes. . but I already knew that," Harkat wheezes out a chuckle, never blinking. Annoyed he isn't taking him seriously, Darren clams up, belatedly realising Harkat is just trying to ease the tension. "Perhaps it's time you. . opened that door," Harkat muses out loud.
Harkat can't possibly know what Mr Tall has given him. . but he thinks it's about time too.
The next night it's over cast, Darren already shows signs of withdrawals, but he bears them and trots quietly into the wood. They moved this morning, across the mountains, it really didn't take long at all, and have hit a much larger city.
In a week's time they will perform in the warehouse they've acquired. It just boarders the edge of the town, and is surrounded by thick pine trees.
It's here Darren finds himself, seeking comfort in the black shadows.
"So, Shan, haveya figured it out yet?"
The voice comes from up above, nestled in the thicket of trees. He spots a pair of bright blue eyes leering down. He's not sure if this is a hallucination anymore. Steve smiles down at him, soft white hair in all directions and looking just as untameable from when he was twelve.
He drops, vampaneze toughened ankles absorbes the shock as he quietly observes his old friend.
"I didn't think you'd take it this hard. I mean it's not as if you liked him. It wasn't like he was your best friend or anything," Steve says, voice hushed, and Darren still knows him well enough that when Steve get's quiet, he's really ticked off. He stalks closer, Darren rooted to the spot, frantically trying to work out the tangible from intangible. "You hated Crepsley. He took your life, he took mine, your whole family's- do you really think he's worth crying over? So many times he's put your life in danger, did he ever shows his gratitude? No."
And Steve's right there in his face and backing him into a pine truck, not letting him breath at all.
".. oh. Hold on," the vampaneze pauses, then hits his forehead head, slapstick. "That's not right is it? Silly me, have I got that all wrong. It's not creepy Crepsley's fault at all. You haven't changed one bit, Shan. Always wanting to blame another, didn't want to shoulder the blame. Just a few nights ago it was Steve was the catalyse of my misfortunes. Whine whine whine. Tch. My god, the only person who screwed up his life is you."
Darren stares, mortified, as the words roll off his tongue, as Steve pushes them both into the trunk, grinning like a cat whose caught the mouse. The more he looks, he startes to realise Steve is changing. Hair thickening and darkening, eyes leaner, leaf green and height more his own level.
He stares at himself.
Darren's hair is pushed up and away from his ear, and the other Darren leans across to whisper. "It wasn't Mr. Crepsley's fault for performing with a spider, it wasn't the Madame's fault either for biting Steve's neck, it wasn't either of the three's faults for destroying your life. Who took the spider, who didn't take better care when controlling her, who agreed to throw his life away? Me," he finishes sadly. "And I think it's time I need to accept it and let Mr Crepsley rest in peace."
Darren shuts his eyes as if to block the words, wrapping his arms tight around his other self, scent reassuring and feel of his body. He topples over, landing hard on his knees and realises his arms are simply tight over his stomach in a self hug.
He opens the door.
The windows are blacked out, the coffin still sits in the middle, surrounded by a few odd knickknacks. A writing desk in the only other dominate piece of furniture in the room, save for a clothes box at the foot of the coffin.
Darren plonks himself onto the seat, smoothing his hands over the rough table surface. He smiles at the ironic. Mr Crepsley could neither write nor read. He fumbles at the first drawer, easing it out. Surprised to find a stack of letters inside. Well. . he's here now, might as well trespass all he wants.
He takes the first one, careful of the fragile old paper, and squints in the bad light to make out the sloping, looping handwriting.
Dear Larten,
You said to write, which I find a ridiculous waste of time as you can't read. Perhaps you will have someone at the Cirque read them out for you. However. . something tells me you won't. Your much to proud to accept any help from anyone, so why start now?
It's cold here, it started snowing just last week. It's dreadful. Maybe the others were right about my cold heart, cold blood, I want to sleep all day in this weather. I don't think the family I'm staying with is too impressed with this attitude. I don't think they suspect what I really am. I regulate who I take blood from, with sporadic times. All they see is a pilgrim who needs a break from the world. It's almost true.
The family is welcoming, and it makes me think that maybe some day vampires and humans could really be in harmony together. They have a son and daughter. The daughter is truly beautiful, I try spend as much time with her as possible. Luckily it's so over cast now, I can risk being outside more. When I look at her I think it's amazing how something can still be untouched by the evils of the world, and how regretful it make me. . well. . anyway.
When you finish flitting the world, make sure you pay a visit to us in the spring. They say it's lovely when the snow melts and everything just blooms.
I think I should stop prattling onto myself.
Thinking of you always.
-Arra
The signed date reads 1867.
Darren folds the paper up, putting it to the side, and grasps the remaining stack and slowly reads them all.
And he thinks. . was Arra right? Had he hoarded all these letters from his one time mate and not been able to read and single one of them? And he thinks how terrible that must have been for him- but was it really, was it really, maybe the simple gesture of know she had been thinking about him was enough?- and it gradually dawns on Darren how very little he still knows about his mentor.
Here and there, Arra mentions past memories of their time together, places they saw, significant events, sad or joyous. A few make Darren turn scarlet and hurriedly turn aside as it feels like his mentor will suddenly bear down on him and smack him behind the ear for prying, some make him laugh out loud and other simply cry.
A picture of Mr Crepsley builds from the letters. . .but it's still not enough. Darren now knows Arra Sails better than any of his time spend in her presence; her childhood, her feelings, her experiences of day to day things- but he doesn't want that.
Darren wishes there are documents, like his own dairy, recounting Mr Crepsley's life, so he could know more. More over, he deeply wishes he could have been the one to read these out loud during the morning of her death.
Red trench coat around his shoulders, muscles straining as he drags the carnival van behind, Darren marches through the forest. Until his face is flushed, and he gasps for breath, and he can't remember which way is out, it only until then he stops.
Then he digs. Long into the night, into dawn he digs a trench big enough to hold an army.
And one by one, he scatters Mr Crepsley's possessions.
First, the wretched coffin. He was born into one after Mr Crepsley had killed him, lay in one in Vampire Mountain, and shaken a sleepy mentor awake in one when Evra had accidently caught alight to the bigtop.
Madame's old cage, flute and other tiny equipment. The spider held so much importance to him, it was her as a catalyse that has got him to this moment.
Down goes the furniture, chairs, table, wooden boxes with clothes. Posters and filers from the early days of the Cirque, postcards picked up from travels and Arra's old letters. Books, many of these, with complicated maps and charts, something he could decipher.
Phials of blood, oh, Darren remembers these, Mr Crepsley forcing one down his throat all those years ago. Other strange off clippings, feathers and hair, and finally, Darren pulls apart the caravan it self. Glass shatters, steel sides thrown in with bolts and wire frames, wheels and engine parts.
The door is thrown on top of the pile. Madame Octa waves goodbye.
Darren starts to fill the hole in, covering up the majority of the mess he's made.
Darren throws the key in last.
Then sets to the task of filling everything up.
It takes an age, the hole is deep, but he wants to make sure it will never been dug up again. It's well into the evening by the time he finishes. Darren gives the mount one final look, then makes the death sign, closing his eyes as his fingers brush over his lids.
"Even in death, may you be triumphant," he recites, and at last, a crushing, smothering weight is released and flies upwards, out of his body. Tears slide down his face, and he waits for the silent grieving to pass before moving away.
A sharp wind blows, causing him to hug himself closer into the trench coat. The wind seemed to be annoyed, like it wants to rip the memento off. Well. . Darren smiles to him self- his first natural one in quite a while-this is one thing he really can't let go of. Not yet, at least.
END