I've now redone chapter 2 so I hope its better. This chapter is still the same though, I didn't mean to take this chapter off, but I accidentally did. Anyway this is from Annie's point of view after Darren's death. Please read and review!

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters from Darren Shan.

The picture still haunts me. Darren lying dead on the pavement. Its there in my dreams, its there when I wake. I can't stop it crawling around in my mind. I can't stop going over that day in my head.

It was such a special day, we'd been laughing and joking. We were all so happy. Steve had recovered and nobody would find out about the spider. So everything was back on track. Darren was being extra nice to me; I thought it was because I hadn't told on him about stealing the spider and Steve's bite. Now I think about it I'm not so sure that was the reason. He would never normally hug and kiss mum and dad; it was like he knew something bad was going to happen, like he wanted to make his last day really memorable and special for all of us.

After the funeral, mum would just sit there, silent tears rolling down her pink cheeks. Dad tried to comfort her, but she wouldn't talk to him. She seemed to blame him for what happened. Every night, I cried myself to sleep, wishing that Darren would walk through the door laughing, saying it was all a big joke. I tried to be strong, for mum's sake, she wouldn't talk to anyone she just sat there in silence, not eating or drinking, just wasting away quietly. Dad called out the doctor for her, but she wouldn't say one word. The doctor said she was suffering from depression and bereavement. She was taken away and put into a special mental hospital.

No one told me what was going on, it was like they thought I couldn't cope with it. I often asked Dad when mum was coming home and whether I could visit her, he just said she was ill in the head, and would be better soon. About two months later, Dad told me we were going to visit mum. I was so happy. I had missed her so much. When we went in to her room, she was just lying there. Thin, motionless and as pale as a ghost. The nurse said she wouldn't eat and they had been feeding her through a drip. I didn't understand. Why hadn't she made an effort to get better, for dad and me? Why wouldn't she talk to us? I spoke to her quietly hoping that she might respond in some way. Her eyes fell upon me slowly, and she realised I was there. I told her about school and things I was doing, but still she didn't speak.

We visited her every day after that. She seemed to get worse each time I saw her, until finally one day we got a call from the hospital, saying she had died peacefully in the night. She had just given up on life.

So much had happened to me in those few months. First Darren, then mum. Now it was only dad and I. I was so young but had experienced so much pain. None of my friends had ever had to go through anything like I had and I hoped they never would. I found it hard to concentrate at school; only one thing occupied my brain. Teachers were sympathetic, but nobody understood what I was going through. Steve was the only one I could really talk to. He listened to me and it did me good to talk about Darren and my mum.

I began to think about that last day with Darren again. He had been acting weird all week. Like there was something he was hiding. I asked Steve about it and he agreed that Darren had been weird. I told him how I felt about the freak circus, as it was after that, everything went wrong. He told me there was something only him and Darren knew. The reason why everything had gone wrong. He said it was time I knew the truth.