Disclaimer: I do not own Digimon. The poem is "Ulalume" by Edgar A. Poe, and the chapter titles come from "The Song of Everlasting Sorrow" by Po Chu-i.
A/N: This is the chapter inspired by "Ulalume," and contains its final stanzas.
Chapter 10: That Memory, That Anguish
Thus I pacified Psyche and kissed her,
And tempted her out of her gloom--
And conquered her scruples and gloom;
And we passed to the end of the vista,
But were stopped by the door of a tomb--
By the door of a legended tomb;
And I said: "What is written, sweet sister,
On the door of this legended tomb?"
She replied: "Ulalume - Ulalume--
'Tis the vault of they lost Ulalume!"
The swamp grew darker and darker as night fell. Ken's mood didn't improve, either. The dark trees spreading over them seemed threatening.
"Something wrong, Ken?" Davis asked. He was much less affected by the solemn scene.
"This swamp reminds me of a place I used to go when I was living in the digital world."
Davis looked around. It wasn't the kind of place he would choose to hang out. "Don't you think it's kinda depressing?"
"I think that was the point."
The trail skirted the edges of a brackish lake. The cloudy sky above glowed enough to light the trail, and the dark towers of the castle could be seen ahead.
"I guess we're on the right track," Davis commented.
Ken didn't say anything.
The trail veered away from the lakeshore, and they entered the swamp's shadows again. Will-o'-the-wisps floated above the bogs.
"Davis, maybe we should turn back."
"But we're almost there," Davis argued. "What's wrong?"
"I'm not sure."
"It's probably just your imagination." Davis started talking about soccer in a blatant attempt to lighten the mood, but Ken didn't pay much attention. There was something about this place that slipped into him as though the emotional and intellectual barriers he put up to keep it out weren't there. He couldn't feel anything except the cold foreboding, and he couldn't think of anything except unpleasant memories from his deep past.
The path went up a hill, away from the bogs. The skeletal trees thinned until they disappeared, leaving a landscape of loose dirt and rocks. When they reached the top of the hill, they were faced with a treeless expanse stretching between them and the forest surrounding the castle. Moonlight washed over the expanse. It was a cemetery.
"I guess we just have to go through it," Davis said. His cheerfulness sounded forced.
Ken walked down the hill like he was walking to his own execution. He stepped over the broken wooden gate into the graveyard. Stunted yellow grass grew in clumps near some of the worn, cracked, and fallen gravestones. A diaphanous film of mist hovered a few feet above the ground. Ken glanced around; he could almost hear things moving just out of sight.
The path led to the steps of a mausoleum.
"What does that say?" Davis asked.
Ken walked up to it and squinted at the words above the door, obscured in shadow. Then he closed his eyes and fell to his knees.
Davis put his hand on his shoulder. "What's wrong?"
Ken shook slightly. Tears trickled out of his tightly-shut eyes. He didn't answer.
Davis read the inscription. "Here lies one stolen from life before his time, condemned to death by the envy of his brother, whose soul also is here interred."
The words made Ken realize the truth: all the healing he thought he'd done, every smile and moment of happiness he'd experienced in the past years had been a façade. He felt empty and cold inside. He was worthless; a dead creature going through the motions of being alive, and all that was stripped away by the inscription on the tomb.
Then my heart it grew ashen and sober
As the leaves that were crisped and sere--
As the leaves that were withering and sere;
And I cried: "It was surely October
On this very night of last year
That I journeyed - I journeyed down here!--
That I brought a dread burden down here--
On this night of all nights in the year,
Ah, what demon hath tempted me here?
Well I know, now, this dim lake of Auber--
This misty mid region of Weir--
Well I know, now, this dank tarn of Auber,
This ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir."
Davis looked from the inscription to his friend. Ken often had days when something would remind him of the past and he would get quiet and moody, when his sadness and guilt resurfaced, but he always got over them. This seemed to be worse. Did Ken think the inscription was talking about him?
He put his hand on Ken's shoulder. "Hey Ken, you know it's not true, right?"
Ken looked up, his face ethereal in the moonlight.
"You know you didn't kill your brother," Davis continued. "And you do have a soul. Whoever put this here is just trying to get to you, but you can't let them. We have to keep going."
Ken didn't move. He thought he felt friendship for Davis, but an insidious voice in his head asked if that was really true. How did he know what friendship felt like?
"We need to find those two digimon to help us stop Daemon. What if the others are already at the castle? Kari and Yolei and Izzy and Tsukiyo and Tora...what if they need our help? We have to keep going."
Ken nodded and stood up. Davis almost dragged him around the mausoleum, and they continued down the path.
Ken glanced back and shook his head, trying to clear it of the lingering dismal haze. A swirl of fog drifted past the tomb, and it seemed to fade away with it. Someone or something had put it in his path. But who? And why?
"See?" Davis said when they got out of the graveyard. "If you didn't have a soul, you wouldn't care if your friends were in trouble."
The mist ahead of them began shifting, then drew apart until a form that seemed to be made from the break in the mist approached them. "This isn't the first time your friend has saved you, Child of Darkness," said the amorphous creature.
"Who are you?" Davis asked.
The creature ignored him, but continued speaking to Ken in a gurgly, androgynous voice. "Some might be disappointed this ploy didn't break you, but I'm gratified to see the truth for myself. You are forever lost to us. And because of you your friends may be able to stop Daemon's plan."
Ken asked quietly, "What plan?"
" Daemon's greatest skill has always been gaining allies. Daemon makes deals to get what he wants. He wanted to get out of the Dark Ocean; who knows what deal he struck to achieve that end?"
"What is he talking about?" Davis asked Ken.
"You're lucky, digidestined," the thing continued. "You live in worlds where evil must hide in the shadows, where good generally prevails. Even in this world, evil enjoys some advantage, but we all know these underworlders are only out for themselves and will support whichever side benefits them at the moment. A very precarious position for us. You know better than any, Child of Darkness, that only when one has lost their own way will we be able to lead them to ours, and our path is a slippery one."
Ken stared intensely. "Who?" he asked darkly without expecting a straight answer.
"That's the joke, isn't it? None of you know. Not one of you." With that, the creature bounded forward, like a cat, and leaped over their heads, vanishing as though it was never there.
Ken began walking again.
Davis looked around in confusion. "You have any idea what that thing was talking about?"
Ken's answer turned out to be about as cryptic as the creature's message. "There are a lot of things about the Dark I didn't figure out until after I stopped being the Emperor. I thought I was the mastermind behind the chess board, but I was just a pawn. I think it is, too, and knows it. It wasn't threatening us; it was trying to warn us."
"Warn us of what?"
Ken kept his eyes stubbornly fixed on the trail ahead of them. "That our battle with Daemon will be harder than we expect."