I give you chapter three. I had no idea that this would ever be more than a one-shot...I think I've got an ending in mind... there will probably be one or two more chapters.

Not with a Bang but a Whimper:

As his tears run down his face and his lips move in a silent plea I feel my heart mend and then shatter all over again.

When you live in darkness it is so easy to forget what light is. I had forgotten what hope was. I had resigned myself to this unchanging gloom. And in this gloom nothing could hurt my deeply, profoundly, because there was nothing in me left to hurt.

Without realizing it I had been killing my soul, my spirit, just as surely as Calcifer has been draining Howl's.

The knowledge that is wasn't Howl who hurt me; it wasn't Howl who yelled and hit and raged; it was someone else. It could have been the Witch of the Waste for all that this being resembled Howl. All these things made it hurt less.

And when he held me, kissed me, and told me not to leave him… Well, I did hope, at first. I hoped that he was still in there; needing me. And I resolved not to leave him. I wouldn't break my word. Even if he wasn't there to witness me break it. I couldn't let him down again.

But time after time he killed my heart; crushed it in his hard unfeeling hands. And I decided that this semblance of longing and need were just a game that the Wizard Howl played: an amusement. But even if I wanted to leave, even if Howl wouldn't come after me, I still refused to even think it. I would watch as he let me down.

What does a promise mean when the one you made it to is gone - whether in Death's Kingdom or simply beyond reach? What is a promise?

Howl was gone and the part of me that cared was dying too. How ironic that an act of compassion has destroyed him so completely, and me as well.

I suppose that is what I made my promise to. That soul filled with compassion. And I can't abandon the memory of it, or the sparks that still shiver in the dark.

And now as he cries, begs, and whimpers in my arms I am torn apart again. He is in there. And this is so much more profound a pain than the loss of one in death.

He is trapped within himself; within this cold shell. And I watch and listen as fragments of what he used to be float briefly to the surface. He is a small child alone in the dark terrified of the shadowy corner and even the shadows he sees lurking in my eyes.

He is afraid that I am as lost as he, that I have lost him. He is lost at sea and I am the life ring he clings to desperately. But I am sinking too.

We huddle on the floor together crying, gasping, whimpering. I wish the world would end suddenly with a bang. I wish that something or someone would burst into our miserable lives and blow Howl away and me with him, because as much as I won't leave him I am terrified of him truly leaving me as well.

But we just hold each other; whimpering.

And slowly, slowly, we fade until we are nothing but straw-filled husks. And the only fire either of us possesses is in the grate in the corner. Where Calcifer growls and moans.

He is a fading star, biding his time. He is the only one here still capable of changing anything. But he is as afraid of cold dark death as we are of being hollow.

And so, trapped in fear, we all wait; wishing this could end but knowing it won't. Humanity is lost to us. We are pitiable but there is no one here to pity us. We, all of us, are hollow. Howl and I die inside as Calcifer watches, and realizes perhaps, that without us he is hollow as well.

Tell me what you think. Sorry this is so depressing, its just where the muse is taking me..