Darren was finally on his own. He realized, of course, that he probably should have gone back with Gavner. He had finished his General business early and Darren should have had a mentor for a little while longer before venturing on his own. He knew Larten would not have approved, but he couldn't help himself. He was eager and felt ready to finally make it on his own. There was nothing that could stop him now.

He pulled out the map that Kurda had given him as well as a pencil. He knew he was somewhere in central Finland, so he began heading south so he could make his way to Sweden. There were two cities he wanted to visit there: Stockholm and Uppsala. He was filling in the map with towns and forests as he was walking, all the while getting a bearing of his surroundings. Growing up, Kurda had taught Darren all about how to make maps, and he prided himself in getting pretty good at it, despite other vampires in the mountain who had laughed.

"What's the point?" they would say.

"Kurda, you are infecting the boy!" Mika had teased. Most vampires viewed mapmaking as useless since they thought that using them for navigation was weak, but somehow, Kurda never faltered in his hobby and was eager to teach what he knew when Darren started to show an interest in it.

Finally, after a few days journey, Darren made it into Sweden. He was approaching Malmo, planning on passing through it when he noticed how loud everything was. Not just the people, but all of their strange devices as well. Darren had been told by Gavner as well as Larten about things like, cars, trains, buses, and telephones, but he didn't expect everything to be so loud!

Darren approached the city steadily, trying to adjust to the noise. As he entered the city, he felt his head start to hurt. Shaking it off as a minor annoyance, he kept going. He started walking through the streets, taking in everything with awe. The buildings were so tall and there were people walking about everywhere. They all seemed to speak a language that Darren didn't understand.

His head ache started to worsen. Darren winced and brought a hand to his head, massaging his temple as he turned down a main road. All around him, cars whizzed by and people rushed about, occasionally bumping into him and barking at him in that unknown language. Soon, Darren found himself in the middle of the crowd. Everyone was moving in one direction and Darren started to feel closed in with people completely surrounding him and packing close together. Darren felt his heart race and he could tell he was about to panic. Next to him, a shrill ringing sound came from a tall man in the crowd. The man reached into his pocket and pulled out a small device. He pushed a button and the ringing stopped. Then, the man put the device to his ear and began to talk into it. That must have been a telephone that Darren had heard about.

Darren had no time to dwell on that discovery because a few moments later, a loud honking sounded from the street. Darren jumped in surprise and covered his ears against the noise. None of the humans seemed fazed by it, but to Darren, it was the loudest sound on Earth. He closed his eyes and, still covering his ears, he tried to take a calming breath, but it was coming in shallow breaths and he felt his panic start to rise. He pushed through the crowd, ignoring the grunts and angered shouts from the people he pushed past. Once he cleared through the thickest cluster of people, he bolted down the street, heading towards the city's edge. Once he got there and was away from people, he sped up to a flit. He ran for miles until he was back in a forest. Still hyperventilating, he began pacing back and forth and running his hands through his hair. After a few minutes, he stopped, leaned against a tree, and tried to take a deep breath.

Slowly, he slid down the tree and sat on the ground, still feeling overwhelmed. Pulling his knees to his chest, he dropped his head and groaned. He began thinking that his father was right all along: maybe he wasn't ready to be on his own. As he felt his breathing level out, he considered heading back to the mountain. It felt weak and cowardly, but at that moment, Darren didn't care. He missed his home and wanted to go back. He waited until his breathing leveled out completely, then slowly got up.

Just then, a voice spoke to him from a tree branches above him,

"Having trouble?"

Darren shot around just in time to see a figure drop down from the trees above.

Landing on the ground in front of him, the figure stood straight and met Darren's eyes.

It was a vampire Darren had never met, but who he recognized none the less. He relaxed and smiled. "Vancha March," he said and bowed his head respectfully, "It is an honor to finally meet you, Sire."

In front of him, Vancha stood barefoot with animal hides covering him instead of clothes. He had unruly green hair and smelled like a wolf, but Darren knew better than to judge him on his external appearance. Vancha was one of the most respected vampires to be elected as a Prince. He was truly a man of the wilds, to a degree most vampires weren't. He never slept in coffins, wore only animal hides, and ate everything raw.

Vancha nodded. "You know me, but what do I call you?"

"Darren," Darren responded immediately. "My name is Darren Crepsley."

"Crepsley?" Vancha repeated. "Ah! Yes! You are Larten's boy."

Darren smiled. "Aye Sire."

Vancha nodded. "I've been wanting to meet you since learning about you. I am actually on my way to vampire mountain now to serve a term. Where are you heading?"

Darren responded sulkily, "I am going back to Vampire Mountain too."

Vancha raised an eyebrow. "Haven't you only left recently?"

"Three months ago," Darren answered, "but I am heading back regardless. Life outside Vampire Mountain was designed for vampires of a certain skill and demeaner that I do not have." He mimicked the words Larten used when he would tell Darren he was unfit for life outside the mountain.

Vancha stared, squinting at the young vampire. "And what do you plan to do when you get back?"

Darren said, "I started training to be a guard before I left, so I will continue on that path."

"I'm curious what made you want to return so quickly," Vancha said. It wasn't a question, but Darren knew he was expecting an answer none the less.

So, Darren told his tale from Malmo. Vancha listened pensively. When Darren finished, he looked Vancha in the eye, studying the Prince for his reaction.

"I just…freaked out. I don't know…" Darren finished.

Vancha nodded his understanding. "Humans are noisy and their way of life is enough to give any being with heightened senses an earache."

Darren changed the subject. "If you are going to Vampire Mountain as well, shall we travel together?"

"No," Vancha replied curtly, and Darren looked at him, confused. "Because you are not going back to Vampire Mountain."

Vancha looked at Darren sternly. "Larten is a close friend of mine as well as your mentor and I do not want anything to smear his reputation. If you run away now like a dog with its' tail between its legs, you will dishonor him. Tell me, did Larten Crepsley raise a coward?"

Darren scowled. "No."

"Okay then," Vancha concluded, then slapped Darren on the back. "Prove it. Get back out there. Face that city again and don't come back until you've adjusted to how humans live."

Darren nodded, somewhat reluctantly. "Thank you Sire."

Vancha nodded and said goodbye. Darren wished him safe travels and then Vancha left. When the Prince was out of sight, Darren sighed. He didn't want to go back into the city. He had lost his previous confidence and doubted his ability despite Vancha's words of confidence.

He contemplated staying in the woods and living roughly, but that is not what Vancha told him to do. He had to go back and Darren got nervous just thinking about it. Still not gathering enough courage to head back, he sat down on the grass and closed his eyes. Taking a deep breath, he reached out mentally and searched for Larten. Larten was the first person Darren had linked with when he became a full vampire. He didn't want to speak with Larten and admit to his failure, but he wanted to reach his father somehow. Darren found Larten's signal exactly where he was expecting – Vampire Mountain – and he didn't speak to him, but just feeling Larten's presence in his own mind made Darren feel better.

Opening his eyes, he got off the ground and slowly began his trek back to the city he fled from.

When Darren finally made it back to the city, it was getting closer to dawn and most of the hustle and bustle was over. There were still cars driving around, but the sidewalks were next to empty. Darren wandered the city alone for a little while. The noise still hurt his head, but he didn't get as anxious as he had before. He knew the sun would be rising soon and he needed to find a place to sleep and feed. He wandered around the city until he found a hotel. He was about to go in, but then he realized that he didn't have any money. Larten had told him that he could pickpocket the people he fed from. Darren never liked the idea of stealing, but he had no other option.

Nobody was walking about at that point. So, Darren found an apartment building, scaled the wall in a back alley, and found a bedroom window. Larten taught him how to unlock a window with friction and the snap of his fingers. He didn't actually have to snap his fingers, but his father always did it and Darren picked up on the habit.

This was Darren's first time drinking straight from the source – at Vampire Mountain, the guardians of blood gave blood to them in bottles, so Darren had never drank from a human directly before. It didn't take long to find the human's bedroom in the small apartment. Sleeping in a bed was a middle aged woman. She was lying on her side facing away from the door, snoring lightly. It didn't taste that different from bottled blood, but it was warmer and tasted fresher. Once he was finished, he spit on the cuts, and began to rummage through the person's room. He tried not to pry into what the woman had, and left the way he came.

As he left the alley, he noticed the sky start to lighten. The sun wasn't up yet, but within the hour, Darren knew it would be. He walked quickly back to the hotel he found and walked in. As he approached the entrance, he reached out his hands to open the door. Before he could, the door opened on its own, making a swooshing noise that made Darren jump. He jumped back, alarmed. He looked around the door for a sign of who opened it, but the door was clear and there was no one else around. Hesitantly, Darren stepped through the doorway and walked through the lobby.

When he got to the check in desk, the man behind the desk was giving him an odd look. Darren smiled sheepishly and said, "Um… hi. Do you have any rooms available?"

The man continued to stare at him, confused and Darren shifted uncomfortably.

When the man did speak, he spoke that same language that Darren didn't understand from earlier. Darren's eyes shifted from side to side, unsure of what to do. The man kept talking and held up his hands, signaling Darren to wait. He disappeared in a back room behind the desk. After a few seconds, a different man came out.

"Hello!" he greeted in English. "How can I help you?"

"Hi! Yes!" Darren replied and sighed in relief, "Do you have any rooms available?"

The new man walked over to a large square contraption sitting on the far end of the desk and started pressing buttons on a board attached to the unfamiliar machine. After a few minutes, he turned back to Darren.

"You're in luck," he said with a smile, "we have one room left. How long will you be staying with us?"

Darren reached into his pockets and pulled out the money he got from the apartment. "How long will this much get me?" he asked. He had no idea how money worked, so when he was rummaging through the woman's wallet and other belongings, he just crumpled up enough odd colored bills to fill his pockets and left. He had no idea how much he had.

The man raised a curious eyebrow at the money now littered across the desk, but counted it regardless, straightening each bill as he did. When he was finished, he said, "You have enough for two nights. Is that how long you'll be staying?"

Darren nodded.

The man began working on the square machine again. "And what name will the room be under?" he asked, still looking at the screen.

"My name is Darren-" He stopped. He was about to use his full name before he remembered a piece of advice his father had given him l before he left,

"It may not be a bad idea to use a fake name when interacting in the human world," Larten had said, "Change it every 20 years or so to ensure people do not get suspicious."

"Um sir," the man said, "I am going to need a last name."

Darren looked to the side and noticed a shelf of newspapers. Sitting at the top, the headline of a paper read: CIVILIAN DERMOT SHAN RESCUES CHILD FROM FALLING OUT OF A WINDOW 3 DAYS AFTER A HEART ATTACK

Darren turned back to the man. "Shan," he said, "My name is Darren Shan."