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Ti circles Surrounded but alone Aware of other souls, trapped like , taste, s boredom of the present and painful memories of the past

I know this place It’s the Lake of Souls, a zone where spirits go when they can’t leave Earth’s pull Some people’s souls don’t move on when they die They remain trapped in the waters of this putrid lake, condemned to swirl silently in the depths for all eternity

I’ood life, and I sacrificed myself at the end in an effort to save others, so in those respects I wasof Paradise But I was also a killer Whatever my reasons, I took lives and created unhappiness I don’t know if soeuilt It doesn’t reallyout This is hts, hours, minutes ¨C not even seconds Have I been here a week, a year, a century? Can’t tell Does the War of the Scars still rage? Have the vampires or vampaneze fallen? Has another taken my place as the Lord of the Shadows? Did I die for no reason? I don’t know I probably never will That’s part of my sentence Part of my curse

If the souls of the dead could speak, they’d scream for release Not just release fronaay at me relentlessly I remember so much of my past, all the ti else to do, I’m forced to review my life, over and over Even ement They torment me worse than Steve ever did

I try to hide fro further intoDarren Shan, human, happy, normal, innocent I spend years, decades &u the siether my entire early life I recall even the snh everyday chat a hundred tier I think about it, the deeper into those years I sink, losing ain, almost able to believe that the me but an unpleasant dreaed for ever My lateraway at the boundaries of the limited reality which I’ve built Every so often I flash ahead to a face or event Then I lose control and find htmarish world ofchoices, the bloodshed

So many friends lost, so many enemies killed I feel responsible for all of them I believed in peace when I first went to Vah Kurda Smahlt betrayed his people, I felt sorry for him I knew he did it in an effort to avoid war I couldn’t understand why it had come to this If only the vah their differences, war could have been avoided

When I first beca up where Kurda left off, bringing the vampaneze back into the clan I lost those drea within Va their ways, training eapons, sending friends out to fight and die It all rubbed off on me, and when I finally returned to the world beyond the ed I was a warrior, fierce, un

I wasn’t evil Soht There are occasions when you have to cast aside your nobler ideals and get your hands dirty But you should always strive for peace, and search to find the peaceful solution to even the most bloody of conflicts I didn’t do that I eeneral opinion ¨C that if we killed the Vampaneze Lord, all our problems would be solved and life would be hunky-dory

We rong The death of oneSteve was just the start Once you set off down the road of murder, it’s hard to take a detour We couldn’t have stopped The death of one foe wouldn’t have been enough We’d have set about annihilating the vampaneze after Steve, then humanity We’d have established ourselves as the rulers of the world, crushing all in our path, and I’d have gone along with it No, more than that &uuilt, not just of what I’ve done but of what I would have done, eats away at me like a million ravenous rats It doesn’t matter that I’enes I had the power to break away frons ofmyself die But why didn’t I do it sooner, before so many people were killed?

I don’t know if I could have stopped the war, but I could have said, "No, I don’t want any part of this" I could have argued for peace, not fought for it If I’d failed, at least I hed down by the chains of so risly deaths

Tihts Mee parts of ain I succuet who I was But the madness doesn’t last I reluctantly return to my senses

I think about my friends a lot, especially those ere alive when I died Did any of them perish in the stadium? If they survived that, what came next? Since Steve and I both died, what happened with the War of the Scars? Could Mr Tiny replace us with new leaders, men with the same powers as Steve and me? Hard to see how, unless he fathered another couple of children

Was Harkat alive now, pushing for peace between the vampires and vaess led her vaainst the va was an agony I’d have sold my soul to the Devil for a few , where I could find answers to my questions But not even the Devil disturbed the waters of the Lake of Souls This was the exclusive resting place of the dead and the daned I fixate onSteve’s face as he stabbed me, his hatred, his fear I count the number of seconds it took me to die, the drops of blood I spilt on the riverbank where he killed me I feel myself topple into the water of the river a dozen times a hundred a thousand

That water was so much more alive than the water of the Lake of Souls Currents Fish swam in it Air bubbles Cold The water here is dead, as lifeless as the souls it contains No fish explore its depths, no insects skim its surface I’m not sure how I’m aware of these facts, but I am I sense the awful emptiness of the Lake It exists solely to hold the spirits of thefor the river I’d o back and experience the rush of floater again, the chill as I fell in, the pain as I bled to death Anything’s better than this li is preferable to an eternity of nothingness

One small measure of comfort ¨C as bad as this is forcoames, but Steve threw hihmust be that uilt Perhaps eternityto him Maybe he’s just sore that I beat him It could be that he doesn’t worry about what he did, or realize just howwith fondness on all that he achieved

But I doubt it I suspect Mr Tiny’s ade part of Steve’sthat he was my brother, and that ere both puppets in our father’s hands, iven the time to reflect ¨C and that’s all one can do here ¨C he’ll weep for what he did He’ll see himself for what he truly was, and hate himself for it

I shouldn’t take pleasure in that There, but for the grace of the gods But I still despise Steve I can understand why he acted that way, and I’ive him I can’t stretch that far Perhaps that’s another reason why I’ fro froinethe sao beyond the afternoon when I won a ticket to the Cirque Du Freak I build a perfect, sealed-off, co son and brother, not the best behaved boy in the world, but far frole with ho out with my friends One moment I’m six or seven years old, the next ten or eleven Continually twisting back uponall that I don’t want to think about Steve’s my best friend We read comics, watch horror movies, tell jokes to each other Annie’s a child, always a child ¨C I never think of her as a woman with a son of her own Vampires are monsters of myth, like olves, zombies, mummies, not to be taken seriously

It’s my aim to become the Darren of my memories, to lose myself couilt any o ain, but this tile to vanish into the past Re the details et about the souls, the Lake, the vaet occasional flashes of reality, but I cla as a child, beco a child

I’a lie, but it will be a peaceful, soothing lie I long for it I work hard tocloser towards it I reach for the lie with the tendrils of my mind I feel around it, explore it, start to slip inside it, when all of a sudden &u The madness is left behind The water of the Lake closes aroundBut hat ? I have no arasp Is this part of the madness? Am I

And suddenly my head - an actual, real head ! - breaks the surface I’ht blinds me I spit water out My arms come clear of the Lake I’m surrounded, but not by the souls of the dead &u out of the Lake Screa with pain and confusion &u, incredibly heavy after all this weightless ti out of the water Amazed, I try to stand I ain, fresh and frightening I curl up into a ball, shivering like a baby I shut ers into the earth to reassure myself that it’s real And then I sob feebly as the incredible, bewildering, impossible realization sinks in ¨C I’m alive !