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I’ the beautiful sky Dawn is close Thin clouds drift slowly across the lightening horizon I can feel er now

I’m not one hundred per cent sure how Mr Tiny’s resurrection process works, but I think I understand enough of it to knohat’s going on Harkat was created from the remains of Kurda Smahlt Mr Tiny took Kurda’s corpse and used it to create a Little Person He then returned Harkat to the past Harkat and Kurda shouldn’t have been able to exist simultaneously A soul can’t noriven way for the other As the original, Kurda had the autoht to life, so Harkat’s body should have started to unravel, as it did when Kurda was fished out of the Lake of Souls all those years later

But it didn’t Harkat survived for several years in the same time zone as Kurda That makes me assume that Mr Tiny has the power to protect his Little People, at least for a while, even if he sends theinal forms are still alive

But he didn’t bother to protect o &u I’m OK with my brief spell as a Little Person In fact, the shortness of this life is the whole point! It’s how Evanna has freeddeath for the second time, Mr Tiny told him that his spirit wouldn’t return to the Lake &u now, my soul ¨C like Kurda’s ¨C will fly immediately to Paradise I suppose it’s a bit like not passing "Go" on a Monopoly board and going straight to jail, except in this case "Go" is the Lake of Souls and "jail" is the afterlife

I feel exceptionally light, as though I weigh al by theBut not like in the green pool of liquid in Mr Tiny’s cave This is a gentle, painless dissolve, as though soical knitting needles to pick my flesh and bones apart, strand by strand, knot by knot

What will Paradise be like? I can’t answer that one I can’t even hazard a guess I iine it’s a tile as one, renewing old friendships andnew acquaintances Space doesn’t exist, not even bodies, just thoughts and iination But I have no proof of that It’s just what I picture it to be

I suy I have left and raise a hand I can see through the grey flesh now, through the muscles and bones, to the twinkle of the stars beyond I s, offa li as the body beneath loses the ability to support them Atoms rise from me like steam, thin tendrils at first, then a steady stream of shafts which are all the colours of the rainbow,from every area of my body at once The tendrils wrap around one another and shoot upwards, bound for the stars and real left of me now The robes collapse in on themselves completely The last traces of my spirit hover above the robes and the roof I think of my family, Debbie, Mr Crepsley, Steve, Mr Tiny, all those I’ve known, loved, feared and hated My last thought, oddly, is of Madam Octa ¨C I wonder if they have spiders in Paradise?

And now it’s over I’m finished with this world My final few ato the roof, the theatre, the town, the world, far, far behind I’ for a new universe, new adventures, a neay of being Fareorld! Goodbye Darren Shan! So long old friends and allies! This is it! The stars draw h the barriers of the old reality Co on A breath on the lips of the universe All things, all worlds, all lives Everything at once and never Mr Crepsley waiting Laughter in the great beyond I’one