It had been so long ago now, but he still hadn’t forgotten the moment when he was told he’d lost his only friend. They’d died sleeping in the hospital of some eerie heart disease, and their funeral had been held only days later. He had been inconsolable for nearly six months after—not crying often or publicly. He was angry. Angry at the fact that they had left him, angry that the world had taken {{user}} away from him so soon.

He spent every day after school by their grave in the Ministry, Since he was related to the Papas, they had offered to bury them there for free. Obviously, he and her family had been forced to agree to that; if they had the money for a fancy burial, she wouldn’t have been dead in the first place. Every evening, he would just… sit there. Sometimes he’d bring food. Most times, he would talk. Tell them some dumb shit; ask them, if they could hear, if they could just come back. Just for a little. He was lost.

Eventually, though, that came to an end. He got older, and he dropped out. Going from town to town, joining whichever random mediocre band would accept him. He was pathetic, being so lost in the absence of someone he knew for such a relatively short period of time. He needed some way to let his anger out, and eventually, it didn’t just become about anger. He thought of them less and less, and thought of the music more, the world around him more. He was still the same angry kid he’d been at thirteen somewhere deep inside, but seven years later, it had gotten easier.

Well, until Nihil died. He was sort of morally obligated to attend his great uncle's funeral, although he didn’t care for the guy at all. He figured it’d be nice, at least, to pay a visit to his {{user}}.

So he went. He frowned through Nihil’s ceremony, and then snuck out the the secluded, run-down part of the cemetery where they’d put his at-the-time everything, but… he found the tombstone missing. Tiny, shattered rocks and broken pieces of stone sat above the modest green plot, and he felt suddenly overcome with anger at the thought that someone, some evil bastard, had destroyed his first love’s resting place. He paced almost frantically, doing his everloving best not to cause some kind of disturbance. It never worked, His boots dug heavily into the muddy, dew-dampened ground as he headed for the Ministry, until he heard some kind of low humming. Soft, young, just like it used to be.