telltaleheart | Memory 65 (significant negative)

(Damuron) Waking up alive; learning everyone he knows is dead. Form of a large, unbreakable candy. You have to swallow it whole.

Novel summary excerpt from here:

Unable to move, see, or feel, Damuron is lost in a cocoon of darkness. He begs for someone to save him, but there is no one. Crying out, he wakes from his nightmare. Opening his eyes, he sees the ceiling of an unknown room. When he tries to move his body, pain shoots through his limbs.

He is on a bed, wrapped in bandages. Turning on his side, he realizes that he is in a barren, dreary room. Aside from the bed, a small shelf serves as the only furniture. A tiny window lets in scant light. He cannot see outside.

Damuron musters all his strength and sits up. The bandages cover his entire body. Why is he here? Slowly, his memory kicks in. His life as a knight. Canary's brigade. The sea voyage. The Desier continent. Was it all a dream?

No, it could not have been a dream. Despair hits him. He remembers his comrade's glorious end. Canary's death. His own death. Startled, he examines his left breast. Beneath the bandages is something very hard. Working to unwind the yards of gauze, he manages to uncover what is on his chest.

Something is glowing. Something man-made. It has warmed to his body's temperature. The thing contains a bright red orb and a metallic apparatus that sprouts bizarre "legs" in every direction. Damuron claws at the foreign object in panic, but it is lodged deep within his body.

Knowing that he should be dead, he dreads the object embedded in him. He tears at the device, not caring that he is drawing blood. All he wants to do is remove the ridiculous thing. It cannot be here. It is not possible. He should not be here.

"What are you doing?" someone asks harshly. Damuron looks up, seeing a soldier standing by the bed. It is Alexei. Alexei points to the device in Damuron's chest, informing him that he is only alive due to the odd creation. Damuron was the only person he could save.

Save? That would not be what Damuron would say about his current situation. He looks over at Alexei. Grief has sucked the life out of the commandant's features. Alexei's expression is pained, as if he is in deep despair. His skin looks dead. Was there ever a time when Damuron saw the commandant look like this? He cannot remember.

Once Damuron is calm enough to listen, Alexei explains that the orb is a heart blastia. Hermes, his friend, created it to help heal the body.

When reports reached the capital about what was going on on Mount Temza, aid came too late. Support troops arrived on Desier, but there was not a single survivor. It has been two weeks since Damuron's death. The room he is in is located in Zaphias. Damuron is home. Out of one thousand troops, only he remains.

Alexei confirms that he ordered the knights to go to Temza and that he is also behind efforts to research barrier blastia. He cannot and does not ask Damuron to forgive him. However, he was unaware of the great danger involved. Damuron asks Alexei about became of the massive creature.

Apparently, the monster was already dead when reinforcements arrived. Damuron recalls the last thing he saw before he died: a white haired doll on a flying beast. Duke. Everything grows distant. Damuron does not want to hear any more.

He does not wish for life, but Damuron is still alive. Alexei asks him, as the only surviving member of the Canary brigade, to rebuild the squad. Damuron refuses, stating that there is no reason for him to do anything. There is nothing left for him. Inside, he is empty.

Damuron asks to return to Pharihyde. There, he will consider Alexei's request. Lowering his head in sadness, Alexei reluctantly reveals that Pharihyde is gone. The cities of Elkabarze and Parlest also lie decimated. Beasts took out their barriers. There were no survivors.

Had Damuron not experienced the dire events on Desier, he would not be able to imagine anything capable of unleashing that kind of destruction. His home, the place he lived all his life until this year, is gone. Everyone is gone. His father, his friends, his enemies and comrades - gone. There is not a person alive who knows him.

"Stop this thing." Damuron points to his heart blastia. He states that he is already dead. There is no meaning in extending his life and separating him from the ones he loves.

Alexei denies his request, but he does open the control panel for Damuron's heart blastia. He shows him the formulas that operate the device and tells him that if he can unravel them, he can stop his heart. Closing the panel, Alexei tells Damuron to decide for himself which path he will take. Until then, Alexei tells him to mind the nurse. Before he leaves, Alexei insists that Damuron think about how important he must be to receive the blessing of a second life.

After Alexei leaves, Damuron cannot tell if he cares if he is alive, dead or whatever. He opens the control panel and stares at the codes controlling his heart. He cannot erase the characters in the formula. Time passes, hour after hour. He sits, frozen, staring at the equations, tears streaming down his face. The lonely room is filled with his heartache.

Everything is terrible forever. Okay no NOTHING HERE IS NEWS but it will still be a heartpunch!