The Death of Darovit Jone

As I can feel my life coming to an end, it makes me think about the life that I once lived so very long ago. I was a different person with a different past, a different attitude, and a different family.
When I was a young boy, my mother once told me that killing someone doesn’t just end the life of the person being killed, but also the person doing the killing. When someone kills another, they are no longer the person that they had been up until that point. She told me that it represents the ultimate sacrifice, not just of someone else’s life, but also one’s entire character. Once you kill, you are forever changed.
I never fully understood what she was trying to tell me, but the words still stick with me. As the years went on, despite the fact that I lied, stole from others, and cheated to get ahead and provide my family with the basic comforts that we needed to survive, I never killed anyone. I remained the same person through and through despite many temptations and hardships that I was forced to endure.
Unfortunately, life has a way of forcing you to change and that is where this story begins. This is the story of my death, or how Darovit Jone died.

#

I believe the story of how Darovit Jone died began not on the day that it actually occurred, but rather the day when the worst thing I ever experienced happened. I have faced hard work, an abusive father, and a seemingly endless debt all weighed down on me, but I know for a fact that the worst day of my life occurred the same day we first arrived in Mythrite. That was the day that my mother, after her long years of suffering from illness and my father’s abusive stupidity, finally died.

#

It was a cold morning as my family got up to begin the final leg of our journey into Mythrite. We had gotten the town in our sight when we decided to camp for the night. My father had decided it was in our best interest to arrive during the daytime, but I had a bunch of lingering concerns. I had already protested to my father that moving my seriously ill mother to a new location so abruptly was a bad idea, and so far I had been proven right. Mother’s health had never been great to begin with, for years she had constant fevers, a horrible rasping cough, and long lasting colds that almost never seemed to go away. It was always very poor, but her health had taken a sharp decline since we started on our journey. The blistering summer heat kept her dehydrated most of the time, and the freezing cold nights only left her more vulnerable. I had hoped that we would eventually reach the town before she got too sick, and that the doctors there might be able to keep her in a stable condition, but now I was really worried that she wouldn’t survive our journey.
My fears became justified after my father and I woke up to the sound of my mother coughing up blood. She had been doing this on occasion ever since we left, but this time was much more intense and it wasn’t stopping after a few seconds. It became clear that mother was in very serious condition and that we needed to get to the town immediately. All of a sudden, I heard our horse whinny and saw my father taking off with our carriage to the town. He was such a fool, and I tried to catch up with him to get him to stop.
“Hey stop you stupid old man!” I cried out. “Where are you going? What about Mom?”
It was pointless though, my father was too far away to hear me. Since I couldn’t get him to turn around, I went back and helped my mother get lie down beneath a nearby tree.
“Just hang in there mother” I said. “Maybe that horrible excuse of a father will surprise us and actually come through for a change”. I knew in my mind that it was pointless though, I mean one time we had expected him to buy us a nice dinner with money we lent him that he instead wasted on booze at a local tavern. Now when his time to possibly shine came again, my father had doomed us once again. If he had taken the time to think it over, he would’ve put mother in the carriage and taken her to the town for help as it would’ve taken half the time to find someone compared to making a full trip both ways.
“Darovit” my mother suddenly spoke.
“Yes mother” I said between tears.
“I know what you’re thinking” she continued. “You hate your father for everything he’s done to us. And now you continue to blame him for both our misery now that I’m at my end”.
“Don’t say that mother” I yelled. “You’re going to be okay”.
She closed her eyes and shook her head, and my eyes welled with tears. She coughed again and then smiled, her lips now speckled with blood.
“Honey, never forget that I love you” she spoke. “Also, I want you to remember what I always told you. Your father is a horrible man but only because he fails to think and look at the world in the same way that we do. It is much better to be the higher person instead of sinking to their level. I have suffered for so long that I have no regrets going out, for you are my greatest treasure and it has been a great pleasure to be your mother. Promise me honey, promise me that you’ll stay a better person than your father, always”.
“I promise mother” I yelled. I then hugged her with all my might and held her in my arms crying until long after I stopped feeling her move.
I sat there crying for what seemed like and eternity until I heard my father return with two men. One was dirty, unshaven and drunker than my father, but the other had long, combed white hair and sadness in his intelligent eyes. No one said anything, but they didn’t make me move until I was ready. I held mother’s body in the carriage during the entire ride into town.
Three days later, a grave had been set and we were lowering my mother into the ground. I was the last to leave after the grave was finished. The nicer of the two men that came with my father tried to comfort me by placing their hand on my shoulder, but I was in no mood and turned away.
I only later figured out that the person who tried to comfort me was the man who would later become my mentor, Aymer Eilgeros. Also, it was from that day that he decided to keep an eye on me, as he noticed the horrible situation I was in and saw my potential. I always thought that I officially met him by chance, but I learned later that he had planned for us to meet. In a way, he sort of became my guardian angel that kept me from doing something I’d regret.

#

The cold breeze on my face put the thought out of my head and I stepped outside to get to where I needed to go. One year had passed since my mother had died, and winter had come for the small town of Mythrite where I lived. Everything was cold, and there seemed to be an immense amount of tranquility in the air. People were eagerly awaiting the coming of spring, and most stayed indoors to protect themselves from the cold. It had been getting slightly warmer, but most people still preferred to keep to themselves until spring. In their minds, everything for the year had come to an end and a new beginning was afoot.
In my case however, it was more like I was being forced to start the year over again. You see, my father had racked up a large amount of debt before we moved to Mythrite. He intended to pay it off through working in the mines after we moved here, but after his accident crippled him I was stuck paying off the debt. For most people it would’ve been very hard, but I was thankful enough to meet a mentor who was able to teach me skills necessary to do odd jobs to help pay off the debt. Through that and a series of business deals on the side, the debt was nearly completely paid off. Once that was done, I would’ve been able to finally leave Mythrite and things would’ve been great.
Unfortunately though, my life has an annoying habit of crushing all my happiness as soon as any starts to come my way, in many cases thanks to my scum-of-the-earth father. Recently after I took my father for a stroll as per his request, he purposefully broke away from me, went to a bar owned by Suud, got into a fight with some of the patrons, and somehow caused the poorly-reinforced building to collapse. Now Suud was mad at both of us and added the cost of the building to my debt, basically putting me back to exactly where I was when I started paying off the debt.
Unfortunately for me, this debt was slightly different from the one I had been paying off for the last several months. You see, before the debt was the result of my father’s antics in our hometown that had been paid for and taken over by Suud as part of a deal for my father to move to Mythrite to pay it off. I had only taken on the debt after my father was injured and was rendered unable to work it off. That debt was part of a friendly deal, but now this new debt was an act caused by my father’s ridiculous actions. This made Suud very angry at both of us. So in addition to me having to work off the debt, I would now do it while me and my father were under Suud’s direct supervision. Now I couldn’t make anymore side deals to earn extra money, and the extra money I had made from these deals wasn’t nearly enough to pay Suud off. Now I was back to square one and in an even worse position than I had been before, and it was all my father’s fault.
That day started off in the late afternoon as Suud had no meetings then and was free to supervise me and my father as I worked in one of his warehouses. As I wheeled my father there I was thinking about how angry I was at him. I was lost in thought when we collided with someone coming from the other direction.
“Hey boy” my father said, “watch where you’re going. You want me to start hurting even more?”
“Look who’s talking old man” I replied. “Let’s not forget that if it wasn’t for your stupidity and tendency to get into fights, we wouldn’t be in this mess. You say you’re hurting, try being in my position for a change and see how much you’ve caused me pain.
“Now see here” my father spit at me. “I may have caused you pain, but it was the only way to make you see the truth about the world. It’s a dog-eat-dog world out there, and maybe it is my fault that we’re both stuck here, but don’t you dare blame me for all your problems. If you were as smart as you say you are, you’d use that brain of yours to find a way for us to get out of here, or better yet find a way for us to live like kings. But until you bother to do something like this, don’t call me out for not saying I like you”.
I just wanted nothing to do with this right now.
“Fine okay then, now come on we’re almost there” I said.
I wheeled my father into the warehouse where we saw Suud standing there with his two bodyguards.
“Well looky what the cat dragged in” Suud spoke. “D, my little moneymaker, and Hurts, the guy who thinks it's funny to make expensive establishments collapse and lose their owners more than a few clams”.
“Hey it's your fault for not reinforcing the walls with concrete” Hurst spat at him.
Suud scowled, so I smacked my father on the back of his head.
“Ignore him, Suud” I said. “He’s just kidding around”.
I leaned down to my father’s ear and muttered “Do you want him to get angry, shut up and let me do all the talking”.
“It’s okay D, I know that you two don’t mean it. It just runs in the attitudes that people like you both have always had to spout to make yourselves feel important. Stuck in an eternal position in the debt of another, and the only escape is to angrily insult those you owe things too. That way, you feel big and get deeper into your bad situation at the same time.”
I felt my anger at Suud rising quickly, but I took a deep breath and regained my cool.
“Well then” Suud replied, “I guess it’s time to get started. Norse, Rocko, you can leave for the night, I want to be alone to overlook these two tonight”.
The two bodyguards immediately left the warehouse as Suud wheeled my father over to a large table.
“Okay D” Suud said, “Grab a mop and get to work, you got six hours of this before you’re done”.
I grabbed a broom and reluctantly got to work as Suud began to chat with my father.
It was about four hours in when I heard Suud call out to me.
“Hey D, I’m going to get a few papers from my office, you can take a five minute break if you want”.
I put down the broom and went up to where my father was sitting to get a drink of water. As I went up, I noticed that my father was nowhere to be found. I looked around a few shelves and eventually saw him wheeling himself toward a large rack of Elvardi bottles. I knew I had to stop him, he wanted a drink and those drinks were some of the most expensive bottles that Suud owned. If he opened that bottle I’d be in even further debt. Was there no limit to the ridiculous lows that he was willing to perform.
I just knew I had to stop him, but I wasn’t sure of what to do. Without thinking I grabbed a torch off the wall and ran over to my father as he began to stick out his hand. Before he could do anything, I waved the torch at his arm to scare him away and pointed it at him as if he was a wild animal.
“Back, back you idiot” I yelled at him. “Get away from that. If you open that bottle, I’ll never get out of here”.
My father’s face was uncharacteristically scared and he yelled back at me.
“You’re calling me an idiot? Get that torch away from here, do you want to kill us both?”
That was a very good question. I suddenly found myself very surprised as I held the torch there all of a sudden. Where did this sudden use of fire as a weapon come from. I had just done it without a second thought to myself or my surroundings, but luckily I had regained my senses and my self control. I mean, there were several bottles of pure alcohol in this area, and if the fire got too close they would explode.
As I regained focus I saw my father trying to sneak the bottle again and found myself freaking out. All of a sudden I heard a voice behind me.
“What’s going on here?”
Still panicking, I twisted around still pointing the torch and accidentally hit Suud who was carrying a large glass of wine. The flame accidentally caused Suud to spill the wine on himself and set himself on fire.
He cried out in agony as his body became covered with flame and he tried desperately to put it out, failing with every attempt. The smoke soon blinded him and caused him to cough and he started walking straight towards the massive tar-sealed alcohol jugs on the wall. I knew we were in danger and needed to get out of the way.
“Hit the deck” I yelled as I pulled my father over the railing to the ground floor. Shortly after we went over, the flames curled up the wall, engulfing the rafters, and causing a a massive explosion that set fire to the rest of the warehouse and knocked me to the ground.
I remained on the floor for a few seconds in a strange haze. Something felt different. Suud has just died by my hands, and even though it was an accident I still felt as if something weird had happened to me. I couldn’t worry about that now though, the building was on fire and I needed to get out. Luckily the haze was starting to clear up.
As I regained my senses, I started to get up. I felt a large weight on my back and then two hands on my neck starting to choke the life out of me. I realized that it was my father, and he was angry for almost killing us both.
“You stupid boy” he yelled, “how dare you try to kill us both”.
I regained my senses and pushed my father off of me before slapping him.
“This is no time to point fingers” I yelled. “We need to find some way to get out of here, but where…?”
“How about over there” my father pointed.
There was a partially open door over on the opposite end of the wall. We needed to get to it immediately. I quickly lifted my father on my shoulders and began making my way towards the door.
All of a sudden I tripped on a broken bottle and fell forward, dropping my father behind me. Soon after, a large piece of the roof fell from the ceiling and pinned both of us to the ground. I realized that I would die if I stayed under here too long so I wiggled my way out from under the debris and stood up looking at my father.
“Darovit, help me” my father asked.
As my hand reached out, I suddenly saw a flash of everything that my father represented to me. I saw a large weight holding me down, full of hate and abuse, with a trail of debt and destruction behind me. I had seen this so many times before, but I had always ignored it and done the right thing. For some reason though, it really bothered me this time, and I think it was affecting my judgement.
Even though I could’ve probably helped my father like I always did, for some reason I didn’t. I just stood there looking at him as he continued to plead for help. All of a sudden, another piece of the roof fell on him, trapping him beneath it.
I realized that I needed to leave soon or I might become trapped like him. Luckily there was an open door close to where I was and I was able to get through it and get out before the rest of the building collapsed behind me.

#

As I walked away from the smoke and fire and destruction, my mind seemed to be stuck in a perpetual haze. I couldn’t believe what I had just done. After all my words swearing that I would always be a better person than my father, I had actually sunk to his level. I had started a fire and killed Suud, and I had then seen an opportunity to save my father when he asked for it, and yet ignored his pleas for help. He didn’t deserve it after all he had done, and yet I would have still saved him as I always did. But why didn’t I? What had happened to me that I had sunk to his level and left him for dead. I had no idea what was happening to me, but I knew that I needed answers right away.
I seemed to come out of the haze at just the right time. As I regained my senses I found myself standing in front of my mother’s grave, exactly where I wanted to be. As I stared at it, I felt tears welling up in my eyes, mainly because my mother would never condone what I had just done. I had come to this place every week since she died and kept reminding both her and myself that it was my duty to always remain a better person than my father, and now I had just carelessly let him die as he once did to her.
I fell on my knees and began to pray to my mother for forgiveness. I had promised her on her deathbed that I would forever remain a better person than my father, and I had now ended up breaking that sacred vow to her. I wondered how I could ever make penance for this crime, if it was even possible to do so in my mother’s eyes.
My sobbing was broken by a powerful, familiar voice saying “I had a feeling I’d find you here”. I looked up and saw my mentor Aymer Eilgeros standing behind the gravestone looking down at me with a solemn expression on his face. I stood up and blinked a few times before wiping my eyes to make sure he was real. “Are you…?” I asked him before he interrupted.
“No, I’m by myself and no one knows I came here”.
I stood still, still a bit visibly shaken due to everything that was happening. “How’d you know I was here?” I asked him.
“You always told me that this is the place you come to when something bad happens” he replied. “Since it would seem that both Suud and Hurst have died in a fire while you were working off your debt, I figured that if you somehow survived that this is where I’d find you”.
“But why are you here?” I asked.
“I’m your mentor, I figured that you needed some support” he replied.
“No seriously” I answered back, “why are you here?”
“Like I said” he answered, “you need support after going through all this and I’m here to give it to you”.
I was absolutely dumbfounded. Aymer may have been my mentor, but he had never been one who was much help in terms of emotional consolidation. I wondered why he would choose to help me now.
“Here’s the deal” he said, “Suud is dead, your father is dead, and because the warehouse is still burning to the ground, everyone believes you to be dead as well. You could go back into the town and show everyone that you’re alive and things may turn out nice and peachy for you”.
I considered his words and they seemed to make sense.
“Or” he continued, “they may start to question you about the fire and the deaths of your father and Suud. If they find out that you were responsible, you will be charged by the town with arson and a double murder. Your reputation won’t save you from trouble, in fact it will cease to exist when people find out what you did. Then you’ll be thrown in prison for the rest of your life and you’ll never leave Mythrite. Is that what you want?”
I was suddenly shocked at what he said as it all made perfect sense. People knew of my poor situation, but they also knew me as the good kid who always did the right thing and would help out anyone I could. If the truth came out the whole town would turn against me, and even worse, I would be stuck in this hellhole for the rest of my life.
“Oh no” I said. “What am I going to do? What can I do, there’s no way out for me”.
“Yes there is” Aymer replied. “The investigators will never just assume a body survived the fire, so that means you need to let Darovit Jone stay dead”.
This confused me greatly. “What do you mean?” I asked.
“What I mean is that you finally have the opportunity that you have always wanted” Aymer answered. “As of right now everyone believes that you, Darovit Jone, are dead due to being burned to death in a warehouse fire. And with his death, all of his debts went with him. Suud was the one who owned the debts, your father was the one who racked them up, and you were the one who had to pay them off. Since you have no family or anyone else involved in the contract, those debts are gone as long as you stay dead. That means that as long as no one realizes that you’re alive, you can finally leave Mythrite forever”. This came as a shock and I could hardly keep a smile off my face. It all made sense, for the first time ever, I was free. But it came at the cost of remaining dead, and I had to figure out a way to leave the town without being noticed.
“That’s great” I said. “But how am I supposed to sneak out of the town, and more importantly, make it on my own once I do?”
“It’s like this” Aymer said, “you told me about the stash of money and supplies you had been hiding from Suud. I can sneak you back into town so you can retrieve them. I’ve also made arrangements with the guards patrolling the western gates to expect a masked figure to appear later tonight leaving town to carry out some supplies. If we do this properly, you can leave town with enough wealth to go wherever you want and start a new life on your own terms. But it is crucial that you leave Darovit Jone behind. Everyone believes him to be dead and it needs to stay that way for this to work. Once you leave you’ll have to change your name and make sure that you never return to Mythrite or speak of Darovit again. If you can do that, then you’ll finally have everything you ever desired and you’ll be free to forge your own path free of anyone else’s burdens”.
I needed to think about it, after all it was a pretty high price to pay. I would get everything I ever wanted, but I would no longer be Darovit Jone. I had liked being who I was, but I wasn’t sure whether or not I was ready to give up being me. Then it hit me, I wasn’t me anymore. The real me would’ve saved my father from that blazing inferno, but I let him die instead. That wasn’t me, but who exactly was it? It seemed as though I had become someone else. Someone who was willing to do anything to leave everything behind. Aymer was right, Darovit had died in that fire. I was now someone who could make their own way in the world with no one to tie them down. I had made my decision.
“Darovit died in that fire” I replied. “I’m prepared to leave it all behind to make sure he stays dead”.
“Excellent” Aymer said. “Now come, we have no time to waste. Put on this cloak and mask and follow me”.
I did as he asked and followed him back to my house. We remained incognito the entire time. It was late and there were few people on the streets, and those that passed us by didn’t give us a second thought.
We arrived at my house and I retrieved my stash from my secret hiding place. While Aymer went to procure a carriage to load the stash into, I decided to give Darovit a final request that would let him rest in peace. I wrote a will for him and placed it in his room where it stated that he wished to be buried next to his mother in the event of his death. I had no idea if anyone would ever discover the note or if it would be honored, but this would give him closure and peace of mind and leave no lingering threads in this town.
I felt the locket my mother had given me and thought about leaving it, but I ultimately decided that neither of us deserved to stay here, even if she was nothing more now than a dead boy’s memories. I would carry it out of the town so she could also finally leave it behind and receive closure. Maybe I would eventually sell it somewhere and truly leave her for good, but for now Darovit’s other unfulfilled desire would be put at rest.
Aymer arrived with the carriage and helped me load the goods into it and bid me farewell as I thanked him for everything and took off down the street. I arrived at the western gate and the guards let me through as instructed and I took off into the night, finally leaving Myrthite behind forever.

#

And that is the story of how Darovit Jone was killed, as far as anyone knew that is. To the town of Mythrite I was the victim of an unfortunate accident and would be remembered as such. The town would occasionally float the story of one of the many ways I tried to help the town, and how I was taken from the world at such a young age. But none of it mattered anymore, the point was that they thought I was dead and I intended for it to stay that way.
And in a real sense Darovit was dead. He had always tried to do the right thing, and be a higher person than the scum that called himself his father. People looked up to him as a role model, and he was always receiving compliments for being such a good person. Darovit may have done some shady things hidden behind the mask of his good image, but he had never harmed or killed anyone. Now two men lay dead due to his actions, and as a result the last remnants of that good person that was Darovit had died along with them.
As I crossed the hill where my mother had died, I looked back at the town of Mythrite for the final time and felt tranquility for the first time in my life. I finally had no baggage to carry with me except the money and supplies to start my life anew. I had no idea who this knew person was that I found myself to be, but I knew that as I took off into the night that the answers to that question lay somewhere ahead. Maybe not close by, but definitely somewhere.