The Awakened Pt. 05

The next few days were filled with a series of rather long, rather dull but distinctly necessary things. He arranged the funeral. He contacted a lawyer to arrange the clean up and sale of Furze Cottage. He arranged with the police for him to collect any and all of his things. He set up a PO Box for the significant amount of correspondence that he had to deal with. Somehow the press had got hold of his mobile number, presumably from a leak in the police so he bought a new one and left the old one as a voice mail service.

What he didn't manage to do was get to properly talk to Si. Whenever an opportunity came up Si busied himself with something else or said that it just wasn't the time.

And so he focused on the things that he could do. He returned the hire car. He investigated the money in the various hidden accounts. He already knew exactly where it came from and how to access it but he wanted to be sure that it couldn't be traced back to Aldred before he did anything with it. The insurance money from the car accident had come through and that was more than enough to keep him going in the short term. He bought a Volvo XC40 with all the toys much to the delight of the salesman.

And he handed in his notice to Gus.

That was the hardest thing.

Everyone in the office had been so pleased to see him and were making a huge effort to make him welcome. But the feeling that everyone was on eggshells around him was particularly awkward. After all, what do you say to someone who's lost his entire family?

Gus was beaming at him as he entered his office but it was only a couple of minutes before he realised that something was wrong.

"So..?" his rich melodious voice adding layers of nuance into the word.

"I'm sorry, Gus. I can't stay."

"You know that we'll wait - give you all the time you need..?"

"I do and I really appreciate it. You're the reason that I came to work here and I really enjoy it but there are too many memories. And the team needs someone who's all in. They're a great bunch but they need the direction, otherwise who knows what kind of game you'd get? You know what a Trekkie Julie is. You'd end up being sued over the klingon being used in the flavour text!"

Gus sighed, and nodded.

"I had feared that maybe you'd need a change. But I hoped that our little group could help support you through this. Dammit we're so close!"

"I know. Which is why I've left you a little going away gift."

"You've left me a what..?"

"Gus, you've been an absolute rock and I owe you more than I can say. I haven't been completely idle since you were kind enough to bring me back from the hospital. Tell the team to access my account on GitHub and use the password 'StarTrekSucks' to access some updates that I've made. I've solved the scaling issue that we had. Combine that with another couple of enhancements and I know that the game'll be faster. As in three times faster. You might even be able to package the game engine up and sell it to other development houses. You just need a team lead that can rein in the wilder exuberances of the team and you'll be golden. The story and the mechanics are already amazing."

"But we've been hitting our heads against that wall for months. How did you..?"

"I've had a lot of time with not too much to do. And I still owe you for the phone and laptop."

Gus waved him away.

"You owe me nothing, even before this piece of news." He looked up in real hope. "Do you really think you've solved it?"

It wasn't until that moment that Kane realised how tired his boss looked and how much pressure he must be under from the venture capitalists funding the company.

Kane nodded.

"It's going to be awesome. You just need to steer the ship into harbour."

Gus got up and gave him a huge hug.

"Gods but I'm going to miss you."

Kane had tears in his eyes as he awkwardly returned the hug. Gus finally drew back and held Kane's shoulders. He looked Kane in the eye, trying to sense that everything was alright. Satisfied, he wrapped an arm around him and started heading for his office door.

"Come on, you need to tell the crew of the Enterprise."

"But I thought that.."

"No quiet exits for you Kane Daniels. Particularly not with news like this!"

The rest of the morning was bitter sweet as the team gave him a long goodbye, making him show them what he'd done, which turned his leaving into a bit of a party. The stress of his absence and the obvious pressure on Gus had really got to everyone, so the release of tension was palpable.

"When's the funeral, Kane?" asked Gus as he escorted him back to his car.

"On Thursday, at the crematorium."

Gus stopped and shook his hand, trying to show his gratitude, support and friendship in that one emotional handshake.

"We'll be there. Don't be a stranger, Kane."

"I won't."

= = = = = = =

The day of the funeral dawned and Kane was dreading it.

The funeral director had been very supportive and had made lots of suggestions to make the whole thing run smoothly. Kane had hired a function room at the Blue Ball Inn and his sister and parents had made the long trip down to Devon to be there for him.

He'd contacted Emma's family with details about the funeral and received a very cold, formal response. He rather hoped that they wouldn't come. Her parents had never liked him and had disapproved of Emma's choice from day one.

The speech that Emma's father had given at the wedding was all about losing a daughter. It was spiteful and mean spirited which summed up Eileen and Eric Tucker perfectly. When he and Emma had given up the London rat race for a slower pace of life her parents had blamed Kane for stunting her career - their brilliant girl. Even the arrival of grandchildren hadn't mended their relationship and Kane was very happy not to have seen them for at least two years, even though they only lived about thirty minutes away in Minehead.

Thoughts of family took him back to his own. His parents were seventy but were far from being sprightly pensioners enjoying retirement. Charles and Mary Daniels were struggling with numerous ailments from crippling arthritis through to chronic sarcoidosis. They'd been wonderful parents and had given him an idyllic childhood but their twilight years had been hard.

His sister Sarah had never married and lived near his parents in Nottingham. She was a head of department at a local secondary school. When they were young they'd fought like brothers and sisters do, but once he was big enough to hit her back they'd realised that they actually quite liked each other. She was one of life's do-ers. She had focused her life on giving and worked for local charities and was always there to help out his parents. Kane had felt guilty for years that she hadn't had the life that he felt she could have, while he'd had the perfect life.

"Had" being the operative word.

He knew that, other than awkward family drama and people not knowing what to say, the whole event would run like clockwork. And Bill at the Blue Ball Inn was going to look after everyone at the wake.

He just wasn't ready to say goodbye. He didn't want to say goodbye.

With everything that had happened since he had Awakened his life had been so different, so intense that he hadn't really spent the time grieving. Or what he thought was grieving. What was that anyway?

How were you supposed to grieve?

He missed his little family like he hadn't believed was possible. Every time something reminded him of their lives together he felt an instant pang of loss. A boy with a football, a woman tossing her hair in just that way, a man and his daughter holding hands - any of that and he was lost.

And he was certain that holding on to them and to his memories of them had been fundamental to him not going completely crazy when he'd absorbed the lifeforce of Donovan Aldred. He knew it.

He still didn't want to believe that they were gone. It was so hard. One day you wake up with next to no memory of what had happened and then you have to accept that weeks ago your perfect family had ceased to exist. Being in Furze Cottage had helped initially but after all the blood...he just couldn't go back. That had torn away one of his anchors. His family had always been the other thing grounding him.

Without those supports he'd been flung into this new and dangerous world and today he was supposed to acknowledge that they were gone and say goodbye?

He just wasn't ready.

And it scared him that letting them go in the ceremony today would somehow remove that life raft that he'd been clinging to. The one that confirmed that he was Kane Daniels.

That scared him more than the brain claws.

He was sitting on his bed, in the spare room in the light house, dressed in a suit, staring at the floor when Si bustled by.

"All set old thing?"

"Not really."

Si smiled compassionately and settled on to the bed beside him looking dapper as ever. Tweed suit, polished brown shoes. The country gent.

"Do you know what you're going to say?"

"I've written something but...how do you sum up someone's life, let alone three people's lives in five or ten minutes? What their life meant to you?"

"One word at a time."

"That's not helpful, Si."

"I know, but it's all I've got."

He looked down at the floor like Kane, before taking a deep breath.

"I never met them but I've loved getting to know them through you. Emma was bright, impulsive, giving and a wonderful mother. Jason was a force of nature and Lauren was a shy funny girl with lots of friends. Share that with people and get them to share their stories and celebrate how wonderful your family was. Let them continue to touch people by keeping them alive in our thoughts and hearts."

Kane looked at Si with renewed respect. He had beautifully summed up his family without ever meeting them.

"What do you want from this? For some it's a chance to say goodbye and try and turn the page. For others it's a celebration of life. For others it's a religious experience."

"What does this need to be for you?"

Kane swallowed, trying to deal with the lump in his throat.

If it was just for him, then he'd want to keep them all to himself. But Lauren's school had been in touch and wanted to know if her friends could come and sing a song as part of the funeral. Jason's football team would be there. Teachers from the schools wanted to be there. Some of their old London friends were coming. Emma's work colleagues from the hospital wanted to come. His old work colleagues would be there. It was going to be a lot to deal with.

"I really don't know. I want to cling to them forever but in my heart I know that it's not a healthy way of living. And I don't want to say goodbye. I'm scared of falling to pieces in front of everyone though."

"That I can't help you with, old man. I'm going to be blubbing away regardless."

Kane smiled at his friend's attempt to cheer him up.

"We'd best be off."

They arrived in plenty of time despite the traffic's best efforts to prevent them. It was one of those bright, clear and cold winter days. A stunning blue sky that stretches on forever. The sort of day that gives you hope that summer will come back. The wind was biting and they hurried inside to meet up with the funeral director.

She was a staid, understated sort of person and helped get them both settled while the previous funeral finished and the mourners moved on.

He got his first proper look at the room that the ceremony would be in and it was huge. The Rowan chapel had seating for over two hundred and fifty people and standing room for many more. He hoped that it didn't feel echoingly empty by the time the funeral started.

Soon, people began to arrive and time and again Kane was stunned by the empathy and kindness that people showed. He found his eyes filling up over and over as people that he'd thought of more as passing acquaintances arrived and showed how much they'd loved his family.

Jason's entire class came as did Lauren's, along with a number of other young people that were in the choir. The football team was there and still people came. There was a muted buzz as everyone settled in place. Kane moved to the front and sat down bracketed by Gus and Si on one side and his parents and sister on the other. He could feel their support almost as if they were stone pillars helping him through this thing. They all stood as the coffins were brought in; two of the coffins heartbreakingly small.

They weren't religious people, so Kane wanted to make sure that the music reflected his family, not what was expected. The coffins were carried in to the sound of Tubular Bells which brought back memories of preparing family meals in the kitchen, surrounded by happiness at Furze Cottage.

The funeral director made some opening remarks and then introduced the choir from Lauren's school. They sang Sabbath Prayer from Fiddler On The Roof, a show that Lauren had been in as one of the young children. The hauntingly beautiful melody swept throughout the hall and tissues and handkerchiefs began appearing throughout the congregation.

May the Lord protect and defend you.

May the Lord preserve you from pain.

Favor them, Oh Lord, with happiness and peace.

Kane led the applause for the beautiful performance. He then stood and turned to face the room. There were people filling every corner of the room and he was momentarily overcome to see most of the nurses and some of the doctors that had done everything they could for him and his family.

"Thank you all so much for coming. I'm humbled that our little family has touched so many lives that you felt that you wanted to come and share this celebration of the lives of Emma, Lauren and Jason."

"I didn't know how on earth I could try and sum up the lives of the people that mean most to me in the world. How do you take those wonderful people, their achievements and their personalities and try and glibly sum up their existence? Instead, I wanted to celebrate their lives. I definitely didn't want today to be about saying goodbye to them as they are forever in my heart. Always."

He had to pause for a minute as the emotions washed over him.

He looked up and was caught by the expression of Lauren's best friend who was smiling encouragingly at him. It buoyed him up more than he could say.

"I talked to quite a few of you who I know loved them like I did. And so rather than hearing from me, I wanted you all to hear from each other about how you valued them and loved them."

And with that seven people stood, one by one, to share various aspects of his family's lives. Emma's best friend shared a story from their university days. His mother talked about her grandchildren and the fun that they had at Croyde beach trying to learn how to surf. Others followed, including Jason's best friend, who stood up and told everyone how they'd started school hating each other's guts over a stupid, imagined slight and yet how they had come to be the best of friends. He couldn't help saying how much he missed his best friend. He got through his speech and sat down to the sound of sniffs and coughs as the emotion finally hit everyone.

Kane stood again and surveyed the room, giving them time to settle.

"Thank you everyone. I feel that I know my family better through you and that I have more memories to treasure. If you can, come and share more stories at the Blue Ball Inn where there will be drinks and food, and some of Emma's favourite victoria sponge cake."

He moved back to his place and the funeral director asked everyone to stand. To the sounds of the Electric Light Orchestra and Mr Blue Sky the coffins rolled slowly through the curtains beyond.

Kane hugged his friends and family long and hard and then moved to the exit so that he could say thank you to everyone that had attended. As he hugged his parents he could feel their frailty and their pain and silently vowed to try and do something about it.

Nearly four hundred people shook his hand and shared some small nugget of fun about his family with him as they left. The whole experience was uplifting and laughter echoed around the car park as people headed back home, back to school or to the pub. He felt slightly euphoric; better than he had in a long time.

One of the last to leave was Dr Jane Watson, the first physician that he remembered from his treatment after the crash.

"Thank you so much for coming, doctor, I really appreciate you and your colleagues taking the time for this."

In the background Kane noticed Si gesturing animatedly at him. He couldn't quite figure out what he wanted so, figuring that it could wait and not wanting to be rude, he kept his attention on the doctor.

"Not at all, we all wanted to come. We've followed your astonishing recovery and just wanted to pay our respects."

"Would you like to join us at the Blue Ball Inn? I'm sure there'll be plenty of people to chat to."

"I'm sorry, but I can't join you at the pub, I have to work. But would it be OK.."

Suddenly Kane was doubled as pain lanced through his back. He saw Si's look of horror as he slumped down to the floor and not knowing what could have caused it he pushed himself into the spirit realm.

His aura was completely uncloaked. He was blazing away like the tastiest bat signal in the world and only the fact that he'd been inside a building had helped hide him for as long as it had.

He felt something chewing into his spine. Si materialised beside him.

[I've been trying to tell you - your cloak is gone. Your concentration must have slipped during the service.]

[What can you see Si?]

[A large brain claw...it...it's horrible.]

Kane searched around trying to figure out what to do, knowing that time was paramount or he'd be sucked dry in no time.

He grasped at a vague memory from Aldred of being told by another Awakened about how they'd charged their hand up and fired energy at a brainclaw. It wasn't something he'd ever done. Surely that would be worse and just feed the thing faster?

Scrabbling for ideas he remembered how the brain claws that he'd avoided before had such adverse reactions to the physical world. He reached out with his hands as if he was going to push himself into the physical world, opening a small window between the two and then tried to [pull] at the very air.

At first nothing happened but then he saw a small stream of air bubbles coming through the window. He kept pulling harder and harder and the slow stream became a hose pipe of air bubbles. It looked like the soap bubbles that you'd blow through the small hoop of a child's toy but on an almost industrial scale.

He quickly turned around and made sure that the brain claw was directly in line with the flow of air.

The high-pitched shriek that came from the brain claw coincided with appalling amounts of pain. The tendrils that had been worming their way into his being were being pulled out as the brain claw tried to get away. The agony made him writhe and move out of the line of the air stream.

Si grabbed his hands and moved him back in front of the air.

[Kane, you're a genius. But you need to keep doing whatever you were doing. The bubbles are slowing down. Hurry!]

He tried desperately to focus and the shrieks and the pain were renewed. The brain claw suddenly withdrew completely and Kane quickly turned towards it expecting to have to fend it off. But it was melting and unable to function. The ululating howls finally stopped and slowly the thing bubbled away into a pool of black ichor.

Kane quickly warned Si away from it before sealing the rift between physical and spirit worlds.

[Kane, are you OK? Can you cloak yourself? Please cloak yourself.]

It took immense effort but he did. He felt the wound in his back and tried to hover his hand over it. He felt a draw of energy from his core.