The man sighed. He stood on the edge of a large, misshapen patch of dirt. No grass would grow there, no matter how hard he tried. Large pieces of rubble jutted out from the ground all around him. A part of a wall here. Large pieces of linoleum floors. A bit of a ballroom chandelier. It was all that remained.

The man wasn’t interested in the ruins. No, he was here for the dirt. He stared ahead, looking at the massive granite monolith in the center of the patch of dirt. Names were carved into it. Some names, he’d known before he raised the monolith. Others were completely foreign to his mind. Of course, that hadn’t lasted long. He’d memorized all the names by now. Gods only knew how much time he’d spent studying the stone.

He stood like that a little while longer, before sitting down. He wore a roughspun cloak, with the hood pulled over his head. No one he knew would recognize him at a distance. Not that anyone he knew was anywhere near here. He wore a satchel. He reached into it and withdrew a bottle of wine. He popped the cork out with ease. He took a swig and grimaced. He had no idea how the Skylark stood the stuff. He stood, after a moment. He walked over to the monolith and stood before it. It towered over him, probably by a good foot. It’s height was the one part of the design he’d disliked. It was difficult to read the names at the top.

He tightened his grip on the bottle and drew his arm back. With the power of one who’d swung a sword most of his life, he smashed the bottle against the monolith. He paused for a second. Then, he bent over and picked up the shattered pieces of glass. They went back into his satchel.

That had been a ritual of his for awhile. He’d not known what many of them had liked, but he tried to fill in the gaps from memory. He’d known a few of them, though. The Skylark’s love of wine was quite well known, that one had been easy. The Shapeshifter had a taste for home cooked food. The man had tried his best, but a few misshapen pancakes were all he could offer. The Shapeshifter’s wife, a human, had a taste for fruit tart. It was a simple matter to pick one up from one of the bakeries that had opened up in the wake of the war. The Doppleganger, oh God, the Doppleganger. She’d loved tiramisu. It hadn’t been an easy task to procure some, but he’d managed. He stepped back, with a delicate touch of the stone. He’d be back, he knew. He was terrified of forgetting them.

He’d never really felt like one of them. They’d all formed a sort of camaraderie long before he came around. Yet, they’d tried there hardest to make him feel like one of the gang. He loved them for it. Despite being friends, or at least acquaintances, with many of them, it had always been them to him. It felt, disrespectful, almost, to use us, especially now. He’d chuckled a bit at the expression he’d coined. The last of them.

He sighed again. Yes, he’d be back again. Back to talking with ghosts that weren’t there. Coddling the memories of happier days. It hurt him to come here, but he knew it’d hurt even more if he forgot. The school, and it’s students, had already all but passed from the memories of the general populace. Even with the monolith that he’d sold his sword and gun to pay for, he felt a need, a duty, to remember. As long as he came here, as long as he remembered, they’d never be forgotten. They’d be remembered, at least until he joined them under the dirt.

Or his name wasn’t Edric Karst.