Hagurosan is a stand alone book written by Darren Shan.
Background[]
Story[]
A young boy Hagurason is asked by his mother to bring a cake to the mountain shrine as an offering for the spirits. The spirits live below the mountain, while the god lives on top and nobody is allowed to go there. Along the way he makes the mistake of eating the cake. At the shrine he apologizes and prays for forgiveness, promising the spirits his toys and dinners. He walks away and finds a silver coin, which he lays on the shrine with the wish to bless all the children in the world. He then picks up two more coins and a voice tells him that he must keep on picking up coins until there are no more coins. He does this as many people come to visit, then eventually a group of priest come. The head priest states they must use the coins to help all the unfortunate children. They start doing this and the village grows as shelters, playgrounds and orphanages are build. It becomes a town and countless children are helped. Haguroson keeps aging and picking up coins, then one day as an extremely old man he finds no more coins. He then sees he has died. He finally walks down into the new town feeling the world is a better place. He then walks on into the wider world and a playing child calls to him. He goes to her and finds out it is his mother. He is in the afterlife were everybody returns to being a child, for being a child is a pure state.