The End (Is Near)...
No one's destroyed the heart.
obviously, but since it's, you know, a heart, it makes sense that the person who was carrying it would die; has happened even, to the sorry souls who carried it before their younger charges. especially makes sense with how his body changed in the ritual like those before him.
But then, something happened after the heart was destroyed. It's like the shroud of the nightmare hearts influence started to lift. And grotesquely, bizarrely, miraculously, Grimmothy's corpse starts,,, changing.
A lot of people start to feel sick, the sound of flesh reconnecting and regrowing and bones going back into place should not be something that's able to be heard, and yet, it was happening right before their eyes. For others its was impossible to look away, like seeing a train crash in reverse, and with the impossible noise to accompany it. His body starts reshaping until everyone notices the nightmare heart. It had still been faintly glowing, and possibly vibrating. Until it loses all color, and solidifies into stone. (Just a useless rock.)
All at once his body looks disturbingly normal. Disturbing and distrustful and sad, because it's almost like a respectful loss, winning fair and square, they get Grimmothy as he was remembered. This body to bury instead of some barely recognizable vessel.
The last grimmchild to ever be, aproaches and kneels down by her father's body. Maybe it isn't respectful, making the aftermath look peaceful, after the destruction and pain that it reaped. But then-...
No.
No.
That shouldn't be allowed.
Because the mind is a fragile thing, and it doesn't take much for it to commit the heinous act of hoping.
In this case.
In this case it's the (must-be-imagined) faint-, so faint it must've been someone else near by.
...the oh so faint sigh that's heard from his nose.