It can take a long time to realize you're immortal

The night was cold. The cliff was high. She was surrounded.

The girl dashed down the alley, risking a glance over her shoulder. She cursed, they were still chasing her. She toppled a pile of empty crates as she flew past them and dashed on, not daring to check if the crates slowed them down. “Stop!” One of them called after her. She glanced back to see the glint of steel in the moonlight. She gulped.

When she looked back in front of her she skidded to a stop. The ally had ended, giving way to a cliff, with the ocean hundreds of meters below. She was trapped. Her attackers circled her half a moment later and she prepared to fight, knowing she would lose.

“Whoa, whoa,” One of the men said, putting up his hands, “we don’t want to fight you, we just need you to come with us or we have to,” She hesitated, knowing there was no way she could fight them, or survive the fall into the water. She prepared to fight, preferring death to whatever they wanted her for.

“If that’s what you want,” That man said with a sigh as he took up a fighter's stance, knife ready. She mimicked his stance, fear showing clearly on her face.

The man lashed out with the knife and she dodged. When the next man tried to hit her she stepped back, forgetting the cliff. Her heel went off the edge and she tipped backwards, barely stopping herself from tumbling off the edge. The figures surrounded her and forced her back till her heels hung off the cliff and she was blindly throwing punches. Bruises and scratches covered her body, though it was too dark to see if she was bleeding. She was exhausted, but her attackers weren’t even winded.

One of them made a grab for her and she stepped back instinctively. She fell, letting out a blood curdling scream as she plumitted to her death. Her arms flailed uselessly as she clawed at the air, trying to catch anything to break her fall. She hit the water with a splash.

Pain shot up her back as it hit the water first. She tried to swim but every time she moved pain shot through her limbs, where she supposed her bones were broken, shattered like glass. She sank into the water, wondering how she wasn’t dead and wishing she was.

She lay like that for days, her lungs eventually stopping their pleas for oxygen and her pain eventually dulling to a throb. She lay with her eyes closed on the ocean floor, thinking for sure that she was dead. She heard a splash above her and opened her eyes, seeing the blurry form of a person swimming toward her. That’s strange, she thought absently and closed her eyes again.

She felt arms wrap around her and pull upward, toward the surface. I don’t need to breathe, she thought, just before realizing she was breathing. Somehow, she had managed to start breathing under the water. Her head was pulled above the surface and she gasped, amazed at the thinness of the chilly air. She heard gasping beside her and looked over to see her ‘rescuer’. He had blond hair and brown eyes and freckles covering his face and arms. He was wearing a t-shirt and shorts. That was all she was able to process before she was dragged onto the deck of a boat.

She sat up immediately, “Am I dead?” She asked, startling the man, who seemed to have been expecting her to be unconscious at least.

“Um, apparently not,” he responded hesitantly, “What happened?” He asked, wringing out his shirt.

“I don’t know, I fell,” She looked up at the cliff far above and realized how impossible her story sounded, no one could survive that fall. Them how did I?

“From where?” The man asked, following her line of vision.

“Um, a boat, I think I was pushed, I’m not sure, it’s all a bit fuzzy,” She didn’t meet his eyes, hoping he couldn’t tell she was lying.

“Well,” He said, his tone friendly, “my name’s Devin,” he stuck out his hand.

She shook it, “Selena,”

He smiled, “Well Selena, we’ll find out what happened to you, but first, you must be hungry,” as if to prove his point her stomach growled, taking away her need to answer. He laughed, “Alright then, I know a place we could get some great cheeseburgers not far from here,”

She nodded, “Let’s get going then Devin, I’m not sure when was the last time I ate,” He laughed and went to the front of the speedboat and started up the engine. Selena followed, the whole experience nagging at the back of her mind. No one should have survived that, a little voice in her head kept saying, you’re a freak, she couldn’t argue, she decided she didn’t want to. If being a freak meant she was alive, then she was happy to be one.

She had been twenty-five when that happened. Now, it’s her three hundred and fifty-eighth birthday. Sometimes it can take a long time to realize you’re immortal. Selena was no exception. That was just the first sign, there were plenty more. Thirty-three murder attempts, twelve years, and a year in the army later she accepted the facts. Selena was immortal. She didn’t know how or why, but honestly, she didn’t care. Selena’s only mistake was thinking she was the only one.

Author's Note

Don't hold back, I promise you won't hurt my feelings, just tell me what you think and what you think I could do better.