It is all too tragic to live forever.

Chapter 1: Nothingness

 

Adrenaline fills my soul to the brim as I contemplate my death. Sword in hand and shield held down, I cannot move at all. I let Torture strike as deep as my heart. I let my immortal blood stain the soil.

 It is all too tragic to live forever, like a song for a lost love. Sweet to see so many live but sad to see so many die. And so we hide, away from love and friends, away from the teardrops, laughter, smiles, emotions and memories that color the mortal’s lives. For the immortals have lived through these memories more than a thousand times and still, we live. So we take the pain and use it as our advantage. Drugs, alcohol, war and we hurt ourselves with mortal pain. Still, we cannot die. It is tragic. Once, in many a year, two immortals will become friends, or more. But it cannot be true love, it is desperate love. And friendship doesn’t last forever. Only we do.

Now I bleed, so deeply do these swords cut, the wounds lasting so little time before they heal. But it is pain, mortal pain. Pain that makes me want to weep in joy, in sadness and also in anger. I want to curse the gods. I want to smile. I want to weep. But I can do none, without looking like a fool. So I stand there, this war will end soon. Then it will be back to the shelter of a home that is not a home. A crypt, foul, disgusting place. But it is secluded and I am never seen. What would the mortals think of someone living in a crypt, covered in blood? They wouldn’t think kindly of it.

                A wound opens in my heart from a bronze blade. I look up. A Greek blade. I kick up hard, slamming my black boot hard into this Greek’s chest and step on his body. This is an immortal war. No one will die. I am alone here. To have a friend would be a weakness. I don’t usually fight back, I selfishly keep my pain. But today I strike. My fierce black blade, made from molten lava, tearing at the weakened bodies of others. I feel no remorse for these foolish beings. Being made to live forever is torture; whoever made us this way should feel remorse. I wonder if what made us this way can see us now.

                I rip open the chest of another immortal. Letting them feel the anger of my fearless blows. Letting them feel the pain that they are here for. Blood, crimson little teardrops of pain, splash the forever barren ground. Mark the legacy of the war between immortals. Slowly it all fades. And we stand in a crowd. There was no warning. We are back from the battlefield. Several of them run away from the crowded street and back to their hiding places. I sit here, waiting for them to leave.

                Once they have all left, I am alone. So I sit on a little bench by the sidewalk, covered in blood. I wait for something. Something to happen. But nothing does. I slowly drift away to the time when I remember friends. I used to have friends, people who cared about me, knew my name. Didn’t call me “it”. I used to have a mother and a father. Then they all faded around me. They became nothing less than little memories that haunted me. Soon, I realized I couldn’t wait for them in the dusty house when I finally found out they were dead. I left.

                It took me a long time to learn my lesson about friendship. I made friends; I told them my parents had perished years before, along with my siblings. They felt pity. That was how I made friends in the beginning. But I watched those people disappear too. I was scared and alone. I had grown to the age of 18 and didn’t grow any older after that. I never understood the concept of death. But I knew it meant someone was gone. That they wouldn’t come back.

                I couldn’t go to school. I forgot about school. But for some reason I could read and write very well. I hid in different places, stole food. Food didn’t have a taste anymore. It was a time of nothingness. Things happened in the middle of that time that I do not risk telling anyone. But there were immortals that would see me now and recognize me, which is enough to say.

                It is late now, my sword, hidden deep in the depths of my jacket, pushes against my ribs. I start to see what is in front of me and it is time to disappear. So I stand up. Walking wouldn’t do much good, since I am still covered in blood. I run. Of course most mortals would think being immortal is a gift that would grant us powers, like reading minds or teleporting. Perhaps they thought that being immortal would make you fly. But speed and being nothingness was all it gave you. Speed we needed for getting away. Nothingness was to get through the loss from the beginning, and pass the time.

                Speed was what I used. To pass through the streets, to be the roads, the sky, the trees, shops, buildings, windows, grass and clouds. To be everything and to be nothing. Yet most mortals do not think of the inanimate objects as being something. But the truth is, we are all around you. That is why if you are drinking or eating something, looking outside at the trees, sitting on your couch, we could be there.

                I stop at the cemetery. Peeling out of the black pavement and coming back to my form. It is quiet. No birds sing, no people talk. It may seem eerie but it is also peaceful. Slowly do I enter the gates and go to the back of the hill. The crypt is desolate. A skeleton key is slipped from my pocket and entered in the door by my hand. Darkness and shadows envelope my eyes. The smell of clean death touches my nose and it may seem a confusing smell. But I am used to it.

                Winding for a couple of steps, through the dark, I reach my sleeping place. Where dreams scurry away from my rest. It is just another form of nothingness, sleep. Still, I let it overtake me, as another day in my useless life ends.

Author's Note

This is just the first chapter. I'm not promising to add more.

Reviews

[Elder Reeve]

It is really interesting, you have done a good job letting us know how this immortal feels. The beginning though is really confusing. You also don't explain where he is in the beginning, I think he was moved somewhere towards the middle but I am not sure. You should clarify that. Other than that it is a great story and I hope to hear more of it.