Immortality is not all that it's talked up to be

An immortal being attempts to relate to and comfort a human who is afraid of death

He has been my best friend for nearly seven decades. My eccentric ways never scared him off and it certainly never dampened our relationship like it had most others. Though I have endured nearly seven thousand years on this planet, I have yet to meet a heart quite like his own. To love him was to love air, it was natural and facile. Now, I watch him as an old man, his frail body bed ridden by the relentless father time. How I wish I could take his pain, or at the very least, die with him so we can travel on. But I am a cursed man. A wandering being with nothing but time and a lot of dead friends.

"John, my dear old friend, how are you feeling?", I ask him worriedly as he lies under some crimson satin bed sheets. His old wrinkly face the only flesh showing.

His first attempt to talk is met by a harsh cough and a slight gasp of air.

"Sammy, you like you have seen a ghost. Cheer up bucko. I am alive, aren't I? I may look like a skeleton but trust me, there's still a little meat on the bones!", he jokingly says, his gentle face smiling back at me with what little energy he can muster up.

We both share a somber laugh but my heart aches to see him like this.

"They told me... they told me you asked for me. They said it was urgent", I whisper to him quietly, acting as if the words will cause a commotion.

"Yeah, well, I do not know how urgent it is but I did want you here today. I have to ask you something very personal"

I sadly stare down at his defeated body, my eyes start to fill with tears. Don't do it John, I think to myself. Please don't ask me to do it

"You remember that time you told me you were immortal? We were having a beer with those two gals we met at the Lafayette County Fair... You were acting like a weirdo of course", He says with a slight grin as he stares off into the distance.

"Of course I do John... You were the first person I had told in nearly 500 years. How could I forget...?"

"Good, so you remember. I'm testing you, you old bag of bones. Here comes part two. Later that evening when were stumbling through the city square, do you remember what you told me?"

My eyebrows arch in confusion. Believe it or not, drinking was a pastime I rarely participated in. I guess when you watch good people ruin their lives at the hands of something as foolish as that poison, you tend to stay away from it.

"I--I can't recall. Jeez man, how drunk were we?"

He starts to laugh out loud, it's the closest thing to a stereotypical John laugh I have heard in sometime.

"Oh buddy, you had those crazy googly eyes. We were beyond drunk". he says to me, gesturing his hands in circular motions around his face to describe how I looked. "Anyways, you said something to me that would forever change my perspective on life. I was on a bad path before I met you... I had no hope for this world. You changed everything for me that night... everything"

I take a step back in disbelief, I can feel the blood leave my face. I thought he was going to ask me to end his life. I thought that is why he asked me here. But never did I think he would do this. Not after everything I had told him.

"John... you mustn't. You have no idea what you are messing with."

He slowly leans up in his bed and proceeds to push up his cotton sleeve shirt to show his wrist. There it is, the symbol of immortality carved freshly on his skin. The blood still bright red from the ceremony.

"That night, you said you would comfort me on my death bed. You said I would never have to be afraid."

No, no this cannot be happening.

"I know you speak of immortality like it is the curse of the universe... I understand that but it's my choice. I don't want to die. I have realized that."

Once that blood dries, the ceremony is completed. There is only one way...

I start to cry, tears rush down my cheek and stain the old oak floor below. I gently walk towards him, my body desperately trying to turn around.

"Why... why are you crying Sammy? We can do so much now. We can conquer the world, we can change the world. You name it, we can do it!", he says, his voice slightly manic.

"John... I am so sorry. This is for you, I swear on everything, this is for you!", my voice raises in despair.

I put the pillow over his face, he struggles beneath it until there is no more movement.

I clinch his lifeless hands within my own, my head firmly rested on the bed near his dead body.

I cry the whole night and plead to whatever higher being may be listening.

Please, kill me.. please just kill me... Have I not paid my debt?