So that’s how it all started, a drunken walk back to a conference hotel, a weird glowing stone and my powers acting on its own again.

I woke up in what can only be described as a blank space. I was surrounded by a sea of white: The ground was white. The sky was white. The horizon, white. White, white, white, white, white.

I chose a random direction and started walking, I don’t know how long I walked for, but I walked until I couldn’t walk anymore and then when I got tired I stopped, and took a rest. This became my routine, walk, stop, and rest, repeat.

At some point I started marking the number of days on my hand using a pen I found in my right trouser pocket. I stopped doing that when the ink ran out.

I kept walking, my clothes started to fade in colour. I kept on walking, my shoes were worn through, I kept on walking. I never stopped walking. I had a lot of time to think while I was walking. I thought about anything and everything: why I liked listening to jazz on TV but never listened to it on my stereo. Why Jenny Carpenter went out with Dean Smith when Dean was the most gormless stupid looking buffoon to ever set foot on earth. If we live in an infinite universe, then the laws of infinity state that another earth also existed in which everything that I did were also done by an exact replica of me, and if the universe started to repeat itself was it an infinity or just a massive Mobius loop back to the original. But mostly I thought about my regrets, of what I could have done to change my life to make me and those around me happier.

By this point I was convinced I was dead and this was my personal hell, walking forever, pondering the useless mysteries of the universe, and what could have beens. At some point I stopped needing to rest, I just never noticed. I just kept walking. I forgot how to think and I kept on walking. I forgot who I was and I kept on walking and kept walking until, suddenly, after I don’t know how long I collapsed and slept. I felt my soul evolve, like I had finally realised some fundamental law of the universe, I felt the pain of bone deep tiredness, the pain of all those years of walking. But I also felt soul deep nourishment, better tasting than the best food I had ever tasted, more pleasurable than the best sex, it was rapturous.

I woke up to that blinding pure white light, knowing my torment had not yet ended. Suddenly I heard ... no more like felt ... something or someone near me, I sat up as fast I could, this caused my blood pressure to drop and I felt dizzy and had to lie back down again

“Careful there lad” I heard, the voice was that of a man, not young, low slightly gravely. There was a joyous undercurrent in his voice, but also something more ... profound sadness and loneliness.

I tried to speak up, but I couldn’t remember how, it had been so long since I had to speak, I tried to remember words, they were there just out of reach. It was like I was a little boy again, in my grandma’s back yard trying to pick mangoes, but they were just out of reach and no matter how hard I tried I just couldn’t jump high enough to reach.

The man helped me up and I got my first look at him, he looked to be in his late 60s, wrinkled, rugged, he liked to smile, he would have been very handsome in his younger days, he still was. I don’t know why but he reminded me of my mom’s cousin, Vikram, I called him Uncle Vicky, who was a colonel in the Indian army. There was something about this old man’s posture that screamed soldier, and not just a soldier, but an officer. The most striking thing about him however were his eyes, steel blue with silver specks, they were mesmerising. There was an unimaginable feeling of patience, love, kindness but also unimaginable sadness and loneliness. It was as if he had lived a countless lives, loved and felt the loss of everyone he ever knew dying before him. This man in front of me was an immortal.

I don’t know how I knew. He had spoken exactly three words to me and I had only seen him for the first time a few seconds ago, but I would have bet my life on it, this man was an immortal.

“Here, drink this.” He said giving me a glass of water. It was like a glass shattered in front of me and I realised all those years I walked, I hadn’t eaten or drunken anything. I took a tentative sip of water, then some more and then some more, it was the best tasting water I have ever tasted, so clean, fresh, pure. I kept drinking till I was full and returned that glass back, realising it was still half full.

“Hhh ... hello” I said, suddenly remembering how to speak again, like I had never forgotten

“Hello.” He smiled “I have never seen anyone keep walking till they forgot how to breathe”

“Am I ... dead?” I asked, not sure if I actually wanted to know.

“Good, god no!” he laughed

“Then where am I? How long have I been walking?” I asked calmly, weirdly calm. I should have been freaking out but I wasn’t. I was dead calm, walking for so long thinking I was dead.

“You are inside my legacy. Connected by the strings of time” he sighed “and you walked for 1849 years”

I stared back at him blankly, “1849 years” I repeated back ... that number was inconceivable, ludicrous, stupid, insane. I already believed I was dead now; I was starting to think I was mad as well.

“My name is John. I was born before they started counting days, before mankind as a concept even existed, since before human society crawled out of what you now call the Indus valley.” “I have lived a thousand lifetimes, loved, married the most beautiful woman to have ever existed. Fathered some of the most brilliant children to have walked this earth. I have been a grandfather, a great grandfather. I have seen humanity rise from the caves, and the plains, to great cities. I have seen humanity writing their stories on cave walls with animal blood and I have seen them grow to build greatest network of libraries, containing the greatest repositories of knowledge that man may ever know.” “I have seen war, famine, pestilence ravage humanity. I have seen unimaginable cruelty, committed by men who are revered as saints and I have seen monsters show kindness. I have watched on as everyone I ever knew died, helpless against the unrelenting march of time.” “The greatest curse that the gods ever cast ... was the gift of immortality. A joke so cruel, that the gods themselves stopped its practice.”

It was that last sentence shocked me. this strange man I just met was telling me he was older than civilisation and I was willing to believe that, but that last line...

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“Yes, even the gods are no longer immortal” he smiled at me “Not that it really matters anyway; they tended to kill each other off every few thousand years anyway.”

I took a few moments to digest that news. The gods were real, and no longer immortal. The other things I already knew, I knew about john’s curse of immortality since I first looked at his eyes. I knew deep in my soul. “You said something about your legacy?” I asked

“After spending thousands of years trying to die, I found a way, I could freeze myself in time and find a successor, I can burn my soul and use the energy from the immolation to shatter my soul and end my suffering. And pass on my curse”

I looked at him frowning “That doesn’t sound like dying.”

“No, shattering the soul won’t just kill me it will erase me. I won’t pass on, I will end. But at least my suffering will end. I can’t remember her face anymore...” there were tears in his eyes

“A successor ... why me?” I asked calmly far more accepting of this situation than I had any right to be.

“Your power, it is called void control, which makes you a void mage. It is far more powerful than you think. In its infancy the power is fairly weak, a useful storage space but not much else. However, as you progress it will grow in power exponentially, even allowing you to have control over the other elements and even capable of influencing the fabric of reality in its final stages.”

“But that’s not the reason you chose me.” I stated, not a question. I somehow knew this wasn’t about my cute little ability; I had the feeling that any power taken to the extreme could affect the fabric of reality. Also my ability had a name, void control, and I was a void mage.

“Correct. The reason I chose you is that you kept walking, for all those years, even after you lost yourself, even after forgot everything to the point you even forgot how to breathe, you kept walking. The walk can be called a test of will power. After all these years you are the only one to have passed”

I was strangely proud of that fact. I didn’t even think I could remember what pride would feel like after all those years. It felt like tasting cake icing for the first time, I didn’t like it, don’t get me wrong I like sweet things, but I have always felt that icing on cakes were too sweet. I didn’t like the feeling of pride ... that walk had fundamentally changed me.

“So, what happens now?” I asked john. “Do you pass on that legacy and I go back to the conference?”

“No. It’s a little more complicated than that, my dear boy. You walked for 1849 years do you really think you haven’t travelled anywhere?”

I stared back at him blankly, what can you even say to that?

“You didn’t walk across the earth however, you walked across my power.”

John had a power? Was this how he became an immortal? Or did all immortals have powers?

“Yes. The answer to the questions you are asking is yes.” He said with an amused look in his eyes “I am immortal because of my power and all immortals have power. But that’s not really saying much because apart from a few hidden old gods I am the only immortal.”

“Hidden old gods?...” I whispered still couldn’t get my mind around gods actually existing.

“Don’t worry about them; they are creatures of a bygone age. They are old and tired of fighting, they just roam the earth indulging in their hobbies ... gardening mostly” he dismissed the question with a wave of his hand.

“The reason for my immortality is my power, I have control over time. I can slow it down or speed it up according to my needs. I can even jump in time to wherever I wish: I have seen the dinosaurs roam this earth, the first creature to crawl out of the ocean, I have seen humans leave this earth and explore the universe, I have seen the sun explode and consume the earth, I have seen our star burn itself out, I have seen the last human die.”

“My power may seem unimaginably powerful, but the truth is it is limited. Time is one of the fundamental laws of the universe; I can’t normally stop time or go back in time to a point where I already visited. I can’t go back and see my wife or kids one last time.”

“To shatter my soul and finally end my life I had to do something that goes against the fundamental nature of time, I trapped my soul in that little pebble and stopped the time within until it was found by someone worthy. I made you, Emris, walk backwards through time, burning my soul and using that energy to allow you to march against the flow of time. I intend to pass on my legacy to you and then break the laws of time one last time to see my wife again for one last time”

This was a lot to digest; I had walked back in time for 1849years this would make it around the middle of the 2nd century AD. I was about to gain the legacy of an immortal, was I now an immortal? How would I live, I didn’t speak Latin(I knew that 2nd century Britain was part of the Roman Empire, from a TV show about wine of all places), and my English wouldn’t be the same, how would I blend in?

“Am I an immortal now? How am I going to live in roman Britain, is part of your legacy teaching me Latin?” I asked not quite as calm anymore.

“You were going against the flow of time; you only walked back to the early 6th century. As to the language barrier, it’s covered in the legacy. Your immortality is ... complicated. You are no longer part of the flow of time, your body won’t age, and your soul won’t die. But you aren’t a true immortal body isn’t as strong, your powers are barely active if you stay as you are now your time in this world you are about to enter won’t be a pleasant experience. The world you are returning to is not the same as the world you left, you will be entering the true world. A world where magic is real, the gods exist and walk among mortals. You will be entering this world as an outsider, your immortality an anathema. They won’t be able to kill you but they will try to harm your body, trap your soul.”

“The main part of my legacy is a way to improve your power, the method is actually derived from the eastern Taoists. Those misguided fools trying to go against the heavens in order to achieve immortality, if only they knew what lays there at the end of their journey. Controlling the essence of your power and guiding it around your meridians, assimilating your core slowly surpassing your human limits to ascend to godhood.” John explained slowly and clearly “Normally I would have to start by showing you how to detect the essence of your power in the surrounding world, teach you how to find the best spots where the concentration of essence is strongest, etc. etc. That could have been a problem however, my power is time, it always exists and flows at the same rate everywhere so I never actually had to learn detection, it was just always there. Luckily for us, your power Emris is void control and contains its own essence inside the void. This offers you a huge advantage as you will be able to increase your power without disturbing the essence concentration in the nearby areas allowing you to hide from the other mages, also the stronger you get, the more you can access the void which essentially makes it a positive feedback loop. This should increase your rate of improvement by a lot.”

“I am also going to give you the knowledge you need to survive including my knowledge of weapons, as well as information on a number of individuals I deem interesting. I will also give you all of my worldly possessions; soon, I won’t need them. Store the items in your void space, hopefully they will prove useful”

I had never done anything like this before but I somehow knew it would work; I concentrated on my power and imagined a door opening. A 3ft by 3ft hole (actually a square) opened up. John put his hand into the void and gave me his possessions. I made the gate disappear. John raised his hand reaching out to touch my forehead about to transfer his knowledge to me. I don’t know what made me pause at that moment, but for some reason a question popped into my head that I needed to ask. In the midst of all those revelations my question seemed out of place, but for some reason, at that moment this was the most important question in the world to me.

“Was it worth it? ... was she worth it? Were the few years with her worth the pain of missing her for thousands of years?”

He looked at me genuinely surprised at my question and simply smiled and said “Yes”.

He raised his hands pressed them around my temples. I looked into those mesmerising steel blue eyes; he had tears of happiness and joy in his eyes. He didn’t say thank you, it wasn’t necessary. He closed his eyes, I felt a pressure on my brain, and my world went blank.