Michael Slater was ready to die.
He was a hundred and three, possibly much older with Ionadian blood in his veins, their average lifespan a minimum of a hundred and twenty, and since he was a street child for most of his young life he did not know his birthday, but celebrated it on Christmas, and guessed his age as he went along in life.
Michael was bored.
He had gone blind, and had arthritis, and laid in bed, ready to die, bored because there was little to do. He could not enjoy his large garden because of his arthritis, he could not even read because he was blind, and the only thing left he could do was little magic tricks with his ability.
So Michael laid in his large bed, the white and blue striped sheets, and he waited to die because there was nothing left to do, and nothing left to see.
“Michael, good morning,” Santos said.
Michael swore under his breath, and he started yelling at Santos, then coughing, his old body exerting too much power.
“Stop that,” Michael rasped. “All of you are so quiet, it's petrifying, you know I can’t see, I have to hear you enter!”
“I, I’m sorry,” he mumbled.
Santos sat on the bed, and held the old man’s grey and spotted hands, and hated that they all broke so easily, and hated that even when they stayed it wasn’t for very long. So he asked him the same question he asked him every day since he was thirty.
“Do you want to stay with me, forever,” Santos asked.
Santos expected the usual no, but instead, there was a hint of hesitation. Instead of answering, he deflected.
“Tell me what you’re wearing,” Michael commanded.
“That’s a little dirty, don’t you think,” Santos laughed. “I don’t think Sara would like that.”
“You know I’m curious! I can’t see a thing!”
Santos described the color of his shirt that said Hoverboard Cup ‘71 , a strange salmon pink, and Michael chuckled because Santos didn’t want the color, it was the last one they had in his size, and he complained about the match, how it was rigged.
“You can probably see better than that referee,” Santos seethed.
“The way you describe that match, I am starting to believe it,” Michael chuckled.
He kept laughing, and it turned into a wet cough, and little splatters of blood were on his hand, but Michael didn’t know, so he rubbed it on his bedsheet, and Santos said nothing, he said nothing about the many marks of blood all over the sheets, and the smell of death, and age, and urine, because he knew that this was what happened when someone died, that it was what should have happened to him if he were ever human, but he wasn’t.
“The kids tell me that they want me to stay, especially since Joshua, Solomon, and Sara died,” Michael said.
His two eldest sons and wife had left before him, and Michael didn’t want anyone else to bury, another reason to leave quickly.
“So take my blood,” Santos replied. “I can’t promise it will be great since you’re pretty old-”
“No! Listen! You’re so stubborn,” Michael grumbled.
Santos listened politely, the only man in the world who could tame him telling him a fantastical tale.
“Do you remember that angry sword we found, years ago,” Michael asked.
“I don’t. I’ve seen a lot of weird shit,” Santos said. “It kind of just blurs together after thousands of years.”
“I admit, I have not been around as long as you, and it took me some time to remember it, but the kids have discovered something amazing.”
“So what about the sword,” Santos asked.
Santos had a small smile, as somehow Michael, in his old age talked about how there was a proper way to do things, and how, that sword had no manners at all, no house training, and Santos was convinced that personality was genetic because three of his sons spoke the same, and sometimes Leviathan as well.
“ Don’t you remember the talking sword? It called you promiscuous. This sword, it called me a born liar, so I chucked it into Lake Sarai! When I went back the next week it was gone!”
“No…I really don’t care for something like that,” Santos sighed. “So they found the talking sword? What of it?”
“No. They want to make me into one,” Michael said, stone-faced and serious.
Santos burst out in laughter.
“Old man, your kids are trying to kill you faster for the inheritance money,” Santos cackled.
“Don’t be gross, if they want to, they could have killed me long ago,” Michael grumbled.
Santos stopped laughing and politely apologized.
“Before Joshua died he found the ring we based the Rings of Fealty on, so he wanted more. The more he spoke to the ring, the more it told him that he could make more, trapping souls inside them,” Michael said.
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“Wait. The Rings of Fealty have souls inside them?”
“Just pieces.”
“Dude, that’s fucked.”
“I want to die because I am bored, but I don’t want to go to Hell,” Michael admitted. “I know I will, because of what I have done.”
Santos burst into laughter again, his melodic voice shaking the walls, and Michael was angry because it was serious, but every time he tried to be serious Santos was inappropriate, or made some kind of sex joke, and the material rarely changed over the years.
“You’re insane,” Michael whispered. “I admit my sins and you laugh?”
“Who among us is without sin,” Santos snickered. “I eat people! Don’t expect me to judge!”
Michael sighed and nodded, wondering why he expected a normal reaction from a lunatic.
“The thing is, they perfected it, my grandchildren. They can put me inside one of them, and I won’t have to die,” Michael said.
Santos held his hands, and looked into his eyes, once blue, but now riddled with cataracts, and it was not fair, because he was losing him twice, and he would not be able to see him again, his old brain filled with lies and fairy-tales of a talking sword and friendly rings.
“You can’t do it, what if it doesn’t work,” Santos said.
“What if it does?”
“Why can’t you just listen to me for once, in your life, Asher!?”
Michael smiled, and he laughed, and Santos again was embarrassed, that he needed an emotional support human.
“I know about Asher,” Michael said. “Your wife told me.”
“Which one?”
“Nymphadora.”
“ This bitch never listens.”
“It’s ok, it’s alright,” Michael said, patting Santos’s hands. “It’s odd, but I understand after I lost Joshua.”
“I should have worked better at keeping this a secret.”
“Did you think I would never ask? You kept on calling me Asher so often, I knew it had to be someone important to you.”
“Shut up.”
“I even made Levi’s middle name Asher! Didn’t that tip you off?”
“You have like, forty-seven grandchildren, I can’t remember them all,” Santos shouted. “I can’t even remember most of my own kid’s names!”
They continued to squabble and chit-chat until the live-in nurse came, and told Santos that he had to leave because it was time for him to take his medicine, and he left to return tomorrow, around the same time, around nine in the morning, and the nurse looked forward to his visits because whenever he came, twice a week on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, Michael’s day was a little bit brighter.
So Santos came on Wednesday, and Michael hugged him, which he rarely did, not because he didn’t like him, he loved him, but because he didn’t like hugging in general. The hug was very long, and Santos knew that this was the last day he would see him, so he refused to leave, and he sat in the chair until Michael made him.
“I don’t want you to see what my sons will do when they come in later tonight,” Michael said.
“I don’t want you to die, so stop this.”
Michael slowly sat up, and he coughed, and he wheezed and looked at Santos, and said something cruel. His words making everything a reality, Santos was powerless as Michael made him leave.
“Sleep Time.”
“No, you can’t-”
Michael heard a soft thump to the ground, and Santos fell asleep.
When he awoke, he was in his room in the house, the one he used when he stayed over and he tried not to scream, the sound stifled in his throat, tricked by an old man and his sly children.
He ran out of the room, down the wooden floors, and down the main staircase, where the entire family was. The living eleven children, forty-seven grandchildren, and a few great-grandchildren as well, were all crowding the foyer, talking excitedly and Santos broke off a piece of the banister because Michael was alive.
His left eye blinked, then his right, because Michael was alive and young again, standing in the foyer, under the glaring light of the chandelier, talking to his family as if it were the most natural thing, a ghost amongst the living.
Everyone went quiet as Santos looked at him.
They were not sure how he would take this, but he didn’t do anything dangerous, so it was seen as a win.
“Michael, what did you do,” Santos asked.
Michael held up the little gold cross around his neck and smiled.
“Isn’t this neat? I get to hang out a bit if the person wearing it is fine with it.”
“Who? Who is this? What are you doing?”
Santos grabbed him by the shoulders, and he cried, and everyone hugged him, and they all surrounded him, and there was no more pretending needed because he wasn’t alone.
“It’s okay. It’s okay, Santos.”
Michael’s hair became lighter, his body a little shorter, and in front of him stood Rikka, fifteen and still living the teenage dream. She joined their group hug, they took turns hugging him, telling him that they loved him, even Maximillian gave him a friendly nod.
“Grandpa said you were sad when your son died, but it's okay,” Rikka said. “It won’t happen again, because now we can live forever, as long as we keep doing this.”
“How long can we keep it up,” Sally asked.
“Not for long,” Michael Slater III said. “If we keep putting each other into objects, won’t there be more objects than hosts after a few generations?”
All the Slaters, young and old, and their pet vampire, all came up with their own theories because no one thought that they could get this far, and it was all so exciting, the possibilities endless, immortality, and godhood within reach.
The little ones did not understand, but they were happy that grandpa was around, and the adults did not bother to explain, because who would believe the story of a child, claiming their dead grandfather came to visit them every now and then?
After a few years, the Slaters realized that there were drawbacks to putting themselves into objects and that their transformation of the host was only temporary, and as Michael III said, after some time, there would be more objects than hosts in a very short time.
A few months later, the process of transferring one’s soul to an object was “lost”, Maximilian’s older siblings afraid of what he would do with it.