I’m about to die.
But then, not really. You see, I always come back, though never as the same person, in the same time, or place. But ‘I’ continue to exist. I am a tapestry of many lives lived, woven with the threads of hard, chaotic times, and soft, peaceful times. Each thread shaping this ‘me’.
It may sound a little grandiose, but when you have lived as many lives as I have, the concept of ‘me’ and ‘I’ get a little blurred.
My last vision of this particular life was the blade that severed my neck and rapidly ended it. I was thankful the blade was sharp and the blow clean — it hurts less that way. The last sight lingered in my mind. The man wielding that life ending blade had wild eyes — filled with a desperation born of survival, not of malice.
Am I really ‘me’ anymore? The question haunts me each time I face death, plunging me into the depths of my own existential turmoil.
True immortality, the kind that promises eternal life, is nothing but a myth. Each life I’ve lived has been its own — distinct, finite. They die, I die. I am shaped by the cultures I find myself in, each incarnation unique, though some things stick with you — I have yet to live a life in which I have enjoyed the consumption of olives.
However, as for being immortalised in stone or memory — I have bad news. I’ve seen enough to know that time wipes all slates clean; Monuments crumble, writings fade, and memories distort. Names might endure, but they’re often twisted into unrecognisable legends, even in societies dedicated to preserving history.
But I don’t merely dwell on this flawed concept of immortality — I awaken to it. My mind initially festers in those shadowy thoughts before it rallies. I am, at my core, a traveller, a discoverer and I am about to embark on my newest journey.
***
“Welcome Ardeus” The Magnificent spoke, his voice a stony rumble echoing in this chamber of impossibility I knew as the ‘afterlife’.
“Hey Mags, that life was shorter than I had been expecting. War… the usual.” I sighed, still shaking off the remnants of emotions of my last existence.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
The Magnificent chuckled, his Draconic features looming above me. He was a constant in my carousel of lives. Once, curiosity had bested me, and I had asked him, would he die too? It was one of those rare moments when Mags was inclined to share more than just cryptic remarks. He explained they existed beyond my linear perception of time, appearing immortal from my standpoint. Yet, in his own words, even they had an endpoint, but time flowed for them in unfathomable ways to me.
“You do have a penchant for getting involved. Especially when you pick politically unstable,” He remarked, barely glancing over the giant clipboard-like object he always had clutched in his claws. “Interesting,” he hummed, the sound like rocks tumbling down a hillside.
“What is?” I asked, my curiosity piqued despite the weight of the memories I had made over the last lifetime still lingering, the sting of loss, and unfulfilled promises slow to fade.
“You have new options available, quite curious ones.”
“Hit me with it. Though, I did try the orphan run before — I made it into adult life, remember?”
“No, Ardeus, you misunderstand. They are new options to me.”
I froze, looking up at Mags. His cryptic nature was nothing new to me, but this hint of something unprecedented to him was unsettling. After all my lives the notion of surprising Mags was strange. In previous conversations, I had uncovered the fact there were many like me, and I was just one of Mags’ charges — the amount of lives lived and choices offered he had seen would be vast.
I waited for Mags to break the silence, respecting the eminent being and the wisdom he brought to every conversation. Watching him as his brow furrowed thoughtfully, and his claws tapping rhythmically. I had known Mags for what felt like an eternity, yet even that felt too human a concept, too linear. To me, Mags existed as an eternal constant, always and forever. He once likened our difference by comparing a human and an ant. For the ant, our lives seem vast and incomprehensible, our actions like those of an eldritch being. In the same way, Mags’ existence transcended my understanding, placing him in a realm far beyond my human grasp.
His voice startled me from my internal pondering.
“The first; you now have the option to reincarnate as your seed-self. The original you. You can take the options to start life as a baby, child or adult, and most any other modifiers you’re used to taking.”
A pause, comprised of a large dry inhale from Mags before he continued.
“The second; you now have an option to step off the — as you like to call it — carousel, forever.”
His words hung in the air between us, his eyes holding mine from over his giant clipboard. They flashed with an emotion I didn’t recognise from all my time knowing him.
An end. I thought as a shiver travelled down my spine