Though never buried, each immortal becomes their own grave.

-A Corpsman Attempts History, page 5

“So, you lost your partner,” the therapist said, studying her watch, “my condolences.”

Deanna said nothing. She had been thrown in here by Captain Melvin and a few guards, but hadn’t found the motivation to resist them. Not after yesterday; she hadn’t slept at all. And not with the sight of Magnus slowly becoming immobile, his screams turning more and more constrained.

And his eyes. The desperate hope flickering within, begging her to do something.

The therapist cleared her throat, looked back from her watch, and gave Deanna a flat look. “Well, what do you want me to do?”

Firmly in the autumn of her middle age, she wore no glasses. No wrinkles, either. A mop of stark blonde hair that would have been fashionable twenty years ago waved as she shook her head and sighed. Does anyone from Fairhair age naturally?

She spoke in a thick Norwegian accent, and had been annoyed once she had to switch to lowly English.

“Hello?” the therapist waved her hand rapidly in front of Deanna.

“I don’t know.” she mumbled

The therapist leaned back. “Well, Diana, I am obligated to say my name is Guro.”

“Dee-anna,” Deanna looked up sharply, “not Die-anna.”

“Alright.” The older woman smacked her lips, and started reading from her workpad. “So, are you sad?”

“Kinda.”

Guro nodded, and ticked a box on the tablet. “This was your first partner?”

“Mhm.”

“Okay,” she continued in her sing-songy accent, “well, try to not be sad when it happens the next time. And remember,” She squinted at her tablet, following the words with her eyes, “the best therapy is in a full tank.”

Deanna squinted back. “That’s the best you can-”

“Next!” Guro shouted.

Guards opened the door, and waved for Deanna to follow. She sighed and got up. Waiting in the hallway outside was a tall, curly haired fellow from 2nd Brigade. He carried himself with military confidence. “Morning, sunshine,” he said with an upward nod, “Come here often?”

She ignored him, continuing down the drab, cramped hallways, eager to do anything else.

…

Evelyn had awoken that morning, and wondered where Magnus was. One look at Will was enough to remind her.

He had taken it very badly, barely saying anything before they went to bed. None of them had. Silence was the prevailing factor, both among the group, and in Evelyn’s mind.

But the morning buzzer sounded all the same.

The mess hall was even quieter than usual. Only Seamus and Cillegia showed up initially, giving Evelyn a vague hope that Branaghan was finally gone. But he and Kitsch trundled out from their cabin eventually, and stood in a horizontal line with the rest of them. And with Deanna having been led away by Melvin, Vanham had a pitiful audience.

“Congratulations,” he said haughtily, “If none of you deck each other today, this will be your seventh day in the Corps.” He snorted. “There are unusually few of you. Though I’ve rarely seen a group go on as many blimmin’ missions as you lot.”

He walked down the line and looked each person in the eye. He stopped in front of Evelyn, eyes attempting to stare her into the ground. “I have been commanded,” he said resentfully, “to apologise to you for provoking a confrontation.”

She straightened her posture and smiled back. “No need, mate. You’ve got a good face for punching, anyhow.”

“Lieutenant.” he muttered, before turning back to the others. “New recruits arrive today. Fifty-four of them. You buggers are expected to assist in their training and acclamation to the Corps.”

Brannaghan cleared his throat. “Why didn’t we have anyone like that a week ago?”

“Yeah,” Kitsch added, “what happened to the guys before us?”

Vanham set his stern eyes on the pair and ground his teeth for a moment. He spoke his next words precisely.“They were not present. Now shut your pie hole.”

Will raised a hand. “Permission to inquire, Lieutenant?”

“Granted.”

“Fifty-four new recruits means one person is not in a pair, Lieutenant. Deanna lost her partner yesterday.”

Evelyn could see him strain at that last sentence.

“Blimey, you know maths?” Vanham replied. He sounded vaguely genuine.

Will sighed. “Yes, Lieutenant.”

Vanham smiled. “A man in 2nd Brigade lost his partner yesterday. He will be sent here with the rest.”

Wonder who that is, Evelyn thought.

The pling of a bell interrupted that thought, and Evelyn’s stomach remembered how empty it was.

Deanna arrived shortly after Evelyn and Will had sat down. She was grieving, it seemed, failing to hide it. She did eat, however.

Evelyn still didn’t know how to feel about it. She felt numb, as always, but the feeling was stronger now. More incessant. She preferred that to the alternative.

Once Deanna was seated, they ate in silence. Eventually, Seamus plodded over and sat down next to Deanna. He smoothed back his thin white hair. “I’m sorry, lass.” He was unusually morose. “I know how you’re feeling. Thrice over.” He pointed at Will. “And so does he.”

Will nodded.

Deanna put her plastic fork down. “I don’t need any more therapy. Especially not after that joke of a therapist Melvin sent me to.”

Seamus laughed heartily. “Aye, old Guro’s not the best there is. You’ll feel better talking to a flock of rats than you will her. Trust me, I’ve tried, and let me tell ya. Those Englishmen don’t listen very well.” He winked at Will, who simply shook his head. Evelyn thought she spotted a slight smile forming.

Evelyn gulped down some apple juice. “Didn’t know they had therapists on board.”

Seamus chuckled. “Oh, they do. It’s part of the initiative for increasing morale on board.”

Evelyn raised an eyebrow.

“Aye,” Seamus said, tugging at his pink uniform. “D’you ever wonder why Ithunn Himself dressed us like this, lass?”

“To humiliate us?” Deanna spat.

Seamus looked offended. He must actually see that bastard Ithunn as a religious symbol. After multiple weeks in the Corps, how could he still be so zealous?

“No,” he said, smiling broadly, “it’s to cheer us up!”

“Keeping up your production is the best way to mental health,” Deanna sneered, like she was reading from a script.

“Precisely.”

Their voices were echoing off the bare walls in that vacuous room. “If we’re supposed to be so cheery, why does this place make me want to hug a moving train?”

A child’s voice sounded behind her. “My apologies, I failed to secure funding for the feng shui-department this year.”

Will turned, and sprang up to salute Melvin.

“Captain.” Evelyn muttered.

Melvin smiled. “At ease, Will.” He rounded the table, immaculately pressed uniform swishing. Reaching into a pocket, he handed something to Seamus.

“As thanks for your good behaviour.”

Seamus looked down at a small, official-looking piece of paper, then sharply up at Melvin. “T-thank you, Captain!”

“No need to thank me. You’ve completed your service dutifully, well enough to skip a day.” The child captain winked. “Though you should try not to steal any more serum.”

“Aye, Captain!”

“Good. The helicopter for the new recruits leaves base in an hour. Be ready at the flight deck in fifty.”

Seamus beamed, accepting congratulations from Cillegia, Will, and even a few of the cooks.

That doesn’t happen very often, does it? Four more weeks…

…

After breakfast, Melvin had seen it fit to give them a one hour break before refinery duty. Evelyn decided to spend it in their cabin. She needed to lie down.

All of it weighed on her mind. Magnus, the weird hallucinations, the sheer immensity of the next four weeks.

Twenty eight days. One for every year she claimed to have lived. How could she survive them? She’d almost gotten taken on the first mission, saved only by Will. How long would it take until either of them were lost forever?

And why had she even allowed herself to get close to them? She was forced to sleep in the same room as Will, so that made sense, but why Deanna? Why Magnus? Why Seamus? Two of them would be gone by the end of the day. She would likely never see either again. It hurt, vaguely. A familiar pain, comforting, but felt through a thick veil. One that brought back memories. Huddling together, mourning a pet. Better times.

Better people.

A knock on the cabin door. Seamus walked in. He seemed older now than he had in the days prior, less energised. As if he could finally relax.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“I’ll be leaving soon, lassie,” he sat down on Will’s bunk. “Thought I’d say goodbye.”

“I’m happy for you,” she said, trying to actually feel like it.

“You don’t have to pretend. It’s alright to feel sorry for yourself, lass. Especially here.”

She grunted in reply.

“You don’t have to say anything, either.” He went silent for a moment, then began speaking. “Five weeks, eh? One of the longest sentences I’ve seen so far.”

“Stop bragging.”

“Oh I’m not bragging, lass. My first partner had six. Her name was Margrethe. Norwegian lady, but actually pretty nice. Just like your Will, there.”

*My* Will?

Seamus kept going. “Didn’t get the details of what she’d done. But rumour was, she’d had an affair with an Ithunn Corporation executive. Now I never believed that - why would He Himself hire, and immortalise, someone like that? - but the rumour remained.“

“How did she get taken?” Evelyn asked.

“Oh, she got out. Taught me a lot before she went. You don’t survive that long without knowing what you’re doing. Six weeks of knowledge, that’s a rare thing indeed. Y’know, most don’t make it past the second mission. You know why?”

“Bad luck?”

“Lack of experience. You, three missions in, know more than most on this ship by now. And I know what you’ve been thinking. Best case scenario, Will is home in two weeks time. Deanna in three. Me in ten minutes. And you’ll be alone.”

Echoes of her hallucination appeared.

Alone.

“Thanks for reminding me.”

“I remind you,” he spoke soothingly, “because you will get a new partner after a while.”

“If I make it that far.”

“If you make it that far,” he conceded. “But by that point, you will be like me. A veteran. And we rarely get taken.”

“I thought Will’s old partner was a veteran too?”

“Aye. Rarely does not mean never. But he taught Will how to survive.”

And he’s been teaching me.

“So, lass, you’re not as doomed as you think.”

“Thanks. By the way, can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“Have you heard anything about gargoyles being hallucinogenic?”

He stood up, looked at her suspiciously. “I, uh. In some ways. Why do you ask?”

“I fell into one on my first mission. I.. saw something.”

“Right. I’ve only heard of one case, but He is… No. That was long ago.” He met her eyes, with an intensity she had never seen from him. “How old did you say you were, lassie?”

She felt a stab of anxiety. “Twenty eight.”

He searched for something in her eyes for a time. “Alright,” he said after a while. He walked to the doorway, then turned to her. “Goodbye, Evelyn. Take care of yourself.”

“Likewise,” she said, and he stepped out of the doorway.

Mid step, he turned back again, glancing at her wrist. “Oh, and one more thing. I don’t think they can control you as much as they say. Make sure they don’t figure it out.”

She looked down at her multicoloured wristband, the blue day-counter flashing at her. “What?”

“You’ll find out.”

“Okay”, she said as he walked away, “Coy bastard.” What did he mean by that?

…

After another few minutes of mulling over Seamus’ words, they were sent to the refinery. Since they were so few, their shift was relatively small.

One monotonous shift later, and it was time to meet the new recruits. Evelyn, Will and Deanna watched from the entrance of the mess hall as the gaggle of orange-clothed prisoners descended on the elevator. They huddled together, bent and broken, anxiety palpable from the ground. Some, however, gasped at the sight of the massive cargo hold, much as Evelyn had done that night. It was barely a week ago, yet it felt so long ago.

Deanna shielded her eyes from a bright sodium light above her. “Damn, did we really look like that?”

“Yes,” Will said, “Vanham has that effect on people.”

As they were herded towards the processing centre, Evelyn could see Melvin sitting in one of the booths.

“What’s Melvin even doing here? He’s the bloody captain, shouldn’t he be manning the helm or something?”

“He likes to keep in touch with the people under him.” Will said, with a hint of admiration. “Though immortal, he seems quite the humble man.”

Deanna tapped her foot. “What’s his deal anyway? How does an immortal even end up here? And why’s he still a kid?”

“I do not know,” Will pondered, “maybe he was assigned to his position?”

I have a few ideas. Evelyn thought. Best not to share them, though.

When the inmates began getting paired up, Deanna thought it best to go secure a table in the mess hall. Evelyn followed, grumbling at the thought of that huge crowd hogging all the food.

Soon after they sat down, tired-looking people began trickling into the mess hall, still wearing their orange prison shifts and rubbing their new wristbands. Most looked uncertainly at Deanna and Evelyn, or shuffled awkwardly around, staying in their pairs. Some talked with each other, some didn’t. Some even looked hopeful. Will gave ‘em a pep talk, no doubt. Yet no one approached them. Did Evelyn look that scary?

Finally, Will trailed in behind the last of the prisoners, sat down next to Evelyn.

“Recognize any of ‘em?” Evelyn asked.

“No,” Will said, “but you might. It sounded like quite a few of them came from Vercingetorix.”

Evelyn shrugged. “Musta been another protest. Besides, don’t think I would know many of ‘em. Hadn’t been on that old rustbucket for long before I came here.”

Of all the city-ships, Vercingetorix was the oldest. It was one of the original military carriers-turned refugee vessel after Europe fell, renamed by Ithunn to suit its location a few years after the Fall. Evelyn had only been there for around two years, but that was long enough to join her share of protests. The French hadn’t exactly lost their penchant for civil unrest over the centuries.

Will nodded. “Still, we should try to get to know them.”

Should we really? She could tell Deanna was thinking something similar.

A man approached them from the cargo hold, tall and strongly built, with curly black hair. He wore the pink uniform, but Evelyn didn’t recognize him. Neither did Will, as he made ready to greet him.

The man confidently approached Deanna, smiling. “Come here often?” he said in a suave american accent.

Deanna rolled her tired eyes. “You again.”

“Me again.” He sauntered next to Deanna, not even looking at Evelyn or Will.

“Who are you again?”

The strange man flashed his armband. “Your new partner,” he said. It had the same colours as Deanna’s, but was larger and stretched further up the arm, more a cuff than a wristband.

Deanna put her head in her hands, mumbling. “God damnit”.

Will rose, extending a hand. “I am Will, nice to make your acquaintance.”

The man took the hand, gave Will a look of superiority. “Tariq. Likewise.” Though Will was taller than him, he was still imposing. Would like to see him and Vanham interact, Evelyn mused.

Tariq sat down next to Deanna, keeping a surprisingly respectful distance. “I never did get your name, sweetheart.”

“For good reason.”

“Aww, don’t be like that.” He leaned back. “I see that the therapy session didn’t work.”

“Please Tariq,” Will said softly, “be nice. She lost her partner yesterday, a dear friend to us all.”

He looked confused. “So did I.”

Will smiled. “Then you must know how she feels.”

“Not really, you mortals die all the time anyway.”

Will leaned forward. “Us mortals?”

“Mhm.” Tariq pulled up his left sleeve, showing a tattoo of an arrow shattering against a heel. “101st Elysian.”

Will looked awestruck, something Tariq seemed to revel in. He noted Evelyn’s lack of a reaction. “Never heard of us?”

“How’d you get a tattoo if your skin can’t be pierced?” she responded flatly.

“The three years before we’re inducted into the Division, we’re isolated.” He attempted to subtly flex his muscles. “Becoming the peak of human evolution, carefully monitored to not break anything in the meantime. We get this one a few months before we take the first dose.”

“So you are… immortal?” Will asked reverently. “How old are you, if I may ask?”

Tariq smiled haughtily. “I’ve lost count, boy. Nearing ninety soon, I think.” He didn’t look older than twenty five.

Evelyn still wasn’t convinced, but had no way to do her usual tests. Damned ship and its lack of sharp objects.

Deanna shared Evelyn’s suspicion, having gotten over the initial shock. “How did you end up here, then? Thought you army guys were set for life.” Deanna said, playing with her hair.

“Can’t tell you.”

She batted her eyelashes. “Oh, that’s a shame.”

Tariq saw it, hesitated for a moment. “Though Icarian could’ve just had me on house arrest… You know what, fuck him. Lean in, I’ll tell you. Try not to spread it around too much.”

Very subtle, Dee, well done.

Will leaned fully in, Evelyn stayed a bit further back.

Tariq’s face turned unexpectedly sober, voice soft. “They found a cure.”

Evelyn snorted. As if. Any bozo could get that tattoo. Why should she believe him?

Will was speechless, looked like his head was boiling over with thoughts.

“You expect us to believe that, too?” Deanna asked.

“I don’t,” he said, “ I don’t. No one does. But they used it on Brick. Hank, my… my friend. Saw a needle sticking into his arm. Cuts. He was mortal. The bastards.” His voice was a concoction of anger, disappointment, melancholy. And she could hear then a sudden age in it. A time-worn fatigue.

Maybe… If there truly was a cure, then… Then what? She hadn’t ever seriously considered it, not since those early days. Maybe she could finally put a stop to it.

The dinner bell rang, and she reflexively rose to meet it. The meal was good, roast chicken wrapped in bacon. Evelyn was exhausted, however, and they retired to their bunks quickly afterwards.

She climbed into bed and stared at the ceiling.

“Evelyn?” Will asked from under her.

“Yeah?”

“Please do not misconstrue me, but why have you barely said anything about Magnus?”

She snorted, scratching at the scab. That was unusually blunt. Why hadn’t she said anything? She found herself drifting again, aimless. Like she’d been doing ever since her brother died. She felt like she often did when losing someone she knew. Numb. Eerily calm. Angry. Not at having lost the person, not at having gotten close to them. Angry that she still felt nothing. “I ask myself the same thing.”

“Do you wish to talk about that?”

“No.”

“Oh. Alright. Though you should know, it could not hurt to open up a bit.”

“I know that.” Again, with the patronising… “It’s just… I’m not you, mate. I can’t just talk to any old sod all willy nilly, give ‘em my life story.”

Will said nothing for a while. “I do remember you telling some of your life story to an “old sod” a few days back.”

“Seamus was different,” she shot back. He really was different, huh? What did he know? “Anyway, d’you believe Tariq at all?”

“Yes. I must confess, I have not met many immortals, but he does seem like one.”

“And the stuff he said about a cure?”

“It has been rumoured for decades.”

“Centuries.”

“Indeed. My view is, we have no reason to believe him, but we do have a reason to hope he is correct. Though I would not know how a cure could work. The gargoyle is such a mysterious creature at its core… What about you?”

“Same. I wanna believe him, but I don’t. Not until I see it.”

“If there was one, we wouldn’t have to be here.” Will said wistfully.

“If there was one, we would be in a different prison for a while. I would, at least.” She thought for a moment. “Wait. I’ve never asked you how you got here.”

“You have not. It was because of my father.”

“I can believe that. Did he help Seamus with stealing that serum?”

“No, no. He ran out of it.”

“Ran out of serum? Is he one of them? Is that why you want a cure?”

“Yes, he was one of them. He died a few years ago.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

“He was twenty when Europe fell. Escaped from there with all my family, but my Grandparents.” His voice broke, and she could hear him sniffling. “They’re still in Oslo, suffering. I promised her, if I could just get that cure…”

Oh, man. She didn’t know what to do. Then she thought of her brother.

“We’ll talk to Tariq tomorrow, mate. Find some way to test if he’s immortal or not. If he’s here, and immortal, they would’ve needed a damn good reason. Leaking corporate secrets could be one.”

“Yes, thank you. We will do that.”

He seemed content with that, so Evelyn laid down to sleep. Would she see that creature again?

“Evelyn.”

“Yes?”

“If he speaks the truth, what then?”

“Dunno. Think you have to consider that when you’re out of here, mate.” If you get out, that is.

“Agreed. I need to start planning.”

“For what?”

“Escape.”