The Immortal, The King, The Smuggler, The Prisoner
Anonymous
The Immortal
The immortal is roused from his sleep by the gentle tap of rain on the windowsill. He shakes himself free of silken sheets and shuffles to the vanity, rubbing sleep from his eyes.
The room is awash in soft blues under the gentle light of the moon, but he casts a long shadow against the wooden boards. He touches his face, admiring the unmarked and smooth skin, and smiles. A suit is picked from his wardrobe—nice enough to flatter him but not enough to stand out—and heads off.
It’s nighttime, and the streets are quiet save for the bar at the centre of town. Raucous laughter echoes off the stone walls around the building, and silhouettes of people dance in the windows. When he walks in, his appearance through the front doors goes unnoticed amidst the drunkenness of the customers. Wrinkling his nose in disgust, he situates himself in a darkened corner. After a few minutes, a pretty blonde stumbles over, and he buys her a drink.
They leave hours later with her draped over him in an unflattering manner. Her cheeks are flushed red from wine, and now seems incapable of stringing together more than a few words, each sentence offset by giggles. She’s still giggling as he pulls her down the street, past the bridge and out the city.
“That’s real nice,” she slurs when he places his lips on her neck. The heat of her body sinks through his suit, hot against the water soaking his feet. “‘s nice,” she murmurs. He bites softly, and a familiar coppery tang hits his tongue. A soothing warmth runs down his throat. “Real nice.”
Her words grow fainter and more garbled, until she collapses, face ashen. The soft ebb and flow of the lake pulls her in, slowly, and soon she’s gone.
He’s filled with a sudden giddiness, and can’t resist the urge to throw his arms in the air and laugh. He can already feel the strength in his muscles, to his bones, to his heart. He feels so alive—
—until he feels the fire licking at his body. Every inch of him is burning, and he screams, and sobs, because it hurts so bad—
The King
The king gasps as he wakes, fire crawling up his skin. His fingers claw at his throat, still choking on the memory of smoke and thick heat. The morning light is blinding. Tears singe the corners of his eyes, and—no, no, no. He’s better than that. He fumbles with the sleeves of his dressing gown, and rolls out of bed.
A servant brings him breakfast—stuffed turkey and grapes—which he eats in his study. The sticky juice of the meat runs down his chin and stains his robes, so he takes that off and changes into something else. He leaves in a heavy embroidered coat of scarlet and thread-of-gold. Only the best for today.
The tourney begins, and he steps onto the podium to deafening cries of a crowd of ten thousand people. The first contenders kneel to pledge themselves, and he waves them on to the competition.
The people cheer at every act, and gasp at every clang of the sword. The sun glints off the armour of the contestants and brightens the faces of the audience, yet he is bored. This is nothing he has not seen a hundred times before. Still, he sits, hands playing absentmindedly with the armrest as he waits for it to end.
The hours pass slowly, and the victors are crowned as the sky fades to a soft orange hue. He is escorted to the garden, where the crowds have dispersed. He can hear the rumbling of the voices of men, women and children flowing from the pavilion, and he’s suddenly overwhelmed.
The hours pass slowly, and the victors are crowned as the sky fades to a soft orange hue. He is escorted to the garden, where the crowds have dispersed. He can hear the rumbling of the voices of men, women and children flowing from the pavilion, and he’s suddenly overwhelmed.
He has to excuse himself, desperate for some privacy. Beads of sweat form at his temples, and he wheezes while pressing a hand to his racing heart. Why is this happening today, today of all days—and he’s cursing himself when he hears the crunch of gravel. Someone followed him.
He turns and sees a boy, no more than sixteen, but the boy lifts his face and stares with the eyes of a hardened man. The gaze is stifling with hate, and the boy draws a sword.
“For my father,” he intoned quietly, and began to advance.
His mind whirls with panic. Has he seen this boy before? Faces flash in his head, familiar ones and ones he never thought of until now. Faces of men he had sent to be executed, promptly forgotten afterwards.
His back hits the wall behind him, having unconsciously been backing up. No, no, wait, he tries to say, frantically grasping at blurred memories as he scrambled for a reason to why this was happening, for a boy he once wronged.
But there were too many, far too many, and the words turn to ashes in his mouth. He jerks up his hand, a thoughtless final plea, but the blade was already swinging.
The Smuggler
The smuggler shoots up out of bed with a shout, the ghost of steel cold at his neck. He frightens his wife, who startles awake at his panicked cries. He assures her he’s alright, gets a bite of breakfast, and laughs with his children on before leaving. He has a job to do.
His boss points him to a checkpoint at the border, where he finds armed men guarding groups of bedraggled youths, all with hands tied and blistered feet.
The task is simple. Escort the goods to the next checkpoint, and he’ll get paid. With luck, he might be able to make it home by tomorrow morning.
Does it ever occur to him that these are children so much likes his own? He sees the misery, the fear in their eyes, and he’s reminded of his son when he was ill, afraid he would die. He sees their stooped backs and exhaustion-lined faces and thinks of his daughter, plowing fields all day and night as she did her part to put food on the table.
The answer is yes, but he swallows those emotions, grimacing at the bitter taste. He can’t afford this. He doesn’t have the resources. He has too much to lose. He picks up a rifle and starts rounding them into the trucks.
He doesn’t make it to the checkpoint. They had a mole, an undercover man from the military, and the trucks are attacked from the trees. The world dissolves into machine gun fire and blood.
He wakes strapped to a chair, men in black looming over him.
They ask him questions, beat him and bleed him for weeks until the answers are dislodged from his mouth like vomit. Terror is a haze in his mind, and when he’s allowed to sleep, he has nightmares of a different sort, of the disgust on his family’s faces as they learn the truth.
It’s almost a relief when the men drag him outside and press a muzzle to his forehead.
The Prisoner
The prisoner opens his eyes to a cracked ceiling and the echo of a gunshot, his back aching after another night on a rotting board. This is familiar.
He can’t tell what time it is—has never been able to, but there’s a new meal sitting in his cell, pushed through the bars. He never sees the guard that puts it there, never sees anyone, not even himself. He knows he has brown hair - knows that because it falls in a tangled mess to his back. He knows his skin is sallow and stretched over brittle bones, but he can’t remember what his face looks like.
Not that it matters here, he muses, chewing the thick grey slop he has long since stopped feeling revolted at. He has long since forgotten why he’s even here.
He remembers being so bored here at first. Nothing to do, no one to talk to. There were 389 dull bricks that made up the walls of his cell. 36 rusted bars. 25 cracks in cement. He knows. He’s counted, over and over again trying to occupy his mind.
So he plays a game. Pretends he’s someone else. He’s been Jacques, the knight. Avery, the banker. Lenny, Wilson, Carl, and countless others. He can be anyone he wants, have any story he wants in his imagination. He can be an athlete, whose muscles haven’t wasted away from inactivity. A father, happily married and with children. A spirit, a pirate, a god. Anyone, anyone at all.
But it never lasts, always returning to his cell in the end. He never wins, because he can never escape. And he knows this, his mind becoming as much of a prison as his cell is. Trapped in the same role. His fantasies always ending in fire and despair.
Still better than here.
He closes his eyes and dreams.