I made a deal with the devil.
Immortality, for the price of nothing.
He'd simply laughed when I demanded to know the cost, red eyes glittering with mirth and he'd dismissed me with a wave of his hand. "There is no cost; no cost except what you've brought upon yourself."
The Devil laughed again, chainsaw gears and cigarette smoke, and vanished in a wisp of fog, Hell fading as I woke up with a gasp.
That was too many years ago to count, watching as the sun steadily darkened and temperatures plunged. I feel nothing but numbness, watching my companions struggle until there was nobody left but me, the wind, and a young kid who I never learned the name of.
He stares up at me now, flint-and-steel eyes bleeding crimson in the dying sun's rays. "You're not human," he whispers, pressing a hand-- ice cold, weak-- to mine. "You're a god."
and I cannot help it, I laugh. "I'm no god, kid. I'm just somebody who should have died a long time ago."
"You're not human." he repeats, chin lifting with mulish stubbornness, even as his lungs rattle angrily with heartwrenching coughs.
"I am human. My heart beats, I bleed red. I have thoughts and hopes and dreams."
"You're not human. Humans...humans freeze and they die when it's cold, when bitter frost eats away at their skulls. You...didn't. You're not human." His voice warps, wavering between raspy and childish. Smoke curls off his skin and his eyes, once silver, are now red. The Devil sits by me, his hand on my shoulder.
His voice is taunting, grating against my ears. "Do you know the price?"
I turn my gaze away, towards the setting sun. Its light is dim and faulty, but takes up the entirety of the horizon. I let it warm me, tracing the shape with the tip of my finger before speaking slowly,
"Everyone says immortality is a curse, that you'll be floating forever once the last sun dies." I smile mournfully, not quite sure what there was to mourn anymore on a dying planet, but mourning nonetheless. "Watching everyone and everything I cared about die, I thought that was the price, because it hurt and it hurt and it never stopped hurting. But now? I'm not so sure because nothing hurts anymore. I loved them, they loved me and now they're gone, returned to the earth. What's done is done, I can't change that."
The Devil cackled, "Maybe once, that was the price, but the great thing about these kinds of deals is that there's always something worse to come along and take the previous price's place." He patted me condescendingly on the back, nails scraping against my skin.
"Will you not be alive?" I ask, curious.
"No, unfortunately, I will not."
"I thought you said as long as someone believes in you, you will always be alive?" He smiled, a little bitterly.
"Yes, as long as someone believes. You do not believe."
I stayed quiet after that, heat washing over me. For a split second, the world stood still as it once was, frost gone and revealing budding green leaves and even greener grass and then it was whisked away to nothing, blistering warmth eating away at my flesh in the matter of nanoseconds.
I could feel myself, but I had no body. It was like every strand of me had been stretched far, reaching out into depths of the universe I did not even know existed.
A baby planet was born, twined around one strand while a star slowly puttered out on another.
They said immortality was a curse, that you'd be floating in the void forever once the last sun died. Turns out they were wrong--31Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡM7QHJWGQAH
it's surprisingly easy to recreate the universe in your own image.31Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAABTXfNRbI
