DAIN
"Immortality."
The sound barely carried. Something in the air shifted — not wind, not breath — a pause that seemed to ask why.
"You've seen them," I said. "Running through the same days like rats in a maze, counting down to weekends, to summers, to retirement. They waste their own lives and call it routine. I just want more of what they throw away."
A faint sound — not laughter, exactly, but close enough to sting.
"You ask for more time to waste it differently. You think you'd use eternity better than the rest? You wouldn't. You'd just run out of excuses slower."
"I know," I said. "But I'm not asking to live — I'm asking for time to understand why living felt so empty."
"Understanding is heavier than time. It erodes. It isolates. It breaks. And it never ends."
A pause.
"If you want eternity, you will have it. But know this: you won't be living outside the emptiness. You'll be living inside it. No endings. No forgetting. No distance from what you came to escape."
The air shifted again, colder now, like the shade of the tree had thickened into stone. Something brushed my shoulder — not a hand, not a wing, just a movement that felt like an agreement.
"So tell me once more," the voice said, almost softly. "Do you still want what you've asked for?"
"Two wishes and a curse," I said, head still resting against the trunk, eyes half-closed. "That was the offer, wasn't it?"
"Yes."
No irritation. No interest. Just the word.
"I've made the first."
"Immortality. Foolish, but granted."
"I want my second."
A pause, long enough to taste the silence between worlds.
"What is it?"
"Autonomy," I said. "Not just to exist, but to decide how. If I grow old, I want the choice to rise again. I want to decide when and where I return. My death, my resurrection, my terms."
"You want freedom from the act of death."
"From everything."
"There is no freedom from consequence," it said. "But you'll learn that on your own."
The ground shuddered faintly; for a moment I thought I saw the grass wilt in a perfect circle around us.
"And what of my curse?"
"No need," the voice replied. "You just cursed yourself."
A gust of wind slammed against me, shutting my eyes. When I turned, there was no one there, the grass back to it's lush color.
I let out a small, dry laugh and settled back against the tree. Sleep came like a tide.
Sleep didn't come easy. It dragged. It pulled like hands from below. I drifted somewhere between silence and heartbeat — not alive, not gone — and something in that void began to twist.
It started small: a pressure behind my ribs, wrong and familiar, like a pulse out of rhythm. I stirred, hand pressed to my chest. The beat was steady but distant, as if it belonged to someone else. The ground beneath me felt warm, too warm for shade.
Something's off.
The thought didn't echo; it carved. My breath caught. The air thickened, humming with that faint, invisible weight that announces company before you see it.
My eyes snapped open.
They were standing right in front of me.
Malory.Fin.
Of course. These two.
Exactly the kind of people who show up when you least want them to. It's like the universe runs on irony and bad timing.
They stood there like they belonged in that spot, sunlight painting them in that effortless glow people mistake for virtue. The kind of glow that makes others want to move closer, to orbit, to belong — as if standing beside them might make some of that radiance rub off.
Wherever there's a group — three people, five, doesn't matter — a hierarchy forms. Unspoken, instinctive. Some rise, others kneel. And people like them? They don't even have to climb. The world just parts for them, obedient, eager.
It's not that they lead. They just exist in a way others wish they could. That's enough to make people build thrones for them.
Malory's the obvious one. Beautiful in the loud way — perfect posture, practiced smirk, words that sound like compliments until you listen properly. The kind of person who collects loyalty like jewelry, then forgets where she put it.
Fin's worse. Subtle. Patient. You don't notice him eating away at you until there's nothing left but the shell of who you used to be. He doesn't hurt people — not actively. He just doesn't care enough to stop when it happens.
That girl from the dorms — the one they whispered about. "Suicide," they said, like the word itself could explain everything. I know better. He'd gotten bored of her. Stopped replying. Stopped acknowledging she existed.
I only found out by accident, during a truth-or-dare game that got too real. Hacked into her messages for a laugh. I didn't realize who she was. I wish I hadn't.
The things she sent him — long, desperate messages, every sentence dripping with hope that was already dead. The way she apologized for breathing too loud. The way she begged to know what she'd done wrong.
And him? One-line replies. Then nothing. Silence, the cleanest kind of cruelty.
Maybe she was fragile. Maybe she was doomed to break anyway. But he was the one who handed her the hammer.
And the worst part — he doesn't even see the problem. He probably tells himself he's "just honest," or that "she took it the wrong way." It's amazing how people like him can rewrite their own stories until they're spotless.
A demon and the devil — not in the mythical sense. In the social one. The kind who thrive in bright rooms, who smile in public, who never have to face the aftermath of what they cause.
You'd think that kind of power would come with weight, with guilt, with at least a flicker of self-awareness. It doesn't. Because when you grow up strong, the world rearranges itself to accommodate you. Someone else always takes the hit.
And yet, despite it all, people keep worshipping them. Maybe that's the part I'll never understand. How the world keeps rewarding arrogance dressed as confidence, indifference dressed as mystery.
Fin looks at me — polite, curious, like he's assessing a stray animal. He's got those eyes: clear, steady, painfully pure. The kind of eyes that convince people he's incapable of harm. I've seen those eyes before, on people who smiled while they tore others apart.
There's a strange purity in him, almost unnatural. Not the purity of innocence, but of someone who's never been forced to question themselves. Untouched. Untested. The kind of person who's never had to confront the rot under their own skin.
My pulse tightens. My muscles follow suit. Instinct, maybe. The body recognizes predators long before the mind does.
I don't like him.
Not the way people dislike rivals or threats. No. It's deeper — like a bone-level recognition of danger. The kind that whispers, this one's not human in the ways that matter.
Malory's saying something — probably something cutting, elegant, designed to draw a reaction. I barely register it. My eyes stay on Fin.
He's smiling. Just enough to look friendly. Just enough to make me wonder what's behind it.
It's strange how some people can look like everything good in the world — light, grace, calm — and still make the air feel wrong.
That's Fin. The kind of person people call pure because they've never seen what purity looks like when it curdles.
Maybe that's why I can't look away. Because I've met too many like him. And I know what comes next.