Been writing a book for fun and wanted to share it even though it's not complete yet!

Immortals Anonymous

Chapter 4: familiar faces

The special thing about making it to your twenties when you were never supposed to make it to ten is that life very suddenly becomes livable. One might think living with an expiration date would provide a sense of urgency, a desire to live each day passionately and freely. You would have your date of expected death, and every day between then and the present would be spent like the last, because it very well would be. But the opposite was the case for Seven.

For most of his childhood, Seven had his tenth year hanging over his head and he felt nothing but apathy. There was no point in involving himself in anything, not that there was much to involve himself in or people who expected him to be anything less than a mistake, nor was there much point in becoming attached to anything.

He was to have a short life, and he did not fear death. Attachments might change that, and there wasn’t much point in developing a fear of death at the end of his life. Seven always thought that was the unluckiest sort of state to be in: afraid of death at the end of your life.

So he waited for his tenth year to come, letting existence wash over him, doing what was asked of him, and anticipating the inevitable.

And then he was eleven. And he realized he was going to be around a little longer.

Suddenly the passion for life came to him, the sun shone brighter, the moon was clearer, and air smelled crisp and clean; there had been a glaze over his eyes that washed away. There was something so deeply wonderful about living life that it broke his heart, it was so beautiful. Seven wasn’t quite ready for life to stop breaking his heart anytime soon.

He had begun to fear death, and with the still looming threat of dropping dead where he stood, he found himself in that unlucky scenario: afraid of death at the end of his life.

The bigger issue now was finding a balance between his unbearable passion for living and the terror of death. These two concepts battled it out in his soul as he stood in the elevator with Five.

Ask Five if you can go on the mission! I want to see the world! One part of Seven's brain begged the other.

Are you crazy? The other responded, He’ll kill you.

The fear always kept Seven from speaking out, but Five looked different in the elevator. For once, he didn’t look capable of hurting anyone.

“Five?” Seven asked.

Five turned his head slightly but kept his eyes forward as in a trance, like he hadn’t yet parted ways with his distant thoughts.

Seven continued, “Can I go with you?”

“Where?”

“To the–” Seven thought about what Five had said about mentioning mission details in public spaces. “On your mission.” Seven said vaguely.

Five blinked. “You’re not supposed to.”

“Yes…” Seven was so close. He couldn’t let this slip past him. “But I want to.”

Five looked at Seven in a way Seven had never seen Five. He looked soft, and sad, like he was lost in a familiar place.

“I want to, so badly, Five.” Seven said.

At the mention of his name, Five shook his head slightly. “There’d be about a million forms I’d have to fill out to even request approval.”

Seven’s heart dropped and he nodded his head, despondently. What was he thinking even getting his hopes up in the first place.

Five exhaled next to him. “Just come to the Dispatch Room. We leave at three o’clock.”

The elevator doors opened at the tenth floor and Five stepped off. He turned back at Seven as the elevator doors closed. “Don’t forget. We will leave without you.” He said with emphasis. “Three. O’. Clock.”

Seven stood in silence for a few moments as the elevator brought him down to the second floor where his office and the Archive lay.

I imagine a gravekeeper must love his job. Gunshot funerals and weeping widows must be impossibly depressing and the gravekeeper must find that a difficult concept to grasp; for a plethora of simple reasons but especially because: to the dead and their friends it is the end of the world and for the gravekeeper, it is just Tuesday.

But after the funerals, when the gravekeeper walks the aisles and rows of tombstones in the dead of night, the night air must be warm. A solemn company; the acknowledgement that a life was lived and there is no shame in finding rest, from the heart attack stockbroker to the child who died mysteriously. There is rest here; the gravekeeper will listen to you.

When the morning comes, the graveyard will look silent and beautiful in the sunlight. A nighttime of talking and the morning has come and the dead are understood. Tending to flowers on gravestones and keeping watch from robbers, the gravekeeper must love his job, but I might just imagine he wishes he could pull the dead from the ground and hold them in a firm and soft embrace. You are still loved, he might want to say, I love you if no-one else visits. I have listened, and I understand.

Seven walked out of the service elevator and into the vast expanse of aisles and carpet; books and articles; centuries of writing and diaries and life from people who were long dead; a lifetime of assistants who could never figure out Seven’s filing system and requested an immediate transfer; this familiar space. He spent so many years confined here. It was loved and home and his, but it was still confining.

He walked down an aisle of personal diaries and journals and ran his fingers across their spines. Seven knew all about their lives, he’d read them so many times. So many people who once lived, who still lived. Even if it was just once, he was going to meet them. He was going to pull them out of the books on the shelf and tell them, I know about you; you aren’t dead; I understand.

Seven opened the door to his office, which recoiled back and hit him in the face. He poked his head around the door and saw the pile of books blocking the door. Maybe Dasha had a point about his cluttered office. He pushed himself between the crack in the doorway and sank into his office chair. He rubbed his face to rid himself of sleepiness and felt blood on his fingertips. He touched the spot on his forehead that still ached from the impact with the door. More blood.

Thin skin in more ways than metaphor. He’d have to report this, turn on his computer and fill out the form for injury so the scientists on the Clone Project could add it to their file on him, but something about the bureaucracy of a simple injury seemed unappealing.

Seven spent the four hours it took for eleven in the morning to become three o’clock refreshing his knowledge about the early twenty-first century. He found it hard to concentrate not just because he was feeling a potion bag of emotions, but also because he had stayed up all night writing his report with Dasha and he felt himself falling asleep where he sat.

He could just hear Five yelling at him for missing this opportunity, especially when Five was uncharacteristically willing to let him leave the FTT headquarters but also to use the time travel machine without the proper authorization. Five had never done anything like this before, it was certainly a once in a lifetime opportunity. He wondered briefly, as he sank further and further into the faux leather of his chair, if Five would ever react differently. If he would ever cry with joy, or laugh in embarrassment, or look even mildly cordial to see anyone walk into his office.

Seven yawned and closed his eyes. Maybe a quick nap would do him well.

An image suddenly popped into Seven’s head.

Seven running to the time travel machines, the clock ticking past three o’clock, and Five shaking his head, disponent. Not angry like usual, but this Five he had seen today in the elevator, hopeless.

Seven snapped his head up and frantically found the clock. 1:30. His sigh of relief was shortcut when he felt himself sinking into the chair again.

He stood up. Maybe he should wait by the time machines. Just in case.

Chapter 5 is being edited :D