I wished for immortality because I was afraid of disappearing, afraid my life would mean nothing, afraid of being forgotten. I found something in the woods behind my house, something ancient that listened to desperate prayers. I begged it to let me live forever.
It granted my wish.
Now, floating endlessly through space, immortality has become my prison.
Time is strange here, it slips by. I can't mark it with days or years anymore, it just flows. My body doesn't age, doesn't die, but it still feels everything. The cold burns my skin. Hunger gnaws at my stomach.
I thought immortality meant freedom, the chance to experience everything, to never have regrets. But I have learned that regret does not fade; it stays forever, sharp and clear.
What I would give for any feeling other than this. I used to have people who loved me. My family. They laughed at my terrible jokes, I should have been present, but fear held me back, as it always did. They wanted me to change, to stop hiding from life, to take chances, to be myself. For once in my life. I couldn't. I wouldn't. Now regret is all that is left of what we could have been.
With all the time I've had, I've thought of every stupid, funny, sad, angry, envious thing I've said and done. Life is for living, we all know, but I don't want to live it alone. Everyone had somebody to lean on, but do I? My family has been dust for so long I can't remember what their voices sounded like anymore.
I watched my world fade slowly. Civilizations rose and fell like waves against the shore. I saw humanity reach for the stars, saw them stumble and try again. I watched as technology bloomed beyond recognition, as my species evolved into something I no longer understood. And still I remained, unchanged, drifting.
The day my planet died, I was orbiting Neptune. I watched the sun expand, a red giant swallowing everything I had ever known. Earth burned to an ember, then to nothing. The solar system collapsed, there was no "system."
Gravity caught me. I've circled dead stars for millions of years, watched black holes devour galaxies, felt the universe expand around me.
I miss the simplicity of life: the warmth of sunshine on my face, the smell of freshly cut grass on a summer afternoon, laughter through the neighborhood. The weight of loneliness grows heavier with each passing moment. My body is human but my experience has become something else entirely. Am I even human anymore?
Maybe death is mercy. It releases suffering, offers rest, lets the universe continue its endless cycle. I was selfish to wish otherwise. I see that now.
I float, the universe cold and indifferent around me, feeling the gentle fabric of my clothes against skin that never ages or heals. My bones ache from the cosmic radiation. My throat is raw from screaming into the void, though no sound escapes.
There is a beauty in impermanence that I never understood until it was too late.
A flock of birds outside my window, through the sky with freedom. That's what I want most now. The ability to choose my direction, to land somewhere and rest. Instead I crawl at speeds set eons ago, nothing I can do to stop or change my path.
There is no dawn anymore, no food to satisfy my everlasting hunger. There is no air to fill my lungs, just the quiet, endless suffocation of empty space. My heart beats against my ribs, pumping blood that no longer matters through veins that will never wear out.
The thing in the woods gave me exactly what I asked for. It never said the gift would be a blessing.