“All for one
and one for all.”
The Borg,
Star Trek: First Contact
Worked on me
book and went to a family gathering. Also finished sprucing up my
epic Pokemon team for the epic Pokemon battles I will have with my
friend this weekend if he comes over as planned. I can see it now. We
meet on the mountaintops. A storm looms in the distance. Its loud
thunder is an omen for the battle. But an omen for who? Who will be
the victor? Or is it an omen for us both?
Anyway onto the
flash fiction!
The Preserved King
Today I
obtained the elixir of life. A potion that granted me immortality to
everything but being sunk to the bottom of the ocean. I would be
still alive at the bottom of the ocean I suppose. But under the
darkness of the waves would be close enough to death wouldn't it?
The elixir got
to me safely for several reasons. One was because the price I paid
for it. A hefty sum of gold. I am a very rich king of a very rich
man. Second was the threat of torture should someone betray the
agreement to bring the elixir to me. Third was the curse on the
elixir. The price of immortality would be a curse that came along
with it. A curse of insanity. I could see that for a normal man or
woman being immortal and seeing those around them age and die away
would bring insanity. I wouldn't have that problem. Everyone has been
disposable to me. My parents died young and I was shuffled around the
nobles to be manipulated until I grew old enough to control the
throne on my own. People are already seasonal for me.
The bottle
containing the elixir of life was glass. Like a wine bottle. One my
knights told me that the witch who they got it from said that whoever
drank it would have “everything of them preserved” the knight
cautioned me when he said the witch had a wicked smile. I heard
enough fairy tales to know that witches with wicked smiles was a bad
sign. But I feared death enough to not care.
After taking
the elixir I noticed it tasted like nothing I could describe but
afterward I knew I wasn't stupid enough to test it. But I didn't need
to. A month later one of the many assassination attempts against me
happened(one of the downsides of being a wealthy king) and when the
arrow hit me in the heart, I felt incredible pain, but in seconds it
was pushed out on its own. Like I was some sort of pillow. On later
test after capturing the assassin we tested the arrow and saw it
pieced the flesh of an animal easily. Shortly after arrogance had me
go into battle with my soldiers and fortune had a sword of the enemy
bounce off my neck. I had become immortal.
I soon noticed
a side effect. I was remembering not only all my dreams, but also
every single moment of every single day. At first it didn't happen
fully. But I soon could recollect every detail of every day. Ask me
what happened at noon yesterday and I could remember. Ask me how much
dust was on the table at noon and I could remember. I remembered
everything and could go back through my memories and get it.
Everything lodged itself in my brain, no matter the significance. I
remembered everything exactly so you could ask me the exact minute
because with my perfect memory I could figure out the time just by
remembering one point of time in the day I looked at a clock and
count forward until the moment you asked for.
I now know what
the witch meant by “everything of them preserved”
But it didn't
harm me. Days were nearly the same for me when I didn't remember
everything so what difference did it make? Every night was the same,
as well as every knight, the pun meaning that all those soldiers
beneath me were as nondescript as the others. The nobles all tried to
manipulate me for their own ends. Sometimes I listened, sometimes I
didn't. No assassinations could take me out and I would outlive them
all so I just followed my whim.
But eventually
the curse of immortality hit me. It wasn't through a loved one being
lost. It had been through the acts of a mere peasant He could read
and write and was part of his class through birth and the most
educated in his village as I learned.
The day I met
him he came to me as a messenger from a far off kingdom and gave me a
long list of terrible crimes and events. Things he had said happened
to his people because of the nobility of his land and he had come to
my kingdom to plead for my help and liberation from that kingdom. I
considered it, I thought becoming a hero would be a good change of
pace and this kind of request was unusual, the peasant was desperate
looking and came in during a dinner with the rest of my kingdoms
nobility.
I spent the
entire dinner speaking with him about his woes and sympathizing with
his strife and hearing his tales of misery and the tales of misery of
his fellow people. All of the nobility joined in on the discussion. I
never had the strings of my old heart pulled like that before. By
this time I was two hundred and fifty years old.
But at the end
of his tales the peasant revealed his true intentions. He was not
from a far away kingdom at all. He was from this one. And these acts
were all of my doing at my fault. He revealed the few things he
changed to disguise their happenings, the dates, and the fact that
the things that didn't happen over his generation had been over my
history. Everything I nearly cried over had been my doing. He said he
knew I remembered everything so he knew that I would remember every
bit of guilt I had “if my cold heart had any guilt” and that
would be his revenge.
In rage for his
deception I ordered him to execution and since then I never stopped
regretting it. The guilt now drives me forward to do good, but the
peasant got his revenge, as it drives me forward painfully. I now
rule my kingdom as an immortal guilt ridden king. I am also
considering dropping myself into the darkness of the ocean so that I
may at least get close to death.
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