Avery the Immortal: Part One

When I was little I was scared of the dark. No matter how my family tried to comfort me, I was terrified by what was in it. My father was a strong warrior, bit even knowing he was there could never quell my fear. I felt like I was the only one who knew there was something out there, something that couldn’t be seen. 

One day, my grandmother asked me what it was that scared me so badly. Was it wild animals?

No, it wasn’t. 

Was it spiders or bugs?

No, I didn’t mind bugs actually.

Did I hear scary stories from the other children?

There were stories, many of them. But it was something else I feared. I wasn’t sure how to put into words that there was something I sensed, something that felt like more. How do you describe more? Not like a bear, not like a boar, not like anything we had ever seen. Just something bigger, and far more than all of us.

My grandmother took me to a group of elders in the village, wise old women whose knowledge was sought to cure pains and wounds, and to explain the oddities of the world. They were secretive and quiet, but the air around them was a warm welcome once in their presence. To them, I was someone who could see, and they decided to use me.

They took me to the temple beyond the village and high up on the hill. I had often seen the smoke coming from there when the oracles were at work. It had always captured my imagination, wondering what it was like in the temple and who the oracles were talking to. The closer we got to the temple, the more I became afraid. I felt like I was being left alone in the dark, even though it was broad daylight out. I screamed and cried, overwhelmed by it all as we came to the doors of the temple.

The elders handed me over to a priestess who spoke no words to me. She simply carried me away as I kicked and screamed. The temple was my nightmare. Everything I had feared in the dark was here, and there was no way I could escape it.

I was dressed in ceremonial robes and placed in a room lit with torches. The room was dark, and the air around me was cold. I was told to sit still and to listen. I was shaking so badly that I could barely catch my breath. I wanted to run, to scream, to fight, to fly, but I was frozen in place, trapped in this room of torches and winter air. The air started to shift around me, waves of warmth and cold. The torches flickered in such a way they danced like spirits. I shut my eyes tight, tucking my head down so that my shoulders squeezed up around me.

I heard whispering, so soft and faint that I thought I was imagining it. The voice didn’t grow louder, only clearer. The whispers brushed against the nape of my neck and blew my hair around my face. The robes I was wearing started to lift from my body, floating like a bubble around my small frame. All the while, the voice was becoming much clearer, much more prominent. It was speaking to me in several tongues, using words I didn’t understand, voices I had never heard before.

I dropped to the floor in fear, covering my head with my arms, sobbing out loud. The wind stopped, the air settled into warmth, the torches stopped dancing, and the voice became quiet again.

“Do not cry, little one,” the voice said gently. “It is not my intent to scare you so.”

I kept myself huddled down.

“The priestesses think you are the one who can speak to me,” the voice whispers. “That you have been able to sense me all this time. If so, I would very much like to know you name, to know all of you.”

I sniffled slightly. The presence that the dark used to hold over me was changing. It was still there, but it felt like sunlight. I raised my eyes, lifting my forehead from the floor. Ahead of me I saw a little lamb drenched in a radiant light unlike anything I had ever seen. I lifted myself further from the ground as the little lamb came towards me. It nuzzled my palm, then licked the tears that still clung to my face. Its eyes were like lit gemstones filled with colors I had never seen before.

I stroked the lamb’s head, slowly starting to smile at it. 

“You see me as you need to see me,” the voice said. “That is alright. No one can truly see me without some sacrifice.”

“What are you?” I whimpered. 

“I am the beginning and I am the end. I have seen the dawn and I will see the evening,” the voice said with a chuckle. “I am what I am, and I can be what you make of me.”

The little lamb gazed up at me, inching closer until it was laying in my lap. “Are you a god?” I asked timidly. 

“I have been called that. I have also been called a demon. I am good. I am wicked. As I said, I can be what you make of me. The priests and priestesses here think that you may know me well enough to answer them on this question.”

“Why are you here?” I asked softly. “If you are all these things, why stay here?”

The voice was silent for a moment, and the lamb lifted their head from my lap. “I could go anywhere, couldn’t I?” Their voice was even and gentle. “I was told that humans were temporary and therefore unimportant, but I grew curious about you. I watched humans for a long time and I had never seen such strange, bewildering things. I was drawn to you and so I stayed with you. All I have ever wanted was to help, serve, even love you.” The lamb nestled back down. “Who are you?”

“Clef,” I answered them.

“Hello, Clef,” they said to me. “Are you still scared of me?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know,” I replied. 

“That is alright. To us, time is different, and you have much of it to get to know me. I am only afraid I do not have as much,” they said cryptically. “It is something that has always baffled me about humans. Your life is so short, and yet, you claim your lives are so long. From everything I have witnessed, the fleetingness of it is like a stream. One second it’s there, and the next it has washed away.”

I decided on my own that what I spoke to in that room was a god. They were something I could not define, and being so young, I was not yet ready to figure that out. The leaders of the temple begged me to define them, and I understood that they did not listen to the being in the room. They only wanted something in return for their worship.

From then on I was asked to commune with the God for them. I was still terrified each and every day I was placed in that room. I wasn’t sure what I was going to witness while I was there. Sometimes it was the lamb, other times there was a tree, or maybe a bear cub, but it was always something that I needed in that moment. Their form was not for me to see, so instead I created an illusion around it, as would anyone who gazed upon them. 

It was my job to bring prayers to the god from the people, or to ask for assistance from them. During the mornings I would sit at an altar as people from the village came to lay down their offerings in hopes their prayers would be answered. In the evenings I was left in that room, delivering the prayers to the god. I started calling them my friend, as they gave me no name. Either they had forgotten, or it was not my place to know, let alone understand.

I grew up with my friend watching over me, talking to me, and guiding me through childhood. I was so young when I met them, but I was growing into an adult and slowly coming into a place where everything was changing.

There was a priest in the temple who had never even looked at me when I was a child. To him I was a tool used to talk to my friend. As I started to grow though, his eye turned to me more frequently. He was around often after I took prayers, helping me to carry the offerings away from the altar. He was around the pools when I went to bathe. It was becoming hard to not notice the change in him.

One day, I was laying prayers before my friend, and they stopped me by placing their hand upon my head. “There is something wrong with you, Clef. There is a tension that hangs around you and is pulling you tight. Please tell me, what troubles you?”

I looked up at my friend, seeing more light than any sort of shape. There was something human about them, and it had been like this for a while now. It was as if I was trying to build a shape for them, but I couldn’t make up my mind what it should be. So I kept my friend shapeless but beautiful until I knew what I wanted.

“One of the priests here has taken an interest in me,” I explained softly. “He is helpful and kind, but he was never that way when I was young. His closeness, I know, comes from a good place, but something about it bothers me. I feel bad that I can not accept his kindness and only feel discomfort when he is around. He tells me to be grateful, and I know I should, but I cannot muster any sort when he says this. Does this make me a bad person, my friend?”

My friend was quiet for a long moment. “Has he touched you?” they finally murmured, ending the silence.

“Sometimes,” I answered. 

“Is that what makes you uncomfortable?” Something about my friend’s voice sounded strange, almost strained and uneasy. 

“I can stop talking about this,” I told my friend. “It isn’t important.”

A shape emerged from the light. Strong hands took hold of mine and pulled me forward. I could see a face, but I was still unsure of its features. “Tell me,” my friend whispered. “I need to know.”

I squeezed their hands. “Yes,” I answered. “I do not like it when he touches me.” Shame rose up inside me. “I wish he would leave me alone again.”

My friend held  me, wrapping long arms around me as my cheek found a warm chest. They were silent again, and they were until I left. 

The following morning, as I went to the altar to hear prayers, the priest was by the door. I noticed he had strange, small marks on his face and hands. Over the next few days, the marks grew bigger. They turned bright red, and soon had white and yellow heads on them. He started to scream about how painful they were. One day I was called to hear a special prayer, and I found him laying in the center of the room with incense being waved over him. Some of the priestesses were by his side, humming and praying over him. As I knelt by his side, he could barely speak. His hand raised, covered in boils and wounds. He died before I could even hear his last prayer.

I went to my friend, shaken to my core. I had never seen anything like that in all my life. It was revolting and pitiful, and I could not imagine the pain that the priest was in. As I looked at my friend, I saw that they looked more human than I had ever seen them before. They were beautiful, and I ran into their arms crying.

“I do not understand,” I cried to them. “It was so awful!” I looked up at them, still not quite seeing their face. “Why must we suffer so much? Why do things like that happen?”

“He died?” My friend asked.

I nodded, wiping my tears away. “I don’t know what it was. He grew so sick. All this-” I held my hands around my face. “Bile had risen up all over him and took him over.”

“I see,”  my friend said calmly. “So he will no longer be bothering you. That’s good.” 

I looked up at him, a strange feeling coming over me. “Good?” I asked. “Aren’t you supposed to be looking out over us?”

My friend is quiet.

“Why is it good that he died?” I asked more quietly. “Did you-” I gasped softly and stepped back. “He suffered so much! He was screaming all the time at the end.” I shook my head slowly as I felt an uneasiness in my belly. “Did you do that to him?”

“He was hurting you,” my friend replied calmly. “Or he was going to hurt you eventually. The way you felt around him was a warning. I could not allow someone like him to walk around as a threat, so I took care of him.”

I shook my head slowly as I removed myself further from them. “You can make people suffer like that?” I whispered. “You can cause such pain and misery, and yet act like you do not care at all!” I stood up from the floor. “Do you even answer these prayers?” I cried out. “Do the offerings and their pain not reach you at all?”

“Have I not done all that you asked me to?” my friend said in a soft voice. 

“I did not ask you to hurt him!” I blurted out, grasping my hair and pulling. “I thought you were good!”

My friend rose from the ground. “I told you when we first met that I was neither good nor bad, simply that I am. I am what you make of me.”

“I didn’t want him to die!” I cried.

“It doesn’t matter. He doesn’t matter,” my friend said. “Humans are such brief things, it simply does not matter if he lived or died.”

“I thought you said you loved humans!” I surged towards them, thrusting my hands out at them in desperation. “I thought you said you wanted to help us! To serve us! And yet you stand here and say we don’t matter to you?”

My friend tilted their head to the side slightly. “I wish to make things better for humanity. It is not my fault that you all come and go so quickly.”

“So you just decide what matters?” I whispered. I shook my head again as tears streamed down my face. “You get to make up what is important?” I looked them over, seeing less and less of them. 

“I have done everything you asked of me,” my friend replied. “I have given life, I had supported life, I had made death easier, and I have helped to sustain.” They reached out towards me and I wrenched away from them. “I have made this land and the people fertile! Is that not what you wanted?”

“I wanted you to care!” I cried. “I wanted you to do it because I thought it was why you were here!” I fell to my knees like a child. I lay on the floor, covering my head as I cried, much like the day I first met my friend. I breathed in deep as I sobbed, feeling that weight upon me again.

“I thought you understood,” they whispered. “I thought you knew what I was better than anybody.” They knelt down on the ground before me. “There is no one out there who can see me like you. I needed you. I called out for you. Please, do not leave me again. I could not bear it.”

I remained silent as I lay on the floor. I did not know how to talk to them. All this time with them and I had placed so much upon them. I was still young, so young. I did not understand them except with the view I had held since childhood. I would never understand them.

“You cannot make people suffer,” I sobbed as I rose from the ground. “You cannot make people hurt, please, I beg of you.” I reached out towards them again. “Promise me! You have to promise me!”

Their hands touched mine. “I promise,” my friend whispered. “I swear, I will not cause that suffering again.”

I took them into my arms, holding them tight as their head rested on my shoulder. I thought perhaps, if I could reach them, then maybe I could see them more. Maybe I could help them to see humanity more. Like I said, I was young still and I had yet to learn about the world myself. I was naive and clinging to my childhood view of things. I wanted my friend to see things through my eyes, but they were far too old for that. They would never be able to see the world with the newness I could. 

The world was changing. New temples were being built with new gods to fill them. Fewer and fewer people came to our temple. Those who did were women who were pregnant or wished to become pregnant. Our temple changed, and my friend became a god of fertility within a blink of an eye. I watched as the gods became numerous and I could hear them whispering from all around. 

The temple was growing empty. The priests were either dying or moving on. The priestesses were lingering, but there were so few left. I stayed out of duty, knowing that I was the only one who could talk to my friend and perhaps make them listen.

Years went on, and my friend took more of a shape. I saw a beautiful human when I looked at them, although I thought more and more that was what my friend wanted me to see, and not what I wanted to see. 

There is prosperity in the world, but there is less gratitude. The prayers I receive lately feel more like wishes of entitlement than those of desperate need. The offerings are not what they used to be either, and the whispers I hear speak of leaving rather than remaining. I fear that one day humanity will wake up to a world without a god. 

“You look troubled,” my friend says to me one day. “You look sad.”

I have been in this temple most of life. I was afraid to come here as a child, and now I am afraid to leave it, even though my importance is fleeting. I turn and look at my friend, knowing I am not a young child anymore. I smile at my friend, taking their hand in mine.

“Will you leave me?” I ask them.

“No,” their answer is quick and final. “I love you,” they whisper to me. “I love you like I have never loved anything else.” They touch my cheek and wind their fingers through my hair. “All I want is to remain with you.”

I take hold of their hand, kissing their palm before looking into their bright eyes. “But you cannot,” I tell them. “You have always said that humans are temporary and that we do not matter.” I give them a smile. “I am the same. I will not last long. You should learn to love more, feel more, see more. If you ever wish to fulfill your desire to serve humanity, you must learn to use your love for me elsewhere.” I kiss their cheek as their fingers tighten in my hair.

“You said that you are what you are, but you are not being anything,” I whisper to them. “You must learn something more.”

“But I can’t,” my friend replies.

“I pray that you do,” I tell them. “I pray that as the world changes, as it grows, and as it continues far into the horizon, you find something of yourself.” 

I kiss their lips, gasping softly at the sensation. I lean closer to them, kissing them again as a warmth rushes through me. I stop another kiss from happening, pressing my fingertips against them. 

“Tell me,” my friend whispers, “do you love me too?”

I smile at them and press my forehead to theirs. I do not answer, because I am afraid. I am far too fast for them, and I know I am leaving soon. I am afraid that my friend will be forgotten when I go. I hope that one day my friend will leave and go with the other gods. I hope they do not have to see the suffering I begged them not to cause.

The world erupts and all at once goes quiet. The temple is destroyed, the world is chaos. As the invading masses tear the village apart, my friend does exactly as I have asked them to. They do not cause any suffering, although they often question why. They watch people die.They see blood and carnage. They watch as the ground smolders, only leaving behind ash that blows away on the wind. My friend stands in what remains of the temple, and realize they loved something that was never theirs. They stay too long, like I feared. They become a ghost in a world that once saw them as a god. 

I pray they move.