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Evan Ross

You know what? Most people have hobbies... you know like videogames, books, airplane models, and others of that sort of thing. I never had that; I had an obsession with the concept of immortality. My obsession started with a discussion about weather I would take immortality or not, that quirky little debate about having to watch loved ones grow old and die. My answer was always, "Yes, I would. Because I'm planning on keeping away from the whole fall in love start a family thing."

I can't believe how stupid I was back then.

Only four years after that question was posed, after countless dead-ends, I found credible evidence of someone that could give me what I wanted: Immortality.

It was a webpage made for watching "paranormal" phenomena. The webpage had an article for a person called the Crystal Witch featuring pictures of a woman covered in a robe. Someone had recovered a diary of sorts from the witch. At first glance it looked like rubbish, but the person who found it saw it was written completely in dead languages.

Needless to say I quickly followed the clues back to a small mining town called Churchill.

Firstly, I needed to find a little more about this witch. I asked the miners and their families about the Crystal Witch, but they deny ever seeing her. Talking to the person who found the book he said the lady comes to town every week for supplies, but for some reason after breaking line-of-sight one has a tendency to forget ever seeing her. She was given the name Crystal, because you can look right through her. He pointed me to the store she frequented on her visits and told me she'd be there after sun-down.

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"Excuse me miss..." I begin, but she holds up a finger.

"Just a moment Evan I have to finish paying for my supplies" she says and I cock my head. I hadn't told her my name yet... I think...

"How'd..." I said

"...I know your name? I know many things about you Evan, even why you're here now." She piped up before I could finish. "Oh and don't worry about losing sight of me, you cannot forget me even if you try". She handed the casher a large chunk of strangely colored stone and turned back to me. "Now that that's done, let's go somewhere quiet to talk." She grabbed me by the hand and led me to a trail around the back of the store leading into the woods.

How should I describe the woods except beautiful? The trees looked healthy and the animals, though I couldn't see them, sounded numerous. Fireflies danced in the otherwise dark air. Everything was flourishing here, as if the town refused to touch the ancient trees and hunt the prosperous wildlife for fear of inciting the wrath of nature itself.

Questions bloomed in my head like exotic wildflowers. How does she know me? She said I "couldn't" forget her, why couldn't I forget her if I looked away? Why is she leading me into these woods? They may bloom like flowers but the questions weigh heavily on my psyche as I continue to walk silently lest I break the seemingly fragile beauty of the forest around us.

After about twenty minutes of walking we come across a house standing beside a lightning split walnut tree. It was obviously her home from the sign saying "CrystiL". She hadn't locked the door, probably no need for it, so we just walked inside.

"Just take a seat wherever, mi cassa su cassa. I'm just going to grab a few things, get ready to give you what you came here for. There'll be time for questions after the ritual." I nodded and sat down in an armchair, she walked to another room and brought back a box covered in years of ductape and grime and an ordinary looking kitchen knife. Using the knife she proceeded to cut open the box and started removing materials. She had a bottle of an unidentifiable liquid, a Tupperware container of something, and a ritual blade of a type I've never seen before.

She handed me the bottle and told me to drink it so I did. It tasted nasty, like black licorice mixed with lime juice and mint mixed with cinnamon. It left an even nastier taste in my mouth and made my stomach tingle. As I drank it I became aware of her chanting, the words lost to me as they sounded like they were reversed and said at the end of a very long tunnel. Could have been that liquid she had me drink?

After a time she ceased chanting. She looked at me for a second. "Now this next part may seem a bit weird... er but bear with me. I need you to listen, the reason you are the only one immune to my forgetful effect is this..." she said, as she reached up to grasp her hood. Pulling it back I was momentarily stunned, actually I felt more than stunned I was fully paralyzed. She looked like me! ...or she was my doppelganger. "...I am your twin. Unfortunately now that we have seen each other's faces we will be forced to finish this ritual. As you are no doubt aware you cannot move anymore."

She was right, as much as I'd liked to have told her I was fine I couldn't move my body at all. She reached over to the Tupperware and opened it revealing a leathery looking mass. Then she reached over to the blade and cut open my shirt. I could only stare in horror as she then brought the blade back to my chest and made an incision in my left pectoral around where my heart should be in the shape of an X. It was pure agony, my body couldn't consciously move but that didn't stop my muscles from twitching in a reflexive movement to the pain. I was already seeing stars as she peeled back the flesh and used the jagged edge of the blade to saw through my bone and expose my heart. Then she cut out my heart causing a wave of blood to drench my shirt and replaced it with the leathery mass of what I now realized was a replacement heart.

I couldn't feel my heartbeat at all now and I thought, "This is how I die..."

The sounds of nature around us, the sight of my twin, and the pain started subsiding into nothingness. Alone in the darkness, except I wasn't alone Crystal, my twin, and some sort of short blue and black jagged creature were in the all-encompassing dark.

"Evan..." I heard from my twin, somehow from all around me. "First and foremost, I am truly sorry. You only just found out you had a twin then you lose her, and I kind of lied about there being time to answer questions after the ritual. When all is said and done, I will have passed from this world. But we have a little time to speak in this state of limbo. I'll answer your questions now"

"You're dyeing?" I asked with a hint of alarm.

"Yes, it's the nature of our curse. You see, several thousands of cycles ago there were a council of magic users concerned with the continuation of the human race. They planned an enchantment that would force the enchanted party to live forever. They shot it down because the human race would eventually die out leaving the immortal person behind. They could never get the enchantment to work with more than one person so having both a male and a female immortal to procreate and keep the species flourishing. Then a single person on their council took the concept and analized it, and found a couple loopholes in the spell's structure. The spell could be placed on two humans, twins. But in the end only one of the twins they experimented on survived, you. You lived several cycles until even those on the council had destroyed themselves. But the spell worked better than the council had ever imagined. You watched the first of Humanity die out and the next day you saw them reborn. They were innocent, without memory. You became their shepherd and led them back into civilization. Only to have the enchantment's one true safety force your 'sheep' to forget you and live how you taught them with no recollection of you. Several eons after humanity's rebirth, your twin was reborn and sought you out. When we met the same thing happened to me, I became immortal and you died." She explained. She had tears in her eyes after this and I wanted to go over and comfort her. The blue and black creature I saw before beat me to it though, wrapping one of his arms around her shoulders and pulling her close.

"...Who...Who's he?" I asked with a suddenly dry mouth, pointing to the blue creature.

"He's Aur, He's a thought form we created eventually to help us psychologically and also our personal memory banks. Anything we need to know he can remember and recount to us." She sighed. Aur nodded to me and went back to comforting my twin.

...Bump Bump...

Crystal smiled at me and said, "Looks like our time is up, my dearest brother. I hope the thought of burying your twin sister isn't too painful for you...

Bump Bump Bump Bump Bump Bump

Suddenly my heart is beating again and my senses return. The first thing I'm aware of is my twin curled up on my lap, unmoving and unbreathing, dead.

Burying her was the most painful thing I ever did...