Sempiternal

Prologue

The fireplace lit the entire seating room, it was the only light and warmth in the entirety of the house. Jack and Anne laid on the Persian rug in front of the fireplace cuddling with Anne's head against his shoulder. His eyes roamed, admired every inch of Anne: her face, her hair, her body. And even though he's lived this moment and seen her like this over a course of thousands of years, he still reveled in this scene. Anne didn't seem too interested in Jack at that moment, because she was fixated on the one book in the back of the room on the shelf that she was never allowed to pick up. The sudden pop of the fire shook her concentration and she gazed into Jack's eyes, which were already piercing into her. His stormy ocean colored eyes locked with her fern and wood blended ones. Thoughts begin to form in Jack's mind about whether he should speak or not; but before his mind decided no, his mouth uttered a singe statement, "I want this every night."

Anne smiled, knowing his inner battle on speaking and reassured him, "That would be perfect," however she hesitated on telling him what bothered her for months, "can I tell you a secret?"

He chuckled to himself, "Well that's a silly question. Of course you can."

"There's this feeling I get sometimes," Anne traced her finger along his chest as she managed through her carefully thought out statement, "where all my bones ache, my body hurts all over. And the thing is that I only get this feeling when I'm away from you. Its this feeling I can't shake, like my body craves you. Its a literal physical need that I have for you."

Jack's face turned bright red and his heart started to beat faster as he smiled. Small tears made their way from his eyes. Instant regret filled Anne and she apologized for making him cry.

"Awe lovey," she cooed.

"Shut up and kiss me."

Anne grabbed his shirt and pulled Jack closer for a kiss, her hands moved slowly to cup his face. The mix of hot breath made it difficult to keep kissing. But just before she could pull away, Jack's hands slid from her hips to her shoulder blades, pulling her closer so he deepened the kiss. Jack pulled away, taking Anne's bottom lip with as he tugged it back. Gently, he pecked her nose, which caused her to giggle. Anne nudged her nose against his in affection. As they stared at each other, the world outside seemed nonexistent, everything falling away like nothing else matters. She laid her head on Jack's chest and listened intently to his heartbeat. Leaning his head just enough, Jack kissed Anne's hair. Content with the moment, she began to hum and mumble Jack's favorite Beatles song.

He smiled and pet her hair, tucked a loose strand behind her ear and hummed the melody. She stopped singing and sighed heavily.

"Jack wait. Before we do anything else, I wanna look through that photo album," Anne pointed to the large, old leather book that stuck out from all the other modern paperback books.

Jack's heart quickened with nervousness, an unease consumed him that made his stomach unsettled. His entire life was hidden in that book; something he never wanted her to know about. But before he could respond, Anne had already gotten up and pulled the dusty album off the bookshelf. She flipped through quickly before Jack could make his way over to her. In disbelief, she scoured every page, stared at every picture. Pictures from different time periods, worn out by time, bleached by light and creased from folds. Every image contained Jack and a girl who looked exactly like Anne. As she stood there jaw slacked and eyes burning with tears, images flashed through her head.

She saw herself dancing with Jack in an Army base Lieutenant's quarters. There was a moment where they bumped into each other in an alley outside a speakeasy. A time where they grew up together and fell in love, before he went to fight the Union soldiers. Anne even remembered a moment on an old wooden ship where she was found as a stowaway and saved by a man of Jack's likeness. Her vision and memories reached back to a time during the Persian Invasion.

With tears streaming down her face, Anne turned to Jack looking for any explanation. Every emotion ran through her, tore at her, broke her sanity. All Jack did was stand there expectantly, he hoped she would remember how so many millennia ago they first met.

"What is this," Anne cried, shaking the book at Jack.

"Its the history of us."

She choked back a sob and managed, "What do you mean?"

Jack drew in a deep breath. He didn't know how to explain this, how he became immortal, how he was torn from his true love dozens of times over. This wasn't something he'd ever done before. But having to do it in that moment, explain his eternal torment to the one woman he'd suffer and had suffered for for thousands of years; that truly broke his heart. This woman, Anne and every version of her in previous encounter, was his true and only love that he could never be with forever because of the powerful Aphrodite.

Anne insisted, "Jack, what do you mean?"

"Our love has been cursed for many millennia and I hope now I can finally tell you," Jack spoke quickly.

"I don't understand," a tear streamed down Anne's cheek.

-__-__-__-__-

Hello,
Welcome to Sempiternal. This is a book written by my best friend and me. We have spent weeks deciding if we should post this because I didn't think it was ready. But after much debate, I have finally decided to post it. Although it's not my best work, I'm very proud of how it turned out. But I'm mostly excited that I'm finally back to my book writing. Just a personal update for everyone, I am currently looking at good colleges that specialize in speech therapy and/ early childhood development. So if anyone has suggestions please comment or message me and let me know. Um... I'm not really sure of what else to say. But just a quick thanks to my best friend for not laughing at this peculiar and stupid idea of starting another book. That's it guys.

Chapter 1 will be written by Josh and will be posted ASAP.

Love y'all,
G Pasc

P.S. Josh had a say in the names and he wanted Jack to be the name of the main character, so I agreed.