Sanctuary

Chapter 1

When I opened my eyes, Oren was there.

I could feel his presence across the room, the cold tingling sensation that made the hairs on my arms stand on edge. He never said a word, my brother, but he was always with me. I tried to ignore that feeling, the dull ache of the weight on my chest that made me think if I just turned around, I could see him.

Today, there were more important things to worry about.

Like, for example, who to become for the funeral.

I ran my fingertip around the edge of the invitation for her memorial service. Marlene was eighty nine when she died, which would put my age at around eighty seven. She and I met when she was only fifteen. I was playing younger at the time – people had less concerns about their child being orbited by a younger girl. Less threatening, I guess. But now, it had been over seventy years, and I needed a new disguise. I stared viciously at my own reflection in the mirror, and tried to picture what I would look like if I ever grew old.

My reflection hadn’t changed in over five hundred years. After a couple of centuries, even I was a little unsure of the exact number. How would I look, if I’d grown up? If time ever had the chance to take its toll on me, and wear me down until I went to sleep? I pictured wrinkles, the slight softening of the skin around the face that turned into a slight sag around my colorless eyes. I pictured the color of my hair fading away into whiteness, the even tone of my skin turning to blotches and blemishes like uneven dirt. I pictured a slight hunch to my back, and most importantly, I pictured sadness, etched into my face like stone.

I painted the age on my own body, masking myself in a painstakingly detailed illusion. The magic settled on my skin like makeup. The next time I looked in the mirror, my chest ached at the sight.

“You know, these are the only times I’ll get to see myself this way,” I commented softly to my brother. “Like I got a whole life to live.” I traced one of the wrinkled rivers on my face, and wondered what the story would have been that caused such a thing.

But – it was just an illusion. I didn’t get a whole life. I got twenty two years, then I got eternity. My hand dropped to my side. “Immortality isn’t all it’s cracked up to be,” I muttered bitterly, turning from the mirror. “Come on. We’re going to be late.”

My brother said nothing.

--

I suppose it’s unusual to say that you’ve attended your own funeral. I was there when the other soldiers strapped my armor to my corpse, and gave me weapons to take with me to the afterlife. They repeated my name ad infinitum, quietly at first, then louder and louder until the sound reached the waves crashing against the rocks and carried across the water. Farrell, Farrell, Farrell… I stood by the fire as it turned my body to ash, and I remember watching the embers of my remains float higher into the sky. That night they drank vile, cheap beer and remembered my life.

Things are different now. Now, they say, the funerals are for the living. To give them closure for mourning the death of a loved one. Maybe that’s the better way of it – the dead don’t need much of anything, as it turns out.