Eternal: Extended

Eternal

-Death…
-It permeates our world, a constant reminder of our impermanence upon this Earth. At least… it is for most people.
-I turned away from the cliff, drawing my coat about me against the cold wind.
-I am immortal. And sometimes… well just say I wish I wasn’t. I sighed and walked away, the sun setting behind me over the autumn trees in the valley below.
-I looked over my shoulder at the grave I had been standing by. ‘Well,’ I thought ruefully, ‘I shouldn’t complain. After all, I asked for this.’ I turned away grimly and walked down the path, my last tie to my old life, gone.
-I reached the ledge overlooking the wreckage of what had been my birthplace. ‘My fault, all for my own damned desire to live forever. My family, dead. My friends, dead. My heart… well, that’s dead too now.’
-‘I doubt now that one ever beat in my chest, how else could I have done this?’ I jumped over the small cliff and began to walk toward the dead city. I walked past the wreckage of the church that once had told me that that was where my soul would be saved.
-It had been the first to burn. For what use could a church be for one without a soul? None at all. My eyes flashed red in the light of the sun. ‘My flesh may be clean, but my existence is forever stained with blood.’
100 years later

-I watch as a cart rumbles past, wondering how these people still live while death surrounds them. I shudder in pain as I feel my flesh begin to crawl and change. I focus and stop the transformation, ‘I may be without heart or soul,’ I think grimly, ‘but human form, at least, I will keep. A beast in the flesh of man.’
-The, probably not so, innocent merchant disappears around a corner and I step out onto the path and head in the opposite direction. I soon arrive at my destination, slipping into the shadows of the wall as a guard passes above. When the guard is gone I quickly scale the wall and am soon at the top.
-I crouch in an alcove as a second guard passes, then flip over the other side and snag a ledge with practiced ease, making less noise than a breath of wind. I then brace myself and drop the fifty feet to the stone flagstones behind a tavern, my bones swiftly mending and I am soon ready once again.
-I leap onto a roof and quickly begin to make my way to the citadel at the center of the city. I grin behind my mask. ‘Of all the occupations I have had,’ I chuckle inwardly, ‘being an assassin is by far the most fun.’
-I feel a burning pain in my lower leg and barely make it to the next roof before collapsing. I look around for the culprit and soon find it. I hiss in displeasure, I had stepped on the chimney of a forge, searing my flesh through the loose cloth wrapped around my foot. My eyes fill with flame and my flesh begins once again to tremble, on the very edge of transformation I force myself to stop. I can burn it on the way out, no need to worry about it now. There is work to be done.I turn away swiftly and resume my passage across the roofs, intent on getting this done so I burn that building to the ground.
-I reach my destination, a four story stone mansion spanning some fifteen hundred feet. I rapidly assess the defenses and nearly collapse in laughter. No soldiers, not even town militia as guards. Well, there wouldn’t be. If the brightly lit palace was to be a decoy, this mansion needed to look like there was no one worth protecting there.
-I make my way across the green lawn, careful to avoid treading on wires and bear traps hidden among the grass. I reach the front door easily and leap onto the overhang above it, scaling the rough stone with the ease of almost a half-century of practice. I find an unlocked window and swing silently through it, landing softly on the padded carpet.
-I look up only to find myself staring down a dozen crossbows standing between me and the quivering lump I had been sent to destroy. I grin as the captain says, “Nice try assassin, but we are not so stupid as all that! Fire!” At the last word they all pull the triggers on their bows, sending the stout bolts deep into my skull.
Blood streams from my nearly destroyed head as I fall back, limp and apparently lifeless. The captain orders his men to dispose of my corpse before turning to the worthless dignitary trembling behind him. My mutilated jaws twists as I grin in sadistic glee, I could almost feel sorry for them.
-I shudder as my flesh and blood begins to crawl back and reconstruct my destroyed skull. A deep, hoarse laugh rumbles from my throat as I stand once more, the soldiers frozen in terror.
-I lick my lips, catching a drop of my own blood upon my tongue. I bare my teeth in an animalistic parody of a grin. The captain shouts orders to his men and they begin to frantically draw long knives from sheathes buckled at their sides. I raise one hand and allow a minor transformation of my flesh to take place, my fingers lengthening into long steel claws.
-The gleam in the light of the newly risen moon as I raise my hand to strike the soldiers down when I suddenly feel a deep, resonating pain in my stomach. I look down to see that the captain had taken his sword and thrown through my abdomen. I seize the sword with my still human hand and slide it slowly out of my flesh, a slow sucking sound accompanying its withdrawal from my body.
I look up and say, “Your name before I kill you human.”
He looks back defiantly and says, “Captain Holt of the 3rd Regiment of the Imperial army, undead filth.”
-My grin broadens and I reply, “Well, Captain Holt, I’ll leave you to go free of the fate of your men and this dignitary. But I know that the very offer insults you so I shall merely make it quick. Out of respect for you bravery. You have served your nation well, Captain Holt of the 3rd Regiment, may she honor death better than she honored mine.” So saying I struck him through the heart with his own sword.