Kaelen woke before the sun rose, though time had long since lost its meaning to him. To say it was dawn was only a nod to convention — in truth, Kaelen’s mind no longer knew how to distinguish between one day and the next. Every morning was the same. Every breath, though still drawn in habit, lacked necessity. His heart beat not for survival but out of some ancient compulsion, a relic of a body that once belonged to a mortal.
Kaelen stood on the edge of a high cliff, the same place he stood every morning for the past three centuries. Below, a sea of mist veiled a forest long turned to ruin. The once-thriving village at the forest’s edge was now moss-covered rubble, the children’s laughter that once rose into the air now only a distant hum in Kaelen’s mind — a memory so faint, it might as well have been a dream.
He did not need to sleep. He had not needed to for over four thousand years. Yet, every night, he lay beneath the stars, eyes open, mind drifting into fragments of worlds long past. His memories were both a gift and a curse — vivid and sharp at times, but other eras were blurred, their colors washed away like a fresco left too long in the rain.
The wind tugged at his cloak, the edges frayed not from age but from disuse. It was the last thing he had taken from the mortal world — a piece of cloth woven by hands that had crumbled into dust millennia ago. The wind had long since lost its ability to make him shiver, just as the rain had lost its ability to soak him. His body had become something between flesh and spirit — indestructible, unchanging, eternal.
The Weight of Sunrise
Kaelen took a step back from the cliff’s edge, not out of fear, but habit. He had thrown himself from it before, hundreds of times, in the early centuries when the weight of his immortality had been too much to bear. His bones would shatter, his skin would rupture, and then — like dew evaporating under sunlight — he would reform. Whole. Perfect. Ageless.
There was no point anymore. The cliff held no promise, no relief.
He wandered down the slope, feet silent against the rocks. The forest stretched out before him, ancient and eternal in its own way, though trees came and went. Some stood tall and proud, while others fell to storms and rot. Life moved forward around him, unconcerned with his presence.
Animals learned to ignore him — they could sense something was wrong. He was no predator, no prey, no part of their cycle. To them, Kaelen was a breeze or a shadow, something not meant to be there, something that had lingered too long after the world had moved on.
Conversations with Ghosts
In the heart of the forest stood a stone circle, its purpose lost to time. Kaelen traced his fingers along its edges, feeling the carvings, worn down by centuries of rain and lichen. He remembered the people who built it — the first mortals who had worshipped him, mistaking his immortality for divinity.
He had tried to tell them otherwise, back then. That he was not a god. That he was cursed. But they had seen his body mend itself from fatal wounds, had watched him walk from the flames of their ceremonial fires unharmed, and their fear had turned to reverence.
The language they spoke had long since died. Kaelen remembered it still, each syllable preserved perfectly in his mind, a secret language spoken only by ghosts in his head.
He whispered to them sometimes — to the air, to the trees, to the stones. His voice had grown hoarse with disuse, but the words still came, ancient prayers from a dead faith.
The Endless Meal
Food was no longer necessary, yet hunger haunted him like a phantom limb. Every day, Kaelen gathered berries from the forest, roasted small animals over fire, and sat beneath a towering oak to eat. The taste was bland now, his senses dulled by eons of familiarity, but he ate out of ritual, a gesture to remember the life he once lived.
He remembered the first time he realized he no longer needed to eat. It had been after the third century, after a particularly brutal winter where he had not seen the sun for months. Starvation had tried to claim him, and when it did not, he understood. His body no longer obeyed the rules of the earth.
But hunger — hunger was something deeper than the stomach. It was a memory of need, an echo of mortality, and so he ate. For no reason other than to pretend, just for a moment, that he was still a man.
The Language of Silence
Kaelen had not spoken to another living being in almost a thousand years.
Once, he had sought out others, walking into villages, introducing himself to kings and peasants alike. But the weight of his years always betrayed him — the way he spoke, the way he moved, the knowledge in his eyes. People feared what they could not understand, and Kaelen could no longer hide what he was.
The last time he had spoken to someone was in a crumbling city at the edge of the desert. The girl had been young, too young to understand fear, and she had asked him if he was a ghost. He had smiled and said yes. It was easier than the truth.
The Cycle of Creation and Destruction
The forest changed with the seasons, with the centuries. Fires would sweep through, turning it to ash. Storms would uproot the trees, rivers would flood, and new life would sprout. Kaelen had watched the same patch of earth be born and destroyed hundreds of times.
He had stopped trying to interfere long ago. It was not his place. When you live forever, you learn that nothing you do matters in the long run. Empires rise and fall. Villages turn to dust. Names are forgotten. His own name had changed a dozen times over the millennia. Kaelen was only the most recent.
The Long Walk
As the sun began to set, Kaelen walked. There was no destination. Walking was simply another ritual, a way to pass the endless hours between dawn and dusk.
He had walked across continents, seen mountains rise and crumble, crossed deserts that were once seas. He remembered walking beside armies — soldiers who would fight and die for causes already lost to history. He remembered walking beside pilgrims seeking salvation from gods no one worshipped anymore.
Each step was a memory, layered over another, until the earth itself seemed to whisper to him in languages long since extinct.
The Garden of Stones
At the edge of the forest was a clearing Kaelen had made himself. It was filled with stones, each one carved with a name. Every person he had ever known. Every friend, every lover, every enemy. Their names were all that was left.
Some of the stones had crumbled, their names lost even to him. Others remained sharp and clear, their letters freshly cut, even after millennia. Kaelen sat among them every night, tracing the letters with his fingers, remembering faces, voices, lives.
They had all died. Every one of them. And Kaelen remained.
The Weight of Darkness
As night fell, Kaelen lay beneath the stars. Above him, constellations had shifted over the millennia. Stars were born and died, and yet they felt more eternal than him.
He closed his eyes, though sleep never came. His mind wandered through memories, some sharp and painful, others soft and distant. The world had ended for him a thousand times, and still, it began again.
He was not waiting for death. He knew it would never come. But still, every night, Kaelen wished for it — not in desperation, but as a quiet, constant prayer.
To be free. To end.
And every morning, the sun would rise, the wind would blow, and Kaelen would rise with it, to live another day in a life that had no end.
Final Thought
Somewhere deep in his mind, Kaelen still remembered what it was like to be mortal — the fear of time, the urgency of love, the sharpness of every sunrise. And though the years had stripped all meaning from the hours, Kaelen clung to that memory, the fragile, fleeting beauty of being human.
It was all he had left.
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