Eternal Bliss

“My name? Henry. Just Henry. Last names make who - rather - what I am needlessly complicated. As a time traveler, the last thing I want is a trail of my name through the ages. My curse? There is an incredibly annoying immortal who seems to show up wherever and whenever I am, preventing me from changing anything serious in the past. The world has known her by many different names, only I know her birth name: Amara. She is the most pompous, know-it-all, uptight being I have ever met in all time. So, mind telling me when I am, my good sir?”

The man in front of me pressed his hands on the table in a silent frustration that I found amusing. Of course I knew when I was, I knew where I was too. I was outside of space-time, being held with Amara, in the Headquarters for Those who Exist Outside of Time. Really, it’s just a prison for immortals and time travelers who cause- or attempt to prevent- the apocalypse.

“Let me try another avenue of discussion, hmm?” Officer 362 took a deep breath and readjusted his tie before smiling at me coldly. “What does she have to do with this?”

“Amara? Oh, I hate that deathless piranha, but she had nothing to do with any of this.”

“Well, Henry, you have to understand how hard it is to believe that the two of you- and the two of you alone - managed to survive an apocalypse. How does that just happen without both individuals being involved?”

“She was supposed to die.”

Officer 362 regarded me with a quiet, blank stare.

I sighed, “Alright, alright. I’ll explain how she’s innocent, but that’s all, and could I have a glass of water please? I’m just parched.” He did not react well to the smirk that accompanied the request, nor the rush the blushing transcriber was in to accommodate my needs.

“Amara and I have been tangled since the dawn of time. Her trying to kill me, per your orders, and myself dodging each and every attempt on my life, enjoying all the benefits each time period has to offer and breaking all the rules I could each time. Which is why she was meant to kill me. Each fight was like a dance, it became a ritual of sorts. No matter how long I could evade her, she found me. And each time, I managed to slip away just in time. After millennia, an unfortunate circumstance came to be. Moving forward in time, being followed in such a manner, she’s the best bounty hunter you’ve had.”

“Your water, sir.” The transcriber giggled when I took the cup and winked at her.

“Why tell you, when I can show you? You are aware time travelers can project their memories through pools of water, correct?”

“Whatever, cut the showmanship and spit it out.” This was the grumpiest officer I’d ever seen.

I dumped the water on the table and held my hand on either side. The events of what I had experienced in the past few hours began to play.

“Give me one reason I shouldn’t kill you right here, right now.” Amara seethed, holding a gun to my chest. Her icy blue eyes shone under her long black hair that always dropped in her face.

“Sweetheart, if you were going to kill me, you would’ve done it back in Ancient Rome when I was caught in the Colosseum instead of rescuing me. Besides,” I shove her away, wrestling the gun out of her hand and pinning her on the ground, gun against her head and my knee on her back, “what would you do without me?” In stark contrast, my red hair and brown eyes looked incredibly wild, but with enjoyment.

Suddenly, for reasons unknown to me, I pull away from her. “I know what’s coming, Amara. I’m not dying. This apocalypse, no one decides when I die, no one except me. Surely you can respect that, yes?”

She was sitting up now, wiping blood from her lip and nodding. “Henry, the punishment for surviving past your time is much worse than being chased by an immortal bounty hunter. It would be a favor.”

“No.” The clock ticked, five seconds left till annihilation. I take out a small bag, within it is a small plastic ring, with glowing marble like orbs within.

Five.

The orbs spun faster, the plastic ring enlarged to a portal. All i had to do was walk through.

Four.

“Henry, please, you don’t know what they’ll do to you!”

Three.

“It’s not your problem Amara, better get back to headquarters now.”

Two.

“Stop! I swear to god, drop to your knees or I will shoot you!” I didn’t look back to see if she was bluffing or not.

One.

I go to step through the portal, when I am suddenly stopped, I look back to see Amara clinging to me, trying to pull me into the real world, to jump to headquarters. In a fit of rage, I yell and pull her in with me, effectively knocking her cold. We float in the white nothingness, the expanse of the universe that follows a different set of rules entirely.

The image in the water fades, the transcriber and Officer 362 both stare at me as if I had revealed some sacred secret.

“You’ll release her now, won’t you?” I couldn’t help the pleading in my voice.

“Yes. You’ve proven her innocence. Memory pools can’t be changed or tainted. You, however, will be burned, each incarnation of your soul, until Headquarters sees fit to return you to a normal timeline.”

The two walk out, before sentencing, I see her. The memory pool lights up again.

“Amara, I heard them, at Headquarters, they plan on total annihilation! Time Travelers will be fine, but immortals are going to be destroyed! You have to believe me!” I was on my knees in a grassy field, she was standing over me with a knife to my throat.

“Why would I believe you?! Why would you help me? I’ve spent all these years trying to kill you-”

“But you never could, and I can at least return the favor.”

“What’s the real reason Henry?” She lowered the knife, but I remained on my knees, avoiding eye contact.

“Let me prove it.”

The memory fades, and another plays before my eyes.

Amara and I are sitting on a ledge, overlooking nothing but the vast ocean. She’s just finished watching the proof of the apocalypse for the millionth time, she struggled to wrap her head around it for a while. She had stopped trying to kill me at that point.

“You know, I never would have been able to.” She sat, facing the sea.

“Been able to what?” Her sudden want for conversation had startled me from a light catnap.

“Kill you.”

The memory fades into yet another.

We are in a house, dressed in typical attire for the early 1960’s. Amara stands in the kitchen, humming one of her favorite songs, that hasn’t technically been created yet. She’s cutting fruit. Two small children run through the house- human children, adopted. I sit on the couch, reading a newspaper as the boy approaches me.

“Dad, can we play catch, please?” His eyes are blue, like Amara’s.

“I want to play too!” The little girl looks more like me, and was just as rebellious as I always have been.

I watch as I play with our children, as Amara and I put them to bed, as I hunt day and night for a way to help Amara live, to survive the coming apocalypse. The children had been her idea, and she hadn’t been wrong. All of those years trying to save her existence, we had grown incredibly fond of each other.

The memory pool faded as Officer 362 walked back in, the serum that would set my eternal soul aflame ready in a surprisingly small and underwhelming syringe. I close my eyes.

Memories of Amara fly through my head, the dance we participated in each time we had to pretend to try to kill each other, the knowing looks each time there was an accidental injury, the children. Through all of that, through all we had been through, the centuries spent together, there was so much I hadn’t told her.

I hadn’t told her that the first time I saw her, in an 18th century ballroom, that she was the most beautiful creature to ever walk the earth. I hadn’t told her that each time we met was exhilarating, that she stole the air from my lungs with each icy glare. That teasing her and antagonizing her pride, her ego, was something I took joy in because I reveled in how absolutely adorable she looked when she was angry. I never told her that the entire time she spent hating me, I spent loving her.

The syringe plunged into my vein, a tear rolled down my cheek, and I smiled.

“Amara,” I whispered, “I love you.”