The Mortal Immortal

You have just joined your first party of monster hunters. You are so excited; you have been chasing this career since hearing your first monster story. The rest of your party are experienced, and you are just there for the ride. The first couple times are nothing for you, you are not really needed and just witness the other party members fight and heal. The fourth monster you decide to try and fight. You were not ready and got seriously injured, your arm broke in many places from where you were thrown. Luckily for you, one of the party members heals you and you walk away entirely unscathed. It was amazing, not even a scar, it was like it didn’t even happen.

You fight more and more and pretty soon it has been several years; you’ve been injured many times and always healed. Looking fantastic, better than you ever have and feeling great, minus the occasional nightmare where you wake up with phantom pains and realize there is nothing to show from it. Your gear has improved as much if not more than your fighting skills. You can even think faster.

You finally go home to visit after years away. There was a job near the village where your family lives. You notice that your younger sibling looks the same age you do, you laugh it off probably just a side-effect of being more active. Thinking about it, the rest of your party also seems like they haven’t aged a day, well except for your healer. Continuing the hunting, your nightmares get worse but nothing you can’t handle. It’s nothing compared to the number of times you have seen the other side and been pulled back by your healer, you start to wonder how they do it, how can someone bring back a person from practically death? You tell yourself that they just have the experience, the true answer might scare you more than anything that you could come up with.

The team works well, everybody can communicate without talking by reading each other's body language. Every day is just a different monster until, one day your first party member dies, slain. The healer couldn’t do anything about it, dead instantly they said. Your entire party mourned for weeks. No one knew what to do next. How do you keep fighting with a limb missing?

Eventually you guys continue what you were doing, the monsters don’t slow down your team won't either; it wasn’t the same, harder now that they are gone. You guys have tried to replace them, but it never works out. Not a single hunter can take their place. One mistake and half your party is gone, you blame yourself even though there was nothing you could have done. One wrong miscalculation and you were down, blinking in and out of unconsciousness. Helpless you watch as your party members are taken one by one. Why had the healer chosen you over everybody else?

When they came to heal you, you had asked like you have done many times now for them to leave a scar, they just laughed at you and told you that is not how this works. If only you could have proof that all this had happened. It felt like you were losing yourself a little every time you were healed. The accidental stab wound you got from training with your team, gone. Many more stories told in scars magically taken away from you. If you could just have the scars, maybe then the nightmares could go away.

It has been forty years now and no one except you and the healer are left, not even your family. Your party slain, your family died of old age, your sibling followed in your footsteps and did not last two monsters and you still haven’t aged a day. People around you have begun to notice, they always tell you “You must be blessed”, although you know it is closer to being cursed. To this day you still haven’t figured it out, you’ve gone through many parties, some killed, some just older.

Your healer has begun to teach you how to heal yourself. You learn quickly and pretty soon you barely need their help. You know you are going to lose them soon, how could you not, they are so old. Several decades after your first party and they are all you have left, a healer and an immortal, what a pair. Even though you know it was happening it still hit you very hard. It wasn’t that you finally lost them, it was the way you did. Not in a battle against a monster like you figured but in their sleep., not stoic but ordinary.

This was your last straw; you couldn’t handle anymore loss. You find yourself a small cottage in the woods and settle down. You have a little garden that supplies you year-round thanks to the magic taught to you by your healer. You still remember every day that you lost someone and hold small ceremonies for them. When your bones get tired, or you hurt yourself you heal and devote that to your healer hoping they are proud of you. You will never admit it but when you get those little cuts, you hope they scar. When you can you don’t heal your wounds. All the little scars you have gained mean something to you. When you were setting up the garden and the wire cut your ribs deep, you never healed that with magic. You pretend that you got that scar from one of your hunts. This continues for years, pretending your mundane scars were gained fighting. After years of being alone, you get a knock on your door.

It was just a young boy from the town, and he tells you a horrid tale of a monster terrorizing the village. You sigh and collect your old armor and weapons. Old as you yet still looking like the day you bought them. Except for the gleam of many enchantments from your past victories. The boy stares up in awe at you. You both head out to confront this monster, no matter how many times you tell him to leave he will not. You know based on the stories that you cannot defeat this monster on your own, but who would you be if you did not try.

When you get to the village no one is there; they have all left. As night falls you send out your prayers. The battle begins and it is just as you remember, adrenaline pumping, a feeling of freedom, and in the back of your mind the wish for death. After many hours you have mortally wounded this monster. The catch, it has also mortally wounded you. You have tried to heal yourself but there is too much pain to focus. Every injury you have ever gained combines in this moment, current pain and past memories overlap. It is too much to try and heal, you wouldn’t even know how to begin. You lay there next to the monster you have slain, waiting for a death you have wanted but was too scared of. The feeling of inevitability of death for both you and the monster beside you clinging to every breath. Ironic that you are going to die the same death of the monsters you have slain in the past.

The boy comes and sits next to you and begins speaking. He says your name, something that no one in this time knows and that catches your attention. He scoots closer, “Do not worry, you are not alone anymore they are here with you”, a single tear falls down your cheek as you remember everyone you have lost in the many lives you have lived. You know you are about to see them and no longer fight the death you have feared. You have died in battle like you thought you would. You let go and as you do there is a light. In the light you see your healer. They come forward and you meet them halfway. You get your answers to the questions you have carried for many years, why you never aged, why you were the only one to survive, and why you were left all alone. That is when you realize you were never in the presence of a healer, but in the presence of a God.