Immortal Studies

Chapter One: Birth

It's not unlike what you've experienced before. Some kind of black-out, like sleep. It's always fast, never lasting more than a few seconds, and then you're back into the waking world with your Creator.

However, this time was different. You weren't floating in a space around a human body, nor were you hovering above the ground at all. You were, in fact, laying face-first into the hardwood floor. For the first time in your entire knowing existence, your body ached from your shoulders to your lower back. Your arms and legs felt weak and your skin felt cold.

You take in a sharp breath as you push yourself off the floor. You squint at the ground - does the hardwood floor know what happened to you? Likely not, but you have your suspicions.

You hold onto your elbows as you stand up, wobbly like a three legged chair. You almost feel sorry for yourself. What happened to your floating abilities, anyway? And why are you so cold?

You try to think, taking deep breaths. You don't remember having to breath so often....think! Think! What could have possibly happened?

A shudder.

You blink and sit back down. Your mind is blurry, but could it really be? You were in shock those few seconds of dark silence, before you awakened on the ground. But now that you have time to process....

It was a body. Another person. Standing over your creator, you recall it, clear as day. You look down at your hands - flesh like. Not made of light or color. Anxiety bubbles inside of you - your Creator is dead.

And now, for some unexplainable reason, you have a body. An imaginary friend has a body.

You take a few steps forward, learning more about balance than weight, and step onto creaky boards. Empty shelves lined the walls, and along side this, empty-looking rooms. Everything made of wood, some even rotting.

What you first thought to be the house of your Creator (or even possibly their lab) seems to be a dusty warehouse, of sorts. But why would you be here?

You go the extra mile and open one of the swinging wood doors. A long creak deafens you from the old and loose screws. The door falls lopsided after it's done, and you're open to another empty room. This one had planks of wood laying on the ground, but nothing else to take note of.

You see that you're not alone as you look to the edge of the door. A small cellar spider, common around these parts, makes it's home inside of the wood. Some kind of pocket in the rot, you're sure. You had never been frightened of the creatures, perhaps due to your time spent as more of a phantom. You wonder if you should get a head start on developing your fears or if you should leave it for the time being. After all, such small things are harmless.

You return to your original resting place and sit back down, your bum feeling the ache of gravity. Maybe you need to be more careful - you're not exactly use to working with the full nervous system.

Your stomach makes a God-awful noise, and you can feel it vibrate through the rest of your torso. It's followed by a slight pain. Is this what hunger feels like? As a figment of someone's imagination, you have only ever observed this.

And among other things, you realize that you are, very much so, naked.

Without the energy to feel embarrassed, you pull yourself back off the ground and start looking for something to cover you. among the cobwebs, there's not much, but a dirtied sheet lay on the floor in one of those emptied rooms. It seems more like plastic, like a tarp for a garden or a tent, but it's not like you can be picky.

You wrap the thing around you, feeling an icky plep of dust fall down your back. 

Whatever you decide to do now, it's got to be something that gets you somewhere else. You can't sit around and wait for someone to find you. With your luck, it would be whoever murdered your Creator.

Your body is weak and in need of food. Your mind has questions. Although you are barely remembering what it feels like to walk, you drag yourself outside and into the open air.

Grass?

Not much of it. You find yourself standing in a small yard outside of a city. There's a large road that leads into it. You recall memories from your Creator, as they trekked down the roads by foot to reach a hidden-away place. Tucked between the alleyways, a warm and inviting place for creatures of all kinds.

After about fifty years of life, they had managed to find it and make peace with the people living there. Your Creator had given up on their dream long before that, but something about it reignited their need for fame.

You were first created, perhaps a year or so after this encounter.

It was a joke, at first. Your Creator didn't have many friends and relied on their own mind. As they studied the different mystical beings, they would talk to an imaginary person. At first your name was Sticks, then it was Wind, and even once it was God. But over time, your Creator had begun to see you as a single, nameless being. Something to talk to to pass the time.

You were told many things. As an imaginary friend, you know many secrets about your Creator. For instance, they had first wanted to be a biologist who studied different fauna, but made it better as a botanist. They wanted, for a long time, to discover something new, although they didn't get the chance for a long time.

It was a golden fruit, standing by itself on a tree, hidden away. All outside of a dim light, something like life, itself. It was warm, you remember. It was inviting.

And for your Creator, it was a chance for all of their dreams to finally come true. They brought the fruit to their lab and studied it endlessly. They even cut it open and examined the seeds. It was only a matter of time before they did what just about anyone WOULD and eat the plant.

It was risky. It might not have even be edible.

But you were told of endless dreams that next day. 

"It told me I was immortal!" They would babble on and on about the dreams. And you suppose it was true. So long as your Creator didn't get seriously injured, they would live forever. And they lived for a good one hundred and so years after this.

They had not died after all this time. But....now....

You're certain that, somehow, being killed is what brought you to life! But why? And why are you here? 

It must be because of the fruit.

That's why, after so long of walking, weak and hungry, you only stop once you've reached that alleyway. One hand pressed to the wall, you walk through and find yourself on the other side.

There's one person that you recall hearing about. One person that, while your Creator never met, they would always talk about one day meeting. Someone who knows all about the mystical. Someone who might be able to help you figure out what's happened.

Baron Draxum.