They Claim They're Immortal

“You knew and you didn’t even tell me!” I was pacing in front of Taryn, practically wearing a hole through the hard wood flooring. “Aren’t you supposed to be my all-knowing companion who looks out for my wellbeing?” He opened his mouth to say something but I rudely cut him off. “I mean, come on, you were basically pressuring me to give him a chance and this is what happens? How can I trust you now?”

I’d come to terms that this man had somehow been living in my mind and that I was plagued with schizophrenia and dissociative identity disorder. We were currently located in ‘my’ room and I was using Taryn as an outlet for my rage.

“Jessica!” He stood from his seat on my bed and strode over to me. He placed his hands on my shoulders and maneuvered me to sit down. “You need to calm down.”

“How can you-”

“Christ, will you just listen to me for a second?” I’d never seen Taryn mad and right now with him irritated and his pupils nothing but slits, it was intimidating. “Jake’s an ass for pulling that while he’s intoxicated but that was also him being completely himself. Well, mostly anyways,” he said.

“No, that was him with the mindset of an infant and the balance of one too!”

“People always say the drunken mind speak the sober heart, or something along those lines.”

“How would you know what people say? You’re just a delusion caused by my schizophrenic mind.”

“I am not some sort of-!” he started with his voice raised but stopped to clear his throat and take a deep breath, “delusion. I am you, you are me-”

“I’m just going to stop you there before you start coming up with more cryptic nonsense. This whole situation is probably part of the inner-workings of my brain to cope with my life that is slowly spiraling downwards. In fact, I’ve probably created each and every one of you people—and I do use that term loosely—and I’ve finally decided to bring you all to life all the while I’m sitting at home in the corner of my quaint home rocking back and forth. Sooner or later someone’s going to find me, put me into a mental institution, and pour some meds down my throat. Then everything will go back to normal.” During that whole thing I hadn’t stopped to breathe so I found myself sucking in air for my poorly neglected lungs.

Taryn kneeled before my and placed his large hands on the sides of my face. “Sweetie,” I grimaced as that word passed through his lips. It just sounded so wrong. “You need to understand that you don’t have some sort of psychological problem and this is reality. You’ve just been blessed to have me here to walk you through this.”

He ended his heart warming speech with a light pat on my face before he stood again and looked down at me. “Now,” he started with a dramatic sigh. “While I have you sitting here not throwing a tantrum-”

“I do not throw tantrums,” I said with a scowl.

He gave me a pointed look before continuing, “This is all going to be very overwhelming but I promise, if you have the blood of your ancestors before you coursing through your veins-” Insert my very lady-like snort here. “-then you should be relatively open-minded and you’ll learn to accept your fate.”

He took a deep breath and started his history lesson. “Long ago, years before you were born, there was a prophecy written about a young heroin.” I raised my eyebrows at this and he grinned. “Of course I’m kidding, there is no prophecy and this isn’t some cheesy story about how you save humanity and become queen of the world.

“I digress. When you were born, your grandmother had to die,” I choked on my spit at this part and sputtered a lame ‘excuse me’. “Oh don’t worry, she died happily. Her purpose was complete. You see, both you and her share one thing. That’s me, by the way. Now I can’t explain everything entirely because that’s not my place, but I can try to help you make sense of some things.

“As soon as your mother became pregnant with you, your grandmother knew of her impending death. Her name was Lilian and she was a godsend. She was much better company than you.” I rolled my eyes at this, “Anyways, you and her are both very special. Your fate was the same as hers-”

“Why didn’t this all happen to my mom?” I interrupted.

“What? All this fate stuff?” I nodded. “For some reason it only happens every other generation and to only females. It’s kind of bizarre actually. So if you end up having a kid and your kid ends up having a female, this’ll happen to her too, except you won’t die.”

“Why?” I asked curiously.

“Well you’re just a bundle of questions today, aren’t you?” I gave him a dry look and he smirked at me. “That’s one of the many questions I can’t answer because it’ll reveal too much and lead to more question that I cannot—nor do I have the desire to—answer. No more interruptions.” I pretending to zip my lips and throw away the key to which he smiled. “Now where was I?” he pondered this for all of two seconds before remembering. “Oh right! Okay, so your fate and your grandmother’s fates are the same with few differences.

“As much as your grandmother wanted to tell your mother, she couldn’t. What I’m about to tell you will come as a shock and you may not understand why it had to happen, but you will one day. Your grandmother knew not only of your own fate but the fate of your family, including the death of your mother and brother.” My mouth dropped open in shock and anger. How could my own grandmother, my mother’s mother let that happen to her! “I know you’re probably furious but if your grandmother did anything it would’ve turned out worse for all of you. Had your mother and brother not been sacrificed, you would’ve died-”

“And I should have! That should’ve been me in their place; those men were there for me! How could she just-just-” I covered my mouth as a strangled sob made it past my lips. Taryn sat down beside me and wrapped an arm around my shoulders. I accepted his comfort and wrapped my arms around his waist. I buried my face in his shoulder while the tears silently streamed down my face.

“It’s going to be aright, Jess. Had you died, they—along with many others—would have had to die as well. That includes Jake, Kyle, Tyler, Aaron, and I. You will see them again someday, I promise but they just won’t be as you expected.”

“Enough with this cryptic shit, Taryn. Just get on with it,” I said in between sniffles. He let out a light chuckle and stroked my hair. It was comforting. He was like the big brother I once had and missed dearly.

“That letter that you found at your brother’s grave, it was placed there by your grandmother.” I opened my mouth to question him on how that would work but he just covered my mouth with his hand. “I’m about to explain. But I want you to close your eyes first and go back to that day.” I rolled my eyes but did as he said and he took his hand from my mouth. “If you recall, it was fall. It was the day just before your brother’s birthday and it was relatively chilly. You wore his old sweater. You were only 16 at the time.”

I remembered that day with clarity. I remembered every visit to his grave along with my mother’s. “Your father had work that was due the next day, he had said. You didn’t believe him, of course. Such a stubborn little kid.” A small smile graced my face. “At first you didn’t even realize the note. It wasn’t until you were leaving that you saw it. Do you remember what it said?”

“Bits and pieces,” I whispered. I could picture the whole scenery perfectly, right down to the kind of flowers I brought for their graves but I could barely even remember the letter. Odd, I thought.
“Don’t worry, you were meant to forget. In that letter, your grandmother told you of me. She knew that on your next birthday, you were going to hear my voice for the first time.”

“You mean I’ve heard you before?”

“What did I say?”

“Oh right, sorry.”

“I’ve been with you since your birth and I’ve also appeared to you for the first time in St. Augustus Hospital the hour after your birth. Your mother had fallen asleep almost immediately after feeding you and the nurses were preoccupied with another birth. Yes, you’ve always been hairy.” I opened my eyes to glare at him and he laughed. “I had to, sorry. But anyways, your seventeenth birthday was very important. This was when you were going to undergo The Change. It’s actually kind of like puberty, but for the gifted. You started to develop your powers. Your grandmother had written about them in the letter but without the training you needed, you not only ignored them but you completely forgot about them.

“Do you remember that math class during your senior year when you pointed out your teacher’s flaws in the equation that she had written on the board?” I nodded. “Do you remember how you were able to figure that out?” I hesitated before shaking my head in answer. “Your intelligence was and still is beyond the intelligence of the people around you. Well, your IQ is greater we still have to work on your street smarts.”

Before I could shoot him another scowl, he continued. “Not only is your intelligence greater, your basic motor skills are too. You will find that you can run faster than the average human being even without training and your endurance rivals a track stars’. Your body was fashioned in a way that will amaze others. Your pain tolerance is higher and your reflexes are more developed.

“While the average human is only able to use up to maybe twenty percent of the brain, had you gotten the training you were supposed to, you would’ve been able to use more than fifty at this point. And at one point in the near future, you would have been at your full capacity. While I can’t reveal any more about your powers, just know that there is much more.

“Also in the letter, your grandmother revealed what I was. I’m a… spirit of sorts, I suppose. I do physically exist obviously, as you can feel I am a solid but I have the ability to enter and live in your mind as I did with your grandmother. In a way, I’m a part of you but I am able to detach myself from you as I have done. It’s not painful, you know this firsthand and it won’t ever be painful.

“Your powers are my powers as well, so whatever I can do you can do as well and vice versa. While in my physical form, I’ll always be able to hear you and feel you.” Once he saw my questioning look, he decided to elaborate. “Basically, I will feel your emotions as well as your pain and whether or not you’re alive. But should you die, I won’t. Though I am a part of you and your death will hurt physically, I continue to live on.”

“But what exactly are you? Are you some sort of angel like Aaron supposedly is?” I asked.

He laughed and shook his head, no. “If I was an angel, I would’ve been kicked out long ago. No, I’m neither a demon or vampire or even a werewolf. Technically speaking, I am what you are and we are not considered to be in a set category.”

“There are categories? You mean there’s more than just angels and demons and shit out there?” I asked, shocked.

There was a knock at the door and a slur of words strung together to form a sentence. “Jessica, you need ta open tha door right nao.”

“Jake, you’re drunk leave her alone!” Oh, there’s Tyler.

Taryn squeezed my shoulder and smiled down at me. “That’s a story for another day.”