The Cursed One

Those eyes, those. Horrible. Staring eyes. It took me a moment to re-gain composure and spin around to await the fate of my life, as I turn a piercing, tearing sensation fills the back of my neck, I cannot scream, I cannot move I am helpless, staring blankly with an expressionless face and in an instant the blade is twisted, I writhe in agony and then simply. I wake up.

A new life, a new surrounding, new attire and a single candle dimly glowing and providing just enough light to see the claustrophobic pit of jagged rocks and stalactites that hang over me close enough that I can feel their sharp points scraping into the crown of my skull I turn around slowly making sure to stay low and I am presented by a solid, cave wall. The candle now burning shorter and shorter due to the lack of oxygen is then blown out by a gush of wind from a small crack in the roof of the cave, and there for what feels like hours I am left once again staring blankly with nothing but my confusing thoughts of my dream, am I dreaming still? A new dream? My confusion is shattered by the discovery of another flat wall as I slide my hand eagerly along the pitch black cave wall. I am trapped.

As the oxygen gets slowly replaced by frantic breaths the small jagged room slowly begins to feel like a sauna, a few minutes later an oven, a few seconds after that my eyes begin to dim. I am motionless once, again writhing in pain. I can feel my flesh bubbling all over as I take a last breath of what feels like steam being pumped down my lungs scorching its way down.

The eyes. Despite my blinded agonized eyes I can see them again, staring back at me for a split second. They freeze me, and again, I wake up. A new surrounding, a new life, a new agonizing death. This process repeats over and over again. Every time I wake up I am a new person in a new time zone. Endless painful deaths, for what feels like an eternity. I only ever stay alive for a couple of minutes, sometimes seconds, and every now and then a few days. But what is certain is that I die, I’ve died in wars all over the world, I’ve died of famine, dysentery, fire, blades, bullets, endless pitfalls, suffocation, drowning and any death you could imagine. And the last thing I see before I die is the eyes. I cannot possibly describe the eyes, if I can even call them that. They just always seem to be there just as I die, as a sort of reminder of who is doing this. They stare at me, black glassy eyes. No pupils, no movement. They seem to reflect everything back at me, through me.

I wake up once again. This time I am in a forest, alone, as always. My movements seem to have always led me towards my goals. Like a puppet I am only partially aware of what my body is doing. With all my will and strength I try, despite the force and locking sensation in my joints, to run the opposite direction. I feel trapped, as if I am tied to a bungee chord that’s pulling me the other way. And then, with a loud snap, I am flung forwards. Have I escaped? I take no time to think of an answer. Straight away I head to a cave on the other side of the forest. Yes, another cave… After having died in one a few thousand times I’ve come to prefer to suffocate than to be ripped to shreds by the wild beasts that roam the forest. Let’s just say its not as peaceful of a death as suffocation. Yes it’s still agonizing, but after doing this for what feels like eternity you develop preferences. It’s the same for everything, except, all I have is death.

I peer into the cave, it does not lead anywhere. It’s more like a giant ice cream scoop tore a chunk out of the hill. I lie there for a few moments staring outwards. It’s rather odd if you think about it. This one time I died by a stampede of elephants, I would say about three-hundred deaths ago, and I laughed to my self. “Mind the shoes, I just got them cleaned!” And then my skull was crushed to a mushy pulp. The last thing I saw, just before the eyes of course, were chunky bits of flesh, which I can only assume was my own brain dotted around the floor. Blood covered every inch of the area which I was standing in, except for one thing, A pair of bright white shoes with mangled legs still attached.

Have you ever been to space? I was once an astronaut doing repairs on a space station a couple of thousand deaths ago. A fault in my helmet released oxygen and the tube connecting the oxygen to my valve dislodged. The air was sucked out in an instant. Space was beautiful, so beautiful… That was before the glass on my helmet was covered with the intestines and lungs that I had just thrown up. “Hah” I giggle to myself silently before popping my leg up on a rock in the cave… I have only ever died in space once. And then it hit me, my eyes spread as if my eyelids were being yanked open. An article pops into my head, it’s a news article I had read about the death of an astronaut. He died the same way as me. Could it possibly be? Am I destined to be the one to endure every single persons death who has ever lived? And then I just scream in the loudest voice possible ” Why!, Why! Why!”

I sit up staring into the forest and then I freeze. A voice rattles in my ear and screeches “Because every time I’ve looked at you, throughout eternity, you have never once said… Forgive me”. I freeze for a couple of seconds and then I awake once again. Every time I die, I am completely alone, the eyes which where once haunting the very essence of my soul have vanished, and I am left with nothing but death.