I staggered back into an alley, knees weak, stomach twisting. My mind raced.
Wait… wait. Hold on.
I clenched my fists. "If the head has to be cut… then why the hell did I survive before? That… that underground nap?"
I sank against the wall, muttering, pacing, tugging at my hair.
Then it clicked. Maybe. Maybe… the blade didn't fully sever the connection. Some little piece, vein, tendon, whatever, kept me alive. Just barely. Enough for the world to go black, but not enough to let me die.
I traced my fingers to my neck, shivering. "So I wasn't… invincible. I was just… unlucky… lucky?"
Memories of the execution in the city flooded back, the slash, the blood, the darkness, then waking up cramped in a coffin.
It made sense now. The world had given me a sneak peek. A warning.
I shook my head, muttering bitterly,
"So that's it. All those stabbings, falls, poisons… nothing. But one clean cut, one full separation… and it's game over."
The thought made my stomach churn and my knees quiver.
I was not invincible. Not untouchable. Not free from death.
Just… IMMORTAL ENOUGH TO LEARN THE RULES, PAINFULLY, ABSURDLY… THE HARD WAY.
---
Ever since that day, I treated my neck like it was a Fabergé egg strapped to a rocket.
Every time I walked past a sword-swinging fool, every time a drunk stumbled toward me with a cleaver, every time a guard yanked someone to the chopping block, I flinched. Ducked. Rolled. Twisted. Prayed.
I even started wearing scarves, high collars, neck braces, whatever I could find to shield the one vulnerable spot that could finally end me.
Do not slip. Do not trip. Do not get mistaken for a criminal, an enemy, a demon, or a particularly suspicious goat.
I learned quickly that being immortal in all other ways was useless if your head was still attached to a swinging blade.
In taverns, I sat with my back to the wall. In streets, I hugged shadows. I even developed a ridiculous habit of pointing my chin down while walking, like some absurd, self-imposed armor.
And when people laughed at me? Called me paranoid? I didn't care. They weren't immortal. They didn't know the price of a careless tilt of the neck.
Survival had a rule.
Keep the head attached. Everything else… could be endured. Pain, age, sickness, disasters, bring them on. But that one rule? Unbreakable. Sacred.
I had learned the hard way. And from now on, I would live. Carefully. Absurdly. Eternally… if I could.
---
Over the centuries, I tried almost everything. Merchant. Shipwright. Blacksmith. Baker. Even a brief stint as a street performer, juggling knives I was way too cautious to actually throw at anyone.
I learned quickly, anything that might accidentally detach my head from my body was off-limits.
Piloting? Forget it. A crash could turn me into confetti.
Sword-fighting? Only in simulations.
Tumbling with drunken guards? Only if they had blunt edges.
I had survived poison, fire, disease, falling from rooftops, collapsing bridges… and yes, even a failed gallows attempt. But aviation? That was a hard no.
Each career came with its own absurdities. As a merchant, I accidentally sold cheese to a noble who expected diamonds. As a blacksmith, I hammered a horseshoe through my own boot. And as a street performer, children called me "the scary clown" for some reason I'll never understand.
Yet somehow, I endured. My ID card, one of those antique paper ones with a portrait so old it looked like I was born yesterday, was endlessly forgeable. Every time a town guard asked for proof of identity, I just drew a new age, scribbled a new town, and handed it over with a nervous bow. Surprisingly, it worked every time.
But there was a catch. My thirty-first birthday always came too soon. Just as I had grown into each role, built a reputation, maybe even a tiny sense of security… boom. Age reset. Twenty again. Fresh body, fresh scars gone, fresh chaos.
By now, I had a philosophy:
- Live fully, but carefully.
- Pick jobs that won't accidentally decapitate you.
- Never trust gravity, machinery, or drunk nobles.
- And never, ever forget your neck.
Because no matter how brilliant a blacksmith, baker, or street performer I became, it only mattered until the day I turned thirty… and everything started over again.
---
One quiet evening, after narrowly surviving another week as a street baker (and managing not to decapitate myself with a rogue rolling pin), I stumbled upon a flickering box of moving images, what the modern people called a "television."
Curious, I slouched onto a threadbare sofa and pressed the buttons.
There it was. Highlanders. Long swords. Immortals battling across centuries. Dramatic hair. And of course, the inevitable head-severing.
I nearly fell off the couch.
Wait… wait a second…
There I was, watching men who could die from the exact same thing I'd just discovered. The universe, apparently, had a sense of humor.
I laughed, bitter, a little too loud. The neighbors probably thought I had lost it.
So it's not just me. Others like me exist…
I paused the screen, staring at the frozen face of some swordsman mid-swing. The absurdity hit me all at once, centuries of suffering, countless narrow escapes, hundreds of professions survived, and all along, the rule was simple, head off, game over.
I shook my head and muttered, "And here I thought I was special…"
But deep down, I felt a strange kinship. For the first time in centuries, I wasn't completely alone.
And maybe… just maybe… the universe was teasing me with its little joke, a show about immortals, so I could finally see what I really looked like in the world's eyes.
---
Turns out… the witch had been right.
- Horses with no legs. People called them cars. They roared down the streets, belching smoke, and yet carried entire families without a single neigh.
- Wagons that flew in the sky like drunken geese? Airplanes. Massive, metal birds clanging across clouds, sometimes tipping sideways, sometimes terrifying everyone on board.
- Men trapping fire in little glass sticks and holding them in their mouths? Cigarettes. I watched a man in a cafe inhale one and cough like he'd swallowed a furnace. Magical, horrifying, ridiculous.
- Women wearing trousers. Everywhere. In every color, every style. No skirts, no corsets. Free legs everywhere, marching boldly down streets, ignoring centuries of tradition.
- And food wrapped in transparent sheep's guts? Not sausage. Softer, delicate, crackly… I held one in my fingers and gasped. The bread inside stayed fresh for weeks. The witch's prophecy had nailed it.
I stumbled through the streets of this world, jaw slack, notebook in hand, muttering to myself. "She said it all. Every absurd thing. Every impossible wonder. And now…it's here. In my lifetime. My cursed, blessed lifetime."
The world was stranger than I'd ever imagined, and I had front-row seats.
---