It was, first, a sick thing to put down.

The cure to death was pungent and bitter. To drink it was to drink goat cheese drowned in gasoline. A second or third dose was preferred - by the third, a senseless tongue has said its peace and has not the energy to engage the foul swill. The numbing, some say, was quite sweet. And then one aged no longer.

The woman to have the first taste, weary with age and fear, felt her tired bones begin to mend. Her hair regained its youthful luster. Her eyes their hawkish focus. She threw away the cane, tossed her glasses aside, and shared the wretched thing with the people of earth. And once all the children of the world were children of those who had sipped from the sacred liquid, death was forgotten, and soon, the horrid drink was drank no more.

That is what they say. It is, rather, what she says. What she’d always say.

We wrote it in our holy books, and shared it with our children, now numbering as the stars on this earth, which is not burdened by the needs of a species for whom food and drink is a relic of a forgotten time.

Then the story changed. Now the woman couldn’t say if she’d made the drink herself or bought it at the store. Then the woman asked us to what swill we referred, and we said, it was your holy creation! and her response, that she would not soon forget the taste of something so awful.

Then she stopped telling the story. She’d say the words, but there was no order, and soon the letters separated, and she spoke the sounds, but the story was gone. Then, she was gone.

The thousand year woman, on her thousandth day of birth, could not speak another word. There was violence, thrashing, and foaming at the mouth. She scratched at her neck and tore at her eyes and cracked at her chest and split her heart, but her brain cared not for the loss of her blood. She’d awaken the next day with flesh and bone mended, and began the assault again.

I stood beside her on the thousandth day of her torment, and she rediscovered a word, and it was, “help”, and it was first a whisper, until her screaming shook the halls, and she broke away from her bindings and began the assault again, and I called upon the doctors.

Now I stand before my mother, who is bound with titanium, from her head to her feet, her body nearly still, but the ceaseless vibration of her vocal cords continues, screaming “help” into the endless night.

The doctors say they will find a cure. They say the disease will be gone soon, and mother will be back to normal. That we’ll know this nightmare is over, and life will continue. But they know not what I do, that another millennium old soul has forgotten their own name. That soon these halls will be filled with those tortured like my mother.

There is one thing they say, that is certain. That my mother will be cured. It will not be by their hand, for I have found my mother’s notes and recipes from her younger days of alchemy, when she was only 87 years old, and she discovered a foul drink. I have seen what she has written and I have taken up my mother’s work again.

It is my turn to find a cure. The cure to life.

20 March 2021

	1. Hello, hello?

in the dark depths of the earth, there was a boy lurking, in search for another of his kind. he traversed inside the cave. exploring to find things to eat, sleep, and survive. he found himself in that situation without knowledge of what stands before him. Amnesia. the Primal instinct of mankind is to survive and improve their livings with tools. so begins his adventure in the underworld. being wary of things while looking around, there were only a few things that he found. nothing yet to come up as useful for him to use. It was close to impossible to find things as he was essentially blind; light is not present. he only felt things in the structure, whenever there seems to be a path upwards. it almost, always, leads to descent. he even fell down a few times. the only thing that’s helping him is his own uplifting. if ever there was something else in that place, there is none. there was no point in him doing anything. there was no hope. he was already there for a at least a few hours. not accounting the time before he was awake. that was the time he’s been in there; he thought. not that he knows how long he’s been there, the sense of time is shrouded when there wasn’t any indication of one. there was only cold. in his speculation, he’s certain he got lost while playing with other children. and ended up in this place. touch, the surface, the ceiling, drips of acidic water from stalactites; icicle shaped formations. and no source of water and food to be found. the universe seems to make fun of his miserable attempts. only thing in the end is for him to die. he could only survive at least for a few days without food. or not even, for this dangerous and unpredictable structure, he could just die at any moment by just heading himself to a deadly fall. and one mistake is he doesn’t stay in one place for rescuers to help him. if he just sat there, if he had no curiosity to explore what this cave had to offer. he might’ve survived this.

[The boy died soon after he killed himself by a blunt force to his head, the body was never found.]

Chapter 1, end.

	2. Deerhunter.

– to be released –

writer’s comment; I don’t have an idea of how to make a story short so I probably won’t continue writing this. though I hope you enjoyed it.