An Endless Existence - Spooktober 2024

And so, the world previously known as Earth ended in a tremendous explosion after an incredibly full and rich history, all meaningless now that the planet is gone and forgotten.

...

Or has the Earth been forgotten? Is there no one who will remember? Has all trace of the existence known as Earth truly been extinguished?

A lone, single blood cell of a particular tough-to-kill human, floating through the endless void of space, begs to differ.

Who did this cell previously belong to? A tricky question due to the many faces which the human it belonged to wore.

At first, the human was born into the first generation of the new world in the very first year of the beginning of the world of Pangoria.

This human then became one of the highest-ranking members of the people who attempted to rebuild the world.

They then became the last living member of this group, eventually forsaking it and joining the biggest nation in the world, the New Earth Alliance. They fought their wars, lived with the people, and drank this great kingdom's glory.

This human outlived even this kingdom, who regarded him as their immortal general.

By now, 300 years since their birth, no one knew of the existence of a previous time before the start of Pangoria. All regarded that time as the start of their world, created by a great God in the sky. All but one still carried on memories of the history of Earth instilled in them by their parents.

They then became a shadow figure in a new kingdom, controlling the new kings and queens of the world.

After a couple of decades, They got bored of this and decided to change careers entirely by becoming a peaceful, wandering merchant. After starting the largest distribution company after 70 long years, they, too, got bored of this.

They started venturing to new parts of the world they had yet to explore. Unfortunately, before this journey could commence, they were captured by religious extremists who believed their existence goes against every mortal invention of their gods.

They were tortured.

And tortured.

And tortured.

And tortured.

And tortured.

For 20 years straight, not a day missed, all in the name of finding a way to kill an immortal deviant.

They then gave up on finding this way and threw the immortal into the ocean, attached to a 300kg boulder, sinking and sinking and sinking and sinking.

Until they hit the bottom, where their mind had already been broken for a long, long time.

Fish ate them. Crabs ate them. Sharks ate them. Every living being feasted on the never-ending food source.

One day, breath returned to the immortal body, gills growing on their chest above the lungs. This fresh breath of oxygen is unfamiliar since whoever knows how long their last breath was.

They then regained consciousness, unaware of how long had passed. They learned how to navigate this dark, cold world and eventually returned to the surface, where they immediately gasped for breath like a fish on the land till they returned to the water. They then spent a long while trying to relearn to breathe.

Once on land, alive and breathing, they sought the cult who threw them into the ocean.

The cult no longer lived, and the people forgot it as a part of history. They then travelled across the lands, as they once planned to do.

They journeyed with people and outlived them. They fathered and mothered several children, only to witness their great-grandchildren die of old age. They fought in wars and grew stronger and stronger until they became the strongest. They sealed their strength and kept fighting with the handicap. However, they only grew stronger. They sealed more and more power as they grew and grew. They met great people and not-so-great people. They lived as a great person and next as a not-so-great person. They made themself a legend of the time and sank into obscurity the next time.

They lived and lived and lived and lived and lived and lived and lived and lived and lived and lived and lived and lived and lived and lived and lived and lived and lived and lived and lived and lived and lived and lived and lived and lived and lived and lived and lived and lived and lived and lived and lived and lived.

Until the Earth met its end, satisfied that their life would undoubtedly end with it.

And yet it didn't. All it took was one single cell to survive in space, and they lived. That cell wandered through the endless expanse of space.

The cell eventually multiplied, fighting against the lifeless vacuum of space. After time had passed, a head was formed, and eyes peered at the new life they would be living in the foreseeable future. They saw many things. They saw planets being formed. They saw planets being destroyed. They saw black holes from a distance suck everything within a range towards it. They saw stars form and die. They saw up close what a sun looks and feels like. Burning what little body they had grown.

After a time, they grew a body once more and continued to witness the wonders of space once more.

Eventually, their wondering ended with their arrival on a new planet. This planet contained life similar to that of Earth. Yet the inhabitants were far from that of Earth. This human outlived yet another planet and continued their endless journey of the void once more.

They continued flying through space and learned how to fly for themselves.

And despite all attempts to die and end an endless life, they survived. And they survived. And Survived.

And lived.

And lived.

And...