Immortal - SCP Foundation

How many stars had she snuffed out?

Halyna once heard of a religion which believed that among the heavens and its limitless stars, each one was tied to the life of an individual; that the world was infinitely more vast than she could imagine, that there were cultures and customs she had never experienced before. With each dead star, a new one was born to take its place.

(Sarya never dared to proselytize to her, but Halyna had spent too many nights with her to not hear her thoughts).

She never bothered to entertain it, though. Halyna did not consider herself particularly religious, even after she became an Adytite. She did not need the Ozi̮rmok's teachings: she never did have love for gods that failed to protect her. She was all too happy when she learned they would kill those wicked angels and their creator.

Becoming a god was never an interest of hers. To become more than human was pointless - her humanity was what kept her apart from the Deva that took her childhood away. Godliness was the goal of lesser men, regardless of how noble their intentions were.

(Of course, she would never reveal that to any of the five leaders. Even the Cyclops would not forgive that arrogance.)

Her first resurrection by the wicked angels happened on her fourth march for the Ozi̮rmok. Through terrible magicks, flying blades sliced through the vanguard of Adytum, and she was one of the fallen.

Was.

She later heard from another woman that while they were moving the bodies to honor them, a heartbeat was discovered in her headless corpse. They reported it to Saarn, the closest leader they could reach at the time.

Saarn had found Halyna's head quickly amid a sea of bodies. She had witnessed it degrade in her hands, and a new head reform on the corpse. After all limbs reformed, it took mere minutes for Halyna's eyes to open again.

Grimly, the Klavigar informed Halyna that she had been gifted a new life.

The two did not speak with one another after that. Both were not fools - this was no work of the Ozi̮rmok. He provided with his followers a new life, true, but there was no reason for him to bring back Halyna of all people, a woman who barely listened to his tenets. She had even resigned herself to being a stepping stone for Adytum if it meant she could die fighting the Deva.

No, she was tainted by some higher power.

Halyna had been denied the chance to die by her fellow slaves, elevated to near-godhood against her will. It sickened her.

She paid more attention to Ion's teachings from that day onward. No longer were the gods some infinitely distant prey they needed to work toward killing. No, they were truly malevolent, willing to take away her final relief.

One, two, three, four, five. And five more after that, and many more to come. She watched as countless people she once called brothers and sisters withered away through the passage of time.

Sarya's death wounded her above all others. Sarya had shown her that life could be beautiful. Though she was a pacifist, and Halyna undying war, Halyna could always rely on Sarya to be waiting at the front of their home, greeting her return.

Every cycle, Halyna would be damned to be reborn at the same age as her first reincarnation. All those years she had spent together with Sarya, slow as her ageing already was, would be wiped from her skin with each rebirth. When her fingers laced with Sarya's, she was painfully aware of how smooth her skin was and how gnarled her lover's would become.

Yet those memories laid etched on Sarya's face, who patiently waited the weeks, months, years, for the Karcist's return, each wrinkle added onto her face a grim reminder; one day, Sarya would die, and that doorway would be empty.

And one day, it was.

The Ozi̮rmok himself had told her the news. Sarya had passed away ten moons ago, waiting at the door. Waiting to welcome Halyna home. He said nothing more, waiting for her to lash out or to cry, eyes alert and finger at the ready should the Warmonger need to be restrained.

All she did was ask to be placed on the front lines again.

Eventually, Adytum would cease to exist. It had made too many enemies, afraid that Ion and his mobs would cast them from their thrones like they did the Deva. Flesh they wielded, but the enemies wielded nasty armaments. Undying Men of Iron, fires unquenchable by the elements, fumes that left even the breathless beasts felled. Weapons so terrible that the alliance vowed never to use some of them again.

(Perhaps it was for the best, she noted. Better that the Nälkä play their role as scapegoats and ensure such disgusting weapons wouldn't hound people for centuries to come. Orok did say they were a people of peace.)

Her number of rebirths neared two score when she learned Orok, her mentor, no longer lived. None of the Klavigar did, nor the Ozi̮rmok. She was the last of Adytum.

It was the first life where she did not fight. She walked, retraced her footsteps and those of her people, collected their bleached bones and rusted tools. She found the cratered land that was once her house, which had been burned down while she slumbered. Nothing remained. The bed she shared with Sarya, the hearth that neither woman dared touch, patches of flowers whose names were taught by her lover and where Sarya would count the stars with her.

And Halyna wept.

She wept, thinking of the other forty-nine daughters and fifty sons, her generation, who all died before the Ozi̮rmok could free them. She wept, thinking of Sarya, her first and last love, who showed her happiness when others could not. She wept, thinking of Orok, her last friend, who showed her how to turn hate into power.

She wept, staring at the sky, searching for those missing stars.