Arrick the Everdying

The Creature

Arrick the Everdying, a Jin in a very small box

The Story

“So my children, you have heard the story of the Engineer squelching his way through the Blood Ark? Years and years, and yet he continues... Some of him.” The old storyteller looks around at his young audience. “Have you though, heard the tale of Arrick the Everdying?”

“No? Well, Let me see... Where to start?”

[The tale shifts to a first-person account]

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

Flacking coffin. If I can hear it, I must be awake. Again. I struggle to find mental focus and open my eyes. They are sticky from being closed for so long. I feel along the seat next to my right hand and count the pin pricks in the plastic. ...thirty-eight, thirty-nine... I reach the end and then I poke one needle sharp claw into the seat. Forty. This is the fortieth time this damn thing has awakened me. Forty thousand years since I was abandoned by the Ark. What must I have done? I’m sure I should remember. I blink slowly and look out the porthole in front of me. The view hasn’t changed much. A star directly before me, about which I must be orbiting. Much too far for warmth, but just enough photons to tickle the panels, charge the systems, and keep this coffin running for another thousand years. Right on time.

The system perks up. A voice in my ear. “Have you atoned?”

“Atoned? I don’t even know what I’ve done!”

“No then,” it continues. “Sleep. Dream. Find atonement if you can... I will awaken you in another thousand years.”

“No! Wait!” My voice echoes off the bulkheads and my ears ring, used to the long silence the same way my eyes are used to the long dark. “What did I do?” There is no reply. I /SHOULD/ know what I’ve done. Shouldn’t I? My breath catches slightly as the chill enters my veins once again. Chemicals dragging me back down to sleep even as the coffin chills. Preserving me for another long sleep. My eyes close once more and my thoughts slow. So slow. So hard to think. What did you do Arrick? Can you remember? If you do remember, will this thing let you die?

[Back to the storyteller's gathering]

“He knows,” the storyteller says. “He KNOWS what he did. I’m sure in the long dark between stars he’ll find atonement. But he won’t ever achieve death.”

His voice chills. “Death is too good for him...”

Clapping his hands to end the lesson he urges the children on. “Run along now. I’ll take your parents’ complaints tomorrow.”