Every Last Time

Orion

The city was a tomb of electric lights. I moved through its concrete canyons, a ghost among the living, my footsteps silent on rain-slicked pavement that reflected the insistent neon glow of signs advertising products I had outlasted by centuries. Mortals hurried past me, their faces illuminated by the cold blue light of their pocket-sized portals. They clutched their devices like talismans, oblivious to the ancient darkness that moved among them—a darkness that had witnessed the birth and death of their very concepts of progress. They were mayflies, living their brief, bright lives, while I remained—cursed to remember every moment of mine.

My suit was tailored from black wool, expensive but showing the strain of another endless night. I had left the collar unbuttoned, the silk tie loosened hours ago when its weight had become unbearable. A woman glanced at me as she passed, her eyes widening slightly at the sight of mine—the metallic grey that so often drew unwanted attention. She quickly looked away, sensing something predatory in my stillness, something fundamentally other that set me apart from her world.

The hours bled into one another, as they so often did, until the memories came, as they always did—uninvited and sharp. Tonight, it was Eliza.

Victorian London materialized in my mind with the startling clarity of a freshly broken shard of glass. I could smell the coal smoke and damp horsehair of the streets, feel the biting cold of a winter night in 1888 as a ghost on my skin. Eliza had been clad in deep red velvet, the fabric a soft whisper against my fingertips as I’d assisted her from our carriage. Her laughter, like the chiming of distant bells, had echoed in the opulence of the opera house where we had watched a performance ofCarmen. Her eyes—the same soulful dark eyes as all her incarnations—had sparkled with mischief I knew so well.

“It seems the soprano’s talent does not match her ambition, my love,” she’d murmured, her gloved hand tightening on mine.

“Indeed,” I’d replied, my own lips curving into a rare, genuine smile. “A tragedy for the stage, but a comedy for us.”

“Perhaps we should offer her some... guidance,” she’d suggested with a wicked grin. “In private.”

The memory shifted, as they always did, to the end. Eliza wasting away in our bed, her beautiful face pale, her body failing despite the finest physicians money could buy. I had tried everything—ancient remedies, bargains with entities I should have avoided. Nothing had prevailed. The curse was relentless.

“Promise me something,” she’d whispered in her final hours, her voice barely audible.

“Anything, my love.”

“Promise you will not stop searching. Promise me that when I return, you will find me.”

I had promised, of course. I always promised. And I always kept those promises, though each discovery was a fresh agony.

A siren’s wail pulled me back to the present, to the rain-slicked streets of the modern world. I closed my eyes for a moment, forcing the memory of Eliza’s death back into the vault of my mind where I kept all the other endings. Dozens of them. Hundreds, perhaps. Isabella in Renaissance Florence, Corinna in ancient Athens, Astrid in the cold north, and so many others—each a perfect, painful chapter in a book that never seemed to end.

I found myself standing before the window of a closed boutique, staring at my reflection. The man who stared back appeared to be in his early thirties, with silver hair that fell past my shoulders and eyes that held an impossible weight. I did not look like a deity—cursed or otherwise. I looked like what I was: a predator wearing the skin of a man, eternal and alone.

The weight of millennia pressed down on me then, heavier than usual. Hopelessness crept in, cold and familiar. How many more times would I have to watch her die? How many more promises would I make and keep before this curse finally broke me? I had come close to ending my existence before—several times, in fact. The only thing that had stayed my hand was the promise. The hope that this time, things might be different.

That hope was a dangerous thing, a flickering candle in the endless dark of my existence. I had learned to be cautious with it, to guard it carefully. Too many times, I had allowed it to burn too brightly, only to have it snuffed out by the cruel reality of the curse.

I turned away from my reflection and continued walking, my destination unknown. I often walked until dawn, until the sun that my solar siblings controlled chased me back to the darkness of my home. They had done this to us—Helios and Aurora, the Sun Deities—jealous of the connection their lunar counterparts shared. They had cursed us to separation, to an eternal cycle of finding, loving, and losing. They had twisted my divine nature into something predatory, and hers into something fragile and mortal.

I passed under a flickering streetlamp, and for a moment, the world shifted. The modern city faded, replaced by the cobblestone streets of medieval Paris, where I had found her as a tavern maid with mud on her face and fire in her eyes. I remembered the taste of cheap wine on her lips, the rough texture of her dress against my fingers, the way she had looked at me with not fear, but recognition.

“You’ve come for me,” she had said, not as a question, but as a statement of fact.

“I always come for you,” I had replied.

The memory was so vivid that I stumbled, catching myself against the brick wall of an alley. The rough texture of the brick grounded me in the present, reminding me of where and when I was. The alley was dark, reeking of garbage and despair, but I welcomed the unpleasant sensations. They kept me anchored to reality, prevented me from drowning in the ocean of my memories.

I was about to push myself away from the wall and continue my aimless walk when I felt it—a faint pull, like a thread connecting my heart to something in the distance. It was a feeling I knew intimately, one that both thrilled and terrified me.

Her.

The pull was weak, barely there, but it was unmistakable. She was close. Close enough that I might find her soon. Close enough that this endless search might finally be nearing its end.

Hope surged in my chest, hot and painful. I crushed it immediately, forcing it back down. Hope was a luxury I could not afford. Hope led to recklessness, and recklessness led to mistakes. I had made too many mistakes over the centuries, mistakes that had cost her—cost us—precious time.

Still, the pull remained, a steady thrum in my veins, a compass pointing north in the endless night of my existence. I closed my eyes, focusing on it, trying to determine its source. It was coming from somewhere nearby, somewhere in this sprawling city of steel and glass.

I straightened my jacket, smoothed back my hair, and began moving in the direction of the pull. My steps were deliberate now, no longer aimless. Each footfall brought me closer to her, to the beginning of another cycle of love and loss.

The city was still a tomb of electric light, but now it was also a hunting ground. I was a predator again, tracking my prey through the concrete jungle. But this time, it was different. This time, I was hunting not for blood, but for connection. For the other half of my fractured soul.

As I walked, the memories came again—Eliza’s laughter, Isabella’s passion, Corinna’s intellect, Astrid’s strength. All the women she had been, all the lives she had lived. And now, somewhere in this city, she lived again. A new face, a new name, but the same soul. The same eyes that would recognize me, even if she did not understand why.

The pull grew stronger as I moved deeper into the city’s darker corners, away from the bright lights and bustling streets. I was entering a part of town where the neon signs gave way to flickering streetlights and boarded-up storefronts. A part of town where shadows were deeper, more permanent.

I could feel her now, not just as a distant pull, but as a presence. A flicker of consciousness, a spark of divinity buried under layers of mortal suffering. She was in pain. She was alone. She was afraid.

A familiar, cold rage coiled in my gut. Whoever or whatever had caused her fear would learn the true meaning of darkness before I was done. My protective instincts surged, stronger than ever before. I wanted to find her, to wrap her in my arms, to promise her that she was safe now. But I knew better. I had learned through painful experience that rushing things, overwhelming her with my presence and my history, only ever drove her away. Made her see me as a monster rather than a savior.

No, this time had to be different. This time, I would be patient. This time, I would approach her gently, slowly, allowing her to come to me in her own time. This time, I would not repeat the mistakes of the past.

The pull led me to a narrow alley between two abandoned buildings. It was darker here, the shadows deeper, the air thick with the scent of decay and despair. I paused at the entrance to the alley, my enhanced senses scanning the darkness within.

And there, huddled in a doorway, wrapped in a thin blanket that offered little protection against the cold, was a woman. Her hair was dark and tangled, her face dirty, her body thin from hardship. But I would have recognized her anywhere. I would have recognized her in any form, in any lifetime.

Lana.

The name came to me not as a thought, but as a certainty. This was her name now, her identity in this lifetime.

I watched her from the shadows, my heart aching with a familiar pain. She was so vulnerable, so fragile, so far from the goddess she had once been. The curse had been cruel to her this time, casting her not into a life of comfort or even modest means, but into the very depths of human suffering.

For a moment, I considered approaching her. The urge was overwhelming, a physical need to comfort her, to protect her, to claim her as mine once again. But I fought it down, as I had fought it down so many times before. Patience. I needed to be patient.

I stayed there in the shadows for hours, watching her sleep, watching her toss and turn as nightmares—memories, most likely—plagued her rest. I wanted to gather her into my arms, to chase away the bad dreams with whispered promises of eternal love, but I knew better. I knew the damage I could do with my impatience.

As the first hint of dawn painted the eastern sky pink and orange, I forced myself to turn away. To leave her there, alone in the alley, while I retreated to the darkness of my home. It was one of the hardest things I had ever done, harder even than watching Eliza die, because this time, I had a choice. I could have approached her, could have tried to help her, but I knew that doing so would only set our reunion back.

As I walked away, the pull of her presence was like a physical ache in my chest. I would return tomorrow night, and the night after that, and every night until the time was right. Until she was ready for me.

But for now, I would wait. I would watch. I would plan. And I would hope, cautiously, that this time, things would be different. That this time, we might find a way to break the curse. That this time, our love story wouldn’t end in tragedy.

It was a foolish hope, I knew. A dangerous one. But as I disappeared into the pre-dawn darkness, I allowed myself to feel it, just for a moment. Because without hope, what was I but an eternal predator, cursed to walk the earth alone, forever searching for a love I could never keep?