A Fairy Tale by: Isheeta Shah
04/01/08
8+9
Dunlea
"The Immortal"
Once upon a time, there was a boy named Ikuto. Ikuto was 18-years-old and lived in Japan. He was orphaned by the age of five, and the sister of his church had taken him in as her own son. He was illiterate because the sister didn't have enough money to send him to school. Ikuto lived with his two best friends Naru and Rin, who were also orphaned. They had been living together for as long as they could remember. The church kept taking in orphans, so there were about twenty other kids living with them. They were living in a violent decade in Japan because there was a war going on. On the positive side, their church was in the neutral zone, where no one could hurt them.
One day, Ikuto and Naru were sitting underneath a cherry blossom tree. Then, all of a sudden, Ikuto got up and asked, "Naru, can you do me a favor?"
"What?" asked Naru.
"Can you teach me how to write?" replied Ikuto.
"Why?" asked Naru, "So you can write Rin secret love notes?"
"No…" said Ikuto. While he said that, he started to blush. "Actually…yes."
Naru stood up and said, "Alright, I'll teach you how to write. I'll be right back with a piece of paper and a pen."
Ikuto sighed and went back to lying underneath the tree.
The next few weeks went on with writing lessons for Ikuto. Then, one day, Rin went up to Naru and said, "Naru, I need to tell you something."
"What is it?" asked Naru.
"I…I love you." replied Rin.
"If that's so, then would you do anything for me?" Naru asked.
"Yes, I would," replied Rin.
"I will keep that in mind." said Naru. Naru left without saying another word.
The next night, a canon landed a few meters away from the church. One of the orphans living there was just two feet away from the spot where it landed, and was killed. Everyone was in mourning the next day. Then, a few days after the canon fell in the neutral zone, the sister, Naru, Rin, and Ikuto decided that it was best if they moved from that area, since it was no longer neutral. The only thing was that the sister insisted that she was going to stay with the church until the very end. Two hours before they were about to leave, Ikuto made an announcement, "I've decided that I'm going to stay with the sister and this church."
"What?!" cried Rin, "That's insane! You know you will only die if you stay here! There's no chance of you living if you stay!"
"She's right," Naru said, more calmly than Rin.
"I know the consequences of staying here, and I'm willing to pay the price," Ikuto sternly said.
"Please," begged Rin, "Don't do this."
"I've made up my mind, so don't try to make me change it," Ikuto replied.
"I guess there's no changing his mind," Naru softly said, "Let's start loading everything into the car." He took Rin by the shoulders and led her to the car. While he was doing this, Rin turned around to say, "Please, reconsider it."
It was time for Naru, Rin, and the kids to leave. They were putting all of their things into the back of the car when Ikuto came out. He watched them as they packed the car with all of their belongings. Naru came up to him and asked, "Are you sure you want to go through with this?"
"Yes, I'm positive," replied Ikuto. Naru turned around and walked back to the car. Suddenly, the door of the church flew open. There, at the door-way, stood Rin in a beautiful dress. She walked down the steps and up to Ikuto. "Please, don't do this," she pleaded.
"I'm sorry," Ikuto explained, "I'm not changing my mind."
"I guess there's nothing more I can do then," Rin mumbled, as if she were talking to herself. Everyone that was leaving got into the car and left without another word. Ikuto watched them leave and suddenly ran into the house. The sister followed him into the living room. She found him huddled in a corner by the fireplace. "So this is why you didn't want to go," she said, "You didn't want Rin to see you die."
"Yes, I didn't want her to know I had hemophilia." Ikuto said as he coughed up blood.
There was a long silence, as if someone were mocking Ikuto for having hemophilia.
Back in the car, everyone was silent. Then, suddenly, the car stopped. Rin looked outside to see where they were. She saw an airplane and three men with suits on standing by the plane. They all got out and walked up to the three men. "Here are the twenty specimens I promised you," Naru said to one of the men.
"What? Specimen? What's going on here, Naru?" asked Rin.
"You are all going to be specimens of an experiment I've been conducting," explained Naru, "An experiment to make the perfect, immortal angel."
"What?!" cried Rin, "You're going to experiment on me and the kids…No, you can't do this, I won't let you!"
"You promised me you would do anything for me. So this is what I ask for you to do. Or are you going to break that promise you made with me?" asked Naru.
"No, I will not break my promise," replied Rin.
Over at the church, the first few days were spent silently. Neither Ikuto nor the sister started a stimulating conversation. Then, one day, the sister finally started the conversation. "Ikuto!" she cried, "Come, look at this!" Ikuto ran into the room where she was and saw what she was looking at. On the TV screen, there was footage of a dying child in the form of an angel. When Ikuto looked closer, he realized that that child was one of the orphans who had lived at the church with him. Ikuto grabbed his coat and rushed out the door. "I'm not going to let any more of those innocent kids become angels that'll die in a few minutes after they are born," thought Ikuto.
As soon as he reached the building that the orphans were being kept, he opened the doors and went inside. He didn't hesitate nor think about what was inside. He ran to the nearest room to find Rin shackled to a bed. She looked and cried a sigh of relief. "You came!" she said as a tear ran down her cheek.
"Yes, and I'm getting you out of here!" Ikuto said as he started breaking the chains.
As soon as Rin was free, she said, "What about the kids?"
"There's nothing we can do for them. This place is heavily guarded. We'll get killed before we see them," explained Ikuto. With that being said, they both escaped through the window and ran down the field.
After a while of running, Rin stopped and said, "That's it. I can't run anymore."
"It's ok, we'll rest right here," said Ikuto. He sat down and leaned on the tree behind them. He closed his eyes and sighed. He felt something touching his forehead, so he opened his eyes to see what it was. He saw Naru standing above him holding a gun which was touching Ikuto's forehead. "Naru, what's the meaning of this?" asked Ikuto.
"You broke into my headquarters, freed Rin, and escaped with her. You will definitely get punished for that," replied Naru. Then, Naru whacked Ikuto on the side of his head and Ikuto fell unconscious.
When Ikuto came to, he was in a laboratory. More specifically, he was on an experiment board in a laboratory. He looked to the left of him and saw Naru above him. He also saw blood on Naru. When he looked down at himself, he saw blood on himself and something else. On his body, where his heart should've been, there was a metal cross that had a date engraved in it. "Naru," he asked, "What is this? Why are we covered in blood and why is there a cross on my chest?"
"You," Naru replied, "are now immortal."
"What?!" cried Ikuto.
"Didn't you wish that you didn't have to die?" inquired Naru. "Well, I simply just granted you your wish." As he said this, wings emerged from his back and a wand in the shape of gun formed in his hand. "I want you to feel the same pain I do every generation. You see, to put it simply, I'm the spirit of Methuselah. Every time I'm reborn, I remember all of my past lives and suffering. Every time I reawaken, the world is different. Ikuto, let's play a little game I invented."
"What…what kind of game?" asked Ikuto, still stunned from the news he'd just heard.
"Every time I awaken, you come and kill me. When I come, I'll either kill you, or you'll kill me. If you kill me, I'll be reborn after a while. If I kill you, though, I'll kill everyone in the world until there's no one who can give birth to me," explained Naru, "The next time I'll be reborn is the date engraved into the cross on your chest. The game will start…now." Then, using his gun-like wand, Naru shot himself in the head. Ikuto was shocked by his friend's story. Then, he fell to the ground and started to weep. He looked up and what he saw shocked and angered him. He saw Rin, his first love, hanging from two poles with a hole in her body where her heart should have been.