At eighteen years old, I sold my soul to a crossroads demon for immortality.<\/p>\n
And honestly?<\/p>\n
At the time, it felt like the greatest decision anyone had ever made.<\/p>\n
I was drunk.
\nHeartbroken.
\nTerrified of death.<\/p>\n
The usual ingredients for catastrophic choices.<\/p>\n
The ritual itself happened at an abandoned intersection outside my hometown just after midnight.<\/p>\n
Candles.
\nBlood.
\nLatin phrases copied badly from a stolen occult book.<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t even fully believe it would work.<\/p>\n
Then the air changed.<\/p>\n
Temperature dropped instantly.<\/p>\n
And suddenly someone stood across from me in the dark.<\/p>\n
Tall.
\nThin.
\nPerfect black suit.<\/p>\n
The demon smiled like we were old friends meeting for drinks.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re very young for this,\u201d he said casually.<\/p>\n
I tried acting fearless.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know what I want.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cImmortality?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
The demon laughed softly at that.<\/p>\n
Not mockingly.<\/p>\n
Almost\u2026 amused.<\/p>\n
Like he\u2019d just heard a child confidently asking for something dangerous without understanding the price.<\/p>\n
Then he pulled out a contract already bearing my name somehow.<\/p>\n
One signature.
\nOne drop of blood.<\/p>\n
Done.<\/p>\n
Before vanishing, the demon looked at me one last time and said:<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ll regret asking for forever long before forever ends.\u201d<\/p>\n
At eighteen, that sounded dramatic.<\/p>\n
At ninety-eight\u2026<\/p>\n
I finally understand.<\/p>\n
Because the contract worked.<\/p>\n
Perfectly.<\/p>\n
I stopped aging immediately.<\/p>\n
Not slowly.<\/p>\n
Immediately.<\/p>\n
Eighteen forever.<\/p>\n
At first it felt unbelievable.<\/p>\n
I became reckless almost instantly.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s fear to someone who cannot die?<\/p>\n
I jumped from airplanes without parachutes.
\nWalked through burning buildings.
\nPlayed Russian roulette for laughs.<\/p>\n
Once I stood directly in front of a speeding train simply because I could.<\/p>\n
Every time\u2026<\/p>\n
darkness came briefly.
\nThen I woke up completely unharmed.<\/p>\n
Bones repaired instantly.
\nSkin flawless.
\nNo scars remaining.<\/p>\n
People called me miracle survivor.
\nThen cursed.
\nThen monster.<\/p>\n
So I kept moving.<\/p>\n
New cities.
\nNew identities.
\nNew lives every decade.<\/p>\n
Because eventually people notice when you don\u2019t age.<\/p>\n
The hardest part wasn\u2019t surviving.<\/p>\n
It was watching everyone else disappear.<\/p>\n
Friends.
\nLovers.
\nChildren.<\/p>\n
All temporary.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile I stayed eighteen forever.<\/p>\n
Beautiful.
\nUntouched.
\nAlone.<\/p>\n
Still\u2026<\/p>\n
I never regretted the deal.<\/p>\n
Not really.<\/p>\n
Because no matter how lonely immortality became, death still seemed worse.<\/p>\n
And over time, I grew arrogant.<\/p>\n
I genuinely believed I had beaten Hell somehow.<\/p>\n
Eighty years passed.<\/p>\n
Empires rose and collapsed around me.
\nTechnology transformed completely.
\nThe world changed beyond recognition.<\/p>\n
And through all of it\u2026<\/p>\n
I remained untouched.<\/p>\n
Until this morning.<\/p>\n
I woke up in my apartment feeling strange immediately.<\/p>\n
Heavy.<\/p>\n
Weak.<\/p>\n
Then I noticed something impossible resting against my pillow.<\/p>\n
A gray hair.<\/p>\n
My breath stopped instantly.<\/p>\n
No.<\/p>\n
No no no.<\/p>\n
Hands shaking violently, I rushed to the bathroom mirror.<\/p>\n
For the first time in eighty years\u2026<\/p>\n
I looked older.<\/p>\n
Barely.
\nTiny lines near my eyes.
\nFaint discoloration beneath my skin.<\/p>\n
But enough.<\/p>\n
Enough to terrify me completely.<\/p>\n
Then pain exploded through my chest suddenly.<\/p>\n
Sharp.
\nCrushing.<\/p>\n
I collapsed against the sink gasping.<\/p>\n
Because for the first time since 1946\u2026<\/p>\n
I felt mortal.<\/p>\n
Panic consumed me instantly.<\/p>\n
I ran downstairs to the secure server room hidden beneath my apartment building.<\/p>\n
Over decades, I digitized every scrap of information connected to my contract:
\nphotographs,
\nritual notes,
\ntranslated texts.<\/p>\n
Most importantly\u2026<\/p>\n
the scanned copy of the original agreement.<\/p>\n
I needed seeing it.
\nNeeded understanding what changed.<\/p>\n
But when I opened the encrypted folder\u2026<\/p>\n
the contract was gone.<\/p>\n
Deleted.<\/p>\n
In its place sat a single video file uploaded only minutes earlier.<\/p>\n
My blood turned ice cold.<\/p>\n
I clicked play immediately.<\/p>\n
The demon appeared onscreen.<\/p>\n
Except\u2026<\/p>\n
he looked terrified.<\/p>\n
Bruised face.
\nSplit lip.
\nBlack blood staining his collar.<\/p>\n
And behind him, alarms blared faintly somewhere distant.<\/p>\n
He kept glancing nervously over his shoulder while speaking rapidly.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you\u2019re seeing this, then it found you.\u201d<\/p>\n
I physically stopped breathing.<\/p>\n
The demon swallowed hard visibly shaking.<\/p>\n
\u201cListen carefully\u2026 I never actually took your soul.\u201d<\/p>\n
The room around me seemed to tilt sideways.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n
My own voice sounded tiny and broken.<\/p>\n
The demon leaned closer to the camera desperately.<\/p>\n
\u201cI sold it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Every light behind him flickered violently.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo something much worse.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then suddenly the recording distorted.<\/p>\n
And behind the demon\u2019s chair\u2026<\/p>\n
something moved.<\/p>\n
Not a person.<\/p>\n
Too large.<\/p>\n
The shadows themselves bent strangely around it like reality struggled containing its shape properly.<\/p>\n
The demon saw it too.<\/p>\n
His face drained completely.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh God,\u201d he whispered.<\/p>\n
Then he looked directly into the camera.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou think immortality means you can\u2019t die.\u201d<\/p>\n
Heavy footsteps echoed behind him slowly.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou never asked what happens instead.\u201d<\/p>\n
The room lights behind him went dark one by one.<\/p>\n
Click.<\/p>\n
Click.<\/p>\n
Click.<\/p>\n
Until only the computer screen illuminated his terrified face.<\/p>\n
Then he finally said the sentence that shattered my entire understanding of existence.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt doesn\u2019t preserve you.\u201d<\/p>\n
The footsteps stopped.<\/p>\n
The demon\u2019s breathing became frantic.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt ripens you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Every hair on my body stood upright instantly.<\/p>\n
Because suddenly\u2026
\nafter eighty years\u2026<\/p>\n
I understood.<\/p>\n
I wasn\u2019t protected from death.<\/p>\n
I was being kept fresh.<\/p>\n
Preserved.<\/p>\n
Aging had finally started because whatever owned my soul now had decided I was ready.<\/p>\n
Then the thing behind him stepped partially into view.<\/p>\n
God.<\/p>\n
Even now I can barely describe it.<\/p>\n
Not because it lacked form.<\/p>\n
Because my mind physically rejected processing it.<\/p>\n
Too many limbs.
\nToo many eyes.
\nA shape that seemed wrong from every angle simultaneously.<\/p>\n
The demon started crying.<\/p>\n
Actual terrified sobbing.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have to run before it fully\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n
Something enormous grabbed him backward suddenly.<\/p>\n
The scream that followed didn\u2019t sound human anymore halfway through.<\/p>\n
The camera crashed sideways.<\/p>\n
Static exploded across the screen.<\/p>\n
And for one impossible second before the feed died\u2026<\/p>\n
I saw thousands of faces moving beneath the creature\u2019s skin.<\/p>\n
All young.
\nAll terrified.<\/p>\n
All eighteen years old.<\/p>\n
Then blackness.<\/p>\n
Silence filled the server room.<\/p>\n
My chest pain worsened instantly afterward.<\/p>\n
Like a countdown finally beginning.<\/p>\n
Then my computer speakers crackled softly.<\/p>\n
A new voice whispered through them.<\/p>\n
Ancient.
\nMassive.<\/p>\n
Hungry.<\/p>\n
\u201cEighty years\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
A pause.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2026nicely aged.\u201d<\/p>\n
My apartment lights shut off simultaneously.<\/p>\n
And somewhere in the darkness behind me\u2026<\/p>\n
something breathed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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