You would read.
Yes, next, you would perform an act that was the bane of all teenagers.
Your evil truly knew no bounds.
But that was something that could wait until the most important things were taken care of, such as eating the rest of the breakfast that sat before you - a breakfast that was already over half gone.
After breakfast you'd call your family, allow yourself the simple comfort of hearing their voices and knowing that their well being wa assured, then, you would read.
It was no different than checking up on strategies and builds for games, you were going to do a little research on the kinds of things that you were dealing with and see to it that you weren't caught off guard by anything you should have known that this group you were at the mercy of had neglected to tell you.
You wouldn't put it past them to be complacant about such things, assuming that your assumed immortality would be reason enough to not concern themselves over potential mishaps.
There was no confirmation so far of course that you even healed any faster than a regular person, so you were going to keep a measure of care for the time being.
Then again, given your recent bumps, bruises and bloodshed, you were starting to wish you could heal faster than normal.
It was bizzare to think that just last night, you'd been a skeptic over this kind of thing, yet here you were.
And you were uncertain if it had sunk in, or if you were simply dreaming of this entire situation.
If it was a dream, it was the most realistic one you'd ever had, as well as the most pointlessly drawn out and boring.
Who'd have thought that finding you were some kind of super powered freak would have been so... Dull.
"Millicent?" you asked after some moments silence, as you looked up at the other woman between mouthfuls of your breakfast.
"Mm?" came her sole response as she levelled her gaze with your own, mouth full of food and cup of tea in hand.
"Does this place have a library?"
"S-nohfare-t-assme-" she paused, swallowing as she did so. "Do you need to know right now?"
"It's a matter of life or death, i've come down with an unshakable desire to read."
"No kidding?"
"So does this place have-"
"It does, you're not cleared for it though."
"You need clearance for that?"
"You do, it's not a typical library after all given we collect all manner of occult manuscripts."
"That's what I was hoping for. Do you think you could get me temporary access?"
"Any reason why you want this all of a sudden?"
"If I'm to get involved with any of this kind of stuff, I'm going to want to know what I'm dealing with. I figure, if you have records and such, I can brush up on what immortals are like, what the Enlightened are like, stuff like that. Forewarned, forearmed, etc."
"And if you don't get your way?"
"Then I'll sulk I guess?"
"I'll tell my boss you're asking for access, and a gesture of good will like that might have you stay and save his sorry ass."
"You know he's counting on that too?"
"Oh yeah, I can practically smell the desperation coming from him. He's suddenly on first name basis with you and-" she paused, leaning across the table towards you. "He's never, ever that friendly," she finished in a conspiratorial whisper.
You giggled briefly before you realised that Millicent wasn't joking - it was at that point your giggling became full blown laughter, laughter you were unable to hold in as something about the entire situation tickled you.
Right now he was probably sat in his office looking sullen as he counted the minutes until you came 'crawling to him' like he was probably certain you would.
"Question," you started again after several minutes silence.
"What is it?"
"Where's my hoodie?"
"Er. Back down in the testing facility and... I don't have a key to get down there. I'll ask someone to bring it up for you once we've finished eating."
"Another question."
"Mm?"
"Where's the nearest phone I can use to call my family?"
"There's a few payphones on the ground floor, I'll loan you my mobile though, if it's just going to be a quick call."
"Yeah, I'll be quick, I just want to check up on them," you smiled. Of course, you couldn't exactly promise it would be a short call but you'd do your best to make sure that it was.
Millicent reached into her pockets before she placed her phone down before you, though you made it clear as you gestured towards the plate before you that you weren't quite ready for this call.
You had just a little more of your food to go and, well, you were feeling rather stuffed at this point, so you'd cut it down to the rest of the sausage that sat before you.
Those last few bites.
Finally accepting your defeat, you pushed the plate away from yourself, looking at what remained.
There was about a quarter of what you'd had put upon the plate left, that considering it had been utterly stacked left you feeling as if you'd accomplished some amazing feat given you felt as if you'd eaten your own bodyweight in food right now.
The phone was plucked from the table before you as you tapped in your home phone number, the steady ringing that filled your ear as you brought it to up to your face repeating once, twice, three and four times before the sound of a familiar voice both made your heart sing and sink at the same time.
"This is the Smith household, nobody is present at the moment to take your call. Please leave a message and we'll get back to you once we're able," came the voice of your mother over the phone.
"Hi mom, dad, it's Alyssa, just calling to make sure everything's okay. I'll call back later and see if I can catch you when you're in, love you!" and with that you snapped the phone shut, passing it back to Millicent as you felt tears welling up in your eyes.
You'd bent reality over backwards and broken the laws of physics, yet you were powerless to catch your family in when you wanted to.
It was a wretched feeling, going from being atop the world to being brought low by something so simple, yet you couldn't help it. You felt increasingly isolated and alone in this strange place simply because that connection, that human connection that you craved with your family right now had been denied to you.
It was ironic, if you'd been back home you'd have happily holed yourself up in your room and gamed away, yet here you were.
You wanted to be in their presence, in their proximity, to have the reassuring comfort of routines you knew well.
"Hey," Millicent ventured in soft tones as she reached to take your hand. "You can call them again later, they're probably just out at the moment, nothing to worry about. I'll tell the boss that getting you temporary authorisation for the library is a matter of life and death. His life and death."
You didn't respond, you knew better than to do so.
You needed to pick yourself up again, tackle this moodswing like an adult.
And get the rest of your chocolates.
Right now, chocolates and books were at the top of your list of needs, though chocolates came higher.
"Come on, lets start there, I'll call him while we take the elevator," Millicent offered you a smile as she helped to haul you to your feet.
You must have been overly tired to get this emotional so easily, it was the only thing that made sense.
"Talk to me Alyssa, tell me... What was it like using your power for the first time?"
"I don't want to."
"Come on, humour me," she responded as she guided you towards the elevator and tapped the call button.
"Exausting. I felt everything resisting, as I pushed to make it do what I wanted."
"It resisted, huh?"
"Yeah, like I was playing the chords of the universe on an instrument that was out of tune."
"That's a weird way of putting it," Millicent chuckled as she stepped into the elevator ahead of you and plucked her phone from her person once more.
The steady tap of buttons followed as she brought it to her ear.
"I don't have time to stand on ceremoney, Alyssa needs access to the library," she started as she glanced over at you. "Yes, I'm quite aware what the rules say, but I'm certain that you can make an exception. If she has to go google immortals and shit to get an idea what she's dealing with out there, you're going to have her telling people how much this agency dropped the ball covering the things she needs to know, being, you know, immortal herself and all."
There was another pause, this one longer.
"I'm pretty certain this falls under your promise to help her find out what she is, do you even need another 'good reason' beyond that?" Millicent rolled her eyes. "Stop stammering, give her temporary authorisation and pray she has more gratitude than you do, you miserable asshole."
Millicent gave you a bright smile as she finally snapped her phone shut.
"We have authorisation for you, now you can read all the boring books about everything!" she beamed, trying to play up the situation in hand as the elevator doors opened and she lead you towards one of the buildings many identical looking rooms.
At least from the outside it was.
Once you stepped inside, you were able to see row after row of skeletal metal shelves lined with books of all shapes and sizes.
But that wasn't what made the biggest impression on you, no.
The biggest impression was how the room smelled dusty and under-used, as if all these books scared away the workforce.
"Okay Alyssa, go find whatever it is you need, I'll make sure the librarian knows you're permitted to be here and go get someone to fetch your hoodie for you."
"Okay," you mumbled as you shuffled into the library proper making your way between the shelves as you looked for a suitable looking book to read.
There were many potential books, but you weren't certain what historical maps would do to help, nor did you know what a book on the history of the guild would offer you.
It wasn't until you'd spent a fair time searching that you came across a book that struck you as a good starting place.
Immortall hystories.
Either it was a very old bok, or written by an illiterate.
Or both!
It was a book that you took with you to the biggest, plushest looking chair in the room before you settled down and started to carefully, carefully leaf through the pages within.
Only to realise a few pages in that it was a replica of an old book, printed on modern paper and placed within a mass produced spine that looked old.
The real copy must have been safely stored somewhere.
Regardless, it told you, in a very dry and roundabout manner, of the many immortals that had once congregated within the British Isles.
There were sections on various types of immortal too, though a lot of the terminology and phrasing didn't translate too well.
It was still enough for you to gather that there were a few main types.
The Enlightened, a group you'd already heard of, though it referred to them as a scourge of society, cold blooded killers that murdered people at night. This could explain the lasting resentment peoplehad towards them.
General immortals, many of whom had been listed as 'dead at the time of writing', as if they couldn't be counted on to remain that way. Some of them even had the sole ways to kill them listed within the pages.
The Deathless, a group that weren't true immortals, but rather undead. Ghouls, vampires, mummies, all those kinds of things were subtypes.
You already knew some of this, but the fact that there was all this information laid out as a work of fact was unusual.
There was even a section on immortals believed to be to other immortals what immortals were to men, though it seemed to be mostly speculation and referenced several other books.
One of what you were able to locate with a little effort, that in turn referenced another book - this time with a note scribbled in the margin.
And then another, and another.
It was a trail of fruitless ends until you found a book that seemed to be devoted to one of those 'special' immortals that had been referenced in the first book.
The last thousand soul.
This book was different to the rest, it was written from the collective experiences of individuals that had lived during the the past thousand years or so as they spoke of this one individual who had walked into their lives, who had swept them up and turned everything upside down.
And in the end, they'd been left behind, to return to normal life after their very perception of the world had been shaken.
This sounded familiar.
What surprised you however, was that this book mentioned that this thousand soul was supposedly a repeatedly incarnated immortal, one that it was early on mentioned had one known weakness - a silver pin.
That was an odd one.
This thousand soul was interesting though, as it told you exactly the type of thing you wanted to know about - exactly what you wished to be aware of should you ever have the misfortune of crossing the path of another immortal.
Or even one of the enlightened.
Or a person who could give you grief.
You weren't fussy, you just wanted to know what was out there.
As the book progressed it referenced other works, it referenced the two guilds that had later merged to form the guild you knew these days, it mentioned how this individual had been a guild master, how he had furthered firearms technology, made the guardians-
Wait, he MADE the Guardians?
...Oh.
And in such a horrific way, too.
The details laid out on the matter, brief as they were, would easily have been a human rights violation.
And then it progressed into a chapter of history that had been a sore point for the world ever since.
The Victorian War.
It briefly became a logistical manual at this point, full of numbers, full of information on how the guardians had been refitted with artillery weapons to protect the coast from the french, though you were certain that the sheer wall of information of little relevance to what you desired to know was starting to make your eyes glaze over.
It wasn't until you were near the end that your attention was drawn fully back to the texts.
The thousand soul had made his way into a battle that was to be his last, for of his two companions, individuals of great power, one was to betray him.
It was upon the shores facing the english channel that he was assaulted with the sole item capable of slaying him and...
And his second companion bearing his body had walked into the oceans, leaving the first, an 'Anxiety', whom at the bidding of a distraut Queen Victoria, had been sentenced to be locked away for the rest of her immortal life.
It was sparse information, but you had learned something from it.
Immortals were a bunch of drama queens.
And yet something about the information made you feel uncomfortable, there were bits that had been whited out. Apparently this book had information that was considered sensetive, though you couldn't place your finger on why.
There was one detail that did stand out to you however - this thousand soul was considered to be the perfect immortal.
you weren't certain what to make of this information yet, given you didn't have the full picture, but you knew that it was important somehow.
Censored or not, you knew that you could continue to research historical events and figures here if you wished, to brush up on other groups or to simply waste time reading anything of interest you came across.
The only issue was, did you wish to pursue further information from the books, or was there another course of action you wished to follow now you'd sated - and aroused - other curiosities?
Author
Topic: I told them I could be anything... (Read 27786 times)