Immortals

By Arielle Anderson

The crisp slip of paper scratches my palm, leaving a stinging cut. These words say I’ve won. That I’m almost guaranteed a shot at being Immortalized.

My mother has been smiling at me so long it’s almost become a grimace.

“You… You entered me in the lottery?”

She grabs my hand, which only makes the shaking worse. “All you have to do is make yourself stand out from the other colonists by—I don’t know, maybe falling in love. They would be sure to choose you! Who doesn’t want to read a good love story?”

My legs shake as if I’m on the ocean, piloting a ship with sails too massive to resist the violent pull of the wind. As if falling in love is just one more calculated move to get noticed by the Life-Story Seekers on the other side of the world. Of course my mother would think that. Of course she’d think that I’d want to be a colonist—someone special—just like everyone else.

But I’m not like everyone else.

“I don’t want to leave home. Aunt Leah—”

My mother’s perfect face twists into a frown. Her blue eyes flash at me like the flames of a lighthouse, guiding me to her desired destination. “Aunt Leah will be Immortalized with you in your life story if you accept.”

“She’s dying!” I dug my nails into my palm. “I’m not going to leave when she—”

The flames in her eyes flicker with disappointment.

My phone buzzes in my pocket, and I fumble to answer it before lifting it to my ear. Anything to escape the ultimate proof that I’m a constant let down to my mother.

My great-aunt’s voice rasps my name. “Emmeline.”

“Aunt Leah?” My grip on the phone tightens. “Are you okay?”

My mother’s frown softens, hopefully with concern, for the woman who has always had more warmth towards me than she has. The sea around me calms.

“I… I was going to make cookies. Did you want some?” Aunt Leah shouldn’t be getting up alone.

I pinch the bridge of my nose with worry. “Stay in bed. I’ll be right over to help you.”

“Oh, you don’t—”

I’m already shrugging on my jacket. I give my mother a final look. I wish I hadn’t. Her head is hung, and her eyes are dim.

“She’s okay, Mom,” I say gently.

“She’s not the one I’m worried about.” Her lips press together, holding back the rest of it. So don’t let your cancer-ridden aunt talk you out of leaving her and going to the moon, because you need to make us all famous. That’s what she means.

The pride in her gaze fades completely, and I’m alone in a swirling sea. Sinking. Sucked down. Soaked to the bone.

And only the moon can save me.

It’s always been this way—people on my side of the world, fitted with an implant that reads our thoughts, records what we see and hear. Our lives will be slogged through by the Life-Story Seekers. Their organization is dedicated to finding the most compelling real-life stories of victory and loss. If I’m interesting enough, mine will be typed up, nice and neat, released to the public, and read by people for centuries after I’m dead. My name won’t be forgotten. And my family, my friends, the “supporting characters,” they’ll be Immortalized too.

My mother’s proud smile as she handed me the winning ticket—I can’t get it out of my head. When has she ever looked at me with pride? Like I could do something, be something.

I want to see her look at me like that again.

Aunt Leah takes my hand in hers. “What will you do?”

I shake my head before resting it at her bedside. “It’ll be five years if I go. I don’t want to. But my mom… She wants…”

“I know.” When I look up, her gray eyes are piercing my soul. “Even as a child, she wanted to be Immortalized. I think she’s lost hope of it happening for her. But you…”

“I don’t care if the world forgets my name.”

“Why?”

“I…” I sigh and look into those sharp eyes again. So tired but so bright. “I don’t know.”

“Why not go? There isn’t much for you here.”

“You’re here.”

She smiles. It’s a watery thing, like the ripples on a lake at midnight, but not for lack of confidence. Her words are strong. “Not for long.”

The internal storm crashes into my consciousness again. If I stay, I’ll be with Leah until the end. And then I’ll lose my mother because I’ll lose our shot at immortalization.

But if I go, I’ll gain my mother’s confidence, her joy, and the immortalization that comes with it. And I’ll lose my final days with the woman who has never looked at me like I was a failure. Lose the chance to show Leah what that meant to me by making sure she doesn’t die alone.

The storm in my head pelts me with rain, and my hands shake.

“I didn’t mean to make you cry.” Her grip on my hand tightens.

The rain slides down my cheeks. My boat is rolling. Ruined. Wrecking.

My mother’s face flickers in the storm. Her lighthouse wavers. If I choose to go with the colonists, it will shine and guide me from this tempest. If I stay with Leah…

If I stay, I’ll sink…

Then her eyes find me. The same ones that watched me as a child, that grew heavy with understanding when I explained that my mother entered me in the lottery, the ones that have never, ever, ever flickered.

The shaking in my hands slows. I reply. “You didn’t.”

Her eyes. Those constant, gray, shining eyes. They aren’t another lighthouse.

“I’d rather be forgotten and with you for one more week than leave you and have the whole world know it,” I say.

They’re my moon.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Arielle Anderson is a novelist and storyteller, currently preparing to enter the query trenches with her Young Adult Fantasy novel Vantaisa: Genesis. She loves to invite readers into worlds that can not only entertain, but can provide insight into reality. When she isn’t telling stories, she can be found writing blogs for The Pop Song Professor analyzing lyrics, penning her own songs and poetry, or finishing her senior year of high school.

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