Playing with Forever

Chapter 17: Sam's Truth, Part III

I woke up in an unknown location with a headache. An old patchwork quilt covered me as I lay in a large, soft bed. A single lamp was on against the nighttime darkness. I was so comfortable, I thought about just curling up and going back to sleep, but there was something nagging at the back of my brain. Something I needed to remember...

Sam.

Oh.

I started upright, and found the friend in question sitting in an armchair next to the bed, sketching. Graphite dust was smudged on his hand where it glided across the drawing. He looked up when I climbed out of bed and hurried over to him, putting my hands on him. I needed to reassure myself that he was alright. I touched his chest. Everything was fine—no stab wound, no scar, nothing on his body to show that what I thought had happened really had occurred. Maybe I had just dreamed it all? I must have, right?

But no. There was a hole torn in his shirt, right where the knife had sliced through it. My fingers still on his chest, I met his eyes. "It really happened?"

He gave me a barely perceptible nod, his already gentle eyes softening. "It really happened."

I shook my head, not in refusal of his words, but instead marveling. I brought my fingers to where he had been stabbed with the knife in his neck. His stubble brushing my skin, I tilted his head so I could get a better look at where the wound should be. Again, nothing but flawless skin.

Astounded, I sat back down on the bed. "You're really immortal."

He paused. "Yes. I am."

"No matter what happens, you can't die."

Sam sighed, leaning back in the leather armchair. "No matter what happens, I cannot die."

He couldn't die. He would exist, in this form, forever. "Have you gotten away with things where you should have died?"

He nodded against the chair. "Many times."

I felt my eyes widen. "Like what?"

"We do not have to do this tonight, Abigail. You have heard, and seen, so much already. There is all the time in the world to continue this conversation."

I hesitated. I had no idea what time it was, but it had to be late. I'd gotten to Sam's around eleven, and after our talk, who knew how long I was out? I had told Birdie I would be out late for the haunted house—was that really tonight? It felt like ages ago—and not to wait up for me. I didn't have to fear her worrying, and I knew I wasn't about to leave without knowing everything there was to know.

"No, I want to do this now. I want to get it all out in the open. Tell me—how have you gotten away with death?"

He sighed, rubbing his hand over his face. "I have been shot, stabbed, strangled. I have fallen, a fall that would have crushed a mortal. I have survived a train crash and been crushed in a car accidents. I have drowned and burned. And here I am."

"Huh?"  That couldn't possibly be true. Could it? Somehow that was harder to take in than anything else he'd said. I laid back on the mattress, arms flung above my head, just staring at the ceiling.

A thought suddenly broke through my brain fog. "Hey, so where do I fit in with all this?"

"Well, until this afternoon you were unaware of all of this."

Obviously. I turned my eyes to him without sitting up. "And now?"

"Now, you have the opportunity to become immortal like us."

"Wait, what?" I cried, bolting back upright. Excuse me? "Why?"

"Because you fell in the bathtub."