Fruit salad

Once upon a dead man

And there they were, an army, as promised. The army I was supposed to stare down without a waver in my voice, without a shake in my step. They were everywhere. As promised.

One with an eye bulging out the side of his head, blood dripping from the open socket. His mouth hung drooped at one side as though he couldn't lift it to meet the upturned side of his devilish grin.

Another missing his nose and several limbs, limping while blackened blood swirled out of his non existent leg and onto the wooden staff that seemed to keep him upright.

Many without eyes, mouths, ears. Most without an arm or a leg. All disfigured, all unnatural.
All...

...dead
Yet not quite

I was promised a war millennia ago. A fight from the mortal who seem to believe immortality a blessing. Of course I had to 'warn' the others. We laughed it off over pizza and Netflix. We didn't think anything of him. The man who vowed the war.

He was drowning, in blood and blackened waters. Watching as we pulled ourselves from the currents and latched onto logs and rocks. We couldn't save him. We were made immortal. He was made demonic in essence.

So here we are. The known immortals vs the undead, the zombies. We gave them a choice.

"Would you rather live. Watch all of your friends die before you, unable to do anything. Burn constantly in a house fire where you can't escape, feeling every little bit of pain for all eternity, would you watch your children grow old and die, and forget you while you go on without ageing... Or would you rather live a short, happy life. Knowing that you can someday pass on, watch your kids grow up and die before they do. Would you rather be able to say anything and do anything and know that you will someday die and will no longer matter, it will no longer haunt you. You could rule the world without that kind of regret."

They decided to leave us as the immortal as long as they could truly rule the world. So now there they are, running the planet. They call themselves the most intelligent species on the planet. Then they proceed to control each others movements and beliefs and drag each other down and  harm and murder each other for sport. Yeah, truly the most intelligent species. After every other species. And right at the top of the food chain, although the undead don't seem to realise, is the immortal. The ones who pass through generation upon generation, learning when to fake a death and change a name. Knowing what to say to get others to do whatever they please.

Of course the immortal have become so good at this lie, that they believe it. They think their random thoughts, the times they zone out, their dreams, they're all just powerful imagination. They were all real, they are memories. The immortal are simply known as either psychopaths or just highly intelligent. Commonly overlooked as slightly different.

Its such a shame that the immortal have forgotten themselves, it must be all the undead they've eaten, all their brains.