Story Ideas and Writing Prompts

Writing Prompt #27: Skeleton in the Pond

https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/jxsxgp/wp_you_are_the_first_immortal_while_it_is_true/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share

In the bottom of a deep, clear pond, there lies a skeleton. It had been there a long, long time. It lay at the very bottom, sprawled in the muck, watching the water surface as the sun and moon moved through the sky, so very far above it.

It had not always been a skeleton, mind. It had once been beautiful, with hair as black as night and skin as cream as the bones that now rested in this water. It had been human, once. But only just. If one looked at the living skeleton, very closely, they'd notice the two little nubs on the crown of it's head. Perhaps they'd notice that the ribcage was missing two ribs, or perhaps not. Education had not been very good when the skeleton still wore its flesh, that was made clear by the witch trial that sent it to this watery depth.

It had been lead by people promising that nothing bad would happen, and then it had been betrayed. Tied to a stake and set alight. It had burned, with pain the seared it's nervous systems to ash, for what felt like eons. But, eventually, just as the skeleton knew would happen, the fire died. Its flesh was gone, leaving only a charred skeleton. But the skeleton, its rage palpable on the air, had continued to live, moving towards the man who had started all this, the witch hunter, who had uprooted the peaceful life it once knew. But it had never got there. Ithad been tackled, pushed to the ground. Tied with ropes, then tied to a chair, and thrown into the pond.

It has rested here a long time. Long enoughtherope rotted away, and the chair had swollen and split, tearing itself to pieces, before the skeleton was left withonly itself and the fish for company. It enjoyed the fish. They were small things, but welcome ones. They swam through its skull, twined through his ribs, but anytime it tried to touch one, the tiny creature wouldslip right through its bony fingers, fleeing far from the dead thing that was not dead.

It had resigned itself to this existence. The rage that had once fueled it had burned away as surely as its flesh had, and had done so long before the chair had rotted and collapsed. So it rested in its pond, a long forgotten remnant, lost in thought, and weeds, and muck.

It was content to stay that way. It had not been so peaceful in a long time. Millennia, perhaps? Or merely decades? The skeleton did not know. But it was fine with that. All it needed was its pond, and its fish, and its weeds. Over time, it noticed the fish population dwindling. Something to do with the loud, heavy things that moved on the surface, perhaps? Or something to do withthe strange new objects resting on the bottom? Crinkly and dry, even under so much water, consumed by fish that soon floated on the surface for the birds to feast on.

But the immortal did nothing. It had no reason to. Life would play out as life always did. And it would be left in the deep. But soon all the fish were gone. And with it, eventually, went the plants. The skeleton lay alone in the murk, only mud and its own thoughts beside it.

But then, another hiccup. A long tube, wider than the skeleton, entered the water. The immortal pushed itself free from the grasping mud around its bones, and moved towards the thing. It was silent, and real, but not living. It moved, but did not think. A weapon? It wondered, or simply a tool? Then it began to move, to vibrate, and the water around the skeleton was sucked into it, slowly, but surely, the water's surface neared, growing closer with every vibration. Sometimes, the thing would freeze, but it would always begin again.

A bizaare practice, the skeleton thought. One meant to drain the pond, or was that simply a byproduct? It did not know. It had no real sense of time anymore, but eventually the water was just at the crown of the skeleton's head. So it stood, waiting, as the water lowered more, and heard creatures speak, in a language the skeleton had no understanding of. It was long different from the tongue it spoke, so it simply watched the creatures with eyeless sockets.

After the initial shock and panic of them finding the skeleton in the water, they began to speak to it, butit did not reply. It did not know their language, so they would not know its. It simply watched them with eyeless sockets as they vocalized questions it could not answer. They moved their hands in patterns it did not recognize, squinting at its lack of face for any sign of recognition.
Eventually, it grew weary of the song and dance, and, in a voice that was dry as creaking bone and snapping twigs, in a language long since lost to time, "I go."

And it did. It walked away from the pond, to see the world that spread before it, a world of birds and mammals, of air and sound. It paid little mind to the humans that followed it, and many humans followed it. They seemed to follow in shifts, one human here, a different human there. But it paid them no mind. It watched only the grass shifting in the wind, the birds careening in the sky. The wild animals that c4ossed its path on the hunt for food, the unending shift of sun and moon.

Over time, it began to see new things. Houses, it suspected, but larger and more intricate than any from its own time. Towns, but far wider, covering wide swaths of land with sound and smoke. Long paths of gray and yellow, sweeping through forests and plains with no care for the life within.

The skeleton was intrigued most by these paths. Upon them rumbled massive and colorful hulks of metal, that streaked down the gray path, sometimes striking animals, most times continuing on its way with no real care for the creatures that cowered from the serpentine lengths.

The immortal finally found a spot that was perfect for its needs, a wide clearing just overlooking one of the strange paths, with a tree in the center perfect to lean against. So it did. It settled agains the warm wood, and relaxed, letting itself rest, watching the path and the animals of the forest. Over time, the humans, mostly, lost interest.

Once in a while, a human would come to see the unliving immortal, and the skeleton would grant the creature a slight turn of its mossy skull, at which point the human would flee.

The skeleton enjoyed the peace for a long, long time.