e Immortal: The Beginning
by Bree Pierce
Copyright 2015 Bree Pierce
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Table of Contents:
The Beginning
Nod
Elisabeth
Running Away
Christine
Acknowledgements
About the Author
The Beginning
I wasn’t there in the beginning. In the beginning there was nothing. No Earth. No people. No universe. Just a vast nothingness. The only thing still presiding was God. But God is a being and not a person. And then there was the beginning of everything. The Earth came to be, man came to be, and sin came to be. My parents were the inhabitants of the Garden of Eden. It was my mother that took of the forbidden fruit. To some degree I blame her for this. For me. Don’t we all? She did commit the first sin. And my father followed suit soon after. Women. They can beguile any man into doing what they want once they realize the power they hold. Some never do though. Those are the ones that are the most valuable. They are not willing to use their power for evil. And me, well I am stuck in an eternity of reliving the past.
Once my parents were kicked out of the garden, they began to till the land to make it produce the food that they needed. They had to take from other beings, the animals. Come to think of it, we have been taking ever since sin came to be. Anyway, I was born and then my younger brother, Abel. Goody two shoes Abel. Some would call it jealousy; I call it righteous irritation. I was raised to be a farmer, like my father. Abel got to keep the sheep. We were both required to bring a sacrifice to God. I remember this day well. It’s the day that my entire life changed. A day of punishment.
It was a normal day, except for the offering. The wind was whipping around and the heat from the sun was on our backs. While my brother was out selecting a prize lamb for the offering, I was out gathering food that I had painstakingly tilled and farmed. The sun was causing sweat to run down my back. My muscles were hardened from the labor I had become used to some years ago. I had quit trying to wipe the sweat off my brow about an hour ago.
Both of us had altars built of stone. We each placed our offerings on the top and waited. I looked in awe at the fire that consumed Abel’s offering, licking up every drop of blood, fat, and bone of the lamb he brought. Then I turned and realized mine was still just sitting there, waiting. Anger and disappointment rolled through me. What was it that I had done wrong? But there was something. Perhaps it had been my attitude. I hadn’t been very nice to Abel lately. I admit I was a little jealous. Anger and jealousy had been trying to take hold of my heart lately. I thought I was dealing with it until today. This, this was a whole new level. I was angered beyond belief. And then rebuked by God. You don’t know what being rebuked is until it’s by God Himself. It causes a pain deep in your soul. But it just caused my anger toward Abel to grow deeper in my heart.
Later that afternoon we were out in the field together. I had resolved to at least try to be a little civil. After all, he was my brother. But then the offering was brought up.
“What happened today with the offering?” asked Abel
“I’m not sure,” I lied. I wasn’t ready to admit anything, especially to him.
Abel was quick though. He looked at me sideways and then carefully said, “Perhaps it was your heart, Cain.”
“What makes you say that?” I snapped at him.
Abel sighed quietly and once again, tried to answer me as carefully as he could. “Everyone can see the anger and darkness growing inside of you.” He cast his eyes down as he said it. Too bad he did that because he didn’t see me advancing towards him with my knife in hand. I was so angry I couldn’t see straight. He was so perfect, and I wasn’t. I had finally had enough. And then the rage took over, enveloping me like a dark cloud. He was so lost in his own thoughts that he hardly saw it coming. I saw Abel’s eyes look up just in time to see me stab him in the heart. His eyes not only showed surprise, but disappointment, as the life drained from him.
It took a few minutes for it to really hit me. I had just killed my brother. I dropped the bloody knife in my hand that had just been pulled out of my brother’s chest. I started to hyperventilate. The more I thought, the faster my breath came. But I wasn’t really getting oxygen and passed out. A few minutes later I opened my eyes to see grass all around me. I was laying in it. The regret hit me again. I sat up and looked over at Abel’s still body.
“You had to be so damn perfect didn’t you?” I yelled. I was still angry to a degree. I blamed him for making me kill him. There was no way I could go back home. My parents would never let me stay now. It was like a replaying of the Garden of Eden all over again, except now death was involved. No matter, I didn’t want to stay anyway. There had to be somewhere for me out there. Somewhere to make a way for myself. So I started walking. It wasn’t long before God caught up with me. He knew what I had done, but asked where Abel was anyway. I made it clear that I wasn’t my brother’s keeper. Seems like that didn’t strike a nice chord with Him. He cursed me. And because I was fearful for my own life, God marked me so that everyone would know who I was and what I had done. So that no one would kill me because vengeance would be released on them seven times greater. And that would be vengeance that none would want. Neither would I considering my own penalty.
The mark was painful. It was a white hot pain on the right side of my face. I didn’t know it at that moment, but I looked fairly scary after I was marked. Later on I saw it and it looked hideous. It looked like a big black tattoo marred almost the complete right side of my face; claws coming out from the edges, ripping at my normal flesh. This horrible tattoo wasn’t even the worst of it. My eye on that side had changed as well. There was no longer any pigment in the iris of my eye. I still had normal whites, a normal black pupil, and even a thin ring around where my iris would have been. The ring around my iris was a vibrant blue, but the iris itself was pale white, almost milky looking in appearance. No one would mistake this for anything but the hand of God punishing me. The black was a constant reminder of how sin had taken hold on me. The white of my eye was a reminder that God had ultimately had some sort of compassion on me for not striking me dead immediately, as I deserved. But then again, perhaps this punishment I now live through daily is a punishment worse than death could bring. Now I walk the Earth, scarred and feeling the guilt of Abel’s death bearing down on my shoulders. It was my load to carry. I had committed the first murder in the history of the world. I would always be labeled not just a murderer, but The Murderer.
Nod
My feet led me down the dusty road to a place called Nod. It was to the east of Eden. Basically, I named it. The name reminded me of my life. It was like that little time between actually falling asleep and being completely awake. A world where it’s more like a hallucination than the real thing. This felt unreal to me. I was running away from God, my parents, and my dead brother.
It wasn’t like it was a huge town or anything. No, just me and the land around me, plus a few straggling humans. Two families besides me. Yep, massive town.
But that’s ok. Less people to stare at the terrible scars on my face. I didn’t even realize how my eye looked at this point. The first time I went to the small river running close to Nod I would see it, repulsed at my own face. And so were others here in Nod. They all averted their eyes, never looking me in the face, or avoided me completely. Right now I looked for shelter. There were some nice little crevices in the rocks that would make a decent shelter for now. I found one that wasn’t so shallow I would get rained on. It was hollowed out and the top was covered. I took a blanket out and wrapped it around me, lying down to try to find some rest. It was getting dark out and I was tired from walking. This was now my home. My own personal hell to remind me of the consequences I faced. My eyes slowly closed as I tried to battle the pain raging inside of me.
It was like I was there all over again. We were in the fields, talking like brothers do, the grass swaying as we cut it by hand. Our animals would need it for food. So we cut and chatted about chores and life. Abel kept talking about finding a girl someday and getting married. He wanted to fall in love and have a family. Me, I didn’t know what I wanted and it always troubled my family. I was considered the wayward son,