Scrivenings of the King-Beyond-The-Wall

Mirror Mirror #21

Great men live forever.

That was what my father always said. He meant it in a figurative sense, but that didn't deter me from believing that one could discover a way to literally live forever. Legends abound of a fountain of youth. Surely these myths, which have roots in many world cultures, must be based on some fragment of truth?

I spent years of my life in pursuit of that truth, building my own research upon that of my predecessors. I followed in their footsteps, traveling around the world chasing the secret of immortality.

One night, we were camped in the swamplands of Florida. It was raining terribly, and we had already lost one of our crew to the treacherous swamp. Our guide came back, excitedly rambling about a structure he found while hunting for dinner deep in the swamp to the west. My partners and I grabbed our equipment and dashed after him.

We traveled in the rain and mud for what seemed like hours until we came to a small clearing. Following the guide's outstretched finger, we saw what he had seen. The very top of what appeared to be a temple, mostly submerged in the swamp. Only the top two floors were visible, barely detectable amidst the vegetation that had overrun it.

Hurrying to the entrance, I cracked open a glow-stick to light our path. Water dripped from cracks in the ceiling, and moss had overrun the stone floors. My partners and I carefully followed a sloping path down into the bowels of the structure.

We weren't halfway down when I lost my footing and slid forward, grabbing the leg of one of my partners for support. Pulling him off balance, he in turn grabbed the third of us and we all slid downhill... fast.

We hit the ground with a thud. We were easily a hundred feet below the swamp's surface, and saw that our fall had come from the walkway, which had crumbled away twenty feet above us, leaving no way back up.

We were about to set to work on finding a way out, when a glowing, shimmering pool caught out attention. We all knew what it was instantly... the legends were true.

We laughed and cheered, patting one another on the back as we ran to the pool and greedily drank from its trough.

We didn't feel any different... had it worked?

And then came the horrible sound of creatures skittering toward us. We screamed as the insects fell upon us from the unexplored temple depths. Our flesh was agonizingly stripped from our bones by the gigantic ones as the smaller ones invaded our every orifice, eating us from the inside out.

Consciousness slipped away as we were devoured alive.


Some time later, we awoke.

Had it all been a dream?

Our tattered, bloodied clothes were a testament to the truth. We had died... and come back.

We were immortal!

And then we heard the sound of the creatures returning, skittering toward us again.


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(501 words)


Prompt: Greatest fear comes true.