Only the dead...

No matter where Jacob was, death was at the door. This hounding suitor drained all joy from life by depriving him of hope. He always felt its stalking breath, which carried hints of the eternal void, on the back of his neck. It gave him a fatal shiver that could only be remedied by one thing: the fabled elixir of life — immortality in a vial.

Jacob spent years unearthing dusty tomes of forgotten secrets to no avail. His pursuit of the elixir made him deathly sick and even drove him to the brink of madness. One night after studying yet another fruitless volume, a sharp pain rended his stomach: “Help! I’m dying!” Then darkness.

“Are you awake?” a grave-faced physician hovering over Jacob said.

Jacob tried to speak, but lost consciousness again.

“Doctor?” he said faintly as he awoke in pure darkness.

“I am what you seek,” the darkness spoke with an airy voice.

He tried to move, but his body didn’t respond. The arcane sounding voice, along with his apparent incorporeality, proved to him that this was the nether realm.

“You have two choices before you: the elixir of life or a return to mortal life,” the voice said. "Since I am a gentleman, I shall remind you that in all your studies, you have never found the secret of the elixir. If this object is nothing more than a hope dreamt up by hopeless men, then choosing it will condemn you to the fate of the hopeless.”

“I choose the elixir! The elixir! Bestow unto me the elixir at once,” Jacob cried without hesitation.

“Hopeless,” the voice said as it faded away.

Jacob waited, and waited…“Where is the elixir? Where is my elixir,” he exclaimed in the darkness.

A note appeared in his hand. It read, “You’ve already received it. Only the dead live forever.”