Prologue: 1.0 Goner 

---

I may not remember what time it is. Know what day it is, but I’m still lucid enough to remember it’s Harvest Fest. The fact that I’m sober enough to remember my name. All dozen of them actually, says I’m nowhere near the goal of drinking myself to death.

As one of the Nine, who has died in every way there is, that particular end is only something I’ve achieved once or twice in the countless years I’ve been alive.

That I remember any way.

Unlike other ‘immortal’s’ who just won’t go down. I’m as easy to kill as any other human. Sort of. Centuries of self-taught tactics don’t make it as easy as it once was, but se la vi.

The ‘wanderers’ say that there are nine tribes of immortals. Each having their own curse. Mine is death because I die at the drop of a hat. It’s just that rather than being reincarnated into a new life or body, the one I’m in resets.

Sure, I get the relief of not knowing bupkiss for a fair stretch, but eventually the memories and my reality always wiggles its way back in. Sometimes slow, sometimes fast, but it’s never taken less than three months, that I’m aware of, for my body to go the way of the immortal jellyfish.

Meaning that when my organs shut down to heal, I am a corpse. No heart beat. No breath. No cognitive function. Not until my body restores back to being twenty-something, and I wake up a full-grown infant.

Early days, that really sucked.

I’d take a mausoleum packed with food, alcohol, and shit to sell, over digging myself out of a grave any day. Well, at least when people I have no memory of don’t freak out and kill me again anyway.

Depends on how I die as to how long it takes for me to come back. No telling what causes the memory lapses between each incarnation or how long it’s been going on.

I also don’t know why I’m being so stubborn, if not bitter about how I reach my end this go round. The Nine are every bit as frail as humans so it’s not like I can’t take my pick on the easiest way to go considering.

I can’t be sure what prompted drinking myself to death as the only option, but there I was six bottles of the cheapest alcohol known to man in, on the floor of a Quikmart. Fumbling to snag myself a seventh when a little blue alien in a neoprene costume walked in.

Rather than a single night, Hallow Fest is a full week of playing dress up for Halloween each year. Each day has a theme, but few stick to it anymore. She, on the other hand, is. Alien invaders is a full six days away from Pandemonium. 

The parade of a hundred demons that ends the festivities each year.

The day I always belong in, and don’t need a costume for. Hence, the drinking.

Anyhow, the girl may be short, but the glittery sky-blue leotard hugs a figure that says she’s grown, and isn’t starving like most. The black smudge around her hairline is more likely a bad dye job than a whimsical addition to the blue paint coating the rest of her face.

I’m sure that the thick black lines around her eyes and over her cheeks started as something pretty, but are as smudged as her blue foundation is peeled at this point.

The ‘alien’ goes from semi intimidating to a lost kitten coming around the corner with those naturally blue eyes widening on me. Letting out the most adorable sneeze in place of the yip she so clearly wanted to make before she trips over me. 

As her foot bumps my sprawled legs in the aisle, the new sound of duress sends an indeterminable shower of spittle, seawater, and or snot over me before she lands. The washed out ‘alien’s’ lips twist with worry. 

Every hair raised in warning, most likely with the glance she steels in my direction.

I can’t blame her. The blue clad figure of hers s an accident waiting to happen in a place like this. The Hollow being the most dangerous part of all Haven in broad daylight, let alone this time of night.

A curvy, sweet thing like her on her lonesome is just asking for trouble.

Just because I’m not the type doesn’t mean that others aren’t. I’m all hot-blooded male, but that’s never an excuse for being a scumbag. Like any guy, I go through the process of deciding on things. 

Yes, I’m inebriated, and that makes the whole can I eat it, do I want to fuck it, or will it entertain me process all guys go through simpler?

Sex for sure if she’d give me half a chance, but given how fast she scampers around the corner for cold medicine as much as feminine products says that wouldn’t happen even if I wasn’t ancient.

I’d look twenty, maybe thirty, if this life wasn’t as difficult as it had been. Oh, the joys of modern medicine that didn’t just let me die after getting blown up. Nope, fancy surgeries and the whole no man left behind military mentality had all the shrapnel removed from the right side of my body, which took the worst of the blast.

As one of the Nine, who treats death like a vacation, I could just blow my brains out. No fuss, no muss, but it takes forever to come back from that. Plus, my memory isn’t what it used to be, and regardless of the video diaries I’ve relented to keeping there are times it has taken me years to remember I have them, let alone watch them.

I also feel like they are missing a lot of information these days.

It depends on the level of damage and where the Nine take it as to how long our cat naps last. Not to mention the in-between waking up without a clue and all the pieces falling into their places.

At this point, it’s so bad that I really wouldn’t say no to a few years of no pulse, no breath, and barely there brain function like vegetables in a comatose state. Difference being the Nine come back faster without the machines.

I have no idea why I’m being so stubborn. My face looks like a rabid raccoon got a hold of it, not to mention the all over aches of knitted bones, torn muscles and burn scars.......

Yep.

No chance the cute little alien would be interested. I still have this feeling like I’m close, or balancing on a tightrope or something. As that sensation settles, I realize the girl I’m contemplating trying to talk to is slipping away. 

She’s made it to the counter, grabbing a prepaid as the clerk rings up the rest of her items. 

The docks are right on the bay she just came out of, if the trailing water and seaweed are any indication. I’m also fairly certain there is a crab latching for dear life on one of her thick legs.

It’s a baby one though.

A baby that the clerk’s cat is all too enthusiastic about testing the clamp of. “Mr. Smithers!” The woman with more chins than teeth gasps at the fat tabby, who never misses a shift with her.

With the alien’s slight turn to me as much as the woman and tabby, I find a tenacious little army of clamping things that refuse to give up the fight.

“Oh, dear,” Jabba gasps. Rather than freak out or go into another little sneezing fit when the alien spies her predicament in the security mirror, she laughs. Really laughs, and it sounds like a fairy glade ringing with spring.

“Don’t worry about it, Miss Fran,” the girl chuckles. “If I’m silly enough to get caught in Collin’s net and stromp the bay in here with me, the least I can do is offer Mr. Smithers breakfast.” 

Being on a first name basis with the yocals says the little thing has nothing to worry about. A knot I didn’t know was bubbling in my stomach loosens with the knowledge that she’s safe, whether I stalk her as intended or not.

Given the situation, costume included, the teen girl should be hysterical or an absolute terror about the tabby swiping at her. Instead, the blue mystery just turns her crap covered back for the pair to help her, giggling through the experience.

It is the oddest thing I’ve seen in a long while.

The only way that I can really describe that smile, on what I’m assuming is a college kid, is the sunrise. In all my plastered and curious glory, I follow her out, getting a very squinted, if not warning, glare from Jabba tutting over her cat.

The alien knows how to roll with the punches. So she’s upgraded from random fuck to an actual date I’d be interested in. Even without the sex part, I’d like to know her...... Odd for me.

Sex of every flavor, absolutely. Relationships... dating. I’m a little too complicated for that.

It’s that point right before the sun hits. When light bands the horizon of the sea across the street, making all the little outlines of ships on the water visible.

The girl seems to take in the sight with another one of those smiles.

It’s not until a crack of lightning breaks her concentration that she turns from the port to face the sky again. “Well here comes the thunder,” it’s a huff, that comes with an ‘of course’ eye roll.

Clouds I hadn’t even noticed follow her comment, and I’m sure whatever happened is more entertaining in my head than the real story could ever be, but this is the most fun I’ve had in..... well, ages.

Rather than squeal, duck or run from the storm, my extraterrestrial opens her arms to the downpour.

In the middle of the street in all her washed out seaweed and congested glory she snarks to the heavens, “I hope you are having a good laugh!”

After years of situations too uncanny and or terrible to explain, I’ve definitely lost that. The ability to find the humor and bright side of any situation. Roll with the punches like she is. Clearly not letting anything dampen those bubbly spirits.

I’m sure it’s the precarious amounts of liquor, but the wall is the only thing that is keeping me standing. So when I feel like my feet have more control than my head, and my knees get lost in translation from the hopeful introduction, and I’m swept away from all the bad decisions alcohol wanted me to make.

Right up to the situation, not to mention conversation that is so much more interesting than I can imagine rather than less, the girl sits in front of me. Maintaining a kneeled position, light pouring in from behind her like a halo, or sigil from the creators.

“I thought my luck was bad,” I chuckle.

“Well, your brother didn’t name you after the apocalypse cat,” she huffs through her cute tipped nose before adding, “obviously,” with a sassy eye roll getting to her feet.

“Jinx,” I grin offering my hand, and that’s it. Those too true blue eyes bat up at me and no question about it. I’m a goner and I know it.