Some time ago I wrote a short story for a reddit thread. The writing prompt was for a friendship between a time traveler and an immortal, and I thought it was an interesting premise. Below is my attempt. I hope you enjoy.

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Sometimes I wouldn’t see him for years. Once, I went an entire millenium – but in a lifetime that is measured by the dying of stars, even a day spent alone can seem like an eternity. But he always came back – and every time he did was special because I always worried that it would be his last.

His coming was heralded by a tingling sensation – a warm glow that worked its way out from the base of my neck – that signaled a shift in the temporal plane, and I knew he had returned to me once again. I opened my eyes as he materialized.

There he was, just as I remembered him: hair the color of snow and eyes to match, with a bloodless complexion that reminded me of the moons. He looked up with his wide, white eyes and grinned.

“It’s good to see you again,” he said.

“Bastyon,” I said with a smile. “You’re late.”

“I’ve heard that joke a hundred times and it never gets old,” he answered with a laugh. “I’m glad that some things never change.”

Ever since the first time I’d felt him, Bastyon had been a curiosity to me. He told me of the race of people he descended from – “humans,” he called them – and the solar system that they once called home. Their time had long, long since passed and they had moved on to other planets, other suns, and other forms. The body that Bastyon inhabited now was one that he found comfortable, but was by no means one that he was bound to. It was what let him slip in and out of the time stream so easily, and was the one that he had first come to me in. It was the one that I knew him in, and it comforted me. But there was something about his smile this time that bid me look deeper – an emptiness behind his eyes that I could not quite place.

“It’s been four hundred years,” I said slowly. “You’ve missed a great deal.”

Bastyon looked up at the night sky, to the twin moons suspended overhead. “Well that’s what I have you for,” he replied. “Or are you too busy to catch me up?”

I chuckled as I looked down at his fragile frame – his thin, delicate limbs that moved so easily. I reached down and put my hand on the ground for him to step into.

“For you?” I said. “I can spare a few moments.”

I picked him up and raised my hand up to my shoulder. He crawled onto its rocky, grey surface easily like he had done so many times before. I smiled at him and joined his gaze into the sky.

“The stars are dying,” I said.

“I know,” Bastyon whispered. His words were heavy, like they were filled up with water. “It’s why I came back.”
I smiled, but it was more out of reflex than happiness. Hearing his voice was comforting, and it had a soothing effect on me.

“How many times have you come back?” I asked. I didn’t look down to see his reaction but I knew he was looking away.

“I stopped counting after a thousand.”

“And the universe after this one?”

“It’s big – bigger than this one,” he replied. “You …” he paused. “You would like it, I think.”

“Then tell me about it,” I said. My eyes were closed now.

I felt him stand up and place his hand on the side of my face. His touch was tender, and I knew he was trying to comfort me.

“I haven’t traveled too far past the beginning, but there are more stars than I’ve ever seen. I think it has the potential to give birth to something really special.”

The question lingered in the back of my mind – the one I had thought countless times to ask him before, yet lacked the courage to speak. I had seen the birth of the sun, lived through the formation of the cosmos, experienced the vast emptiness of space and time that only an immortal can even conceive of. Yet here I stood, faced with the end of all things, and could not even whisper.

But Bastyon, like he had done countless times before, spoke the words for me.

“You told me that you don’t feel any pain when it happens. That it felt like being born, or like waking up from a dream.”

I felt the cold of the universe closing in as the stars winked out, one by one. I knew that it would not be long. I was just happy that my friend was here with me.

“Thank you, Bastyon,” I said to the darkness. “But you should go. When the last light goes out, it will be far too cold for you to survive. There will be nothing left but me.”

“I know,” he said. I felt his arms around my neck in a gentle embrace. It was gesture that I’d always told him was strange to me, but he never seemed to care. “I just wanted to see you one last time.”

So this truly was the end, I thought. Let it come.

“You’re sure I can’t talk you into coming with me?” He asked. There was warmth behind his words, and it almost made me reconsider.

“You know I can’t,” I finally replied. “This is my universe. My home. I gave birth to the life in it, and will be here when it ends.”

I felt the cosmos shutting down. Space and time had begun their slow and inevitable unraveling.

“You say that every time I come back,” Bastyon said. “I keep thinking that one of these times I can change your mind.”

“I’m afraid not, little friend,” I said with a sigh.

“I find you again, you know,” Bastyon said. The words were hopeful, but had a sadness to them that clouded his voice. “But you’re different. You’re not… you.”

“It’s the nature of what I am,” I replied. “It’s how things must be, and how the universe can keep living. These cycles come in waves, Small One, and this one is just a speck of dust in an ocean of stars.”

I looked at the tiny being perched on my shoulder – the end result of billions of years of growth and change – and smiled. “And besides,” I said, “I have survived in you.”

I felt the tingling again, and knew that Bastyon was leaving. This universe would die out, fated to pull apart as the grip of gravity slowly gave way, with only blackness remaining. Blackness, cold, and me.

I shut my eyes for the last time, and waited for the end. This next universe would be different, and my death would be the catalyst to bring it about. I smiled, and waited, knowing that the next time I saw Bastyon would be through the eyes of the new seed of life – one that would spend another eternity waiting, watching, and hoping for him to appear once again.