My Eternal Vow with a Goddess

Nadia didn’t reply to my texts. And my phone calls were only answered by the forsaken abyss. Five minutes past our agreed-upon meeting time, but I still couldn’t grab hold of her. This must have been a ghosting tactic to play hard-to-get.

“Leon! I’m… I like… I LOVE…” a voice interjected from my side. I spared a fraction of my glance at its source, finding that Faith was still standing there. A baffling sight, since I had no idea what she wanted from me. She approached me unprompted, like those salespeople in a mall, and started muttering incoherent words. Maybe this was one of those pranks that had been so popular recently? She was usually an obedient and reliable girl, so perhaps the others put her up to it.

“I love how single you are!” Faith yelled out this resolute line. An unexpected thing to declare, but at least I gathered that it wasn’t a prank. It had to be a gesture for Appreciation Day.

Just when I thought I had figured out her motive, Faith flailed her arms around as if she had been dropped from a high altitude and was grasping for her parachute. Her toffee ponytail swung behind her in a hypnotic rhythm. “No. No. No. That’s not what I meant… I-”

A storm of bullets cut her off. My chest ramped up in its thumping, to a point I thought a monster would burst out. If it were another person facing the imminent fate of being marred by a swarm of lead pellets, they would also share this physical sensation. But the emotion they felt would certainly differ from me.

The fear that would have permeated their body was incomprehensible to me. I had no reason to be scared of this moment. Every great hero had their oppositions. Needless to say, I had expected to encounter resistance in my noble quest. No, more than that, I welcomed it.

As the ammunition shower graced my body, I felt the biggest smile on my face. Opening my arms, as if a child playing in the rain, I took in the sensation of each impact and when the metal bounced off my skin. The same unexceptional deflection happened to my Leonians.

From the corner of my eye, I saw Justice charging toward a mid-rise, leaping through the frame of its shattered glass door. He must have an identical excitement coursing through his veins, driving him to action. Watching his lone silhouette disappear from my line of sight, a resolve to protect my subordinate arose within me. I couldn’t let him go beyond enemy lines on his own.

“Bring it on!” I yelled, my booming voice overpowering the thunder of gunshots in the background. Taking the first step, and another, pushing through the flock of bullets. My speed mounting, fueled by the force of destiny. Nothing could stop me from advancing.

Tahlia, are you watching? Your disciple is carrying out your will. A responsibility, a calling, an unavoidable fate. I still had that jubilant day stored in my mind so vividly, to the point where it would replay in my dreams. The details were exactly the same. Like my life, so was that day immortalized.

Back then, I was newly divorced, scattered, and without a path to take. From time to time, I would reflect on my life, asking, “Hey, what do you think is the point of all this?” To which, the answer was usually “Sir, I’m just ringing up your office to tell you about your meeting at three.”

Walking dead, that was what I had devolved into. A hobbling corpse in the street, with one hand grasping my swaying suitcase. February offered to hire a chauffeur, but I didn’t care about the luxury. I just wanted to be vaporized by the harsh sunlight.

Something similar had almost happened. In the summer after Verity divorced me, as I crossed the mouth of an alley, my future was snapped towards another path in an instant. A pop was the only warning I got. An inferno responded to the heralding sound, gushing out from the explosion of a tank truck.

The cause of the accident was never found, but finding the ones at fault was never on my to-do list. Instead of outrage, I had only heaps of gratefulness to whoever or whatever set off the blast. The flames didn’t graze my flesh. They froze in place once they reached inches away from my arm, as if a puff of bright-colored clouds had descended from the heavens.

I was stunned, of course, but it was by confusion rather than the time-stopping phenomenon. A bright voice flowed into my ear, orienting me with a reassuring call.

“Leon Anders.”

My body moved on its own, captured by the sound’s ethereal quality, turning to the entity that requested me. I could feel my jaw drop at the woman before me. Wrapped in a purple bridal gown, complete with a blusher veil of the same color. She slid towards me with an unnatural smoothness, and I suspected that she had no legs under the dress.

But I felt no fear, soothed by the dark blue wavy hair cascading down her shoulders, just under the transparent covering. Her cobalt eyes stared straight at me; the rich light within them graced me with a comfort, as if I were resting snugly on soft bedding.

“What is happening?” I released a breath as the question came out.

The woman smiled. “Call me Tahlia. I’m here to give you a choice. Either you can die in the explosion, or gain eternal life.”

“Is this a new type of preaching campaign?”

She responded with an elegant, reserved chuckle. Exactly what I wanted to stir up with my obviously stupid question. However, watching the crevices form on her perfectly shaped face, a weight loomed in my heart. This was an expression that Verity used to make.

Upon a closer look, becoming clear to me were the dark spots and beauty marks dotted on Tahlia’s face, barely visible beneath the cloth. I could feel the corners of my lips drooping.

“No, silly. I’m here to grant you a life that will last forever,” she clarified.

I threw a sidelong glance at the fiery eruption on pause. What was the point of living among wolves for many more decades? People who would devour you without a second thought. People who had not a single sincere syllable to say.

“No, thank you.” I didn’t expect myself to say it out loud. Distracted by my regret, I only caught a brief glimpse of the unknown expression that flashed on my savior’s face. By the time my attention had swung from myself back to her, an empathetic smile had returned to greet me.

“But you will die if you reject me.”

“Or, I can just leave before the explosion resumes,” I said as I backed away from the alley. Tahlia hurried to follow me; her satin pumps clicked on the pavement in a sacred rhythm.

“Wait. If you become immortal, you can do whatever you want.”

That statement compelled me to stop, even though I was probably still well within the blast radius of the explosion. An idea sprouted, organizing itself and transforming from a flash of inspiration into concrete language.

“You don’t have to eat. You can’t get killed. You won’t get sick. What is left to stop you?” She added. Little did she know, I was already convinced.

“Can I make everyone else immortal?”

“Huh? What are you saying?” My question seemed to have baffled her, even though I had stated it as clearly as I could.

“Since you can give me immortality, can’t I also give immortality to others?” Just suggesting it flooded my body with a pleasant itch, one that couldn’t be scratched until I fulfilled my newfound mission.

“Sure? But let me make you immortal first.” Tahlia took her place in front of me and grabbed hold of both my wrists. At this moment, the sun hit her head at just the right angle. It looked as if her face was glowing, emanating a familiar warmth that surpassed any radiator.

“Listen carefully,” she whispered in my ear. “We need to complete a ritual. You’ll have to cover your ears and say ‘I do’ when I tap your shoulder. Remember, it won’t work if you hear what I’m chanting.”

“I got it,” I answered, leaning away from her. She let my arms go, so that my hands could obscure my hearing. My next actions obeyed her instructions, without the slightest bit of temptation to defy her, my goddess. My mind was too overwhelmed with anticipation and scenarios of what I would do once my body transcended death.

It felt anticlimactic. Nothing seemed to have happened, only echoes of my voice as I uttered ‘I do’ in response to the three touches on my shoulder. Tahlia assured me, “Congratulations, you are immortal now.” Once she taught me the chant to repeat the process for other people, no doubts remained within my thoughts, absolutely none towards this deity who had bestowed upon me a second life.

She vanished afterwards with no theatrics, blinking out of existence. The dam holding back time was lifted, and the blazing wave struck me as if I were a surfer stranded in an ocean storm. But the contagious heat had no effect on me, nor on my two-piece suit. My unharmed body served as a testament to the immortality I had gained.

That night, I asked February to look into adoption centers and started planning preparations for the manpower and resources needed before an all-out war with the forces of evil. Twelve years later, even as I shot up the stairways of an abandoned construction project, I thought of that day, of Tahlia, of the wonderful quest that she had set me on.

Slamming the door to the rooftop, I readied myself for my first real fight, but the space was deserted. In place of the gunshots that should have been welcoming my arrival, there was only the howl of the night breeze rolling by.

I could have sworn that they were firing from here. The most plausible explanation? They must have heard me coming and hurried to hide. But every corner of the area lacked any signs of human activity; I took care to check for the slightest detail.

Damn, they are good at covering their tracks.

“Leon, there you are!” Faith said. She burst into the place with a glimmer in her hazel eyes. “I thought you got lost somewhere.”

“Why would I get lost?” My gaze continued searching the concrete ground, with the aid of the moon.

“Apparently, all the shooters have been caught and tied up. The others are moving them to the bus.”

After I processed what she had just said, its logical flaws popped out to me, ripe to be picked on. How could they do this so quickly? All of the shooters? How could they know that they had gotten all of them? They could be hiding somewhere. In the sewers, for instance. The sewers… People would always retreat to the sewers when the situation became desperate. Not just people, even turtles.

“The sewers! We have to check the sewers!” I exclaimed. Before Faith could agree with my realization, I had already dashed past her and down the flights of steps. Almost tumbling, but I didn’t care about the risk of dropping onto the concrete floor head-first, or at whatever angle. How clumsy I got wouldn’t matter, as long as I could chase after the goons that were running away.

Upon exiting the building, I spotted a crowd of twenty or so Leonians waiting on the road, chattering as if they were at a house party. “Let’s go to the sewers,” I yelled. They looked among themselves; none of them seemed to comprehend what I had just said. Have they gone deaf?

“Leon, why are you talking about sewers? Tell me how I can help, please.” Faith caught up to me. Normally, she would be smart enough to understand my intentions. Not this time.

“What else? Because one of them is hiding in the sewers! Maybe even more of them!” I waved my hands for emphasis, but my cry to action was met with silence.

“Mr. Leon, there aren’t any sewers-” Wisdom, a Leonian on the shorter side, spoke up, but he was quickly cut off by a shush from behind me. From Faith, I presumed.

While everyone else returned to a standstill, she moved to slip in front of me. “Leon, someone peeked out of that second-floor window.” She pointed at an apartment building across the street. A construction of red bricks, infested with hollow windows lacking glass panes.

Without another word, I sprinted to the abandoned structure. The wind pushed against me, conspiring to stop me from advancing, but I would triumph. After diving through the ground-level aperture, I scrambled up the spiral stairs. The contacts with the metallic steps brought resounding clanks.

The second floor was empty enough for me to hear faint rumblings from the shifting air. I traversed through the mess of debris to survey the rooms, inspecting the nooks and crannies that could house a person. Nothing. Maybe the goon escaped to another floor.

Right when I was about to climb to the third floor, a commotion from the ground floor reached my ears. As if my muscles were on autopilot, I sprang into action, diving back down the stairway. At the bottom of the flight, an unfamiliar figure dwelled not far from me, and it was a brawny man wearing a tank top and cargo pants.

Was that fear in his eyes? He was checking his surroundings, keeping his body down, obviously an effort to stay hidden. As for the person he was hiding from, it was so obviously me. Similar to a cat upon seeing a mouse, I pounced at him, and by the time he turned to me, I already had my legs wrapped around his body.

Now what? After a brief moment of confusion, I realized that any attack would suffice, so I hammered down on his head. He shouted in Slavish, which I didn’t understand a word of. If only one of the Leonians who spoke the tongue were here, then I could listen to his plea. But then, he managed to catch my wrists and did his best to pry me off him. Too bad all that I felt with the strain in my arms was a slight tickle.

Switching my strategy, I started head-butting him. My skull acted as a makeshift maul, slamming his scalp. When bruises started appearing, he removed his hands from my arms and switched to squeezing my neck. Fine, two can play this time game.

I used my freed hands to clutch his neck. If he wanted to have a breath-holding competition with me, sorry to tell him, but breathing was optional to me. He choked, and a tint of blue emerged on his cheeks. I didn’t realize a human could look this much like a blueberry.

It didn’t take long for him to swap his target back to my forearms, wanting to drag my fingers off his airways, but he was losing strength. Clawing at my skin, his motions became more desperate, but nothing he did would damage me.

Eventually, he fainted. Wow, this was the first time I strangled someone to unconsciousness. Guess a bit of dirty work was needed to achieve my grand purpose.

Do you see this, Tahlia? I prayed, wishing that my goddess had witnessed this great progress of my immortal quest.