Immortality By Trevor Jallings

My name is Phoenix. I am immortal.

That doesn’t mean I can’t die. I died just last week, in fact. I die every couple of months. I start coughing up blood, get a pain in my chest, and before I know it, I’m dead.

My real name isn’t Phoenix, either. That’s what the guys in the labcoats call me. The Phoenix is a mythical flaming bird that burns itself up and then is reborn from the ashes. Or the capital of Arizona. But they probably named me after the bird.

I am part of an experiment that the men in labcoats are doing. It’s supposed to help people, they say. It will stop people from growing old. Stop them from dying. I think it failed, because, like I said, I die all the time.

They sat me down and explained it to me, a long time ago. They injected something into my bloodstream, something that was supposed to swim around until it reached my lungs. There it was supposed to stay and grow, living off my blood. While it was growing, it was also supposed to be collecting my DNA. After it had grown enough, and had collected enough DNA, it was supposed to come out of me, like an old movie I saw a long time ago.

When it came out of me, it would hurt, the men in labcoats said. I would bleed to death. But they told me not to worry, because once the thing was out of me, it would grow arms and legs and become me, and I’d be alive again. I told them no, the thing they injected into me would be alive, I’d be dead. But they said that I’d be the thing, so it would really be me that was alive.

I didn’t really have a choice. If I said no, I don’t want them to inject me, they’d put me back in jail and I’d die there. I decided that dying wasn’t so bad if you got to live afterwards. So they injected me with the thing. The Phoenix bioform, I think they called it.

The first time it happened, I was really worried that the men in labcoats were wrong, and that I was going to die and not come back. They were very supportive, and they told me that it had worked every time on mice and dogs and other animals. They told me that I was very brave, and that by doing this I was going to save countless lives.

It happened at night. It always happens at night. I told the men in labcoats this and they murmured and scribbled in their notepads. It starts with a cough. Just a tickle in the back of my throat that won’t go away. The cough gets worse, and I start coughing blood. My ribs start to hurt, like they’re being stretched or something. At this point I’m forced to get on my hands and knees.

The men in labcoats were right, it does hurt. It hurts all over, even though it’s just in my chest. The bioform uses my spine to brace itself to try and get out of me. I can tell because my back hurts the worst of all when it happens. Sometimes it breaks my spine and my legs go numb. Then it breaks through my ribs. If I’m lucky, I faint by then and I don’t feel it anymore. Sometimes I’m unlucky and I’m still conscious when I see it –me-- come out.

I don’t know exactly when it becomes me. I just find myself, naked and covered with blood and slime, a few hours later and I’m really hungry. I’ve learned to leave myself a sandwich when it comes time.

After the first time, I asked the men in labcoats what happened to my old body. Some of them got very upset and left the room. One of them just looked at me and told me that I didn’t have to worry about it. I didn’t find out what really happened until almost twenty years later.

They stopped having so many men in labcoats at my station after awhile. They told me that they had learned what they needed to know from me, and would just keep me here, for my safety, until they could introduce the Phoenix bioform to the world at large. They only kept one person around anymore, an old man with happy eyes.

I asked the man once, how old he was. I was surprised to know that he was younger than me at sixty. I had lost track of my age, because I still looked the same age I was when they injected me. The man told me he wasn’t feeling well that day, so he asked if he could come to my room and sit down.

We talked, and he told me about how the rest of the world was still getting into trouble like always, and we got to know each other like real human beings. Then he started breathing heavy. I was puzzled, since he didn’t have the Phoenix bioform in him. He gasped something about his heart, and I realized he was having a heart attack. I tried to signal somebody, but my lab is on a small island, and the old man was the only other person there.

Then I remembered that the fire alarm broadcasts a signal for help across to the mainland. I reached to pull the alarm, but I couldn’t reach because I was coughing up blood. With my last reserve of effort I forced my hand to the alarm. I blacked out before I heard the siren.

When I woke, I was naked and covered in blood and slime, like usual. But now there was a dark hulk lying in my room. Then I remembered the old man and his heart attack. He must have died. I turned on the lights to see his body better. When the hulk came into focus, I felt ill. It wasn’t the old man’s body I saw, it was mine. Dripping gore, still grasping the fire alarm, the corpse, with the old man’s body missing, told me the answer that the men in labcoats hadn’t.

You see, something small enough to be in someone’s chest needs food to grow to the size of a human. A sandwich isn’t enough. However, an entire body, that is enough food for a little creature to grow on. The Phoenix bioform was designed with the idea that, after gestating, it would eat its host, giving it food to grow on and cleaning up the mess it left. However, to a just-developing carnivore, a body that died of blood loss is much the same as one that died of heart-failure.

I got over it. I had to. You can’t live forever if you’ve got something weighing you down. So I eat myself. Is that different than chewing your fingernails? I get to be immortal for it. What do you get out of chewing fingernails?

The men in labcoats haven’t come for a long time. I suspect they’re either dead or forgotten. Someday someone will come out here and find me. I can wait. Living forever means a lot of waiting.

I can’t remember my real name anymore. I guess it’s not that important. The person who owned that name died a long time ago. I guess it’s me who killed him, isn’t it? I’ll just stick with Phoenix.