Waiter from Nowhere

Jay awoke in darkness. It wasn't the suffocating, oppressive kind of darkness that had surrounded him in the dungeon—it was a different kind. A stillness so deep it pressed against him like a physical weight, pressing him into a cold, unfeeling void. His mind struggled to grasp reality, and for a moment, he wasn't sure if he was awake or still trapped in some nightmare.

He could hear nothing. The silence was all-encompassing, wrapping him in its thick, viscous grip. It was almost as if the world had ceased to exist altogether. For a few long seconds, Jay simply floated in this space, his body numb and unresponsive, as though it didn't belong to him. He tried to move—tried to reach out, to call out—but his limbs didn't obey. His voice was silent.

What happened? he thought, trying to force clarity into his foggy mind.

Then, slowly, like a distant whisper breaking through the void, memories began to flood back.

The ritual. The shadows. The Elixir.

The words the waiter—the demon—had spoken to him echoed in his ears, more like a ringing in his head than an actual sound. "You will live forever, Jay. But not as you were. Not as you remember."

The weight of those words crushed him again, bringing the full realization of what had been done to him. He had been used. His body, his soul, had been altered to serve a purpose, to bring forth the Elixir, the immortality that came with a steep price. The ritual had been completed, and Jay now found himself bound to something that was both a gift and a curse—a life that would stretch eternally but at the cost of his humanity.

He took a deep breath, or at least he tried to. But there was nothing. He couldn't feel his chest rising and falling. He couldn't feel anything. Am I dead? he wondered in the silence. Did I die in that dungeon?

His thoughts were fractured, chaotic, trying to make sense of a reality that no longer felt real. The weight in his chest—the emptiness—was overwhelming. The darkness around him was all-consuming, but it didn't feel threatening. It felt like an extension of himself, like he had become one with it. It was as if his very essence had been absorbed by the shadows, merging into a state of unbeing.

A cold rush of air swept across his face, carrying with it the scent of something familiar, something distant. It was the smell of earth and stone—the smell of the dungeon.

The dungeon...

Suddenly, his body jerked. Pain shot through him. It wasn't a sharp, piercing pain; it was more like a dull ache, the kind that lingered, gnawing away at him like a constant reminder that something was terribly wrong. He opened his eyes—or at least tried to. His vision was blurry, fragmented, as though he were looking through broken glass. Slowly, the world began to come into focus.

He was lying on cold stone. The dungeon? No. This wasn't the same place. He could see the remnants of the chamber—the dark stone walls, the cryptic symbols etched into them, but the place felt different. The air was stale, heavy with the scent of decay and something foul that Jay couldn't quite place.

He pushed himself up, or at least he tried. His arms trembled with the effort, his body rebelling against his command. It was as if it were no longer his to control. His vision was still blurry, and his limbs felt disconnected from the rest of him, but he managed to sit up, slowly, unsteadily. His head spun, and the dull ache in his body flared again, but he forced himself to focus, to make sense of his surroundings.

The chamber was small—cramped, even—but familiar in a way that unsettled him. It looked like the very same dungeon where the ritual had taken place, but something was different. The shadows in the room seemed to shift, moving almost imperceptibly, as though they were alive. The walls, once solid and unyielding, now seemed to pulse with an unnatural energy, as if the very stones were aware of his presence.

Jay struggled to stand, his legs weak beneath him. His head spun again, and for a brief moment, he felt the familiar wave of dizziness that often came with waking from a deep slumber. But this wasn't the usual grogginess from sleep. This felt different—unnatural. Something inside him had changed. Something inside his very being had been reformed.

As he slowly rose to his feet, the realization began to set in.

The Elixir had worked. The ritual had been completed. And Jay... Jay was now something else. Something beyond mortal.

His heart, if it still beat, would have skipped a beat at the thought. Immortal...

The word echoed in his mind. He couldn't deny it. He had received the Elixir. He would never age. He would never die. He would live forever. But at what cost? What did immortality truly mean if it came at the price of everything he had once been?

His hands trembled as he looked down at them. His skin felt strange—different. It looked the same, but it didn't feel like his. There was something cold about it. Something... hollow. He couldn't place it, but it disturbed him.

And then there was the pain. A constant ache deep within him, as though his body itself was rejecting the change. He was no longer the same. The part of him that had been human, that had once known warmth and love, felt distant, almost forgotten. The ritual had stolen that from him. His humanity had been taken, replaced with something darker.

He glanced around the chamber again. The shadows had settled, but now they seemed to watch him, as if waiting for something—waiting for him to understand what he had become.

The air felt charged with energy, almost alive. And then, a sound broke the silence—a soft footstep, followed by another. A figure emerged from the darkness, their silhouette barely visible in the dim light of the chamber.

Jay's breath caught in his throat. His eyes narrowed, focusing on the figure, trying to make sense of who it was.

The figure stepped forward, and Jay's heart stopped.

It was his master.

Or at least, the person who had been his master. His demon. His guide.

The demon looked the same as he had before—ageless, ethereal, his presence imposing and overwhelming. But something was different now. The demon's eyes were no longer filled with warmth or affection. They were cold—calculating.

"You've woken," the demon said, his voice low and calm, though there was an unmistakable edge to it. "I see the ritual has taken its toll."

Jay looked at him, searching his face for any trace of the fatherly figure he had once known. But all he saw was a stranger. A monster.

"You..." Jay's voice trembled with a mix of fury and disbelief. "You did this to me. You both... you all did this to me."

The demon's lips curled into something like a smile, but it was as empty as the shadows themselves. "It was always meant to be, Jay. The Elixir of Immortality has claimed you. Now, you'll see the truth. You will see the price of living forever."

Jay's hands clenched into fists. His body screamed for movement, but the weight of what had been done to him held him in place. The ritual had robbed him of his humanity. It had stolen everything that had once made him feel alive. He had become nothing more than a shell—a vessel for the Elixir.

"Why?" Jay managed to croak out, his voice thick with the anguish that bubbled up from deep inside him. "Why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you let me choose?"

The demon tilted his head, considering the question. "You think you could have chosen differently? You were always meant for this, Jay. You were never just a person. You were always... more."

Jay's anger flared. "No," he spat. "You were supposed to be my mentor—my family. You lied to me. You used me."

The demon's smile faltered, then disappeared altogether. "I did what was necessary," he replied softly, almost pitying. "What was always going to happen."

Jay's world felt like it was crashing down around him. The darkness seemed to press against him harder, suffocating him with the weight of his own despair. He had thought—no, believed—he had a purpose. That there was something he could hold onto, something that made him human.

But now, as the demon before him watched with cold eyes, Jay realized the cruel truth. His humanity was gone, lost to the Elixir, lost to the shadows. And the price for immortality was far steeper than he could have ever imagined.

What have I become?

The question lingered in the air, unanswered, as Jay stood at the precipice of a future that stretched out before him—endless, unyielding, and cold.