Enthusiastick Blog

I don’t like the term “immortal”. Something about it just rubs me the wrong way. Maybe because it’s defining something in the negative. Telling you who I am by telling you what I’m not.

My name is Doriana Mudd. I was born on November 1st, 1851. I’m still alive, and I haven’t aged much past thirty-something. Which isn’t to say that I haven’t died. That’s happened, from time to time, but it never quite takes.

I don’t know what’s keeping me alive. I’ve had over a century to investigate my own mystery, to ponder the puzzle that I am. But to be honest I don’t have a clue, and never have. Every lead and every notion I’ve ever had has come to nothing.

I don’t know what makes me special. I know that I am alive today, and that it seems very likely I will be alive tomorrow. I know that I’ve been shot, stabbed, run over and in one case hung by the neck until dead.

And I know that I cannot leave the City. There wasn’t much of a city here, back when I was born. More of a fort in the woods. It’s the same now as it was then; If I get more than a few miles away from where the buildings stop, I pass out.

When I come to, I’m always back inside the city. Used to be that every so often I’d get angry, sick and tired of feeling like a caged animal. I’d make up my mind to start walking away, with every intention of never looking back.

These days I’m too scared for that. I don’t like waking up in strange places, for one thing, and I’m too old and too set in my ways. Too frightened to give up control. And maybe I worry.

Maybe I’m afraid that whatever keeps me alive, whatever keeps me eternally young, is caught up with this city somehow. Maybe it’s better not to tempt fate. Maybe if I keep trying to leave, one day it’ll actually let me go.

I don’t want to die, and fortunately for me, I can’t — not for very long, anyway. But don’t call me an immortal. Please.

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