The first thing you should know about immortality is that it isn't a blessing.
It's a monopoly.
And the ones who hold it will kill to keep it that way.
They call it The Blacklist — a single, ever-updating record of every mortal who has learned too much. One moment you're nobody; the next, your name is carved into a ledger older than the stars, and every immortal thing in the universe knows it.
They say the moment you're Blacklisted, the hunt begins. You won't hear the starting gun — you'll just notice the silence, the way people look through you instead of at you, the way shadows move wrong. And if you live long enough to understand what's happening… you're already in the last chapter of your life.
I didn't believe any of it until last night.
The rain drove me into Saint Adriel's Cathedral — an abandoned relic, its stained glass smashed, its altar rotting under decades of dust. I was looking for shelter, not the truth. But the truth was waiting for me, whispered between two figures who didn't belong in this century.
They spoke of the Threshold Ritual, the seven trials to cross into eternity, and the single rule that bound their kind: no mortal may know these secrets and live.
I didn't cough. I didn't breathe. I thought I was silent.
I wasn't.
The taller one turned. His eyes were silver coins, cold and depthless. The other didn't even look at me as he said in an spine-chilling eerie voice,
"Blacklist him."
It felt like being branded from the inside. My name — my existence — was dragged into something vast and ancient. In that moment, I swear I heard doors opening in places no human should go.
And then I heard it deep within my soul:
Run.
Now I know what they are. I know the secret they would burn galaxies to protect.
And I know one more thing — I have weeks at most before they find me.
So I'm going to do the only impossible thing left:
I'm going to beat them to it.
I'm going to become one of them.
Welcome to the hunt!