[ WP ] You are given a deal by a higher power that grants you eternal life . The catch ? You have to kill one person every year . If you fail do do so , even a minute too late , you will die .

I never wanted this. Eternal life? Absolutely, but not this. I was young and stupid, and I failed to fully understand what it was I was agreeing to when He knocked on my door. It was, oh how long has it been? Too long, so long that I ’ ve all but forgotten. All I remember is that man still rode horses and clashed swords. I was a simple priest, totally dedicated to my craft. I ’ d wake up each morning, whisper my prayers, and listen to the troubles of man all day. I hoped to attract divine attention, and for some ungodly ( literally ) reason I attracted Him. I was making dinner, a simple stew with pork I ’ d purchased from the local farmer, when He knocked on my door. I went to the door immediately, expecting one of the local schoolchildren to confess knocking over his brother ’ s goat milk during breakfast. Instead, I found Him. As that door swung open I knew immediately this wasn ’ t a being from this realm. I suppressed a shudder as he strode through the doorway and sat indignantly at my table. I would have been angry had it not been for his eyes. They were dark. Darker than anything I ’ ve ever seen before. Darker than the confessions of the man who raped his wife or the child who murdered his infant sister in her sleep. They were even darker than the man I ’ d become today. He began to speak, a soothing voice that poured through me like butter on Farmer Riley ’ s sweetbread he gave me once a week for listening to his secrets. He spun a tale about God and how foolish it was for people like me to follow him, then went on to insult the human race like we were vermin. Entertaining vermin, but still vermin. I was about to go on a rant of my own when he looked me dead in the eyes and said those terrible words. The words that would begin me on my dark path throughout the years, the decades, the centuries. He asked me if I ’ d like to live forever. That stopped me in my tracks, caught the words in my throat and suddenly made me very parched. He told me all I needed to do was take a life each year, and I ’ d live forever, and then he left. 
 
 I was young. I was stupid. I failed to understand fully what it meant. I tried to resist, I put his buttered words out of my head, tried to forget those dark, dark eyes. I almost made it. I must ’ ve been on the final days of my twelfth month since He visited when it happened. Out of nowhere, I woke up and, with purpose, strode into the bedroom of my neighbor Kenny and stabbed him to death with a knife from my pantry. I saw the light leave his eyes, and the crushing sadness enter his wife ’ s. I shook my head slowly, blood on my robe, refusing to believe what I ’ d just done, and I ran. I ran for a long time, unable to resist the temptation to sneak into a home and kill on the off chance that that man, those horrible eyes, that terrible voice wasn ’ t lying. It must ’ ve been working, since I hadn ’ t aged in what seemed like decades, but it was getting hard. I ’ d almost been robbed of my chance at immortality a dozen times in the space of a few short decades. There had to be a better way, and there was. I found it, and I wish time and time again, night after night, decade after decade, that I hadn ’ t. 
 
 I sighed as one of my newest acolytes entered my study. At first he looked concerned, worried that something was bothering me, before I put on my fake smile and spun him a tale I ’ d told oh so many times. I told him of the sacrifice he was making, what he ’ d get when he left this world, how our God would accept him and love him for eternity. All the while I smiled that terrible smile, and when my tale was over, I went over to my desk, took out my pistol and did what I ’ d done for hundreds of years. I looked at that young man, trust and admiration his eyes, a smile on his face, and I shot him. 
 
 I never wanted this. 
 
 
 -- 
 [ Criticism very much wanted and appreciated ]
