People always called immortality a blessing. You learned very quickly that those people had never buried anyone. The first funeral hurt. The second shattered you. The hundredth left you numb. The thousandth taught you grief never actually got easier, you just became better at carrying it. Immortality wasn't watching empires rise. It wasn't witnessing history. It wasn't collecting endless wisdom until you became some ancient, all-knowing being. Immortality was standing in a crowded room and realizing every person inside would someday become a memory. And you would remain. You had watched cities turn to ruins. Watched languages be born and die. Watched stars disappear from skies that no longer existed. You had walked through gardens on worlds Earth would never know existed. You had seen civilizations flourish across distant solar systems before collapsing into nothing but stories.