Abreshmina the Immortal

Adriana Culverhouse

*Content Warning: includes references to sexual abuse*

Entries From Abreshmina Zari’s Journal

[Diary Entry 1]

Basilius saved me when I only wanted to die. I laid in a serene euphoria upon the dirt and warm hay of the barn floor, surrounded by crackling flames and creaking wood. Under the anesthesia of black smoke, I only felt the sensation of being carried away. The red and black sky morphed into bright stars as I was dipped into a nearby stream; cool water washed away the ashes and the anger from my skin.

I remembered tracing the outlines of the silhouetted canopy trees with my eyes before I caught his face— scrunched eyebrows of concern and disquietude. He poured stream water on my face from cupped hands, wiping away soot and blood. I tried to look back, tilting my head to the side, through the cedar forest, through the water, but I could see nothing but black and him. I tried to think but was mesmerized with his strong face and tired, black eyes. He pushed my head back up out of the water and picked me up again, carrying me off someplace I only assumed was safe.

When I awoke, I was in my uncle Bentham’s old lumber shack—the one that was buried in the woods. It sat abandoned for decades on the land because when Bentham passed, my family could not keep up the work of both the lumber mill and the farm. Basilius made it his own. In the singleroom shack, there was a lit stone fireplace, an aged wooden table with a set of weathered chairs, and the bed that I lay upon, adjacent to the fire.

At first, I did not know this man. Every womanly fiber in my body screamed for me to run, he must be a predator, yet I did not. I stared at the fire, watching the desecrating flames consume the logs within the cavern of its mouth. Yet, my concern did not lie with the intentions of the man nor with the threat of burning, but with this:

“Sir,” I said to him, speaking to him for the first time, “why do I not feel the warmth of the flame?”

[Diary Entry 2]

Niloufar found me bathing in a stream. It was the first time she saw me since the barn fire. She admitted to thinking I was dead. She said I certainly looked dead, glowing pale against the dark water under the rising full moon. My body felt stronger, although the reflective waters portrayed a version of me that I avoided eye contact with. My dark brown hair—what used to be an untamable bush of waves and tangles— was thinned, my ribs were visible, and my joints felt knobby and out of place. Thick, pink burns covered my torso and appendages, all the way to my toes and fingertips, highlighting against the sandy-brown of my skin. My body was slowly recovering from the caress of the flames, but it took time to heal without nourishment.

Basilius told me that I needed to feed. I refused.

When my dear Niloufar left me that night, she had determination in her eyes. A few days later, I found a palmwoven basket tied to a low branch with my name written on parchment. Inside the basket was a long, black cloak. Gratitude flooded my empty heart. My old family may have abandoned me just after my father had died, thinking and perhaps wishing I were dead too, but my wetnurse did not. Niloufar the Kind. She represented her name well, a water lily, and allowed me to dream of hope that night. Perhaps peace would come again. [Diary Entry 3]

It felt so good; a euphoric rush pulsed through my veins as I drank and drank. Basilius told me to be careful, yet I did not want to listen. The intoxication flooded my mind, clouding every thought that was not consume. I pushed down the urge to drink deeper, drink faster, but it resurfaced, and I gorged myself.

Dana’s body fell limp minutes before; no longer were his hands pressed against my face and shoulder, fighting me with draining strength as my tongue lapped at his fresh wounds. I shall admit that a pang of guilt struck my heart. I came here intending to saunter, perhaps to nap, yet he was here, and he saw me. He screamed. I do not blame him for screaming, for I cannot imagine that I look beautiful to him anymore, but he saw me and became a liability. As I look at it now, perhaps it was not happenstance. Something had drawn me back to the barn that day— maybe it was to admire the handiwork of the townsfolk who rebuilt it or to reflect on the day I was deflowered, but I am sickly pleased in the irony of draining the life from him.

I walked towards him first, darkness upon my face, and when he tried to push me back, something called out to

me. I felt his blood pulsing underneath my lips, underneath my fingertips, and I could not resist as Basilius told me to. I pulled back Dana’s long hair, exposing his neck, and attached my mouth to his vulnerability. And when his bronze skin melted to a milky brown, I fled. I left Dana’s body where he used mine years before—in the barn rafters amongst piles of damp hay. [Diary Entry 4]

This Immortal blood has transformed me. I can feel my bones groaning under the strain of added height and elongated joints. My fingers have begun to curl inward towards my palm, and my hair and nails do not seem to stop growing no matter how often I trim them. I taste a constant metal on my tongue and my lips and teeth are stained with red. I seem to look like Basilius more and more every night. I am becoming a predator.

Ahura Mazdā save me, please, if you have not already forsaken me. Do not let me harm as Basilius has. Do not let me feel at home in the darkness. [Diary Entry 5]

There came a night when Basilius spoke to me. We were enjoying the comforts of our home in Bentham’s cabin when he spoke aloud from his chair by the fire. He said to me:

“I am sorry.” When I looked up to him from my sewing, he continued, “I feel that you are afraid of me.”

I was not sure what to say, for words spoken aloud have never been within my talents. I paused, then said to him, “I cannot be dishonest with you, Master. I was afraid, at first. But you must understand that was before. Until I came to know you, I was not aware that...creatures like us existed. I was not afraid of your needs as much as I was afraid to know of your person. But I am glad you are good.”

“Good?” He scoffed. “My dear, what do you consider to be good?”

I felt as if he was testing me then. What do I consider as good? This was something I wish I had pondered more, but he required an answer. “I suppose good in nature is what I mean. You are kind to me, and you saved me. I’ve seen you care for the creatures of the woods, and though your needs involve harm, you take care to make it painless. Despite your inherent nature, you are conscious and careful of others. Your harm is justified. Therefore, I think of you as a good man, Master.”

“Do you consider the townsmen of Lydia to be good? Yes?”

I thought for another moment. They are just people. While I may have never thought of myself as one of them, I thought of them as benign. “As a whole,

I suppose I do...”

“Then tell me, if the townsmen are good, and they come for me with their stakes, and they kill me—if their actions are justified—does that still make me good?”

“Master,” I sensed frustration in him, but I was uncertain whether I had caused it, “is there something you are not telling me?”

He did not respond at all that night. Instead, he left, dousing the fire and extinguishing the light. He did not return to me until the next full moon when he took me under the stars and devoured me, a ravenous hunger between his lips and thighs. He promised then to show me what it meant to be alive. [Diary Entry 6]

Ahura Mazdā, I did not mean it. I visited my oldest friend in the Valley— my dear Jasmine from my younger years. We had talked for hours, and when the deepest part of night came, she tried to take my cloak off. I told her no, but she said she wanted me. It was as if some part of my new being had willed her to me and brought out the desires I held within my heart. Was this what Basilius had told me to be careful with—human emotion?

I pushed her back softly, laughing uncomfortably. I did not want her like this. It felt wrong, as if the hidden part of my desires overruled her consent. But her palms pressed into my shoulders, digging them into the bed. She had not seen my bare skin since the fire. I did not want her to be repulsed, so I kept my distance, and yet she wanted me. She straddled me and told me to stay. She undressed me, bared my scarred skin and breast. She looked down at my nude body, and her eyes fell upon the engraved jade necklace she gave me. I could not read her eyes, but I felt her pulse increase under my bare belly from between her legs. I think she was afraid.

I could not control my emotions. All at once, I wanted to feed on her; I wanted to please her, to devour everything she unwillingly gave me. Yet, ultimately, I did not want to hurt her.

As she closed the gap between our lips, I saw only Dana’s dead eyes staring down at me. A sudden burst of flames whipped around me, and I could not breathe. The smoke was getting too heavy. I screamed and swiped at the fallen board that crushed my body, the one Basilius tore off of me with ease. The board flew off, smacking into the collapsing barn doors.

I could breathe again, and I rolled off the bed, landing on the hard, wooden floor. There was blood on my fingertips and skin under my pointed nails. I

looked around to find Jasmine. She sat slumped against the wall, blood pouring from a wound on her neck. I cried out to her, stumbling over a small stool, and collapsed to her side. I sobbed into her nape as I closed my lips around the gashes, the rune crushed between our chests, impressing the engraving of the jasmine flower into my skin, and the Latin phrase memento mori into hers. [Diary Entry 7]

I could not bear the rumors anymore. They started hunting me after the “death” of Jasmine. I could not assuage them.

The townspeople burned the old farmhouse down. I am sorry, Father, I tried to keep it safe for your sake. I should not have lingered after your passing, but I held our memories dear, and I did not want them to fall into waste due to lack of upkeep. The people of Lydia Valley came for me in the cold, winter night with torches and stakes, riding in on their chiseled warhorses. In the light of the flames, I saw old friends and old foes—Ashraf and Behzad, our closest neighbors, Leila the baker’s wife, and Nazanin the daughter of Nasser the blacksmith; everyone. They trampled over your fields as an angry mob and laid waste to the henhouses and the farm. They went inside to find me and looted your belongings. They saw me leap from the second-story window. I hit the snow hard and bolted into the thick acres of wood, headed to the cabin. Some of them led chase. The rest lingered behind, rummaging through the crops and sheds.

While I am much faster than them, the weather betrayed my tracks. In a panic, I transformed. Basilius did not mention this ability to me. At first, I was frightened. I lay in the snow as a tiny, black bat. I cowered at the base of a naked cedar. The party marched by, lost in their rage, confused by the untouched snow. I looked back towards the wastes of the farm and saw only orange and red flames reaching for the black sky. [Diary Entry 8]

The final night of my stay in Lydia Valley was the night I realized what I had truly become.

There came a loud thud on the cabin door in the night. The sound of something hitting the door with a full weight, like a body. When I opened the door, Basilius’s body fell inward. I dragged him from the door and closed it, chaining the lock. I turned him over to make sure he was alive and then lost all will to keep my body raised. His hand held a stake lodged