{"id":2109,"date":"2025-09-10T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-10T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.imaginarygardens.org\/?p=2109"},"modified":"2025-09-07T19:20:23","modified_gmt":"2025-09-07T23:20:23","slug":"endling-part-iii-luke-gets-to-the-fucking-point","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.imaginarygardens.org\/index.php\/2025\/09\/10\/endling-part-iii-luke-gets-to-the-fucking-point\/","title":{"rendered":"Endling, Part III: Luke Gets to the Fucking Point"},"content":{"rendered":"
This entry is part 3 of 5 in the series Endling: A Serial Story<\/a><\/div>\n
By Draven Copeland, Editor in Chief<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
\"LossStatue\"
Loss – A sculpture by Jane Mortimer | K. Mitch Hodge (Unslpash)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
**TRIGGER WARNING: This text contains references to sexual abuse, suicide, and self-harm. Please be aware of this potentially upsetting content as you engage with the text.**<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2026 turned around,\u201d John said in the present day. The memory had ended abruptly and he hoped that if he said the words out loud, it would hold together in his mind as its details began to wash away entirely. When he tried to run it back in his mind, all he could remember was red neon, blood, and vomit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other memories came and went as he strained every muscle in his skull trying to recall anything at all. He saw moments from all stages of his life, but he couldn\u2019t place any of them. He couldn\u2019t tell if the people he saw were relatives or not, if the places he saw were still around, or if these \u2018memories\u2019 were only his imagination. He began to feel sick again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cStay with me John,\u201d Luke said, his voice bringing the sick man back to reality. \u201cI really have a lot to tell you.\u201d He leaned forward again, and his eyes gleamed unnaturally in the sunlight that passed first through overcast clouds and now through the window of the hospital room. \u201cYou turned around that night, and I was gone. That\u2019s what you can\u2019t figure out. You couldn\u2019t ever figure it out when your brain worked normally, no wonder it\u2019s screwing with you now. I left that alleyway as soon as you started to rush toward that rapist fuck that disguised itself as a man, and I took all my things with me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t want you to\u2013\u201d John said, his voice failing before he could say more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou did. Trust me, you were a lot better off without me. And she was better off because of you. You saved both of your lives that night, you know. You were both going to die\u2026 you might even say that you were supposed<\/em> to<\/em>. Had you not punched that man, the next swipe of his knife would\u2019ve landed in her neck, and believe me, that still wouldn\u2019t have been the worst thing he did to her that night. And, had you taken one more dose with me, the police would\u2019ve found your body in that alleyway while they were investigating the crime scene splattered around her corpse. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou know, even though you never saw one another again, I\u2019ve always liked to consider the two of you soulmates, in a way. Deathmates, maybe. Funnily enough, you\u2019d have never known each other even if you both had<\/em> died. She was going up, as the saying goes, and you, Johnny, you were going down. It doesn\u2019t really work exactly like that, but it\u2019s something along those lines\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luke smiled to himself before becoming gravely serious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNow, there\u2019s no easy way to say what I have to tell you next,\u201d he continued. \u201cBelieve me, I thought for a long time that I never would. But I\u2019ve decided you deserve to know. Hell, maybe I\u2019ve grown a conscience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI wanted you to kill yourself. I was trying really hard to get you to. And I\u2019m sorry for that Johnny, I really am.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He shifted in his seat uncomfortably. John stared at him, trying to keep his mind focused as he began to fade into delirium again. He wasn\u2019t sure what he would say even if he could\u2019ve spoken. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNow, please let me explain,\u201d Luke continued, a sincerity in his eyes that combined with their unnatural glimmer in the light. \u201cI was never human either, although I\u2019ve always been jealous of the whole thing. Over time, the finality of death and the fleeting state of your lifespans become appealing\u2026 and it really doesn\u2019t take all that long. I\u2019ve been here a long, long <\/em>time, Johnny. Longer than a young man like yourself can comprehend.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luke laughed to himself in wispy breaths. \u201cNinety-two years really isn\u2019t much, I promise you. I watched the earth grow, man. I watched eons of nothing.<\/em> The only company I had for millenia were the waves of the ocean and the angry storms of a new world finding its balance in an infinite void. I had no idea humanity would grow from it. That you\u2026 the collective \u201cyou\u201d \u2013 I\u2019m talking about the unfathomable number of you that keep breeding and killing one another like there\u2019s never been enough cum or blood \u2013 would be my company. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAt first, I thought you were beautiful, if not a little ironically hilarious. The way you chase immortality while consistently ensuring that no one else has the opportunity\u2026 how you turn to hate when you\u2019re not shown love, as if love is not the most essential piece of life\u2026 and I\u2019ve watched so many of you pretend for one another that life is something more\u2013 devoting your lives to the make-believe so that the unimaginitive can leave the horrors of reality with you\u2026 I will say, though, that I have quite enjoyed many of the stories you all have written. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe<\/em> Divine Comedy,<\/em> Macbeth,<\/em> \u2018Heart-Shaped Box\u2019. Really, I\u2019ve loved all of the tales your people have told. The way they explore the real world by fantasizing of a fake one. You have always been that way, even back to the stories your race made when it was still very young. It was\u2026 funny<\/em> to me when they wrote me as their adversary. Your \u201cDevil,\u201d as you call it now. I like to think your ancestors were jealous of my immortality and made it something to fear.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luke sat back in his seat, ruminating on the subject for a moment and slowly nodding to himself. \u201cHonestly, that\u2019s what I hope,\u201d he continued. \u201cIt\u2019s much better for you all that way. You see, death is a beautiful thing when you have closure like that. When you accept that you won\u2019t be around forever. Hell is<\/em> real, Johnny, but the stories all got it wrong. The reality is that when one of you dies while chasing death, you stay here for a long time. I don\u2019t know why, but you do. It\u2019s like your soul is punishing you for wasting your life. When you view death as a \u2018way out\u2019, it\u2019s the only time it isn\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMyself, I try to avoid these people\u2013 the ones that stay behind. The living don\u2019t often see them unless they look for them. Your brain blocks them out, I guess. The things they do to themselves, man\u2026 it\u2019s hard to handle them, especially at first, when they realize that they have to stay and watch with complete inability to interfere. They get\u2026 angry. And very, very<\/em> sad. You wouldn\u2019t believe the depths of sadness a human soul can reach. Many of them thought they were the saddest they could ever be while they were alive and when they see how deep it really goes, well\u2026 they\u2019re nearly irreparable. They spend hundreds or even thousands of years trying to find a way to end it, and the things they\u2019ve come up with\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luke paused. \u201cAre you sticking with me, John?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

John could neither nod nor shake his head, even if he wanted to. Although he had so many questions he couldn\u2019t even begin to form, one permeated his mind above all of the rest, written across his vision in bold letters. \u201cI\u2019m\u2026 dying<\/em>\u2026 today, aren\u2019t I?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luke breathed out another wisp of a chuckle, the same one that gave no semblance of humor. \u201cYes, Johnny. You are. Very soon, actually. I\u2019m sorry to put it so bluntly, but there really isn\u2019t time for anything else.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

John\u2019s thoughts were clear just for a moment. His life played in his mind, from the moment he left the womb to here in this gray, vacant hospital room. He saw his parents again, watching them pretend to raise him until they left him with nothing but his clothes on the side of the street on his eighteenth birthday. He watched himself hate them. He saw himself hurt himself in some form of misplaced idea of vengeance; there was a lot more of that than he liked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He saw the day he met Luke in the very alleyway he was supposed to die in, watched as night after night ended in that alley. He glimpsed Luke turning back to look at him one last time as he ran out of the alley and left forever. He saw his wife, and then his kids. He began to cry when he saw his grandkids and felt how much he had loved them. He watched as, after his wife passed away, he stayed in contact with their children, when they let him. How the kids had visited him when he got sick, but couldn\u2019t bear to look at him anymore when he really started to lose himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He was not angry with them, he realized. Any of them. His parents or his children. Although he was surrounded on both sides by neglect in the moments he needed his family the most, he harbored no resentment on his deathbed. In his last moments, he saw no reason to continue to be unhappy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s okay,\u201d he said, finally. His voice worked almost perfectly as he said it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luke smiled and wiped a tear away from his eye. \u201cI thought you might say something like that. Can I finish my story before you go?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

John smiled softly. \u201cPlease,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luke smiled back, both in response to John\u2019s and, more bittersweetly, to himself. \u201cAlmost every time, the people that stay are insufferable. Honestly, when you\u2019ve been around as long as I have, most of you are insufferable even before you die the first time. You\u2019re like children that pretend you understand the entirety of existence because, suddenly, you\u2019re supposed to. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCan you imagine that? In the time that you have? I\u2019ve seen trillions<\/em> of lives pass and not a single one has figured it out, yet all of you pretend so that you can go on with your lives. So that you can spend your lives working to survive instead of enjoying yourselves and one another for your brief stay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019d selfishly hoped that, over time, your discoveries would be shared and that you\u2019d find the answer. I thought that maybe because you had others to work with, you\u2019d figure it out, but, in another characteristic irony of you people, those that don\u2019t want to share the space hold things up for those that do. You all want the answer, but you keep yourselves from it. I realized that I\u2019ll never know why I\u2019m here or if I will ever\u2026 ever <\/em>leave. And now, Johnny, we\u2019re at the most important part of the story.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luke stood and crossed the room to John\u2019s bedside, reaching out with his thin hands to lightly clutch his friend\u2019s. He was tall and looming, but rail-thin, only blocking some of the pale light from the window. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI wanted you to stay,\u201d he said. \u201cDon\u2019t flatter yourself, you\u2019re not the first. But you are<\/em> the last. Your world is ending, Johnny. It happens. And, over the millennia that I have seen, I\u2019ve learned to spot clues just before it comes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe way the world exists as you know it is not at all what it was for most of its existence; there have been many ends and beginnings, and the only attribute that they all share is that they are accompanied by a great storm, every single time. A greater storm than you\u2019ve ever seen. And, at the beginning of every one of these storms, there is an era of peace; sometimes minutes, sometimes centuries. Then, ominous dark clouds appear, and there\u2019s an intense dread that builds in the air. Maybe it\u2019s the wind, maybe it\u2019s the subtle change in temperature that is somehow starkly apparent, to this day I don\u2019t know what it is, but it is strong<\/em>. And then, the storm rages and ravages as the earth assaults itself. The greater the storm, the greater the destruction and, more interestingly, the greater the period of peace that prefaces it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve seen these storms embodied in your race. Humanity\u2026 nature, brought fully to life. You will destroy yourselves for a time until you cannot take it any longer, when your societal world is collectively and irreversibly changed. And then there is peace, for only as long as it is allowed to stay. It wasn\u2019t until recently that you had the power to destroy yourselves completely and, now that you can, it\u2019s only a matter of time until another storm hits. The last one. And when all of you die for the first time, I\u2019ll only have company for a little while; hundreds, maybe thousands of years, before every one of you that stays will leave and I\u2019ll still be right here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI wanted you with me for that time after, Johnny. Someone to cherish my time with before I have no one at all. So I tried to kill you that night. Or persuade you to kill yourself, rather. I never wanted you to take that responsibility, it would always have been on me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut, in the moment that you saved that woman, I saw something in you that stopped me. I saw who you are. You\u2019re one of the good ones. Maybe that\u2019s what attracted me to you all along, why I wanted you to stay for as long as you could. That night, not only did you save yourself and, in so doing, change the lives of everyone you met and everyone your children and children\u2019s children have met, you did the same for her. You changed the trajectory of your race\u2019s existence that night, holding off the coming storm just the smallest bit in your own way. You\u2019d never see what change you made. None do. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI knew right then that I couldn\u2019t make you watch what would happen next. I couldn\u2019t selfishly keep you here when you deserve to leave, to have your finality and go\u2026 wherever you go. If there is a place. I can\u2019t say whether I hope there really is one for you or not. If it\u2019s anything like this, I hope not. But, if there is a heaven to this hell, I hope there is for you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAfter that night, I walked around the entire world. It sounds crazy, but I really did. I can\u2019t physically feel like you can\u2026 I don\u2019t get tired, I don\u2019t get hurt\u2026 I can\u2019t even feel the touch of another being. My curse<\/em>, I guess. If I had stayed there with you I knew that you would\u2019ve relapsed because of me. That, and I selfishly wanted to find another person to make stay before things ended for all of you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat I found confirmed my suspicion; you really are the last one, Johnny. The last of the good people. In all of the places I\u2019ve been and in all of the years since that night, I couldn\u2019t find any other person in the world holding off the storm like you did. So I came back here \u2013 and just in time, it seems \u2013 to thank you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was a long moment of silence. Luke couldn\u2019t feel John\u2019s pulse to tell if he was still alive or not, and there were no other signs of the former.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2026 was\u2026\u201d John began, his consciousness fading quickly now. He wasn\u2019t even sure that anything was happening at all, only responding to a voice that he couldn\u2019t even remember the origin of. He wasn\u2019t even sure that it had spoken at all, or that he or the voice even existed anymore. \u201cNothing,\u201d he finished.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bright tears streamed from Luke\u2019s eyes as he nodded. \u201cYou\u2019re about to go, okay Johnny?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This entry is part 3 of 5 in the series Endling: A Serial Story<\/a><\/div>

By Draven Copeland, Editor in Chief **TRIGGER WARNING: This text contains references to sexual abuse, suicide, and self-harm. Please be aware of this potentially upsetting content as you engage with…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2110,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"series":[39],"class_list":["post-2109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-creative","series-endling"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.imaginarygardens.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.imaginarygardens.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.imaginarygardens.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.imaginarygardens.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.imaginarygardens.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2109"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.imaginarygardens.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2109\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2122,"href":"https:\/\/www.imaginarygardens.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2109\/revisions\/2122"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.imaginarygardens.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.imaginarygardens.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.imaginarygardens.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.imaginarygardens.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2109"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.imaginarygardens.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=2109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}