• Tears stained my face as I watched the only real friend I had ever had plead innocence to a crime in which no one believed her innocence. But I did, I knew she was innocent. I watched as the trial progressed, I watched in silence as 25 people were found guilty, and hanged for crimes they didn’t commit. Of all these innocent people, plus the dozens of innocents that were to die in jail, I was the only guilty one…
    Emily was one of the last ones to be hanged. I watched as she stepped onto the platform. Her once bright blue eyes were dull and lifeless, her sand colored hair no longer shone, now it was dull and tangled. Her skin had lost its rosy glow. I could see the deep, never-ending sadness in her eyes, the deathly fear. They slipped the noose over her head, a scream tore from my throat.
    “NOOOOO!” just as the lever was pulled, the floor disappeared from beneath her, and her neck broke with a sickening crack. I dropped to my knees as I watched the life ebb out of her. My only friend, dead and it was all my fault. The grief was too much.
    “It’s me you want! Cut her loose, I swear to you, I am the witch!! Please.”My voice broke in heaving sobs. My head rose as I heard the thump as they cut her from the rope. I ran to her, only to find that she was already dead, I was too late, and I was being surrounded.
    I let them surround me, having no desire to live in this dark world, where humans killed their own kind for crimes they had no proof of. But then, unbidden, an ancient promise came from my memory:

    “Salem, I will always love you, but I will not survive this, we both know this…”
    “No! I won’t let you leave me! Please, you promised you would stay with me always. Doesn’t your promise mean anything to you?!” I had demanded, despair gripping my heart Michael was the only person in this world that meant anything to me. The one person that made my immortal life worth living. He couldn’t leave me.
    “Of course it does. But, I made another promise; I promised that I would never let anything happen to you, and I won’t, but you must promise me something.”
    “Anything, I will do anything for you, Michael, anything.”
    “Promise me that no matter what happens in you eternal life you will never allow yourself to be killed, you will never kill yourself, no matter how bad things get.”
    “I don’t understand.”
    “I gave a piece of my soul to you, as long as you survive, then I will live through you.”
    “I promise, Michael.”


    “For you, Michael.” I murmured, before breaking free of the mob of people that surround me.
    500 years later, I was still running.