Sometimes you have to do wrong to do right. 

At least, that's what I've come to realize. The only thing I haven't figured out yet, what I've lost the chance to learn, is which act was the wrong and which was the right.

I thought saving that boy from the fire was right, but I wonder now if it was wrong. Should I have saved him just because I was invincible? Because the firemen were clumsy? Because I thought my immortality made me better than them? Was I right when I agreed to help the criminal kill those men to save his daughter? And when I attacked the husband of a beaten wife? What about the bank? Was I right in killing the men who held us at gunpoint?

I've had all the time in the world to think these past few minutes, and I think I know now. Everything I did was wrong. If the firemen had needed my help, they would have asked. If helping the criminal was a good deed, then why did so many people have to die to save his daughter? Did I need to hurt that man who beat his wife? And the bank robbery, was killing them wrong? Maybe they had a good reason for doing it. Maybe they were thinking "sometimes you have to do wrong to do right."

Perhaps all of this is why I am laying here, coming to terms with my lack of immortality.

What I did was wrong.

First, I seek the refuge of my stories. These tales that have played out endlessly through my mind, changing like the aging of a man who's skin is marred with every victory. The novels and epics of my imagination are planned with further consideration in this nightly ritual. I make a change here, replay a piece there, and eventually I draw the curtain for the approach of the second act.

This is when the second star takes his place on the stage, revisiting the events of the day. Many of the points mentioned broach on the past, and, often, it's one of the same few events.

Finally, my mind finds those hidden pages, the ones so old they were written with a quill, or the ones so new they were typed on a laptop, and I remember. I remember the scars I have, the scars I've inflicted, and the scars I've seen. I remember the lives I've watched crumble from afar, the lives that have left me to hold myself up. I remember the fights, the mistakes, the pain, and the folly.

And just before my mind is whisked away to the brief respite from reality, I think "what if".

You see, there is something I have realized, something I've observed. Most people rush to flaunt their secrets and fears, their woes and worries. But many times I have learned this lesson, and it pushed onto me an understanding of my mistakes. It really needs no explanation; it is a lesson learned in friendship. There will always be a sun, and you will be a moth to its flame. It may only happen to you once, this attraction to a sun, but when it does, you'll realize this fact:

If you fly too close to the sun, you get burned.

Every year is a scar,

Every memory a mark,

And yet, with every moment

We hope for reprieve

And accept what we've lost

In age

In this place, the dead sing their songs from tombs concealed in snowy mountains. An ancient language is etched in stone and blade alike, presenting riddles that few remember. And while a king, divine in right, sits upon a duty-bound throne, his successor commands a steadfast army of men and women. 

Every man and every woman carries a sword held in a sheath of paranoia and skill, for in the times a man thinks he's unbeatable, he learns that there is always another of greater strength. 

Most edges of the kingdom embrace with another, claiming alliance or adversary. To the south lies a sea that wraps around the world in search for new lands. Sailors take the helms of their ships, steering through currents of ocean waters and cloudy winds. 

The towns and hamlets within the country see travelers day and night, for there are many who seek the warmth of an inn and the song of a bard. Warriors may travel alone or in the company of companions, such as their magically-gifted friends, the mages. 

Skies of painted white and sun-kissed hues tower over the forests and their kin as if commanding the world to take on their colors. This is why the time before dark and the dawn's song of day are famous across every battlefield; the sky pours its colors into the scenes where men have fallen, enriching the bodies of the lives that have been lost.

Those seas of raging blue carry creatures unknown to man and the seeds of foreign plants. Thus, there are new forests upon the water's edge.

Many people have died in the kingdom's wars, and been born into its families. And with each new generation, the people carry an array of stories and secrets given to the successors of every man. Secrets of the dead that sing their songs in the tombs, of men that fight, even in death. Stories about the princes of old, about the holy sword with destiny upon its hilt. Theories that are written across pieces of yellowing parchment, and spoken from the masters of a college. Legends retold to the children of those who have seen them, and to those who have acted in them. 

But that is not the true gem. No, what many find value in is what lies below the waters. For every river there is a path, and for every sea there is a kingdom. 

The forests that appear on the shore sprout from the waves, mirroring their counterpart's appearance like the reflections they disturb. And beneath the sea forests' canopy is a world not unlike the one of drier climes, enclosing those who cannot live without the water that fills their gills. It is where the creatures not known to man walk, trudging through the ocean land with few problems like the dry ones' wars, or the secrets and stories hidden within the folds of time.

This, this is the true gem.

This is the place some write stories of, telling myths of the land beneath the seas of raging blue. 

"Utopia," they whisper. If only it were true.

"You know I wouldn't call unless it was important, right?"

I nodded for a moment before realizing he couldn't see it. My heart was racing as if it was about to burst from the sheer stress it was enduring. Was it his mother again? Had she fallen ill? Or perhaps his brother? Had he been hurt?

"Yes, of course."

There was a sound, like a strangled sob, that came from the other side of the receiver. His voice cut through clearly then, and I could easily, and without hesitation, say my heart stopped.

"I tried to kill myself."

I pulled the phone from my ear, checking to see if the number was really his. It was. Could it be a joke? He has never joked about this before. His voice sounded so different over the phone, and he never called, only texted.

We had been laughing only hours prior. Had I been too insensitive? Did I say something? He'd never told me anything was wrong-that anything had happened to warrant this. My best friend had never told me that his days and nights consisted of such horror that he thought the fall from the roof would cure his plight.

"We-We're headed to the hospital now."

I felt anxiety take root in my heart then, developing a black hole where a steady beating should resound. This wasn't a prank. He wasn't about to say I was gullible or that he was messing with me. No, he was simply shattering my world.