2001 The Children of Bottle/Record Regarding Nile, Immortal (Excerpts)

Synopsis
Drafted by Victor Talbot (Immortal, Affiliated with the FBI) FBI Agent Victor Talbot introduces part of a report on the immortal Nile by writing that he will not provide his own personal opinion on Nile, since Nile's own statements will give the reader a good idea of Nile's personality. He thus presents three of the statements in question.

In the first statement, Nile says that he was a "king... It is for that purpose I was found...by a geologist..." and that the geologist had named him after "the river that was his mother." The geologists did not bother with a surname, so Nile never deemed him Father.

Nile recalls in the second statement that after becoming immortal he had grown increasingly afraid of forgetting the magnitude or even concept of others dying, and how he had subsequently thrown himself into war in order to hold death ever close to his side. In his third statement he confides that after being unable to protect his war comrades from death, he had realized that immortality itself no longer pained him. Instead, the reality that everyone but himself would someday die and he would be lost to darkness would be what sent him to his knees. He learned that losing those dear to him was not the tragedy of immortality—immortal or mortal, there was no difference. The number of losses was always the same.

He adds that there was one thing that had changed: his face. He says that he had caught a reflection of his face in the mirrored surface of a lake, and cried out when he found it expressionless (rather than twisted by rage or sadness). He had been terrified, realizing that in throwing himself into war in order to remember death, all he had done was inure himself to death instead. He admits that he is still afraid to look upon his face with his own eyes.

Victor writes that Nile had come to him during the Cold War, and, exhausted, recounted his life since the Advena Avis. Instead of detaining him, Victor laughed and sent him on his way. Realizing that submitting this report would endanger his position, and that he is not cut out for "this stuff," he decides to use these papers as a secret diary henceforth. It is stated that the rest of the 'report' contains a litany of complains concerning the FBI's director general.

Characters in Order of Appearance

 * Victor Talbot
 * Nile

Quotes
"When I had been unable to protect those on the battlefield I called companions and had allowed them to meet their deaths, it struck me. At this point, being immortal had cased me no pain whatsoever. The real pain would no doubt come when all but I had perished, and my surroundings were completely shrouded in darkness." —Nile