I Resurrect Until Successful

The shot thuds into me, tearing into my lower abdomen, and is swiftly followed by a second. It blows apart my navel and I stagger back into a wall, slowly sliding down it. A large smear of blood is left on the wall, tinting my dark hair, staining my white blouse. A man with an imposing build, barrel-chested with thick muscular limbs, moves to stand before me, levelling his pistol at my forehead. There's a bright flash, muzzle flash, and then nothingness…

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I jerk upright, hands racing to feel my stomach. I try to calm my heart when my hands find nothing but smooth skin and only then do I look around. It looks like a morgue, a grid of lockers filling one wall, and I cast aside the sheet that'd been covering me. I'm not ashamed of my body, I'd go nude all the time if I could, but I hunt for a coat, knowing I'll need to be wearing something. In a cupboard I find two or three and choose the largest, its bottom hem reaching my ankles. Buttoned it the coat conceals my figure and I step out from the morgue, searching for either a floor-plan or a toilet.

I come across first a disabled toilet and slip inside, striding over to the mirror. It's a silly habit, I can pinch myself or listen to the blood pounding round me, but I prefer to see what I look like. A slim woman of average height stares back at me, long unbound blonde hair cascading down her back. Her eyes are a flinty grey, her nose sharp above sensuous full lips. I unbutton and shrug off my stolen coat, letting it pool around my still-bare feet. The woman in the mirror cups her breasts, feeling their weight, before dropping her hands to her narrow waist. I twist and my reflection copies me, my firm ass coming into view. The flesh barely ripples when I slap it, the painful sting summoning a low moan, and I hurriedly put the coat back on before I get lost to pleasure.

The corridor I'm on eventually takes me to an octagonal intersection, more importantly a plan of St Augustine Memorial Hospital, and I walk quickly to the nearest staircase. I don't know St Augustine, it isn't a hospital I've come back to life in before. The directions I follow get me to ground level, just off the front lobby, and I duck into a staff locker room to find more suitable clothing. I eventually leave in another woman's outfit, the clothes ill-fitting, and step onto the street. It takes me a moment to place myself but after using a route map on a nearby bus-stop I set off for my destination, after a while spotting landmarks I think I recognize.

I end up on the other side of the street to a small complex isolated from its neighbours by thick walls. I was here only a few hours ago, before my latest death, and my mind's working furiously to recall how I got in. That's probably the worst part of being an immortal, the memories of the day or so before a death are fuzzy, and I shake my head to try and clear my thoughts. The movement, the hurried change of perspective, triggers something though, a glimpse of leaping from a balcony. I have to circle round the complex before finding a nearby building that possesses any balcony, quickly ascending to a good height.

Glancing over the edge I could see a partially-flat roof, studded by air-con units and other obstacles. A woman is standing next to a doorway, no doubt stationed there after my entry, and I whisper a petition to my gods, asking for their gifts. Throwing caution aside I leap from the balcony, focused on where I'll land, and roll up against a weather station. My shoulder's screaming in pain but I listen for the approach of the woman, no way she failed to spot me. When she comes round the side of the weather station I lash out, sweeping her legs from under her and then scrambling on top of her, stiffened hand crushing her windpipe. As she dies I'm searching her, recovering a selection of keycards and the pistol she never had chance to use.

I leave the body behind as I make for the door, glancing at each keycard to see what they open. I use the proper one to gain access to the building's interior, gun in a two-handed grip as I step inside, and find myself at the top of a stairwell. I try to picture the complex, trying to establish my location, and creep down until I come to another door. Looking through the porthole window I spot a bloodied wall and I pause. I don't often come across where I've died, I generally try to avoid such places, but I'm sure I was nearly at a breakthrough when I was shot. Sneaking down the corridor, spotting the tiny splashes of blood marking the route my body had been taken along, I press against the wall, reaching out to push open the office door opposite the crimson smears.

My latest killer is still in the room, his eyes widening comically as I step in. I don't let him have more reactions, the sounds of my gunshots echoing out into the corridor, and stride past as the dead man topples out of his chair. A sense of anticipation starts building, never in nearly two thousand years have I been so close to completing my quest. A security station fills one wall and I quickly check the cameras, watching for the response to my shots and looking for the strong-room.

It's the strong-room I find first, although the defenders' response seems to be to congregate there. I take my killer's pistol, tucking it into the waistband of my purloined skirt, and then drift back to the security station. I could activate a lockdown, isolating those defenders who aren't at the strong-room, but something tells me not to and I turn, leaving the office and taking a step back towards the stairwell. The appearance of another woman, young and clad in a well-cut suit like the one on the roof, has me halting and then skittering back into the office, a burst of gunfire tearing through where I'd been just a moment before.

The pounding of my heart almost drowns out all other sound, I can't fail now!, and I examine the pistol in my hands, flicking the fire-control switch on its side. Swinging round the doorway and into the corridor I pull the trigger, bullets almost instantly ploughing into the woman's chest. In an almost exact recreation of my death she is thrown back, skidding and falling onto her ass. I fire off another burst when I spot her trying to lift her gun, blood spurting from holes drilled into her stomach, and then finish her off with a headshot. Like the others I have killed I leave the woman where she lies, hurrying into the stairwell and descending to the third floor.

The strong-room is at the center of the building, part of its integral support column, and surrounded by open space. Nearly a dozen people, mainly women resembling the two I've fought, were gathered in that area. I peer round a doorway, calculating firing arcs and positioning, before just charging in before my nerves fail me. More of the bullets fired at me hit others, it's like I'm moving through a blizzard, and I see women blasted from their feet, men hurled into the walls. I crash against a vault, blood streaming from my already-injured shoulder and half-a-dozen grazing hits, and put a bullet into the throat of the last defender. As she chokes on her own vital fluid I weakly haul myself up, swiping a keycard through the vault's reader. The thick metal hatch pops open, revealing treasures any thief would be bowled over by, and I reach for a small statuette of the goddess Athena. Two millennia I'd been charged with its protection, cursed with immortality when I lost it. I sigh as I look around the blood-drenched strong-room, at the corpses surrounding me. If I can get back to Greece with the statuette, return it to its namesake city, maybe I can join them, my curse finally lifted.