There is never time in the future in which we will work out our salvation. The challenge is in the moment; the time is always now.
-James Baldwin

My life ain't the greatest and it ain't the worst. So you can plant me in with all those other go betweens. But just because it ain't been the greatest don't mean I'm gonna whine about it. Some do, but I mean where does it get them. What's past is past and that's exactly where it's meant to stay. Now don't get me wrong. We have to learn from our mistakes and what's in our pasts makes us who were are today, but you can't just dote on it forever or else you're too busy looking into the past to look forward to the future. Hey, you're finding out why I'm called Eternal! Don't you feel special?

Anyway, I was born in Colorado. Colorado Springs as a matter of fact. Has one of the greatest spots for rock climbing in the world. Though you won't ever catch me watching those crazy people. Hey, I've actually done it before, but back then there was a certain thrill to it that just ain't there anymore. It's really a great place though. The Air Force base would hold great shows and my family and I would always go out to see them. Talk about cool planes. I loved them all the way up until I was about 10. I went rock climbing my first time when I was 8. Like I said. That was just a thrill even though I didn't get to go too far up. Well when I was 10, I was out rock climbing with my older brother when we had a little accident, or well... he did. He hadn't placed one of the pitons in well enough and lost his grip. Because of that, when he fell, the stress caused the piton to come out of the rock and the greater stress on the others caused them to come out. Talk about scary. That's when my fear of heights came in. I was about to go up about 50 feet then and just watching him fall from that height when I was up there with him... The others down there quickly called an ambulance, but he didn't live long enough for it to get there because of a head injury they had said. So I got this horrible fear of heights. Ever since then I've been trying to overcome it, really I have, but I can't help but freeze or recoil when I'm put in a position where I'm looking down a ways. Now I don't have it bad enough where you lift me up 10 feet and I freak. It only starts at about 30 feet or so. So most of the city heights I can actually deal with.

Well onwards, it wasn't long after that that we ended up moving to New Orleans. My dad's work had wanted to transfer to a bigger city and one on the ocean so they had picked New Orleans and my dad followed along with us. I was still having troubles with the loss of my brother and all and they thought that it would be good for me to get away from Colorado. And were they right... though it didn't happen for years afterwards. I continued through school. For a while my grades dropped, but they finally began to rise to normal again. Wasn't too bad at it all actually. However life for me wasn't bound to stay the same. But then... when does it stay the same? If it did, it would get awfully boring.

When I was about 15, in fact it was a couple weeks after my birthday, my house was raided by some... sick people. My dad got killed in the process of trying to protect his family, God bless his soul. Great guy, I'm glad he didn't suffer long. The rest of us... well my younger brother who was about 14 at the time was dragged out. We didn't know what happened to him. My mom and I were tied up and raped for a while before both of us were shot and left for the dead. My mom, who they shot in the heart, died almost immediately afterwards. Me, I was the lucky one. I ended up living as you can see. They wanted to send me to a foster home, but I really didn't want to go so I ran off right after I got out of the hospital and hit the streets. It was rough for a while, but I managed to get by.

About 3 months later, I ran into the guys again. You'd think they saw a ghost when they saw me. The sickening part about it was that my brother was with them. They had used some fucking drug that ended up causing him to lose his memories and they filled in the blanks with what they wanted. They saw some sick humor is sending him off to get me. Well, so be it. Now some of you may be sickened by how I put this and how I am about it, but if you are, well I suggest you read no further. I had a gun that I had found just a couple weeks ago that I kept just in case. So I ended up shooting him in the head and killed him on the spot. That caused the other guys to run off real fast. I felt bad about it for a while. But then I realized that hey, time goes on. The world's not going to stop for me and the death of my brother. It was a called for action. Not only did it protect me, it released him from a life he wasn't meant to live.

It wasn't long after that that I ended up running into Miguel. The guy scared me too. Rather ungentlemanly of him if you ask me. I even had the gun out on him for a bit. To think, I could have shot and killed the guy who's gotten us through this all right then and there. But I didn't, which is probably good. He convinced me to put my gun away and so I did. He ended up taking me in. I think it was how I didn't dwell on the fact that I almost shot the guy that had just taken me off the streets and given me shelter that got me the name Eternal. I like the name. Too bad Eternity has to corrupt it with his. Damnit! I had my name first. At least as far as I know. I wonder what his real name is. Oh, I got off track. I do that sometimes. So I joined up with Las Panteras then even though they weren't really called that at the time. There were some pretty cool guys with. Though I have yet to get interested in any guy enough to consider something permanent with him. So I can be picky, but hey, it's a decision that could effect the rest of my life. I have to be careful with it.

Ever since I've joined up, I've just mostly helped with people getting past problems and such. Though I'm not a bad fighter, with the knife or gun. Las Panteras is a great family. Sometimes I miss my own, yeah, but I know that they're really watching over me anyway. I'm just glad that I've been blessed with a life as good as the one I've had. Some people have had far far worse than I've had. But hey, when it comes right down to it, dwelling in the past is worthless. After all, when you do that, you can't see forward into the future. Now you know why I'm called Eternal. And with that, I'm right back at the beginning.

If we open a quarrel between the past and the present, we shall find that we have lost the future.
-Sir Winston Churchill

The best thing about the future is that it comes only one day at a time.
-Abraham Lincoln