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Carter does not care for anyone but himself.
Others call him selfish or cruel. Vile, evil, disgusting.
He calls himself alive. He has survived ages -eons- where others have crumbled and collapsed by their own fault or folly. Why should he care when any one person would be gone before even a full century? He has no responsibilities tied to others and consequently, no wants that he could not deliver himself.
None but for one, that is.
Carter craves for a soul, a daemon the same way one would crave death as vengeance for a loved one. It is a constant, persistent need, that will forever have a hold on the base of his skull. Sometimes he swears that it is almost a physical, tangible thing. It is the most stable element of Carter, never changing with the time or events after it began.
At the same time, he meets the cat. The cat is black as night, not that he truly cares to know at first. Soon, though, he learns that the cat has become quite attached, when it follows him into the next century. Because it is no problem to Carter, he leaves it to exist near him as it wishes.
As he grows in age he begins to care even less to the things around him, learns finally that it will never stop changing. Hardly anything is constant and his head pounds with want for something he will never have. The cat curls around him, but he ignores it and its creature comforts. Carter beings to plot, because Carter is forever and he should have no wants.
So he reads, and he learns. He learns and he practices. He practices and he ignores the pleas of those who wish him to use his knowledge to help those in need. He ignores and works and learns and hardly blinks when suddenly the cat stops curling around him when he feels poorly, or chirps quietly as reminders of time or other foolish things it feels he needs to remember. He has an answer he needs to find, and not even the wheezing breathes of a cat that really should have died by now will stop his search.
Then, of course, he finds his answer. He has no idea if it has been a truly long time or why he should care if it has. When he gets up to leave, to find the one he seeks, the cat stumbles up behind him to follow. It jumps as if to land on his shoulder, but the landing is not as sound as it once might have been if Carter had ever cared to pay attention. But Carter cares for no one but himself and so he brushes it off and keeps walking.
Every second, every step he takes causes the pounding to grow stronger. He wants and his body knows that it is close to having what it wants, Carter thinks, close to having a daemon. He is thin and weak but it does not matter, nothing matters so long as he gets what he wants. He wants a soul. The cat staggers behind him, desperate to keep up for a reason he does not care to recognize over himself, his want. It's hair has finally gone grey and it is sickly but still it tries, even after it gets so far away the thought of catching up is laughable. But what does Carter care, when he is almost there? He keeps walking.
When he opens the door to the place he seeks, he finds a woman who meets his eye. She sees things, has seen things he never would have been able to, even after all his years. But Carter does not care because Carter cares for no one but himself, and the pounding is so horrible now, everything he wants right in front of him.
And so he speaks. "Give it to me. Give me my soul." And his voice is a rasp, but a thousand years hunched over books and studies and papers without a thought of taking care of oneself will do that to a person. He doesn't have the time, needs a soul immediately. The pounding is everything now, his need for his soul consuming him. Soon it feels there will be nothing left.
But the woman only smirks, her eyes holding a million different words and experiences despite being as young as Carter is old. Then she speaks and her eyes glitter the same color as her daemon sitting beside her, watching for something Carter couldn't care to know. "Oh, honey. You already have a soul. Can't you hear it?"
Carter doesn't understand, waits for the words to comprehend into something as clear as the knowledge suddenly lodged in his chest that something was about to happen, is happening. And miles and miles away, the sick cat whines for someone who only ever cared for himself as it collapses, gives into a sickness that has been eating away at it since it met Carter.
The pounding in Carter's head reaches a horrifying crescendo and he has an odd thought about how he had never fallen victim to any illness that decimated so many lives that he never cared to notice but always felt an odd pang of sympathy for; the only pity he would give, even if only for a second.
And then his vision starts to fade around the edges, and Carter wonders about what else he never got around to noticing, too focused on the pounding that has not stopped, never stopped, will never stop, can he have his soul so it will stop?
It was never a pounding in the back of his skull, was it? It the pain of rejection of something he never cared for. Or was it a heartbeat?
(Could it be both?)
Carter takes another step -to properly enter the threshold or to sit down or something while this realization shakes him to the core- when he feels a 'snap!' and the pounding stops abruptly.
Carter falls -an unknowing parallel to an old grey cat once black. The cat wonders if Carter had ever cared as it dies. Carter dies with the knowledge that he didn't.