Stones
ShortStory 5,790 words Recommended by 4 award/anthology sources
"I don’t know if I can die. Maybe when this comet reaches the sun, I’ll keep right on being. Or maybe then, finally, after so long, I will stop. I am not ready to find out. I want to be immortal. To never die as those on your planet do. This place isn’t how I remember it. It is ugly. Yet it’s the place of my birth. How can that be?"
Content warnings 2
deathviolence
Quasar links out; the story lives on Clarkesworld, where the author gets the click.