Young Writers Society

Today the first immortal man died. I feel it ironic how a company founded on the production of baby soap stumbled across the means to end something deemed endless. The population seemed so keen on finding a cure to the condition that even a company dedicated to giving newborns a safe bathing experience turned a pitchfork when the chance reared its head.

Those who rounded their eight hundredth year were elated to finally have a release from their perpetual pubescent party and others cursed them for fearing their divine youth. In its first week, four hundred of the one thousand seven hundred and two known immortals took their lives with the aid of the nameless drug. Every station seemed so keen on showing death in action to them it was sensational. They weren't shy about hiding the detail as controversial as the first broadcast was the world soon decided they were hungry for a culling of the lowest population humanity had ever seen.

Only one immortal is discovered every year, typically near the autumnal season and each precisely sixteen years after they are born. I sometimes wonder if my parents tried to plan for it. Why time your birth for the later months just for the slightest possibility that your child will be the one out of millions not to be given an exit card? September, October, November apparently whichever god was responsible favored the children of autumn the most. If only I knew the god I would ask him why, but even with a “miracle” such as mine I can no longer believe in the divine. How could anyone, mankind has already found a way to sidestep their influence with a pill the size and shape of Pez.

I turned eighteen today and found myself alone in my college dorm, glued to the live coverage of the two hundred and seventy-three-year-old Joseph Rourke’s release. He was the first man to live out the entirety of two life sentences but all I can focus on were the poorly designed tattoos that ran the length of his arm. Why would someone ever want to be stuck with something just as permanent as them? What if they didn't like their tattoos in the twenty-third or twenty-fourth century? I wonder if that's how the world sees me as just something to fall out of fashion yet permanent against the will of the world.

Protests occurred in all but eight of the state capitals a week after Rourke’s release. I knew it was coming but I didn't expect it to happen when I was in the corner of a Baskin Robbins enjoying a cup of Rocky Road. My roommate places her hand on my shoulder in the reassurance that I will be okay and that these new laws won't affect me…just the bad immortals. It's interesting having friends in my situation, for a few years all I could think about was the depressing reality of outliving them and now they console me promising I won't be “let go”. I want to believe them, that my life won't be cut short because they fear me, but then I look at the small TV in the corner and listen as politicians puppetered by their newfound power promise to not let the "unnatural" remain.

The lawmakers seemed more keen on what the church had to say on the matter. Regardless of the constant pressure they remain divided. For weeks congregations debated if this was the will of God to allow man to end his divine gifts. It wasn't until the conspiracy that these gifts from the heavens were in actuality blasphemous jokes sent by the devil to prod fun at god. Sermons and lessons began to appear more akin to a witchhunt because they now had methods of killing us. They treated us as holy figures acting complacent in faith and now with control they themselves play god. Their wrath led to the last pillars collapsing and with it, the law was passed.

They didn't have the gall to call it what it was. A culling, eradication, genocide of a people, no they called it Act One One Seven a strict order to terminate all those revealed to be immortal. It wasn't a hard task with papers upon papers of documentation noting our whereabouts and the minor celebrity status around your sixteenth birthday. Even I was a headline for a day “The first American girl with blue eyes to be given immortality” and “Americas got Another”. Now it was my own country that was damning me and slowly the other nations fell in line. Despite war and competing politics, the world seemed united on the matter that we few Immortals were a common threat. It's ridiculous to think any of us had a choice in this, It's even worse off to consider we each are just as equally demonic. What did I ever do…Maybe this is my punishment for sneaking out in high school.

had my advanced statistics midterm today and the month changed from October to November. I was waiting for the news to break and whilst buried in a book I began to hear the whispers. The next Immortal sixteen-year-old was revealed to the world. Sunita Bedi was a stunningly beautiful girl from Jaipur. In the past, a headline would have mentioned her dark brown locks or the celebration of the first Immortal from Jaipur but today she was reduced by a damning headline. “The last immortal born”. I spent my time in the confines of the classroom buried in a book as the world around me fixated on the girl being taken away for execution. Some of my classmates cried, some laughed nervously, and I wasted my time studying on how to solve for X.

My roommate consoled me as sirens sounded outside. Our kitchen smelled of flour and sweets as homemade chocolate chip cookies raised in the oven. When the man at the door knocked I wept burying my face deep into her shirt. Solemnly as the man demanded the door to be opened she relented, abandoning me to the couch and letting the officer inside. The TV buffered and for a moment I thought by acting still, acting normal he would see me as one of them.

What did I do wrong? I passed my tests and went to school on time. I'm still a kid, why can't they see that? I haven't finished a college semester or traveled out of the country. I had never had to face the concept of death and now in a month, I am forced to grapple with the things I will never be able to do. I will never have kids, I will never find love. I won't be able to share cookies with my grandkids or feel the ocean breeze on my face. Who did I displease…who determined this?

In a small cubicle, a small Pez-shaped pill waited on a tray. Its unassuming appearance was dreadful. Worse so were the onlookers judging and scowling with incredulous eyes. They offered a glass of water to help the pill go down easily. Of course, in my final moments, they were kind enough to trust me with the task of killing myself, and thoughtful enough to provide me with a glass of stale water as if to say they treated me with respect. The taste is bitter and the effects are quick. I think my final thoughts laughing at its absurdity. I left my backpack at home, how will I finish my homework?