The Death of Dying

It is often acknowledged by the wise and often dismissed by the ignorant that what we may wish for is not always what we should get. If you read that last sentence in disbelief, read on.

It was the year 2056. It was recently discovered that a viral infection caused the infected to become immortal. People all around the world gathered around the infected to reach the state that many an individual had aimed to achieve for centuries, then so generously given to them through the force of nature. People hesitated to classify it as an infection rather than a blessing.

As time passed by, people never aged, wars were ended for a lack of reason to fight, and everyone was happy. Only the wisest had retreated with friends and family when the virus was announced.

The newborn of this wise percentage of the population were born with no infections, no worries. They were born and raised in the most secluded caves of the Himalayan Mountains, and they were taught the wise ways of the last surviving mortals of the old generations, of the disease, of the danger, of the foolishness of those outside. For many years, mortals lived normally, peacefully, and happily.

The newborn of the immortals, however, became a bit of an issue. As they were born with immortality, they could never age. People were warned to play it safe, and that newborns would not be needed as the population would never die.

Eventually, and inevitably, the wise would resurface with a grown population. In an abandoned area of Russia, where everyone had moved to different lands due to a lack of need for currency, they built the greatest space shuttles they could, enough of them to transport the entire mortal population.

The shuttles first flew to the population center of the immortals. The mortals were, to make an understatement, disapproving of how the immortals had got on. They had made all the unwise decisions they could. Then, the wise dropped a message grenade into the city. The grenade went off, and their message sounded through the alleyways, down all the streets, and into every building. The message was quite short:

"Very soon you shall begin to see the extent of your foolishness - and perhaps you've already begun. Good luck to you all."

The wisest of the population, the descendants of the mortal population that had seen the beginning of the plague centuries ago, now left Earth for a better place, a new world.

However, the immortals now realized that while they never aged in physical appearance, they had aged mentally. They could not remember how to leave Earth. The born immortal had no ability to accomplish such a feat, or tell anyone of how to accomplish it, even if there was the slightest chance something about it was implanted in their minds at birth.

Their memory had failed them. They were still prone to disease and injury, although the utopian idea of being immortal had wiped that particular idea of pain from their brains, although they had ignored these things all these centuries, all of this was now returning to them, like a boomerang - or at least, like one if they had remembered how to make one.

People all around the world were struck with depression. Wars resumed over tiny squabbles. There was no hope of recovery for the wounded - the centuries of ignorance had washed away all memories of anything related to such a feat - they would have to carry on wounded. People were left with no limbs, bodies mutilated, headless, strewn across a battlefield, and many things much worse. Blood spattered every wall and smeared every face. It was nothing less than complete chaos - a fantasy granted converted into a nightmarish world.

Then it happened. That inevitable time when the Earth would become no more.

People all over the planet were on their knees, begging for it all to end as the sun began to swallow the planets. Finally, reaching Earth, all was out in the peril, the confusion, the chaos, the violence, and the fire, everything being consumed by the sun.

Except for one thing. Well, about 10 billion things, actually.

Just now, humanity knew the full extent of what they had done. I struggle to call those fools humanity. All floating in space, still able to feel the intense pain that the vacuum of space forced upon them, but unable to die. Just now, after the many centuries, the people wished more than ever for one thing - mortality.