If I Die Young

“All radioactives are to report to the main lounge at O’600 Hours.” Came the slightly nasally voice of the young woman who worked in the announcement room. Of course, I hadn’t needed to hear her announce it, I already knew. Just like I knew that the news today was going to be about how the doctors had found an experimental ‘cure’ that might help us, the ones left over after the disaster at Chernobyl, 100 years ago. You see, the Soviet government had told the world that we were dying of cancer. In reality, our lives had frozen in time. I haven’t aged in 100 years, and I probably never will. I was 15 that spring, and will be for the rest of eternity. Something about the chemicals at Chernobyl reacted with our systems, and those it touched stopped aging. In fact, nobody died that day. It is impossible for us to die. Those who were hit by flying rubble that day, or had the building collapse on them, just sat patiently in their live graves, waiting, waiting.