Immortalosis: Chapter One

I'd done it. I'd created immortality — maintainence of youth forever. In this dark room, with a single beam shinning on the old oak tree, I'd created immortality. Here it was, budding with new life — young life — when all the life outside would be forced to shrivel and die.

I would achieve immortality with this, in both ways of meaning. But more importantly, we would be young forever. Her and I. Forever.

I had to get her immediately. To bring her, show her this. A tree coming back from near-death, a sign of things to come for us. Our relationship, her life... if never had to end anymore. It never did.

It took her almost an hour to arrive. The traffic from the city combined with the distance the labratory was from it made it a difficult drive for her. But she, like me, was amazed by the results. But, unlike me, she was mortified.

"It's amazing, baby. But... is it right?"

I grimaced. Her notions of right and wrong perplexed me, fueled by a spirituality which I lacked. As a scientist, I had morals, but they were of a pragmatic nature. And I was not enraptured by them, as hers were. I welcomed it, she was one who could balance out my amorality and prevent me from going to far. But this? This was not too far. This was perfection. This was her life embodied in the gnarled branches and budding leaves, extended beyond the life of any person. She needed this.

"Yes, my love. It is the only thing that could be right, anymore."

I smirked. It gave it away. I had been planning to say that for a while now. She turned to me and smiled at it, too. She knew that it was her only chance at life as well. Then she went over to the old oak, and sat down next to it, bekoning me to follow.

And so we sat there, the serene, joyous silence occassionally accompanied by a romantic whisper or a jest only to be told to one's closest friend. We were happy. This would make us happy, forever. As we grew softer to each other, we stared at the ceiling, which appeared very much like the night sky with the lights off and the moon shining through the window, a green filter which could make light turn into a beam of youthful life. I could've done it with a florecent bulb or anything else, really, but I thought there was a certain spiritual poignance that she would appreciate by harnessing the light of the sun and moon to fuel it.

Around the beautiful window of the green moon, the monitor lights flickers many brilliant hues. Most blinked from orange to purple and back again, indicating the components were working properly. I always prefered those to the traditional red and green and blues and yellows that most circuitry shown. Occassionally, a red light would shimmer, indicating that something was awry. I had not yet perfected the system.

Regardless, the night was beautiful. Her cancer seemed to already ebb away and die in the beautiful green hues, though the machine wasn't calibrated to humans. And, once again, I could see the radiant glow in her skin as it was when I first met her. Before her diagnosis.

Her diagnosis didn't matter anymore, though. And as we sat there, we began kissing, enraptured by a second energy that seemed to come from the nature harnessed in this room. It was the first we'd kissed in months. The first since I shut myself away to complete this project.

And it was worth it. Every second of every day for months, it was worth it, for this glow that she now possessed.

The kisses grew frantic, the new energy in our bones turned from one sort of love to another. We could both feel the arousal increasing, the lust growing for each other. Our bodies, pressed into one another, were boiling against that old oak.

"Ana," Was all I could say between now frantic, my mouth already starting to moan.

"Laura," She replied back.

And then, under the tree of life, we made love.



Three months later, we realized our mistake.