[ WP ] You unknowingly stop aging and become immortal at 20 years old . 50 years later you 're finally getting suspicious that you are n't normal .

`` You really *do* keep in shape huh?'' 
 
 The nonchalant tone in that squeaky voice of my 60 year-old sister-in-law irritated me to no end. Her once beautiful features had been eroded by now, parting for the trenches that lined her face in the form of wrinkles. The web that seemed to restrict her eyes only served to make her seem more friendly in that old age though. 
 
 Of course, to such a direct and awkward question, the only approach is to smile, nod and move on, and that was what I did for I myself had much to suspect in that regard. 
 
 It was n't just that I had aged well or anything. It was more like I *hadn't* aged. 70 years old, in the golden years of my life and yet I barely looked a day over 20. Truth be told, it creeps me out. My wife Layla's honey-glazed eyes flickered brightly even in the well-lit living room. They glanced over me, burned into my very soul, and all I could think of was their beauty. They had mesmerised me back in my youth, and continued to do so even in my `` old'' age. They creased into a smooth smile, her eyes forming thin lines that seemed to accentuate her features. She may not have aged as well as I had, but her everlasting beauty shone through even so. I walked over to her and sat by her side, feeling the gentle warmth that she always seemed to emit. Life felt good. 
 
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 A year had barely gone by, and yet fate turned its gears in the cruelest of ways. I should have expected that love alone could not overcome the ever-looming threat of death. It had been so sudden. She... she had died staring into the night sky, her petite body snugged comfortably into my embrace. Even if my arm died every time I let her do so, it brought me a certain peace and calm to let her do so. The nights without her were tough, were long, were an *eternity*. Where was the bright woman who always cheered me up? Where was the comedian who loved me with all the passion of a thousand suns? 
 
 Questions, questions. They crept, snuck themselves into every facet of my thoughts, as I began to be plagued by my own seeming youth. Just as shadows sneak their tendrils into the corners of the light, so too did these questions begin to invade my very waking moments. 
 
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 It must have been startling, seeing a 170 year old man look 20. His empty eyes betrayed no emotion behind them beyond a certain weariness, a despair that welled itself deep enough within his pupils, his consciousness that there was a sense of being unable to salvage the situation. 
 
 A deep, brooding silence hung itself around him like an ever-tightening noose and yet his breath did not halt. His breath never ceased its steady pace, but it always seemed to desire a break. This was not a man who was satisfied with life. This was simply the impatient patience of a mortal man condemned to immortality, to a life without the quiet sanctuary of death.
