[ WP ] It started slowly . Reports of underdeveloped births , stunted growth in children , delayed puberty in teens . It took time but eventually scientists figured it out . The telomeres in the cells of the human race had stopped shortening upon dividing . Humanity had stopped aging .

Scientists tried for decades to find out why the telomeres stopped shortening during cell division. Soon enough immortal children grew up and became scientists or participants in studies. They maintained the appearance of a child but had the brain of any other. And after several decades more immortal humans were everywhere, but humanity could n't discover how to replicate the genes or mutations causing the phenomena. 
 
 It's now over one hundred fifty years since the birth of the first immortal. A young looking girl named Esther sat in a grassy field. Trees skirted the field at her back and in front of her sat a city. She'd seen more in her lifetime than any other human ever had. Several wars, booms in technology so astonishing that soon enough scientists said we were going to be making contact with celestial bodies outside of the solar system, and last of all the introduction of a drug you could take that would change every strand of your DNA. 
 
 The age at which you took it would be the age you appeared to be for the rest of your life. She had a passion for spreading her gift around so others would n't experience the burdens and pains of aging. But the side effects of the drug did n't manifest for years, sometimes decades. Slowly humanity had changed in an unintended way. 
 
 Random genes were shut off at inappropriate times. Some people lost their ability to experience emotions. Some people lost control of their muscles. No one that took the drug was free of consequences. Only the truly immortal, those born with the mutation, wished to live their lives for all of time. The population of true immortals was still growing and the population of the population of mortals and mortal turned immortals remained about the same. 
 
 Groups of mortals rose up trying to keep their way of life going, but many wished for them to give up so humanity could be purified of death. Was it cruel to bring a mortal to life in the world of immortals? Immortals ruled the world and they certainly thought so. 
 
 After the discovery that the drug had severe negative side effects the immortals wished to ban it as well, and so they did. It was illegal to produce it, sell it, possess it, and above all, illegal to have a child after having taken the drug. 
 
 Esther had left her lab years early. She had given up on finding why they could n't fix the drug or reverse its effects. She moved out to the country, wishing she had never discovered it. The country was an expensive place to live due to the enormous population size humanity had reached, but she had more money than she would ever need. 
 
 She walked towards a giant tree in the middle of the field. It was one that had been planted when she was young, it gave her comfort to be with something as old as she was. She thought of humanity and what she hoped to see in the next few centuries of her life. She looked down to her right and left. A small headstone stuck up out of the grass on either side. She placed her hands on both of the stones for a moment before closing her eyes to take a nap. 
 
 `` Goodnight Mum, goodnight Dad,'' she whispered.
