The Immortal City

Written in response to: Write about a person or object vanishing into thin air.... view prompt

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Adventure Creative Nonfiction Science Fiction

He was gone. Like just gone. He turned round the corner and just vanished in a puff of smoke. Now where was he? As I was investigating, I recalled what had happened to us a few years back.

           It was the 9999th century, where immortals could be made just out of normal people. But if you wanted to be an immortal, you will first be disconnected from the world for 10 years, and pass some tests, before they will trust that you will not do bad things with your new skill. The result, needless to say, was atrocious.

           I stood on the streets of our crime-infested city. All the immortal gangsters, the immortal robbers, the immortal arsonists. What had they done? We should have added more tests, and not give them the skills. An immortal comes with five skills.

           The first skill, of course, is invisibility. The second skill was controlling fire. The third skill was to control water. The forth skill was speed. The fifth was shapeshift. One moment, you would have an ant crawl at your feet, and your wallet would slip, and by the time you noticed, your wallet would be in mid-air rushing forwards at 70mph.

           Only immortals were alive now. All mortals, whether resistant or not, would have been dead. The arsonists burnt the whole place to ground, while others flooded everything. Now the ground was a black paddy field and dead bodies of remaining mortals and a few of the surviving buildings.

           The criminals were unstoppable now. It would be as easy to throw them into prison as they would escape using their last skill. The only left immortals were a large percentage of criminals, and another percentage of crime control officers like me, and a minute percentage of remaining civilians, who were probably relatives of the scientists and went to the Immortal trial.

           I snapped out of my thoughts and tried my Immortal Scanner. It was a handy little device, but very hard to handle. The moment you turned it on, it would have a large blinking light saying that the immortal was barely 1 foot away, and you can be sure that’s you yourself. Luckily the scientists fixed it.

           I put it in my scanner on my chest, and it reflected that the nearest immortal was in a restaurant, the other in a bar. There was no one else within the radius of 100 meters. So, it was ok.

           Then one of the lights went off. What? The immortal just disappeared? But that’s impossible. Even when you are invisible, the scanner still reflects that you are there. The only way to get off the scanner is to seize being immortal, which only proved that the immortalization of everyone had failed.

           Boom! Crash! Pow! Bang! Loud sounds could be heard. I scanned my surroundings and easily recognised the sounds. The first one was of an air raid. The second was of a building collapsing. The third was of a tank firing. The last, was gunfire. What was going on now?

           On my watch, a screen suddenly appeared.

           “Commander Andrei, the Anti-Immortal mission has succeeded in finding an antidote in deimmortalizing everyone. We currently placing that antidote into air raid bombs, cannons, and bullets. Do not be too quick to get yourself sprayed. Try to usher everyone into a certain zone. We will be raiding all buildings and shooting everyone with the antidote. Thank you. From, Inspector Smith.”

           “Roger that.” I swiftly replied. That was it. Soon, the whole of the crime-patrol squad got all the immortals in a row, while above us, the aircraft kept on raiding. All buildings were raided and reduced rubble. The cannons kept firing, and by the time everyone else realised what was going on, it was too late. All of us were mortals now.

           The crime-control squad proceeded to move quickly arresting all criminals. So, everyone was safe now. At least that was what I hoped for it to be. That was when I caught some scientists were crowding together with a scorn on their faces. I was just about to investigate when I suddenly knew it.

           Those scientists were those who fired the cannons, they were the pilots who made everyone mortal. They were still immortal! And so, they were planning to do all sorts of bad things as criminals since we were now all mortals! I immediately told Inspector Smith about my reasoning and findings. He let out a loud gasp. It seemed that he knew why the Anti-Immortal party wanted to deimmortalize everyone.

           The next moment I knew, more planes flew by mortals rushed past and started raiding. Cannons were firing all around like water sprinklers. With our city now just a barren field, artificial rain with the antidote began raining down on everyone. I saw one of the scientist lunge at me, but I quickly dodged. We were now mortals of equal strength. We were back to our original forms.

           The next thing I knew, there was massive construction going on. Buildings were put back into place, drainage system updated to remove all excess water and put them into newly built reservoirs. The black ground proved to be more fertile than ever for farming. So, it was not really chaos, but instead resulted in more benefits towards the end.

           The prisoners served as usual, and society was back again, in a utopian way. No one could now become immortal again. The immortalizing lab was neglected, and subsequently, demolished. We no longer focused on technology and returned back to the kind of life in the 21st century. Who knows what bad things might happen if we continue to develop technology? I am writing this to those to 21st century scientists, so that now that you know what the future don’t take it to such a level. Don’t develop it so much to defy the laws of physics and birth and death.

           After all, it always pays when you try to defy the natural laws of living things……

August 25, 2021 07:13

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