Inspired by this thread about vampirism, this is something I’ve pondered from time to time.
Lets say you’re on your way home late at night. A stranger approaches you and tells you “There can be only one!” and suddenly attacks you with a sword. You catch a mortal wound and lay dying in a pool of blood. You see your attacker raising the sword to behead you just as another stranger arrives and fends off your attacker. You fade into darkness, which for anyone else would be death.\
but you awaken and the new stranger tells you that you are immortal a’la Highlander style.He offers to train you in the art of personal combat and how to lead multiple lives and remain under the radar of soiety. (ets even say he or she offers to loan you a tidy sum of cash to start a new life once you have trained up. not enough to be rich, but enough to make your own way.)
What do you do? You have to fake your own death or your loved ones will be in danger. The pluses are
[ol]
[li]You can live forever! No old age or sickness![/li][li]Well, you can start over. All of the unrealized dreams…you can live them now, if you’re careful.[/li][li]You have a shot at being the “prize”. (The flick “highlander: The source” not withstanding)[/li][/ol]
The minuses are:
[ol]
[li]You have to fake your own death and never see your current friends or family again.[/li][li]You will have to defend yourself against challenges from other immortals at any given time. Thus you’ll have to actively hunt some of them that are threats or stay hidden and unnoticed (like Methos).[/li][li]You will have a hard time making friends since you’ll hve to move around every ten or so years. Also, mortals you grpw close to will eventually die and leave you alone. [/li][/ol]
Is this something you would want? I am not a big fan of my own mortality…in fact, it scares the shit out of me, the fact that I will die some day. But I don’t think I could live forever. It would drive me mad I believe. I don’t think I could just leave my family without a great deal of pain, either.
the only plus for me would be the chance to actually travel and see the entire planet. Still, its something I don’t know if its a curse or a blessing.
Although, I’m not sure if I would actually keep it a secret forever, at least not after all the other contenders had been done away with. I could see faking an experiment with genetic engineering that was wildly and irreproducibly successful or something similar.