#Try-Not-To-Die

He rested his chin in the calloused palm of his hand, absentmindedly rubbing the corner of his mouth with his thumb as he stared off into the world outside of the car and the blur that constituted trees of autumn. The radio was faint, not just to him but to the driver of the vehicle as well, the notes of a popular song barely heard above the hum of the engine and otherwise thick silence. It went on like this for quite a while, time worthless as of then, seconds and hours had long since been as regarded as pennies were once upon a time: present but useless.

She cleared her throat as she pulled into the driveway of their house. At only two stories high and one thousand square feet, the residence proved more than enough for the newly engaged couple with two bedrooms and two and a half baths. The two exited the sedan in unison, the doors shutting mere seconds within each other. They were yet to have breathed a word to each other, both exhausted from meeting with the in-laws to be. Instead of retreating to their shared bed to rest, they kicked off their shoes, leaving them strewn about, and headed in separate directions. The sir, Jason, making his way to the kitchen to fetch a snack, was in dire need of a sugary refreshment to boost his energy. His lady counterpart and better-half, Lindsay, thought it better to lay down on a love-seat in the living room to watch television and allow herself to zone out.

An unknown amount of time slipped away, presumably hours, and the only one awake was Jason with a shy smile on his face born from listening to his fiancee's light snoring. Unfortunately, that smile vanished in simple moments as his eyes and ears refocused on the television which had begun playing the news. He already knew it had to be serious if it dared to interrupt the cartoons he had started to watch after Lindsay slipped away to the land in her dreams. Without looking at his hand, he grabbed the remote to turn up the volume enough for him to hear the words of the anchorperson, not particular concerned about waking a certain heavy-sleeper.

"After undergoing its final stages of testing, the new drug by the name of Thnisimotita, which is the actual Greek word for 'mortality', has been released. After death was eradicated via evolution over two millennia ago, some find it odd to go back in time, so to speak, and others have tried to shut down the project altogether with no success. The scientists behind this drug have chemically engineered it for its effects to last only 24 hours. Details of testing and development have not yet been released and the creators do not believe they ever will be, saying quote: 'The science behind this is not to be understood through explanation but, rather, experience. After all, is that not how we all as humans live?' When asked what their motivation for making the drug 'TNM' or 'Tita', as they have begged to dub it, neither professional offered a comment. The lack of response has the skeptical public drawing harsh conclusions, assuming the pair are conducting experiments on the entire human race. Another population, today's youths, are more than eager to purchase this drug, the first available batch selling out from pharmaceutical distributors within hours of it being put on the market."

Jason's hand flew to his mouth, paralyzed with shock. He was as still as the air on a night before a summer storm and he skin went just as cold. Stretching her legs out, Lindsay kicked her fiance's thigh as she woke up, eyes halfway open and unfocused. She adjusted herself so that she was resting on her elbows and forearms when she peered up at Jason.

"What's up?" Muttered Lindsay, failing to grasp his attention. So she kicked him harder, on purpose this time, to which he reacted by jumping. They looked each other dead in the eyes, she seeming far more unapologetic than he, not that he knew why he should have been sorry.

"What was that for?" He gestured his hands dramatically at nothing in particular. She blinked at him once then grinned, trying to come off sheepish but not truly doing her best at selling it.

"I was wondering what's wrong. You look like you just saw a unicorn." The words took a few seconds for him to process, then he shook his head, turning to face Lindsay with wide eyes.

"You did it... Your drug, it's on the news." She raised an eyebrow in disbelief, never one to believe good news. Jason, knowing her all too well, nodded his head eagerly. "It sold out already." Her eyes bugged, going still in shock, certain she was still asleep and that her love had put her into bed.

"No way."

....

About what would be a week later, Jason found himself wearing a round into the living room shag, pacing to waste pent up energy and wringing his hands with worry as he stressed unnecessarily, or so he hoped. Hours prior, he was in standing in front of nine pairs of adolescent eyes, each set focused away from him, all but one student that was. His eyes were wide and prying, a bright pain of anticipation dancing behind them as he waited. Waited for an answer Jason could not provide to a question that had been posed too many times to him already, an answer he knew he did not want to know because he could not bear to learn it. So he brushed off the inquiry as irrelevant to the class, the class that was fifteen students short due to "early vacations" and "family matters".

Easily startled, he nearly jumped out of his skin when he heard the house door open. It was just Lindsay coming home from the lab, her hair threatening to fall to her shoulders from the dangerously loose bun she wore along with a scowl. Her shoulders were tenser than a rubber band stretched to its limit and then some. With hands balled in fists, she stormed up the stairs and slammed the bedroom door behind herself, drawing her fiance's attention. Earlier that the day, her partner suggested shutting down the operation and recalling the drug. When she asked him why they would do that, he simply turned on the news which was overflowing with reports and recordings of social media influencers performing impressively outrageous stunts after taking varying doses of TNM. As a mild surprise to her, many of the participants proved to lack the skill or foreknowledge to survive the actions. But to her, it was simply bound to happen because there was [a great lack of common sense in society's youths -- and just society as a whole, with time and death virtually obsolete. Death was just a "thing of the past", something taught in history classes at secondary schools and forgotten about shortly thereafter.

Lindsay liked to think herself considerably humble for a scientist in this day and age, but she did her race a great favour. She was teaching them a lesson. And not in a villainous style -- though it may not have been perfectly ethical -- so how could Claude in his right mind want to end the operation? It was the perfect end to perfection, not that she believed the world was perfect. Sure, war was no longer fought by thousands of people and depression was seen as "done away with", but Mother Nature has refused to yield to the hands of humanity's greatest minds. What would perfection be if not true superiority to and control of the Earth and its nature? We conquered our nature to die, to fall ill -- and it was not enough. "So let us fall back in time." That was her rebuttal to her partner and coworker of an unknown many years. "Let us start from the very beginning so we can regrow in another, in a better direction. So that we may conquer Earth."

A soft knock on the bedroom door was a harrowing call back to reality. She wasn't ready to return. And Jason could sense it. He opened the door gently, cooing his beloved's name as a parent their child's. But his call fell on selectively deaf ears -- Lindsay had withdrawn so far into herself, she didn't fell the pinch of her desperate decision in her thigh. All she saw was the ceiling erasing itself. "I... will... I will fall back in ti-time. I am Mother Nature."]

*The section within [] is my rushed ending to this short story. I had totally forgotten about it, so yeah.*