Notes

Persephone woke up to the sound of beeping and clamoring. She looked back at her mother whose clothes were soaked with blood after just birthing her. The smell of alcohol and bleach confused her fresh senses. She saw the doctors injecting a green liquid into her with a dark syringe that had a matte finish. The bright white lights faded with the white walls as black blobs clouded her vision and an all consuming void ended it all. Persephone blacked out.
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A proud 10 year old Persephone walked into her parents’ large bedroom. They lived in a large ranch in a prime location, Rolling Beach Estates. She ran up to her parents with a huge toothy grin on her face. Persephone held the orange envelope to her parents' to catch their attention. Her dad, named Griffin, swatted her hand away and grumbled, “I need to work Persephone.”
“But I want to show you my grades!” complained Persephone
“Ok, but be quick,” Griffin said clearly annoyed.
Persephone slowly opened the orange envelope, which Griffin noted to himself to have been already opened, presumably by Persephone in excitement. She dramatically pulled out the paper with a grid full of A’s. The next day, Persephone climbed into her mom's car, sleek black Teslap, triumphantly. The car hummed as it drove and as it approached a hyperloop tunnel, Olivia, her mom, asked why she was so happy. Persephone explained her straight A’s and Olivia congratulated her. The car rose out of the hyperloop tunnel at 700mph and slowed down back to the 60 mph speed limit that governs the streets. “Have a fun day at school!” Olivia told Persephone as she handed her a brown paper lunch bag. Persephone grabbed the lunch and strode out of the car, into the hallway. She walked straight into the 5th grade biology class. An instant aroma of crayons and pencil lead filling her nose. She sat down in her dark green plastic chair, and took in the bright colors like sky blue and mint green that lined the classroom room walls. The lesson was on chromosomes. Mr. Smith, the biology teacher, handed out the class worksheets and told everyone to keep it for later. Mr. Smith jumped right in. He started off by drawing a sketch of a chromosome on the Samsung 200 inch touch screen monitor that served as the class whiteboard, at least that’s what the school called it, but Persephone had no idea what a whiteboard is. He finished the X-shaped diagram with tips. Mr. Smith explained that chromosomes are like containers for DNA and they send instructions throughout the body. He pointed at the tips, which he had colored red to contrast against the body he had represented as green, and explained that the tips of the chromosomes, called telomeres, contained the DNA and would shorten after every split. As the telomeres shorten, cells regenerate more slowly and, as time passes, cells would start dying faster than they could regenerate. This is the cause of death, Mr. Smith explained, and that’s why we have been injecting nano-bots into everyone at birth for the past few centuries. The class was stunned at this bombshell that Mr. Smith had dropped on them. He paused for a moment to let the students soak the information in and continued to say that people with good memory might remember the green liquid that was injected in them at birth. It was a serum that contained nanobots that would repair the telomeres.
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Persephone tapped her fingers on the steering wheel to the tune of her favorite song as she traversed a sharp turn. She entered the hyperloop tunnel that led out of the John Hopkins University Campus. Persephone was attending her second year of medical school at John Hopkins with the ultimate goal to become a doctor. She was excited to be going to her bi-annual doctor checkup; She was going to meet her heroes! Her matte blue car hummed out of the smooth white hyperloop tunnel, and onto the slippery neodymium and ferrite magnetic roads. The magnets supported her car with nearly no friction and a perfectly smooth riding experience. She wished that roads were magnetic when she was younger, the invention was very convenient. Memories of her 16 year old self failing the drivers test on asphalt flashed into Persephone’s mind. She wished that magnetic roads had been a thing back then, had it come a year earlier, when she was 16, she would’ve passed the test with no injuries concerning crashing. Magnets were very easy to drive on. Persephone pulled up to the parking lot in front of the hospital and quickly unbuckled her seat belt. She opened the large white metallic doors of the hospital, and hurried to the receptionist’s desk which had plexiglass dividers, remnants of the pandemic that occurred in 2019. The receptionist told her that she would have to wait for one hour at the waiting room before she could meet her doctor at room 808. Persephone thanked the receptionist and strode to the waiting room. After an eternity, at least that’s how Persephone perceived it, a nurse ushered Persephone out of the waiting room, and into the doctor’s office. Dr. Brown ushered her in and started measurements right away. After taking Persephone’s blood samples Dr. Brown left the room to study the samples. Persephone was fascinated by everything Dr. Brown was doing. Because she was in her second year of medical school, she was learning how to diagnose and interview people. It was exhilarating to see all the tricks being applied and she could, for the first time, understand everything that was going on and why. When Dr. Brown returned, he had a grim look on his face. He pulled up a chart of a chromosome, much like the drawing Mr. Smith had made. It had a green ‘x’ body with red tips. Dr. Brown pointed at the red tips, “Persephone, I’m sure you know that telomeres are being fixed by nanobots to ensure immortality.” Persephone nodded to indicate that she understood. Dr. Brown continued, “I know that this is going to be a major blow, but...” Dr. Brown sweated and fretted around. Persephone knew he was very nervous and what was coming up was going to be very negative. Dr. Brown finally said, “Persephone, your nanobots are failing, you’re going to die.”
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Persephone was cheering at the graduation ceremony for her fellow classmates.