Immortality is the birthright of youth.
The young are going to live forever, and they know it. When you're young, you can cut your hand with a dirty piece of bottle glass from the town dump, and it's okay, because you're going to live forever. There will be no pain and no blood. There will be no regrets. You can lie to your best friend, you can steal the very substance of his dreams, and pay no price, because you're immortal.
When the shadow finally sweeps you up in its slow omnipotent crawl, it is not life that you are leaving behind. It is youth. It is the immortality of belief, of knowing that you can cut your hand, you can kiss a girl, you can steal from your blood brother and never pay a price.
How many of us go our entire lives and never see the evil that waits for us under our skins, behind the thin veneer of neckties and fingernail polish?