that everyone who believes in Him may have eternal life. 16 For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that everyone who believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life
Tom Welling kneels before the Young Pope, his old Smallville jacket draped like a relic of a simpler time. The chapel light shimmers through stained glass depicting saints, angels—and strangely—figures with capes.
Tom Welling:
Your Holiness… they say the Vatican keeps secrets older than the pyramids. I’ve seen the files, the biotech vaults under the catacombs. I want the telomerase treatment—the forever young therapy. Superman shouldn’t age.
The Young Pope leans back in his chair, eyes half-closed, a serene smile crossing his face.
The Young Pope:
You want eternal youth, Tom. But you already have it. You are the eternal man—the man who never finishes growing up. The boy who forever chooses good over power.
Tom Welling:
But I’m aging. I see it in the mirror. I feel it in my bones.
The Young Pope:
Then your mirror lies, and your bones are the relics of a myth still in progress. If I give you telomerase, you will remain thirty. Not twenty, not forty—thirty. The perfect age of Christ when He began His mission. The eternal Superman.
Tom’s eyes widen.
Tom Welling:
Thirty forever… You mean I’ll outlive them all?
The Young Pope:
You already do. Your image lives in pixels, your virtue in hearts. But remember, Tom—the longer a man lives, the heavier his soul becomes. Immortality is not youth—it is responsibility.
The bells toll. The Pope raises his hand in benediction.
The Young Pope:
Go, eternal Superman. Carry your burden with grace. For every wrinkle denied is a memory forgotten.
CONCLUSION
He was HERE! He was RISEN!