Book: Shadow over Innsmouth

... but you know how weak a person is.

Everyone stopped being afraid of death. She retreated. You lived forever, unless... you died in a war with other savages, unless you were sacrificed, unless you were bitten by a poisonous snake, unless you burned from a fleeting disease. In a word, unless something unexpected happened to you before the final relocation to the water. Now everyone was preparing not for death, but for a change in appearance and lifestyle. The fear has disappeared.