April 16, 2042.
This is the day you have feared and foreseen all your life.
April 16, 2042.
Today is the day you will die.
Of course, you don't know how; no one does. All you know is that the date tattooed on your wrist is the date you will pass out of this world, to whatever awaits you beyond.
On the appointed day of your death, you are taken into government housing. You spend the day eating luxurious meals and saying farewell to family and dear friends. At 5:00 P.M. on the dot, visitors are ushered out and you are subjected to the mode of death assigned to you in the papers printed at your birth. Only elite government officials have access to these papers, which is why no one ever has any idea of the cause of your death. There have been legends of rabid dog attacks, spontaneous combustion, broken-heartedness, and even laughing so hard that the victim choked and died. You can only hope you have been assigned one of the more pleasurable fates. You're eating breakfast and imagining all the nice ways to die-a sensory overload, maybe, where every cell in your body is filled with such immense happiness and enjoyment that you just explode-when your first visitors enter your room.
The day passes by in a blur of blissful entertainment; you laugh, you cry, you eat decadent foods until you feel you might burst. The day is perfect, and you want it to last forever.
But a perfect day is also perfectly exhausting, and nothing gold can stay.
At five o'clock, the last of your visitors meander out your open doorway, closing the door behind them, and you have convinced yourself that your death will not be brutal. You close your eyes and, and you wait to die.
But nothing happens.
Then your door clicks open.
Oh, good, you think, more visitors, even though everything in you knows it is entirely against government protocol and therefore, impossible.
Your eyes tell you that your instincts are correct, because the man standing before you is an utter stranger to you.
A closer look reveals a badge with the government insignia on it adorning his left breast pocket. This man is a government official. You wonder what he wants with you, and for a moment, he just stares at you.
"Hello, Echo," he says to you, and the way he says your name sends tingles down your spine. Then he launches into a speech that, based on the bored monotone quality of his voice, he has surely said more times than he cares to admit. "You have been told all of your life that on the date tattooed on your wrist, you will die. Some spend their limited lives cultivating a special skill, which, in short, makes them useful to the government. Thus, on the appointed day of their death, they are instead reaped for use of the government. But," and here he smiles and its essence calls out to you one word: evil.
This man is evil.
"But," he continues, "you have not been quite so busy. You have not made much use of your time, Echo, darling;" and his words are like poison to your ears. Your brain tells you to turn away, but your muscles just won't listen, and your eyes are riveted to this man, this horrid, evil man.
As you watch, he pulls out a hatchet, sharpened to a gleaming, tapered end.
"As a result of your cultural neglect, you will be nothing but an echo left in this world."
And he buries the hatchet in your skull, throwing it with such dexterity that your brains, before they are splattered on your pillow and the wall behind you, wonder how many times he has done this before.
