Death Day

Chapter 3

11.36....

She stared at the clock in disbelief. It must be slow.

She picked it up and gave it a shake. It must have been wrong, slow.

Amy Baker stood up, the bed creaking as she did, and retrieved her battered old Minnie Mouse watch from the drawer.

11.36...

She shook her head unconvinced, making her way to the bedroom window, pulling back the light drape, and stared dumbfounded at the town clock that stood right across from her apartment.

11.37...

No. It couldn't be. She was shaking now, her hands, her legs, and her breathing was becoming frantic. She tore into the living room, retrieving her 'Death Day' Letter from the plant pot by the window. She never really understood why she chose to hide it there but at least she never misplaced it.

The paper itself showed the passage of time, dog eared and the folds heavily indented due to continuous folding and unfolding over the years. Despite knowing every word, every number by heart Amy baker still had to look. Maybe, for the last 15 years she had been reading it wrong.

But the numbers and the words were the same ones she read in infinite amount of times.

Death Date of Amy Baker: September 3rd, 2089, 11.33pm

Was it a time zone issue? Had the letter originated from another country and in fact the time was perhaps 'ahead' of time? She checked the letter thoroughly finding the 'return address' was for a company right here in the UK. That put paid to that theory.

Her mind was swirling now, and she felt physically sick. There had to be a reason. Was it because she was home? Was she supposed to be somewhere else? The apartment could be a health hazard sometimes with the damp and the faulty electrics, but it was hardly an accident hot spot.

She grabbed her coat from the hook and without even thinking about footwear, plodded down the flight of stairs, out the front door, and into the alleyway, only realising her mistake when she stepped in a puddle.

She stared up at the sky. What was she waiting on? A meteor to fall from the sky and crush her? Lightening? Amy Baker hurried out into the street, which was all but deserted now, apart from a few stragglers leaving the pub down the street.

Glancing left and right she waited for a sign, or something, anything that would cause her death. No traffic. No random murderous strangers. No unnatural weather. Nothing.

Was she already dead? Was that it? Had her soul just...stayed?

She caught sight of a lone man leaving the pub, staggering towards her she shouted.

"Hey Mr! Mr? Can you see me?"

The man looked at her as if she was out of her damn mind.

"Course I can see you ya daft mare. I'm drunk not blind. Although, now I see two of you." He chuckled to himself as he swayed past her and into the night.

She stood rooted to the spot for what felt like an eternity, waiting for a death she was promised, a death that didn't come.

Around an hour later, soaked to the bone by the rain, freezing and shivering she trudged back up to her apartment, dejected, lost and confused.

She stripped off her wet 'Death Day Dress' and laid it on the radiator, turning on the heat, hoping she had enough in the tank to heat the place, as in preparation she'd let it all run low. She slipped on a raggedy old dressing gown – one of the few things left in the wardrobe – and sat on the bed. Never in her nineteen years had she expected to be experiencing this. Non Death.

She sat there, on the edge of the bed, for how long she didn't know, her legs numb and her head heavy as she stared at the blank wall ahead. Eventually she lay down, crushing her body into the fetal position and cried herself to a nightmare ridden sleep.