Archived: Happy Death Day by Quinn Fegel

“This world is pretty fucked up ain’t it?” I asked myself in the mirror. Typical that there was no response.

I felt numb, but I have seen this day coming for a very long time. I have not told anyone about this day.

My thumb rubbed over the neat numbers on my wrist. My death date. Everyone has the date of their death written on their wrists. Most people die when they are 80-90 years old. It has never been wrong.

My death date was set for 16 years old and some odd months, and today was that day. I smiled at the mirror.

Funny how I always saw all my flaws, but today, I see my beauty. Everything perfect about my face.

I don’t want this to feel like a suicide, dying hating myself and the world around me, no, I loved life. I just had to leave pretty soon.

Even my best friend doesn’t know the date. Telling someone your death date is a very touchy subject. You have to fully trust that person. It’s like telling someone you are gay

or trans.

I looked down at the perfect numbers again. The ones that never went away, and I

remember when I was little I tried to cut the date out.

The scars still stood there today. I wasn’t depressed, I just really didn’t want to die at 16. I am at peace now though.

I grabbed my bag and passed my mom in the kitchen. She was a sweet lady, but had no memories of anything. She doesn’t even remember that I’m her daughter much less my death date.

People usually celebrated their last day, but I wanted to go somewhere peaceful.

Somewhere where I wouldn’t have people wishing me a good afterlife.

I was supposed to go to school, but instead, I took the bus to the most beautiful meadow in the neighborhood.

I laid down in the grass and breathed in the fresh air. I was there for hours. Smiling up to the sky. It eventually went dark, and I fell asleep on the grass, accepting that this would be my last day.

The morning birds sang me awake. At first I was confused as to where I was, then slowly realized it.

I looked around and saw that I was still in the field, as alive as ever. I sat up quickly and started breathing hard, my mind going many miles a minute.

“Why aren’t I dead?” I asked myself in a shaky voice.

“Because you are immune” a male voice answered me. I jumped and twirled around, defenses high.

I saw a middle-aged man standing there, dressed in all black, and he had a gun to my head.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know what I did wrong,” I tried to say, but started bursting into tears.

He pulls out a device and scrapes my death date off my wrist, and blood came squirting out.

“You are just like your mother.” He said.

“My mother?”

“She was immune, we wiped her memory, and now she doesn’t remember anything but her own name.”

That’s why my mother always had a bracelet on and her memory was lost.

“What was her death date?”

“The same as yours. Sadly we are going to have to do the exact thing to you.”

He pulls out a device and jolts my brain with something before I could even protest. He wrapped my arm and took me back home.

“What did I do?” I asked in a panicked voice.

“Don’t worry miss, you just looked lost and I thought I would take you back home.”

I was confused until I realized he thought I didn’t remember anything.

I smiled and thanked him.

I remembered everything.

 

 

Bio: What drew me to my form of artistic expression? Writing is very therapeutic for me. Whether I am writing in my journal, writing a story, or doing writing for a school research paper writing has always allowed me to get ideas down on paper.