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New York July 23, 2020 Alano

12:00 a.m. (Eastern Daylight Time)

Death-Cast hasn’t called to tell me if I’m dying today, but I’m about to call people who will be.

In this three-hour outreach window, I’m charged with calling thirty Deckers. Every call should be done within five minutes.

There’s some cushion to go over, but not a lot. During quarterly meetings there’s always complaints from heralds, especially

the new ones, that five minutes isn’t enough, but the truth is if we allotted more time per Decker then Death-Cast would have

to expand the outreach window by another hour (as we already had to do in year two to support the demand), and that increases

the chances that someone could die before receiving their alert. Making sure Deckers don’t die unwarned is a herald’s one

job.

My contact list appears with all thirty names randomly ordered to ensure no one receives special treatment. Over the years, millionaires and billionaires have wined and dined my father, encouraging him to offer a premium service where subscribers pay extra to have their names automatically bumped to the top of the list.

“You’ll make a fortune off people buying time,” one billionaire said.

But my father refused anyway, telling him what he tells everyone else: “We are all equals in life, but we are never treated

that way. I can at least ensure the proper balance by making us all equals in death.” Then he always picks up the tab to prove

he doesn’t need to exploit anyone for more fortunes.

The first Decker on my list is Harry Hope. His last name is so beautiful, but so sad. The only hope he can hold on to after

my call is a long End Day. Our studies have shown that the average Decker is dead before 5:00 p.m., but Harry will have a

leg up on the others. I tense, stunned that I’m about to deliver this life-changing news, and I wish I had undergone training

with test calls like the others. That experience could’ve better prepared me than knowing every word in the handbook. As I

see Andrea Donahue already extending her sympathies on behalf of Death-Cast to her first Decker of the night and Fausto Flores

dialing his, I accept that I’m going to be the bearer of bad news and can only hope that he takes it as well as can be.

I click his name to get his phone number from his profile. As it’s ringing, I wish there was more information about Harry

Hope apart from him being a twenty-nine-year-old in Brooklyn and his emergency contact being his mother. I’d love to know

his interests, his dislikes, even a photo so he’s more than a faceless voice on the other line.

Then I hear his voice. “Hello?” He sounds surprised, which I’m not.

“Hello, this is Alano from Death-Cast calling to speak with Harry Hope.”

He responds only with some sniffling. I’m about to continue through the rest of the standard formalities before remembering

I need to confirm his identity.

“Is this Harry I’m speaking with?”

“It is,” he says as he begins sobbing for his life.

I want to validate his feelings, but the handbook recommends taking advantage of the silence while you have it. “Harry, I

regret to inform you that sometime in the next twenty-four hours you’ll be meeting an untimely death. While there isn’t anything

we can do to suspend that, you still have a chance to live.”

I click open another window that has information about today including the forecast, special activities, promo codes for different

Decker-friendly businesses, instructions for funeral arrangements, and more.

“Do you have any End Day plans in place? If not, I’m ready to present some ideas for you.”

“I can’t believe it,” Harry says, hyperventilating. “I can’t—I c-c-c-an’t believe it.”

He’s not in a place yet for activities. I have to de-escalate. “I know this is difficult news to receive, Harry, but it’s

all done in service to set you up for success while you still have time. How about we take a deep breath together—”

“It’s going to work,” Harry mutters. “I can’t believe it’s going to work.”

Hair raises on the back of my neck. “What’s going to work?”

There’s a lightness to Harry’s cries. Almost like he’s happy-crying.

I try asking again. “What’s going to—”

There’s a gunshot. I drop to the floor, hiding under my desk. I’m scared that we’re under attack before realizing the gun

was shot on the other end of the line.

Did someone kill Harry or did Harry kill himself?

I can’t believe it’s going to work , Harry Hope had said.

Was he talking about suicide? Is that why he was happy-crying?

Did I deliver good news?

The gunshot keeps ringing in my head. Did Harry already have the gun in hand when I called, or did he pick it up after knowing

he would die? I don’t know what he looks like, but that doesn’t stop me from picturing real brains being blown out of a skull.

I look up to find Andrea staring at me from her chair while still speaking with a Decker. Fausto is kneeling before me, offering

a helping hand. I stay under the desk, trying not to throw up or cry. Maybe I’ve gotten all of this wrong. Harry could still

be alive. The obvious alternative for why he would’ve fired a gun isn’t any better, but maybe no one was shot, he could’ve

fired a gun into the air, like a starting pistol for a race, but maybe it’s to celebrate his End Day.

“Harry, are you there? Harry? Harry, are you there? Please, Harry...”

I’m supposed to alert the authorities and his emergency contact, but it’s one thing to call people to tell them they’re dying. It’s another to call a mother to tell her that her son has shot himself to death.

I can’t speak.

I can’t breathe .

I’m having an asthma attack. I pat myself down, but I forgot my inhaler in my other pants. Am I going to die? Andrea was supposed

to inform me at the start of the shift if I’m going to die, but I don’t know if she even reviewed that list before jumping

straight to work. Fausto calls for help, and Roah rushes over, but they’re pushed to the side by my father, who is panting

hard. He grabs an emergency inhaler from inside his jacket, something he always carries on him after my tenth birthday, when

I didn’t have my inhaler and was fighting for my life during an asthma attack that we suspected might lead to death even though

I didn’t receive my alert.

I pump the medicine in between sobs.

My heartbeat is pounding in my head, but that single gunshot playing on a loop is louder. I had no illusions that Harry Hope

would die today, but did I have to hear it?

By the time I can breathe again, I wish I couldn’t after that unforgettable, haunting call.

12:25 a.m.

“You did all you could do,” my father says, resting his hand on my back as I sob into my mother’s shoulder.

We’re alone in the wellness room. No nature sounds or cold plunges or dance parties will make me forget that traumatic Death-Cast call. If I hadn’t read all six editions of the herald handbook I would be turning to it now for insights on how to recover from this, but there are no entries for the rare case of a Decker happily crying as they take their own life while still on the call.

“I didn’t do anything except give him clearance to die,” I say.

“This is not your fault,” Ma says.

“If he did indeed kill himself, it is because he was unwell,” Pa says.

We don’t know for a fact yet that Harry Hope died by suicide, but his final words support that theory.

In the past decade, Death-Cast revolutionized how everyone lives before they die and that includes suicidal people, some who

try proving our predictions—or lack thereof—wrong. But as we’ve continued gaining trust with the public, there have been fewer

suicide attempts as people fear what will happen to them when—not if—they fail. We can only hope this continues so suicide

isn’t a leading cause of death in this country like it still is today, doubling the amount of homicides. The downside is that

there’s been an increase in self-harming as a coping mechanism during the so-called Not-End Days, a term coined by suicidal

people who are struggling after not receiving a Death-Cast alert.

When announcing his presidential candidacy on June 18, 2019, Carson Dunst pinned the rise of self-harm on Death-Cast.

“Outrageous,” my father said while watching President Page’s former vice president build his campaign by attacking our company.

“This nation, the very nation Dunst hopes to lead, has always failed to recognize suicide for the epidemic it is.”

Later that night, after composing himself, maybe even reckoning with some truth to the fact that Death-Cast might be responsible for the rise in self-harming, he told me, “My greatest wish is that by living, each and every soul will heal so they no longer await our call.”

That wasn’t the case for Harry Hope, who was told that he would die sometime in the next twenty-four hours and killed himself

three minutes after midnight.

“How about we get you to Tamara?” Ma says.

I shake my head. I don’t want to see the on-site therapist.

“How about Roah? They have more experience with this than we do.”

Before working at Death-Cast, Roah Wetherholt was an operator for a suicide-prevention hotline. If they have stories about

people killing themselves over the phone, I don’t want to hear them.

“Then talk to me,” Pa says. “I understand what you are going through.”

I rack my brain for a memory of my father speaking with a suicidal Decker who killed himself, but there’s nothing. “Your one

and only call went to a Decker who lived a historic End Day.”

“A call where a man was shot.”

That man was William Wilde, the first Decker in the Death’s Dozen, who was shot to death by a masked assailant in Times Square

while my father was on the phone with Valentino Prince. It’s upsetting, but it’s not the same thing.

“You don’t know that man’s voice,” I say. I knew Harry’s for only three minutes, but I’ll never forget it.

My father is about to argue, but he pulls back. “Let’s get you home if you do not want to talk with anyone.”

It would be nice to cuddle with Bucky until I fall asleep, or call my friends, but I have work to do. “I’m going to finish

my calls,” I say, quickly exiting the wellness center as my parents chase me down Herald Hall.

“Alano, stop,” Ma says.

“You are not working in this state,” Pa says.

I stop at the bottom of the escalator, enraged. “You told me to do this,” I say, pointing at my father. “What did you think

would happen? That I would only speak with one-hundred-year-olds who have lived long and happy lives? I was always going to

be scarred, you know that I can’t—” I stop speaking because there are cameras, and we have to watch what we say as a family

with many secrets. My father doesn’t need me to finish the sentence anyway; I see the guilt in his eyes for this pain he’s

inflicted on me.

“I am sorry I failed to protect you, mi hijo.” He invites me in for a hug, but I step back onto the escalator, heading up

toward the call center. He said before that I did all I could do with Harry Hope, but there are still twenty-nine Deckers

counting on me, and I need to make up for lost time.

If this is my only shift as a herald, I will make sure Deckers don’t die unwarned.

Even if that’s the last thing I ever do at Death-Cast.