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New York Andrea Donahue

2:40 p.m. (Eastern Daylight Time)

Death-Cast cannot call Andrea Donahue, thank you very much.

Ten years, ten forsaken years Andrea devoted her life to Death-Cast, only for Joaquin Rosa to demean and terminate her in

front of colleagues, all because she exploited her power as head herald.

Allegedly.

Andrea is not delusional. She knows she is guilty of many crimes, more than Joaquin is aware of himself, and his investigation

will discover some, ensuring her incarceration, and the remaining crimes Andrea shall take to her grave. She doesn’t fear

death, but she does fear for her daughter’s future.

This is why Andrea Donahue is at a campaign rally, ready to tell the world her truth (even if her truth is built on many lies)

so she can not only exact revenge against Joaquin Rosa, but use her voice to help elect Carson Dunst as the next president,

all so he can pardon her if she is to be convicted.

Has there ever been anyone in this world more efficient than Andrea Donahue, a woman who has broken records at Death-Cast for most calls in a night and for leveraging her position by alerting not only Deckers of their fates but also the well-paying press? She thinks not.

Behind the podium, Andrea braces herself, her injured leg wobbling more than usual, triggered by a stage fright that is foreign

to her Broadway-bound daughter. Andrea is used to sitting behind a monitor and speaking with the dying over the phone, one

at a time, but she’s currently staring out into a lively sea of pro-naturalists, some of whom would’ve been extreme enough

to hurt her just last week when she was still employed as Death-Cast’s dutiful messenger.

“I was hired at Death-Cast before the first End Day,” Andrea Donahue says, reading her prepared remarks from the glass teleprompters

flanking her. She speaks about serving the company loyally for ten years before her wrongful termination. “Joaquin Rosa threatened

to have me imprisoned if I didn’t keep quiet, but our country deserves the truth about what happens behind closed doors at

Death-Cast.”

She does not possess the charisma of a politician, but she earns cheers anyhow because this crowd is not exclusively made up of pro-naturalists who simply wish to live as all did before the age of Death-Cast, but also Death Guarders who are out for blood. Andrea only makes these extremists thirstier by speaking of Joaquin’s outburst when firing her. “He toyed with every herald, demanding that we forget Alano’s name and existence, all because someone raised the valid concern that the heir he was grooming to take over couldn’t even function in the call center as we have, night after night, year after year. Joaquin made me the scapegoat to intimidate the other heralds. If he was willing to terminate a veteran like me, then no one was safe.” She shakes her head, as if disappointed, when truly she wants to smile over how much this crowd is eating up her speech.

“If Joaquin wants to use his ‘inexhaustible power’ to imprison an innocent woman, then I will make sure I’m guilty of the

crime, because I will not be bullied into protecting company failures when innocent lives and deaths are at stake!” Andrea

couldn’t care less about Deckers, but that line prepared by Carson Dunst’s speechwriter elicits more applause, as if Andrea

is yet another champion of the pro-natural movement when in fact she only cares about these idiots because they’re voting

to give Carson Dunst pardoning power. “A brave informant shared this intel about Alano because they refuse to be silenced

by Joaquin’s intimidation tactics. If he wanted our loyalty, he should have respected our humanity.”

Andrea is reaching the end of her speech and now has to bring it home by speaking about the truest thing about herself. “Over

the past decade I’ve been asked why I worked at a company as unnatural as Death-Cast. The answer is simple: I live and breathe

for my daughter, Ariana, and I will do whatever it takes to grant her the best life possible.”

Not that anyone asked, but Andrea Donahue’s dream End Day is to sit in the front row for a Broadway show that her daughter

is headlining. How special would it be to see Ariana’s name lit up on a marquee? There are no words. And after Ariana is done

performing and taking her final bow of the night, then Andrea could die in peace.

But Andrea doesn’t need to play the game of Death-Cast like the thousands of Deckers she’s called over the years to live her best life. That will come with Death-Cast’s downfall.

Andrea points at the center camera, as prepped by Dunst’s political advisers earlier today. “As for you, Joaquin, you may

be a protector of your son’s secrets, but you better make sure your own skeletons are buried deep because we all have shovels

and are working hard to dig up everything you’ve been hiding from the world, especially Death-Cast’s dark powers.”

As the audience cheers for Andrea, she heads toward the stage’s exit, snaking around Carson Dunst. “Pardon me,” she says,

trading winks with the next president of the United States.

Then she basks in the chants for the death of Death-Cast, knowing she has played her role in destroying their reputation,

but the true destruction is still to come.

For a decade, Andrea Donahue encouraged Deckers to log on to death-cast.com to fill out an inscription for their headstones,

and now she is envisioning what that would look like for Death-Cast itself:

DEATH-CAST

July 31, 2010–July 31, 2020

Good Riddance