I wrote this four days ago when I was slightly suicidal. Inspired by the show Flashforward, particularly Demetri Noh.

Long story short: the entire world blacked out at the same time, and got to see their futures in a type of dream. Same day for everyone; all their stories match up. Demetri Noh (played by John Cho, of course) didn't see anything. He died that day, or had already been dead.

As the story went on, and Demetri lived past the flashforward date, things started happening. He got many close calls, and even had a murder attempt. I don't know what fucking happened to him because Flashforward got cancelled after the first season.

Anyway. On with the story. It's a oneshot so don't ask for more chapters. And, spoiler alert: suicide.

Expired

I am expired.

I received my cease date--"kick-off date" as they call it--on my fifth birthday, before I even knew what death was. Two days before my sixteenth birthday, they said. Fat embolism. Incurable.

I lived the remaining ten years with my death stapled on my wrist: 3015. Incurable. Fifteen.

I reached puberty, and things moved forward steadily. Thirteenth birthday passed; my end was drawing near. I had no one. Both parents already reached, brother living on the other side of the world. No one wanted to be with a deadbeat. That's what they called us. Deadbeats. Those who never made it to eighteen.

By the time I realized I was different, both my parents had already been gone, and I was living in a house. A vacant lot, two houses down from the one my parents bought before they got married. In their will they had set me up with a group of other deadbeats. They didn't care if I had a roof over my head. No, they just wanted me to be with others of my "type". Maybe so I wouldn't be alone. Maybe so I wouldn't be indicted into a psych ward (as the majority of deadbeats do) and ruin the family name.

Three days before the ceasement. I was on the edge. I'd picked up a pre-historic drug from someone I met in group. It calmed me down in the sense that I was averted from reality; it hyped me up in the sense that I was on red-alert. I cleaned the house, scrubbing the floor, scratched my nails into my skin so often I had bruises and scars where I bled. My mind was a constant circle; but as long as it wasn't the premature-death-related constant circle, it was fine.

Two days. I lay in my bed, made of multiple baby blankets my parents had left me, and a coat I stole from the house next door. My eyes were wide and I stared into space, counting the minutes, the very seconds that my existence would come to an end.

One day. I begin to feel regret. I could have gone to the hospital. I could have found my brother. I could have enjoyed my last day on this planet, alive, trying to enjoy my life. I could have found love. I could have taken revenge. Yet I sat in the vacant house, shivering from the cold, fixing another dose so I can be "good" again.

I count the seconds. It should be now. Why isn't it now?

Hours later, I'm physically shaking, mumbling numbers to myself. I've gone way into the negatives. Negative 266. Negative 267.

Negative 2000 and I'm still alive.

Somehow I drift off into a deep sleep. On an unconscious level I believe I'm dead. I wake up when I hear a lonely bird chirping and sunshine pouring into the window. I look outside, up into the sky. I slept through my due date. Three days past my due date.

They had warned that it might be an estimate; "give or take a few weeks", they said. There were only about three reported cases of ceasing happening before the due date; there were millions that lived two, three years past.

Five years later, and I'm alive. Deadbeat no more.

In the millions of cases that survived their sure death, they all died tragically, many in pain. Before they could off, however, there was always something bad. One person in my group had an uncle that lived past his date; he caught three different contagious diseases in a single year. He had four heart attacks, three strokes, countless seizures, and spent the last year in the hospital. The only reason he died was because, as he caught pneumonia, he tore off his IV and escaped the hospital. He died in a sewer.

In the five years, I have not left my house. I have not seen medical attention. I have just been waiting. Waiting for my end, waiting to leave this world. And yet, I remain. I wake up every morning, and begin the countdown all over again. I lost count after negative twenty thousand or so. Instead, each day I start over from zero.

I am expired, and no one knows. I could go out to the world, preach that I'm still alive, still healthy as a horse, as they used to say.

I don't want to be a hero. I don't want to be a spectacle for all the world. I want my end to come. Soon I realize the only way I could do this was to end my life myself.

For days, I pondered over all of the options. Slitting my wrists. Stealing an old shotgun and shooting myself in the head, or in the chest. Or in the leg, and wait until I slowly bleed out. Go out on a stormy day, get struck by lightning. Or I could walk into any hospital, tell my situation, and they'd give me the pill without thinking twice. But that'd be clean. I want something bloody, disgusting. I want to shove it in the face of everyone that I am finally dead.

I start building my contraption. It takes two weeks, and many curious glances from the neighbors. They are watching; they will watch. They will be horrified.

A few months later, I climb onto my roof. Seven years exactly past my cease date. I tie one end of the rope onto the chimney--that was never used, of course. I tie the other end around my neck, loosely. I walk to the edge of the roof, and peer down. Only one story. Nothing spectacular. But the thought of being on display for the world gives me chills; I am ready.

I close my eyes, count down from ten. With each number closer to zero, I take a step closer to the edge. I look; there is no one out. I had planned this, to do it early in the morning, so it'd be the first thing people see.

I take a few steps back and close my eyes. I count down from zero, until I think I'm ready.

I run to the edge with all my strength, run off the roof as if I could run in air. The rope pulls, drops me, and I feel black come into my sight. I am expired no more.

AHG is finally finished. I never reached fifty reviews.