Death cheaters - Uncommon day
664 Words
Dan woke up in the middle of the night, covered in sweat, agitated and reaching for his watch.
Three eleven in the morning, his digital wrist clock shows.
Images from his dream come back for a second.
He smiles.
"So that"s how you"ll try to take me today huh? Well, happy sixth anniversary, my friend", he whispers.
Once again he saw it: his death. He"s been avoiding dying for six years now.
He almost died the first time. Dan couldn"t believe that he could actually see the future in his mind. Until saw the same small car coming towards him, the same ice cream van drifting desperately to not hit a small kid, the same old lady ran over by a police car, in the exact same way he did the night before.
He barely jumped away from the small car that killed him in his dream, just to be hit by a bicycle. He got out with just some bruises.
But saving his life has a price. He learnt that for every life you save, a life must be given. Every time he saves himself, he sees in his mind the death of someone else.
If he hadn"t jumped that first time, the old lady would have survived, and he would have died.
Right now, Death has claimed six years worth of lives that
shouldn"t´t have been taken. For six years Dan has cheated Death. For six years, Death has been receiving the wrong soul. And now she"s getting tired of it.
He draws a cheeky smile and falls back to his bed.
"Got you again", he mutters.
He falls asleep. No dreams anymore. Just pure darkness until his alarm wakes him up.
"A good day to laugh at your face, my dear Death", he says while messing his short red hair in front of the bathroom"s mirror.
The bags under his blue eyes have been getting bigger this last months. Work"s been hard. Sometimes needing him to stay after midnight. Being the first assistant of a high ranked software company"s director isn"t an easy job.
He grabs his black suit and heads for the office, just two big blocks away.
If he wanted, he could walk blind-folded for the next five minutes. He knows extactly what"s going to happen.
A white cat walks near him, he sees it. A little girl will fall from her scooter and brake an arm, he grabs her before she touches the floor.
Then, he stops.
"Watch out!!", a man screams from above.
A steel bar falls right infront of Dan. It came from the top of a fifty story building.
Dan smiles and walks over the bar. Whistling.
He involuntarily closes his eyes. Then he sees it, the other person. A worker from the top of the same building, he sees how he trips on a small tool and falls to the street, right where Dan is.
He opens his eyes and immediatly rolls away. He misses the man for a fraction of a second.
"What the f**k?!", he mutters while picking himself up. "You are playing dirty now, aren"t you?", he says.
Dan looks at the fallen man. His skull is cut open. His legs are all tangled. He"s not breathing.
He walks around the dead man. As he does, he sees something unusual in his face. His eyes move to wherever he goes.
He takes a couple steps closer to the man.
"Your life is mine, Dan", the dead man says.
Dan jumps back, riddled in fear. Then he runs at full speed untill he reaches his job"s building a few meters away.
He breathes heavily. His heart is beating so fast and hard, he can see it through his shirt. He"s arms and legs are shaking. He has never experienced this. He never had to fight for his life twice in one day.
Dan has to struggle in a different way, now that Death seems to have found a way to fight back.
- Writer
