I open my eyes and roll out of bed. I look down at the clock and gasp. No. It can't be. This wasn't supposed to happen. This never happens. What went wrong? My mind begins to reel. Maybe the date is wrong. I charge out of my room and turn on the news. There's the date. It's the same as the one on my clock. How can this be right? This has never happened before. They have never been wrong. Never. Maybe I've been reading it wrong and the date is off. Maybe I'm just looking at it wrong, or maybe something got on it and changed the way it looks. I run to the bathroom, grab a wet washcloth and frantically start rubbing at my wrist. After a bit I lift up the cloth and look at my wrist to see the same thing that has always been there. How do I fix this? Can I fix this? Maybe I did something wrong. I run back to the bedroom, grab the instructions, and read them over again. I read them multiple times but they keep on revealing the same thing. I followed all the steps to the letter but why am I still here? Why did I wake up today? I look back to my wrist to see that nothing has changed except that it's gotten rather red and irritated because of my incessant rubbing.
I stand still for a moment, in shock, trying to figure out what I should do. Then one thing clicks in my head. I've got to get out of here. I can't be found here like this. I can't be found alive. Bodies have gone missing from these rooms but never has someone who came here left of their own accord, let alone by their own two feet. Finding me up and walking around would be just unnerving especially sense I already said my goodbyes. I have got to get out of here. I grab my cloths and shove them back into my bag. I can't go out the door the will be watching that. Someone could see me and that would cause all sorts of havoc. I have to leave out the window and run. There is no way I can drive they would have taken my car by now. I take a deep breath and open up the window. I glance around the room where I should be laying on the bed cold and with a nod of resolution I climb over the window sill, onto the ground on the other side, and shut the window behind me. I glance around and not seeing another living soul in sight I take off running. I have no clue where I am going but I continue to flee. I fly past buildings praying that no one spots me.
I continue sprinting almost blindly while dodging through alleys, darting around buildings, and tearing over lawns until I run myself smack into the wall that is surrounding this city. I fall over backwards rubbing my head and groaning. Crap. I forgot about the wall. I have never had to worry about leaving the city before. I start to jog along wall praying to find a way out. I follow the wall for a stretch when I come upon the forgotten part of town. The buildings are run down, the grass dreadfully overgrown, the electric poles are toppled over, and the houses look horribly forsaken. If any place in this city had a hole in the wall for me to escape through, it has to be here. I desperately search the wall trying to find a crack to squeeze through, a hole to crawl through, or a spot where the wall has crumbled down low enough for me to climb over.
Suddenly out of the shadows a hand reaches out and grabs me. A scream begins to try and escape out of my throat as another hand clamps down over my mouth.
"Don't scream unless you want both of us to die." A gruff voice whispers in my ear. They take their hand off my mouth.
"Please just let me go. I have to get out of here. Something is wrong. They can't find me. I don't know what they will do or what will happen." By the end of this tears are streaming down my face. The person grabs my other arm, looks at my wrist, and nods. I glance up to see that the person holding me is a very stern yet kind looking man.
"Follow me." He says. He keeps a solid grip on my arm as he takes off dragging me along behind him. We weave through forgotten buildings until we come to a spot on the wall with a wood panel resting against it. "I've got one." He says while knocking upon the wooden panel. The panel starts to make a scratching sound while being moved aside to reveal a couple of people who look kind of like guards.
"Get back over here. You weren't supposed to leave. You know it's gotten too dangerous to look for others. They are searching for us now more than ever." They give the man holding onto me a steely yet familial look. They also shoot me a slight sympathetic one as they scrape the wooden panel back into place. "Get going." They say to him. "You know it's not safe for you to hang around here." They move to stand on either side of the hole in the wall.
"Come on." He says to me and before I know it I am being dragged away from the city. We sprint through a field and head toward some exceedingly dense woods. We break though the edge of the woods and keep running for a few miles. Finally he stops and let's go of me.
"What is going on?" I ask out of breath and quite terrified.
"I just saved your life. You're just like me and many, many others. Those bodies that go missing are just like you. They walked out. Some found their way here, some, sadly, did not and they were found and now really are dead." He huffed out.
"Just like me?"
"Yes, like you." He says as he holds up his arm. He unties the cloth that is wrapped around his wrist to reveal his numbers, which like mine are past date. I stare in disbelief. He reties the cloth back around his wrist. "There are many more like you and me. We refer to ourselves as the Expired." I look down to my wrist and stare at the numbers that have been there sense the day that I was born. The numbers that are on every person's wrist. The numbers which foretell the day you are going to die. My numbers expired yesterday. I wasn't supposed to wake up. I look up at the man who like me is "expired."
"I just have one question." I say and he looks at me curious. "Why did I wake up?"
