Death date

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By the time my recollection was over, I was already at the apartment complex. The cold wind of winter swept by and made the "Apartments Available" sign in front of the complex swing. The last little bits of snow were still on the ground from where kids in the complex had piled it up or made snowmen.

My tears were dry, but my eyes still felt sore. As if had been up for days and needed to sleep.

"Aww."I looked up. It was the guy who was always smoking outside the front door.

"Your eyes are all puffy." He took a puff of his cigarette. "Were you crying?" He laughed.

I jammed my key into the lock and shoved the door open. I stepped over the threshold and let the door slide shut. I heard the reassuring "click" of the lock that put a wall between me and everything going on outside. I headed toward the elevator to see an "out of order" sign taped to the front. Great, I live on the seventh floor, with no elevator. I turned and started up the stairs.

On the fourth floor the window had been left open and a stray tabby cat had wandered in. I picked him up and set him on the window ledge, and he strutted over to the neighboring building and hopped down safely. I closed the window and latched the lock. I smiled, if only I had that freedom, the ability to not care, to not have to worry about dying. On the sixth floor landing I could hear a couple arguing in room 603, the room directly below mine. Great, I would have to listen to that all night. I climbed the stairs and walked to room 703, I shoved my key into the lock and turned it to unlock the door, but it didn't turn. I grabbed the door handle to test to see if it was open, and it was. I thought I remembered locking it this morning, but my mind has been so jumbled that I could have forgotten. I pushed the door open to see my room trashed, cabinets ripped open, TV gone, radio gone, and the mattress ripped off of the bed frame.

I rushed to the bed and reached under the edge. The little plastic bag that I stored emergency money in was still there, but there was something else, something that I hadn't put there. A note written on a little piece of white paper. I opened the bag and took out the piece of paper and read it off.

"The machine can be wrong. You must make this right. Trust no one, you do not know w-o -s w-rk--g w--h t--- g----m---" The last bit was written hastily, and was nearly illegible. Except for a letter ~V. and below that, T.D.D.A.W. I thought about calling the cops, but what was the point, the note was probably written by the freak who broke into my apartment and who doesn't like the idea of the machine. So I pulled the mattress back onto the bed frame and laid down. I fell asleep just praying, that whatever was going to kill me, would do it while I slept. Then I passed out, without taking off my shoes, fixing my apartment, or locking the door.