Each "Mini-Death" tale is separate. They're flash fiction stories based on an individual result from the Machine of Death, and were written as "thank you" stories to people who wrote a review of This is How You Die when it came out (the second Machine of Death anthology). The only commonality in all the stories is that the characters have taken the test and learned how they will die - though, as always, the machine isn't necessarily clear on what it meant. "Pump Malfunction" can be a heart attack. "Cancer" can mean getting murdered by someone born between July 16 and August 15. The endings of each mini-death tale generally leave the character or the reader at the point of understanding what the slip really meant.