The Scheduled End

The machine has never missed a single second. It sees the decay before the

cells even fail. People called it a miracle at first. Now,

they simply call it the Clock. It rules us. Mothers check their children’s expiration dates

nightly before bed. CEOs plan mergers around their final heartbeats. It brought a

terrifying order to the chaos of mortality. But order is just a heavy

cage. This morning, the screen flickered as I walked past the terminal.

My name appeared in cold pixels. My time was set for exactly noon today.

I checked the code, but the logic was flawless. I sat by