The sixteenth Fatality was surprised to find herself on a bridge, but that was where her appointment book told her to go, and thus, that was where she went. Not that she had a choice either way, but she didn’t mind, she liked the order, the predetermination of things. Car after car drove by, and she watched them, looking closely, knowing all the while that they couldn’t see her. A little after eight in the morning, she noticed a car moving erratically on the bridge. She watched as the car seemed to spin, and then crashed through the wooden guard rail and into the water below. She looked over the edge of the bridge as the car; front end first, began to sink into the depths. She peered down the road, waiting for another car to come, some passerby to notice the broken guard rail, someone to help the passengers. After a few minutes passed, she began to wait for someone entirely different.

Knowing that too much time had gone by for there to be a legitimate chance of rescue, she floated down to where the car had entered the water, looking around expectantly for the twelfth Fatality to come and bring a life to an end. He didn’t come. She started to panic, aware of the pain the people in the car must feel. She felt the familiar pulse of the appointment book as the realization began to overtake her.

“This is wrong. This is not how it is supposed to be,” she murmured, as she dove into the water, passed through the passenger side door of the car, and gently took the right hand of the young man, unconscious and bleeding in the front seat. Her icy touch went up through the fingertips, up the arm, and across his chest as it stopped the faintly beating heart.

She pulled herself out of the water, dry, but still shivering, and walked back towards the bridge to wait. For a Fatality, she hated the process of death. She had heard that she did not have the glamorous part, that there were various other beings that could comfort humans. Beings whose presence was welcomed, as they said their last goodbyes, or made the pain stop. That was not her assignment. Eventually, sirens blaring, the rescue workers came, and it was with a dull throb that she realized they were already too late by the time that she got to the bridge that day.

She had three other appointments that morning, all in hospitals, which was where she normally lingered. She knew some of the other Fatalities who spent time in hospitals, but was not in the mood to socialize with them, to tell them about her terrible day. She never truly felt like one of them anyway. Instead, she knew where she had to go, she just didn’t want to visit that place.

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