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The spirit had told him he would die before the day’s end – but he had not died. Instead, Bryan consulted with an oracle, which had put him in touch with a minor demon dwelling in the 307th plane of Hell. The demon helped Bryan to deflect his own true destiny, as conveyed to him by the spirit. Bryan held his breath as the sun set, then breathed a sigh of relief. He wondered that perhaps the spirit had meant the full 24-hour day, and so he fretted some more until the passing of midnight. He’d closed his eyes as the digital clock over his bed blinked from 11:59 until 12:00 a.m. He was still nervous for several minutes even after the clock had moved into the 12 o’clock hour – he wasn’t positive his clock was not reading fast; but by 12:15 he was overcome with elation. The curse had been broken – the oracle’s rite had paid off and the demon had deflected his destiny. Bryan took a deep breath and felt the life stirring inside of him – everything in the light sparkled and glimmered around him, every nerve tingled. He felt every hair on his body, every pore in his skin, the blood pumping through his veins. Bryan was alive and aware of his state of being alive in a greater and more clear way than he had ever felt before. The feeling was awesome, and he laughed out loud. He held his arms up over his head, he cried tears of joy. “I AM ALIVE!” Bryan shouted in the night, at the top of his lungs. Then the telephone rang. At first Bryan tried to ignore it; then he looked at it. It rang again, a third time, a fourth. Strange, he thought, the machine should’ve picked it up by now; but the machine wasn’t picking up. He waited; eight, nine, ten rings. Bryan finally picked up on the twentieth ring. “Hello?” he spoke.

“Bryan,” the voice on the other end of the line was trembling. It was his mother. “There’s been a terrible accident. Your brother and your father…” She could go on no longer and broke down with a mournful wail.

Bryan felt every cell in his body go numb. He dropped the phone and fell to the floor in despair.

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