Death Certificate

You wake up to your alarm, set always to the same time, even though more often then not you wake up before it. You get up and have eggs and bacon, then get dressed. You check the time and see that you are on time, as usual. With satisfaction, you check the calendar, which hasn't changed, as usual.

You look in the mirror and brush your hair, your teeth and apply the little makeup you bother with these days, it never really mattered anymore.

The sun shone outside, as usual, the weather was nice. You make your cup of coffee to sit out on the porch with, enjoying the same birds that came around every day. Today they seemed to fly a little faster, but you don't think about it much.

You continue your day as you always do, slow and peaceful like clockwork. Making sure to leave things where you got them and not go too far out of your way for much.

Every day was the same, and although it might seem boring, it was what you were used to, and the fear of change was stronger than the fear of being bored.

You finish your day with usual dinner, steak and potatoes, always made to perfection, the tv played in the background, the only thing that changed was the shows you watched, but the time watching them never did.

You do your nighttime routine, taking off your makeup and washing your face, then changing into your PJs, and climbing into bed. Sleep takes over pretty quickly, one thing you are thankful you were gifted with.

The next day is the same as always, the morning starts at the same time and had the same thing for breakfast. You feel comfortable in your little world, you make your cup of coffee and sit out on the porch, something felt off that day though, the birds flew in the opposite direction, something they never did, and there were only a few of them instead of the flock.

You check the time to make sure you arent off schedule, and as always the time was right.

You don't worry about it much as you lean back into your seat, closing your eyes to enjoy the cool breeze of the morning. That's when you hear a strange noise from the side of the house. Concern flooded over you for what it could be, it wasn't a recognizable noise.

You try to ignore it hoping it would go away or it would just stop and things would be normal, but it never stopped, and curiosity never went away either, eventually you cant even relax like you want ti because you can hear this noise.

You get up from your seat to investigate what it could be.

Around the corner of the house is a hurt bird, one of the ones that fly by every day, his wing looks hurt.

At first, you're too stunned to do anything and don't want to bring it into your house so things could go back to normal. So instead you run inside and grab a box to put it outside, adding some rags in the bottom for it to be comfortable.

You don't bother with it for the rest of the day and instead, continue to your routine.

Soon you drift off to sleep, the same as usual.

The morning is the same.

The afternoon is the same, the birds were back to normal, which you give a sigh of relief to, and relax knowing things we back to normal.

The next day was the same, the waking up the food and the sitting outside, the birds went the same and you go back in as normal. As your watching one of your shows, you hear a new noise, your stomach drops as something else has changed. You cautiously investigate the noise, its a person on the street, something you haven't seen in a long time, the mailman.

He waves at you as you peer out your window at him.

You slowly put your hand up to wave back at him.

As he walks away, you go outside to the mailbox, mail for the first time in so long.

You open the door of the mailbox and reach inside, its a large brown envelope. Curiosity floods over. You wait until you get inside to open it, sitting down at the dining room table, everything has changed now, there was no going back.

You start to open the folder, your heart beats faster and faster as anxiety sets in. You pull out a single sheet of paper, looking it over, you realize it's your death certificate. But the cause of death is missing.

You sit there a long time just looking at it, trying to figure out how.

You eventually get up from the chair after what seems like a long time, suddenly the sky clouds over, which never happened before.

You feel slightly empty inside, you walk to the kitchen sink and wash your face to try and get some feeling back. When you look in the sink, that's when you see it, something new, something you never saw before, after all this time. There were bloodstains.

You rinse them off and then go to the living room, where you see more blood, which is strange.

You goto your bathroom to get some supplies to clean it, and that's where the mess it, the sink is filled with blood, there's some on the walls too like someone was trying to wash red paint off their hands. You work away to clean it, trying to not think about why or how it got there, instead just focused on cleaning.

You finish cleaning the living room and the bathroom, throwing out the rags you used, and getting back on track with making dinner, something that didn't change, though your mind was distracted by the thought of the blood and why it might be there.

The rest of your night goes smoothly, you change and brush your teeth, ready for sleep you goto your room, there's a lump under the covers, something else that never has been before, and the covers were a slightly different tinge, you gulp in fear as you pull the covers back. You stare at what's in front of you, fear washing over you but mostly confusion. How? You wonder as you stare at your own lifeless body.