The First to Die at the End （Death-Cast #0）
Adam Silvera
Dedication
For those who’ve been with me since the beginning.
Shout-out to Nicola and David Yoon, my favorite neighbors with the biggest hearts. They show me time and time again what love should look like.
PART ONE
Death-Cast Eve
Everyone wants to know how we can predict death. Tell me this. Do you ask pilots to explain aerodynamics before boarding the plane or do you simply travel to your destination? I urge you to not concern yourselves with how we know about the deaths and instead focus on how you’ll live your life. Your final destination may be closer than you think.
—Joaquin Rosa, creator of Death-Cast
July 30, 2010
Orion Pagan
10:10 p.m.
Death-Cast might call at midnight, but it won’t be the first time someone tells me I’m going to die.
For the past few years I’ve been fighting for my life because of a severe heart condition, straight scared that I might drop dead if I live it up too hard. Then an organization called Death-Cast appeared out of nowhere and claimed they could predict when—not just if—we’re about to die. It sounded like the premise of a short story I’d write. Real life never hooks me up with wins like that. But everything got really real, real fast when the president of the United States held a press briefing where he introduced the creator of Death-Cast and confirmed their abilities to predict our fates.
That night, I signed up for Death-Cast.
Now I’m just hoping I won’t be one of the first to get an inaugural End Day call.
If I am, at least I’ll know it’s game over, I guess.
Until then, I’m going to live it up.
And that starts with attending a once-in-a-lifetime event: the Death-Cast premiere.
Death-Cast is hosting so many parties across the country, I think to lift people’s spirits and get them hyped about this program that will change life and death as we know it. They’re already underway in so many places, like the Santa Monica Pier in California and Millennium Park in Chicago and the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Ohio and Sixth Street in Austin, to name a few. Of course I’m at the best one—Times Square, the heart of New York and home to the first Death-Cast offices. I love my city, but you’d never catch me out in Times Square on New Year’s Eve—it’s way too cold to do all that. But I’m chill hanging out on this hot summer night for something so historic.
It’s wild how much bank Death-Cast must be dropping across the country. Or even in Times Square alone. These jumbotrons are always promoting a million things at once, everything from soda products to TV shows to new web addresses, but not tonight. Every screen has been replaced with a digital black hourglass with a radiant white background. The hourglass is almost full, signaling the End Day calls that will begin at midnight. But it feels bigger than that. It’s almost like the product that Death-Cast is pushing is time itself. That marketing is working because people are lining up to the information booths as if a new iPhone is on sale, all to talk to the Death-Cast customer service reps.
“Imagine working at Death-Cast,” I say.
My best friend, Dalma, looks up from her phone. “I could never.”
“For real. It’s like every call is saving someone’s life, but also, not really. How do you sleep at night knowing everyone you spoke to that day is dead?”
“I know you always got death on the brain, Orion, but you’re killing me.”
“I got death on the heart, technically.”
“Oh my god, I hate you. I’m going to get a job at Death-Cast just so I can call you.”