The community police station was quiet, sitting like a sleeping animal beneath the gray sky. The rain had started again—thin, whispering mist against the windows—by the time Mark, Leah, Cole, and Julian stepped inside.
Officer Marlene Beck glanced up from her desk as the four walked in, their faces drained of sleep and hope.
"You're the pool survivors," she said before they even introduced themselves.
Mark nodded. "We need your help."
Beck sighed, setting down her coffee. "I thought this might happen."
"We don't want press," Leah added quickly. "We're not looking for headlines or money."
"We want to live," Cole said.
Julian looked around the station's sterile interior. "We want to know if it's happened before."
"It has," Beck said quietly.
The room fell still.
"You believe us?" Mark asked.
Beck stood and gestured for them to follow. "Come with me. All of you. I'll show you everything."
ARCHIVE ROOM – 2:07 PM
The file room was cold. Boxes stacked to the ceiling. A flickering ceiling bulb hummed like a mosquito. Officer Beck opened a drawer and pulled out three thick folders bound in faded red tape.
"These are restricted," she warned, laying them on the table. "Technically unsolved, but internally—everyone here knows the truth."
Julian looked skeptical. "What truth?"
Beck tapped the label on the first file: Route 94 Bridge Collapse – 2004.
"Bridge accident," she said. "Seventeen dead. Three survivors. One of them—a girl named Rachel Klyne—had a vision. Told everyone the bridge would collapse before it did. They laughed. Called her crazy. She survived. A few others too. But then…"
"She started seeing the others die?" Mark asked.
"One by one," Beck confirmed. "Freak accidents. Like something was... correcting the timeline."
"Were they in order?" Leah asked. "Like... seat order or where they were?"
Beck nodded. "That's what we think. Proximity. Position. Chaos gives it a pattern, almost like a formula."
Mark flipped through the photos. Mangled cars. A man crushed by a falling sign. Another drowned in his bathtub. "So they tried to stop it?"
"They did," Beck said. "One of them even locked himself in a padded room with no sharp objects or electricity. He still died—choked on his tongue during a seizure. His body overheated. There was no explanation."
Leah's voice cracked. "You're saying there's no way to stop it?"
"There were rumors," Beck said slowly, tapping the second file: Eastwood High Gym Fire – 2010.
"This group figured out something strange. They tried skipping the pattern."
"How?" Julian asked.
"One kid realized if you save the person who's next in the sequence... you might cheat Death. Force it to skip you."
Leah's eyes lit up. "Like... steal someone's spot?"
"Exactly," Beck said. "But it doesn't always work. It has to be a full intervention. Not just yelling at them. You have to stop the moment—change their fate completely."
"And if you don't?" Cole asked.
"Death gets smarter. Comes back harder. You don't get a second chance."
Mark leaned over the table. "We need those reports. Everything. Photos. Notes. Any patterns. If we can find where Zoey was standing before she died—we can figure out who's next."
Beck studied his face. "You're serious about this."
"We've seen too much not to be," Mark said.
Beck opened the third file. This one was marked Flight 235 Terminal Incident – 1997.
"Only two survivors that time," she said. "Both died a year later in separate states. But they left a theory behind. Said it wasn't random."
"Then what?" Leah whispered.
"Memory," Beck replied. "That's what the girl wrote. That Death doesn't just follow bodies... it follows memory. It's tied to your awareness. The moment you start remembering where you were—what you saw—it comes for you."
Mark nodded slowly. "So by knowing the pattern, we summon it faster."
"Yes," Beck said. "But without the pattern, you have no defense."
Julian gripped the table. "So we're damned either way?"
"No," Beck said, locking eyes with them. "You're prepared now."
Outside the Station – 4:00 PM
They gathered around the hood of Julian's car, reports and printouts in hand.
Mark laid out a rough sketch of the water park layout. "We need to remember where we stood in line. Right before it happened."
Leah pointed to a photo of the entrance. "I was by the snack stand. Mika was ahead of me. Zoey was behind me."
"I was by the right turnstile," Julian said. "Mika ran ahead. I remember."
"I was by the lockers," Cole added. "Mark, you were with me."
Mark drew circles for each name. "Mika... then Leah... Zoey... me and Cole... Julian last."
"And four others we don't know well," Leah said. "But they're alive too."
Mark circled Mika's name. "First to die."
He slashed a line through it.
Then Zoey's. "Next."
He drew a line from her name to the others.
"Then who's next?" Julian asked, voice trembling.
Mark paused. His pen hovered.
"…Cole."
Cole went pale.