The blade was a good one. She pressed it with her thumb and it left a red trail in her pale skin.
    Disaster.
    The polished blade blinked up at her as she turned it under the white light.
    I tried.
    She couldn't escape from it. She had no other way out. What was there left for her?
    Silence.
    No one spoke to stop her hand. Her heartbeat was steady. Footsteps down the hall made her pause and she laid the knife down beside her.
    "I am looking for Amy Noble." The young man was closer now, but shouted out as if he knew the building was almost empty. She shifted slightly to look at him and he caught the movement.
    "Are you Miss Noble?" She nodded her head slightly. "Are you okay?" He nelt down beside her. She ignored the question and laid her head back on the wall behind her. He sighed.
    "I have a message for you." he paused. "Because of your law experience and intelligence, you have been asked to assist in raising our government again. After all the deaths, you are one of the most experienced left. I . . ."
    "I won't be here long." she interrupted.
    "Why not?"
    Abruptly her patience broke. She didn't need to deal with this, she didn't want to. "Go away! Get out of here, leave me be!"
    He looked startled. "I need to bring back an answer."
    She ducked her head and didn't answer. Her hair covered her face but she could still see him kneeling down beside her.
    "What's wrong?"
    Everything! she raged in her head. But her lips remained still.
    He sighed again and stood. Suddenly she had the urge to answer his question, to live once more, to try again. But then the weight of all that had happened came over her heart and mind again. She couldn't, she had tried already, several times.
    His footsteps started their retreat, and she slowly lifted her head. Words to call him back sprung to her lips, but she sealed her mouth. This was the only thing she could do.
    When the heavy door swung closed behind the messenger, something clicked inside of Amy's heart and mind. Her emotions were turned off, she was acting now on what she had thought about for almost a week. Her hands moved but she didn't feel the fear and hesitation she thought she would.
    "Good-bye." she said softly to the empty room.

Name: Amy Noble
Age: 29
Occupation: Lawyer
Death: 10:37 AM, suicide



Death surrounded her. Silence envoloped her and folded her slim body into a crumpled form.
    "Ahem." someone cleared their throat behind her.
    She didn't bother to turn around. "Go away."
    "I can't." Now she recognized the voice of one of the kids she used to play with when she was younger. He was the son of some sort of store owner inside the city.
    "Why not?" a trace of indignation showed in her words, despite the recent catastrophy.
    "I have a message to deliver."
    Erin's silence must have spoken loud. He stood, without speaking, but also without moving, near the door at the other end of the huge hall she sat in. A long, polished conference table ran the length of the room between them, and plush leather chairs lined the expensive piece of furniture like so many fat guards, uniformed and perfectly in order. Except for the general, at the head of the table, between whose arms Erin slouched.
    "The good news and the bad news are mixed together, I can't tell you the two separately." Sing wasn't giving up. Erin sighed but did nothing to stop him. Her eyes were still too red to turn around, in her opinion. Of course, no one she had seen since the catastrophy looked any better.
    But he didn't say anything. She pictured the smallish, skinny kid with a mop of dark hair perched atop his pale head. Knowing him as well as she did not, maybe he was waiting for her go-ahead. She didn't say a word.
    "This country needs you right now." his tone had softened into an almost reflective half-whisper.
    Anger rushed up inside Erin's body and she spun around in the chair and stood up, knocking the expensive chair back. He looked surprised and repentant, but only for a moment. Then he seemed to settle in to listen. Erin was also surprised by what she saw. Sing had grown up in the years she hadn't seen or heard from him. He was close to six feet tall, healthy, and filled out. Small glasses accented his asian face. His black eyes were calm and certain.
    "They need me?!?!? Why me? I wasn't the one who killed all those people. I am not the one who let that sect grow. I watched it--LIKE EVERYONE ELSE!! I am not responsible, why should they look to me?" Erin slammed her hands down on the table and stared at Sing. He didn't even flinch. Her palms stung, but she didn't move.
    "Because you are an icon. You led in peace, and they look to you in war. If you are not able, I give you permission to disappear. But you cannot choose when to be looked up to and when you don't want to be seen. That is the price of fame."
    "How was I supposed to know this would happen at the height of my career?"
    "You didn't. But neither did I. No one did. It is not our choice to determine the length of our life or when it occurs, only what we do with the life given us. Right now you are thrust into a position because of thr circumstances. You and I and a pannel of twenty other people have been chosen unanimously by the people of the continent of North America to lead. Every single one of our leaders are dead besides some twenty-year-old who was the mayor of Denver. The whole system is falling apart."
    North America had been plunged into war with the Union of Herrishion, a uniting of Russia, Mongolia, China, and Japan; back in 2056. They had aspired to take the world. In a fast caucus the UK joined the US, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, and India. Most everyone between twenty-five and forty had gone off to what would be a war lasting over eight years. Very few came back. Then the war-torn countries sat back to nurse their wounds. The Union had been stopped, but not without major losses on both sides. Whole border-lines of countries had been moved, and Brazil had almost been wiped off the map.
    Then came the Quan. They claimed to be an enlightened people, and their numbers grew alarmingly in the years after the war. US President Thomas Milton spoke to late in moving the crippled US military in on the settlements of Quan. They fought him, and won.
    Rule under the Quan was okay at first. Then some of their people started realizing what kind of power they held. They had access to any records, labs, prisons, anything run or kept by the government. Chaos and fear ruled, changing every day according to the whims of the stronger. Eventually one of the scientists who had remained neutral devised a way to get rid of them. Everyone over thirty, which comprised most of the Quan, was killed. The scientist himself was found dead in his lab with a note explaining what had happened. He had sacraficed himself in the attempt. How he had done it was still unknown and would probably remain so forever. That was a week ago. Mass graves had been dug for the millions of bodies. Whole hospitals remained still and untouched.
    Outside the floor-length window Erin could see the other buildings, mostly void of the busy, higher-level businessmen that had occupied them before. Some kids and students wandered around on street level. Cars had mostly been abandon for the time being because of all the wreckage caused by the deaths.
    "We have two choices. Either get ourselves collected and running again, or risk being taken by another country. We don't know yet how widespread this is. God didn't destroy us, so I have to think He let this happen as a second chance, one that we've recieved."
    Erin didn't believe in God, and ignored Sing's reference to Him. She got up and walked to the window. The whole world lay broken at her feet. So hurting, so desolate, yet so populated and needing of leadership. But then what had just happened to her kicked in again. Everyone who usually helped her, advised her, made her look good as a celebrity: they were all gone. Her parents, agent, teachers, everyone. Why should everyone look to her? She only had to deal with her own loss. She hadn't even fully taken hold of that yet!

Name: Erin Singer
Age: 19
Occupation: Actress
undecided




    "Mom, she's whining!"
    It was quiet for a second as the two troublemakers waited for their mother to turn around.
    "I don't care. You can take it."
    Sebastian looked at the back of his mother's head. She'd never given that response before.
    "But it's annoying!"
    "You control what annoys you and what doesn't, not her."
    The skinny twelve-year-old slunk down in his seat. His sister looked over at him, but he didn't look back. He was mad, and she didn't feel like making it worse. The hum of the car was the only noise that kept them company for a few minutes.
    Sarah looked out the window.
    "What's happening, mommy?" she asked, pointing to the underpass below them. Sebastian looked. Cars were wrecking, crashing into each other and hurtling off the road, onto other highways, where other cars already wreaked havoic on the serenity of the early-morning traffic. Their mother didn't answer. Sebastian glanced over and noticed their car was drifting. His mother's head was dropped to one side, her arms slowly sliding off the steering wheel.
    "Mom? MOM!!" Sebastian frantically unbuckled himself and grabbed the steering wheel, turning it and almost scraping an oncoming truck that would have smashed them. Other traffic was starting to collide and a car just ahead of them was hurtled off the overpass and into the chaos below.
    Sebastian kept his balance and steered through the wrecks, thinking all the time that they were going to die. Sarah was silent, her eyes wide as she watched her brother. The car was jolting and ear-splitting slams of metal against metal filled the air. Sebastian turned just in time to miss a piece of flying cargo, but it smashed through the back window, narrowly missing Sarah's head. Now nothing muted the sounds outside. Steel crunching iron, scraping against each other, crashing and smashing each other like tin cans.
    The end of the overpass came in sight, and soon they were on a road with fields on either side. Sebastian took the chance and swerved off the road, nearly rolling the car. He fell down as the car hit a ditch but kept going. Sarah screamed. Sebastian pulled himself up again and glanced out of the winshield in time to see they were headed for a huge brick building. He sat down and groped for his buckle. As he clicked it they were upon the solid structure. He had only a second to comprehend this, then the car impacted with the building.