Synopsis

Synopsis

Like any other winter morning, Hunter walks down to the heated pool in his complex as a part of his daily routine. As he is about to dive in a man reaches out and pulls him back away from the block and quickly walks away yelling “Check the water! Don’t thank me yet!” Hunter realises the pool heater isn’t working and is rock solid. In shock of what could have happened he starts to feel faint.

He stumbles back to his apartment. He sits down and turns on the news the take his mind off what just happened. He notices a red number (9125:04:53:02:03) above the reporter’s head, and comments to himself but then thinks nothing of it.

Ready for work and already on his phone, he starts walking. He finally looks up long enough to realise there are numbers above people’s heads. He thinks back to the reporter and in disbelief he stands there. He then goes up to people, swiping his hand over their heads and scaring them off and attracting unwanted attention.

At a pedestrian crossing it gets more intense with numbers everywhere. Hunter starts pushing through the crowd seeing if everyone has them. He runs to a parked car to see his reflection but sees nothing above his head. He stands in the middle of a busy business district looking confused and scared.

He runs to the hospital down the road. At the entrance an ambulance pulls in to carry out a young boy. Hunter stops to look with other bystanders. The boys number stands at five seconds and once hitting zero, the paramedic yells out, ‘we’ve lost him!” Hunter finally realises what the numbers may mean, a timer.

While running off, Hunter calls his girlfriend which goes straight to voicemail. He walks into an underground train station and impatiently waits for the next train to his girlfriend, Elisa’s work.

Struggling to comprehend, Hunter looks up at the TV in the train station and see’s the Mayor being interviewed for helping out the states engineering department solve ways of the eroding train tunnels in other cities.

Along with several others, Hunter gets on the arriving train. While silently going insane Hunter observes the people and their timers, determining whether it means it will be days, months or years for those people to die.

Unexpectedly the train lights turn off. In the darkness Hunter can only see the timers above all the countless people surrounding him.

In unison, the timers stop and quickly change to 10 seconds. He takes out his phone and tries to call Elisa. In the background others are yelling and crying. Finally Hunter says to himself, “Oh my god, don’t thank me yet.”  The timers disappear leaving only darkness and silence. The city is then shown from above viewing the collapsed train tunnel.

word count: 475