Four Hundred Seventeen Warnings

There are exactly 417 notifications on my phone, and not a single one of them is an invitation to brunch.

I stare at the screen of my iPhone 15 Pro, the blue light etching lines into my retinas in the grey 6:00 AM gloom of my bedroom. The phone is a heavy, vibrating slab in my palm. It feels like a structural stressor—a point of failure in an otherwise perfectly balanced system. As an insurance adjuster for high-value structural damage, I think in loads and balances. I think in points of collapse.

Right now, the collapse is digital.

Most of the notifications are from Instagram. Tags. Mentions. Direct messages from people I haven't spoken to since my Spokane days, people who shouldn't have my current handle. My thumb trembles as I tap the top notification. It’s a link to the Oakhaven Gazette.

The headline doesn't just hit; it detonates.

OBITUARY: ELARA VANCE, 32.

I stop breathing. The air in my lungs feels like it’s turned to lead, cold and unyielding. I read the first line, my eyes darting across the screen like trapped birds.

Elara Vance passed away early Tuesday morning at her residence in the Indigo Lofts. The cause was determined to be intentional carbon monoxide inhalation. Known for her meticulous work in structural forensics, she leaves behind—

The phone slips from my hand. It thuds onto the Egyptian cotton duvet, the sound muffled and soft, but in my head, it’s the roar of a building coming down. Tuesday morning. That’s today. Intentional carbon monoxide inhalation.

Suicide.

But I’m sitting here. I can feel the scratch of the wool throw at the foot of the bed. I can smell the lingering scent of my expensive Diptyque Feu de Bois candle—the one that smells like a forest fire, a scent I find comforting for reasons my therapist says are problematic. I am alive.

"What the hell is this?" I whisper. My voice sounds thin, like dry timber ready to snap.

I grab the phone again, my fingers slick with sudden, cold sweat. I need to call the Gazette. This is a mistake. A sick joke. Maybe a hack. Oakhaven is one of those tech-forward 'Smart Cities' where everything is interconnected, and hackers love a challenge. I find the number for the editorial desk and hit dial.

The screen flickers. A glitchy green line stabs through the white background. Then, a black box appears.

ACCOUNT TERMINATED: USER DECEASED.

The call ends before it even rings. I try again. Same box. I try to open my contacts. The app won't launch. I try my email. Nothing. The phone is essentially a brick, a very expensive, very terrifying paperweight.

Okay. Deep breaths. Compartmentalize. That’s what I do. I take the chaos of a collapsed warehouse or a fire-gutted mansion and I break it down into line items. Foundation. Frame. Electrical. Trauma.

I move to my desk and flip open my MacBook. It’s a reflex. The laptop is where my life lives. The biometric scanner glows, waiting for my index finger. I press it down.

The scanner turns a deep, bruised red.

UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS. BIOMETRIC MISMATCH.

"No," I mutter, pressing harder. "Come on, you piece of garbage."

I try my middle finger. My thumb. The red light pulses like a heartbeat. A small window pops up in the corner of the screen: This device has been locked per the Digital Estate Protocol. Please contact the Oakhaven Municipal Probate Office for access.

The Digital Estate Protocol. That’s for when people die. It’s part of the new 'Efficiency Legislation' Julian Thorne pushed through last year. Everything is supposed to be seamless. One death certificate and the city’s servers begin the process of shutting down your digital footprint to prevent identity theft.

Except I’m not a digital footprint. I’m a person.

I stand up, my chair scraping harshly against the hardwood floor. I need to get out. I need to go to the police station, or the bank, or Julian’s office. Julian is my mentor. He’s the one who brought me to Oakhaven. He’ll know how to fix this. He has 'main character energy' in this town; people listen when he speaks.

I grab my North Face jacket and my keys from the nightstand. I don't bother with makeup. I look like a hot mess—pale, hair a bird's nest of dark blonde tangles—but I don't care. I just need to see someone who knows I'm me.

I reach the door of my apartment, my hand going for the smart-handle. This handle is supposed to recognize my heat signature, the specific way my grip closes over the metal.

The handle doesn't turn.

Instead, a small LED screen embedded in the door frame glows to life. It’s the same grey as a tombstone.

PROPERTY RELEASED. PROBATE PENDING. STATUS: VACANT.

"Are you kidding me?" I yank at the handle. It’s locked tight. The smart-lock system is part of the Indigo Lofts’ 'SecureLiving' package. You can’t even pick these things. They’re controlled by the building’s central server.

I feel a surge of delulu hope. I have a physical override key. I keep it in a small magnetic box hidden behind the fire extinguisher in the hallway. I reach through the mail slot, fumbling until I find the box. I pull it in, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs.

I slot the key into the manual lock and turn.

It moves, but there’s a resistance I’ve never felt before. A low-frequency hum vibrates through the key, traveling up my arm and rattling my teeth. It’s a sound I’ve heard once before—during an audit of a condemned skyscraper in Seattle. It’s the sound of a structural integrity override.

I shoulder the door open. It groans, the hinges fighting me, but I’m stronger than a computer program. I burst into the hallway, the air in the corridor feeling unnaturally still.

The hallway lights are usually a warm, welcoming amber. Today, they are a ghostly, dim grey. As I move toward the elevator, the lights follow me, dimming further as I pass, as if the building is trying to erase my presence in real-time.

I hit the button for the elevator. Nothing happens. The digital display is blank.

I take the stairs, my boots echoing like gunshots in the concrete well. By the time I reach the lobby, I’m gasping. The concierge desk is empty. Usually, there’s a guy named Kevin there, a kid who’s always doom-scrolling through his Instagram or talking about his latest BeReal. Today, there’s only a tablet propped up on the marble counter.

The tablet screen is bright. It’s displaying the Oakhaven Gazette.

I walk over, my hand trembling as I touch the screen. It’s my face. A professional headshot I took for my LinkedIn profile last year. I look confident. Competent. Alive.

Below the photo, there’s a new update:

Police have confirmed that Ms. Vance left a digital suicide note on her Neighborly app profile shortly before the carbon monoxide sensors were triggered in her apartment. The note expressed deep remorse over 'recent professional failures' and 'unresolved family trauma.'

I stare at the words. Recent professional failures? I’ve never failed an audit in my life. And the Neighborly app—it’s the town’s private social network. I haven't posted on that thing in months. It’s mostly just people complaining about trash pickup or reporting 'suspicious' people who look like they don't belong in Oakhaven.

I feel a shadow fall across the marble floor.

I turn. Marcus is standing by the glass entrance doors. He’s the barista from The Grind, the shop around the corner. He’s always been a bit sus—too much eye contact, knows my order before I say it, always seems to be watching the clock when I walk in.

"Elara?" his voice is a jagged whisper.

"Marcus, thank God. Something is wrong. The Gazette, my phone, the door—"

He doesn't move toward me. He actually takes a step back, his hand fumbling with the phone in his pocket. His eyes are wide, the whites showing all the way around the iris. He looks at me like I’m a ghost. Or a monster.

"You're supposed to be dead," he says. His voice is flat. Not shocked. Just... stating a fact.

"I'm clearly not dead, Marcus! Look at me. I'm standing right here. I need to get to the police station. Can you drive me? My car is locked in the garage and the app won't open the gates."

Marcus looks at the tablet on the desk, then back at me. He’s trembling now. He pulls his phone out. I see the Neighborly app icon. He’s typing something.

"Marcus, what are you doing?"

"The app says... if you see her, don't approach. It says she’s 'unstable.' It says she might be the one who started the fire."

The fire. My blood runs cold. The Spokane fire. The one from twenty years ago. The one my father made me lie about to save our lives. How does Marcus know about that? That information isn't in my file. It’s not in the audit.

"Who told you that?" I demand, taking a step toward him.

He fumbles the phone, and for a second, I see the screen. It’s a group chat. The header is 'Oakhaven Security Watch.' There’s a photo of me, taken from the lobby camera ten seconds ago.

The caption under the photo makes the floor feel like it’s liquefying beneath my feet:

Target sighted. Proceed with the final adjustment.

Marcus looks at me one last time, a flash of genuine, tearful pity in his eyes. Then he turns and bolts out the glass doors, locking them behind him with a remote fob I didn't know he had.

I run to the doors, slamming my fists against the reinforced glass.

"Marcus! Open the door! Marcus!"

He doesn't look back. He disappears into the morning fog, his figure swallowed by the grey.

I turn back to the lobby. The silence is absolute now, except for a sound I didn't notice before. A soft, rhythmic hissing. It’s coming from the recessed vents in the ceiling.

I look up. A faint, shimmering mist is beginning to curl out of the vents. It’s odorless. Colorless.

My structural adjusters’ mind finally clicks the pieces together. The obituary didn't say I died at 4:00 AM. It said I was *determined* to have died at 4:00 AM.

The obituary isn't a mistake. It’s a schedule.

And according to the Gazette, I have exactly zero minutes left to be alive.

I scramble for the concierge desk, looking for anything to break the glass. My eyes land on the tablet. A new notification has popped up on the screen. It’s a direct message on the Neighborly app from an account with no profile picture.

The message is only six words long.

I look at the screen and my heart stops.

The message says: Check the vents in the safe-room.