none but the lonely heart

chapter two

It's on this fateful day at 2:53 AM, when Death-Cast calls Queensland Symphony Orchestra concertmaster Brett Yang to deliver the warning of a lifetime: he's going to die today. It's as simple as that—you get the call, you die within the next twenty-four hours.

2:51 AM is when Brett jolts awake from his reverie-filled sleep and grasps reality: the darkness, and also the second movement of Shostakovich's Symphony No. 11 blaring at full volume—the widely-known ringtone so many live in fear of. 2:51 AM is when he jolts awake from one dream and is cast aside into a nightmare of another one.

His blood runs cold—dear god, but he knows this symphony, that ringtone, all too well; through the countless times he's performed it in orchestra, heard it on television. In those times, he'd never thought that he'd ever be unlucky enough to be on its receiving end.

He sits up abruptly and shoves aside the blankets, reaching for his glasses, his hands almost trembling from the sheer terror of it all—no one wants to receive a call like this, and nor does Brett. Here he is, though, a few feet away from a phone that Death-Cast is trying to reach him through.

His world freezes to a full stop right then and there, fear seizing his chest and forcing his heartbeat to stutter. This can't be happening.

It's purely consternation that keeps Brett unmoving—and a sense of foolish hope, too. Who knows, maybe if it rings there unanswered long enough, Death-Cast will realize they've got the wrong person and it'll go away. Maybe he still has a chance to live the rest of his life untroubled after all.

(Death-Cast call mix-ups aren't customary, he knows deep down, but for the sake of his own peace of mind, he pretends he doesn't know. He'll keep hoping foolishly for the time being.)

He waits, and he waits a bit longer, willing the call away, but it doesn't go. But of course it doesn't—Death-Cast call mix-ups aren't customary, and once Death has chosen its target, it doesn't change its mind.

2:53 AM is when Brett loses the battle. He inevitably reaches for his phone and presses answer, holding the phone up to his ear, his heart in his throat. He won't even bother with pushing the fear and remains of sleep out of his voice. "Hello?"

"Hello, this is Carla from Death-Cast calling to speak with Brett Yang."

It hits Brett at this moment, why Conductor Fritzsch suddenly postponed the orchestra's upcoming concerts and opened the position for concertmaster—his position, the very one that holds up his entire career. God, but he's shaking—this is what Death does to its prey: it takes what he thought he could have forever before consuming him whole for all eternity.

He must have been spacing out and letting his terror splinter his heart, because the Death-Cast employee on the other end speaks again. "Brett, kindly confirm that this is indeed you."

"Yeah. Yeah, it's—it's me," Brett responds, stumbling over his words, his breaths shaking. "I'm Brett Yang."

"Brett, I regret to inform you that sometime in the next twenty-four hours, you'll be meeting an untimely death. And while there isn't anything we can do to suspend that, you still have a chance—that is, all of today—to live."

No. This can't be happening. This can't be real.

Carla drones on with a lengthy speech about how life isn't fair, about death, telling him to log on to the Death-Cast website—and the like, verses of a script probably burned well into her memory from years of call-making and death-notifying. Brett, frozen with fear as he is, can only listen in silence.

"And Brett, on behalf of everyone here at Death-Cast, we are so sorry to lose you. Live this day to the fullest, okay?"

We are so sorry to lose you. It never fails to leave Brett in awe—we're sorry, she says, but it's not there in her voice; not an ounce of genuine regret for an unfulfilled life ending and leaving the Earth all too soon?