'This is how the world ends. This is how the world ends.', Leilani thinks to herself, as she wakes up early that morning. This is the day, it's finally here, the day she has been dreaming ever since she was a child : she has dreamt of it so, so many times that she can tell every minute detail of it with her eyes closed. Just like in her dreams, she wakes up next to a stranger, one who's no less a stranger now, even though they've been dating on and off for the past couple of years. She'd always hated that about her, her ability to settle for less than she deserved. But it wouldn't have made a difference anyway, everything in this life was only meant to be temporary, she would not linger here for long. She gets up, and go and stands by the window. It's cold out, and she feels the cold on her skin. Good. She knows it's not a dream, the day she dies has finally come. It's cold, and bound to get colder. She dresses just as she's dressed in her dreams, a long black dress, black stockings, and a black jacket to keep her warm. Not that it would matter anyway, but she likes to observe these niceties. She packs up a pair of gloves in her handbag, and loops a scarf around the strap. She's ready, and she leaves she takes a good, long look at the place where she's lived for the past few months. She doesn't even say goodbye, just turns away and go.
She knows the trip down the stairs so well, she's made this very same trek oh so many times before, in her dreams. She goes out and into the streets, feeling aloof and strangely at peace. She'd gotten so used to dreaming about this day that living it at long last feels like just going through the motions. True, it's not every day that you die, but when has Leilani ever felt truly alive? Probably never. Maybe that's why she always felt distant from everyone else, and always disappointed when she allowed anyone to get close to her. But she also knew she gave nowhere near enough for anyone to want to stick around. It never really mattered, though, did it? She makes the long walk down the road she lives in, then a hop and a skip and she's getting to where she need to be. Everything is playing out just as she knew it would. Soon, she'd be just across the road, and when she crossed it she'd be in full view of the church. She knows what happens as soon as she's on the other side of the road, she knows the faces of everyone there : the haunted looking girl leaving by the door to the side, and then the couple who's close by, and for a moment it looks as if he's ready to propose; close by, two young kids walk hand in hand, and soon it starts snowing. The young girl, distracted by the snow, walks onto the road, and she's struck by a car. She will be witness to all this, and it sets a process within her that will end with a heart attack right then and there. She's just over twenty years old, and she's dreamt about this day ever since she can remember herself. It's finally here, she's ready.
But as she crosses the road she suddenly gets the feeling that something's wrong. Something's different. She looks up at a slate grey sky, thinking that soon she'll feel the kiss of a snowflake. But she notices the sky begin to open up, and it gets warmer instantly, unseasonably warm. This is not how things were supposed to play out, she knows. She looks at those stranger's faces across the road, the girl leaving the church is on her phone, talking spiritedly to someone else. The couple are engaged in conversation, and this time he does kneel down to propose. Her eyes survey her surroundings, everything is wrong. It shouldn't be like this. The young girl waltzes onto the road, and this time the car swerves just in time, missing her by that much. Leilani's heart hurts, it hurts a lot, but this is not the pain of someone who's about to have a stroke, rather, it's the pain of someone who does not want to be alive. This is wrong, she says. This is not how the world ends. She knows something is fundamentally changed, but what, and who could have changed something she knew to be true? Because deep down.... deep down she knows things were meant to have happened differently. Leilani feels dead inside, deader than dead, and she had never planned for life after not dying.
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