“Fuck curfew!” You notice a group of boys huddled along the side of a convenience store. Perhaps high school age you think. The shorter one in the middle is going off about curfew as the others watch him finishing off his work with sidelong “C”. He’s painted along the stores brick wall, depicting of one of them shooting themselves. Bits of metal spraying out the other side with the word “Justice” in bold red letters, dripping with what you can only assume the artist wants to look like blood. Clever… you’re guessing around 5 strikes for that one. One of them looks up at you watching and you quickly avert your gaze. “Stand the fuck up for yourself!” He screams from across the street. “Reap the Reapers!”

Note to self, keep your hood down low when passing idiots on the street. Your not getting held up by a bunch of teenagers looking for trouble. Forget taking strikes for them. Just thinking about it makes the spot on your back itch. You learned your lesson long ago, best leave them to learn theirs however they choose. Turning the corner you pass a new poster plastered to the wall. You laugh - Well that’s irony for you.

The sign reads:

Stay Compliant Today!

Strikes add up! Don’t let them.

Strike 5: Work duty

Strike 10: Branding - level 1

Strike 15: Branding - level 2, Work Duty

Strike 20: Fields

Strike 25: Castration, Fields

Strike 30: Execution

Halfway down the alley someone above you slams their window shut and closes the blinds. A woman ahead of you fumbles with her keys. She looks panicked as she scans the road before pushing the door open and hurrying inside. Turning left on saber street you know your about 20 minutes from home. You continue casually down the road but it strikes you as odd when you see the empty shops, they have all closed for the evening. You turn to look down the opposite end of the road and see… no one. Shit. Glancing at your issued watch you see you still have 38 minutes until lights out. Thinking you must be missing something you hesitantly continue your route home. Picking up the speed a little and keeping your head down. You tell yourself you’ll be fine, not to worry, there’s plenty of time.

At the usually busy intersection of Saber and Commons hangs a large backlit clock. Its not something you typically regard when you take the crosswalk over commons street to continue along Saber, but as you wait for the red man walking signal to flicker green something catches your attention. Something is off. You slide your hood back and realize how quite the streets are. There isn’t anyone here either, not a single car on the road, not a single passerby.

You feel it instantly, that sickening feeling in the pit of your stomach when you suddenly know how fucked you really are. As the red man walking light flicks green, you don’t move, your frozen, head cocked up toward the dark sky. It’s dim light reflecting in your widened eyes. They don’t bother to make it difficult for anyone, the clock isn’t mechanical, or even a digital time of day. It’s simply a countdown to zero, to curfew. A countdown to the reaping hours. And it reads five minutes till.

You, fucking, run! Blood beats in your ears, your breath heavy as you bolt for it. You don’t even hear the world rushing past as you turn right on Thade ave. No one can hear your internal panic, but you are screaming. Blood curtailing wails of panic. No, no, no, no, no, no, Please fucking no. Tears well up in your eyes, blurring the road, before getting caught up by the wind and go streaking down your face. A small cobbler shop flashes past your vision. It had a curfew clock in its window that reads Four minutes. You won’t make it, you know this and yet you keep running. It’s only a matter of time before they…

The world is shutting you out. Closing its metaphorical door on your pathetic tear streaked face. At least that’s what it feels like if your out at 3 minutes 30 seconds. When the entire city’s power is cut off and your left in almost complete darkness. The moon isn’t bright tonight, and with the tall buildings surrounding your route home you can barely make out five feet in front of you. Forced to slow down you find the walls of the nearest building and skirt along its sides into the darker back alleyway. You want to be anywhere but on the main road, at least while you collect yourself. Theres a loud clatter as you sidestep into what you hear to be a trashcan, left out for morning work duty. You don’t move a single muscle, you only wait and listen, hands glued to the wall, silent tears running down your face as you wait.

There’s a crackling as the recording begins to play on every street corner around the city, three chimes ring out and a robotic voice announces, “Three minutes remaining”. Three more chimes sound to end the one and only verbal warning anyone ever gets. Strikes are one thing, given for acting out or breaking daytime rules. It’s enough to fear your strikes adding up over honest mistakes. But being out past curfew isn’t something that gains you strikes, strikes are meaningless at this point. Your only hope is to hind well, and to keep yourself quiet. Because if your found out past curfew, your never going home again.

You make your way further down the alley. One arm grounding yourself to the wall, while your other is stretched out feeling your away. Your mind is racing, who did this? Never has your watch been off even by a second. You check it everyday before leaving your apartment. How is it possible that your about to be outside during reaping hours? You feel betrayed, but by who?

Another chime rings softly through the evening air. You turn your wrist over and your watch lights up, 2 minutes 30 seconds till curfew. The light seems brighter than you’d think so you flip your wrist around and it dimly brightens the path ahead of you. So you go for it, wanting to get as close to home as you can. If your lucky you think you can use the watch to sneak your way back home after reaping hours begin. Another chime rings out, another 30 seconds has past and you become bolder, running now even though your sight is limited to the light of your watch. When the light reflects off a street sign you know you’ve still got another 17 blocks to your apartment. You pick up your speed as best you can.

*Ring!* 1:30

“Ouch” you stumble over a curb

*Ring!* 1:00

Reapers tend to roam main roads, unless pulled by sound. You read that once, right? Your out of back alley roads, now forced to return to the Main Street.

*Ring!* :30

Your terrifyingly aware of how loud you are on the open street, but press on faster, panic building up inside yourself. You’ve no time left. Desperately You move on looking for another back alley you can take, but then…

Three consecutive rings play out through the city, each played in a lower tone than the last. Its officially Curfew.

The wall of a building drops away and you rush into the alley just in time. Going one building back and turning left again to continuing on toward home. Suddenly, there’s a scream, a heart wrenching scream, and it doesn’t sound like they’re far from you. Your path ends and your forced to turn again. But something makes a sound from behind you and you stop. With your hand on the wall you slowly flatten yourself to it. Looking anywhere but behind you. Again you hear it, like metal scraping against brick. Then, you hear the scream again, your heart jumps and you’ve moved before you even realize it. Turning the corner at a run, your back on the main road. Your eyes squint at the sudden brightness and you know your dead. Because you’ve run straight into a Reaping.

There’s a spotlight on the road, and someone stands before a reaper. It’s build is slender, tall, made to mirror the humans it’s meant to keep in line. As though humanity would respond better to orders being given by something that looked like us.

“Please, no! I got lost, the lights.” The young man stumbles to the ground his knees bloody. His backpack is laying torn on the ground, papers strewn across the road. He holds his hand out as if asking them to stop. As though, his words mean anything to them. It scans him and gives its sentencing: “Noncompliant”

“My husband, he’ll…..” he’s gone in an instant. Your hand covers your gasp as you watch his body go slack and fall to the side. But you weren’t quite enough and a spotlight shines from behind you, engulfing you in light.

Your body goes numb, tears stream down your cheeks and leak into your open, wordless mouth. You can’t see who shines the light but you can hear it move. The scrape of its metal form against the road as it steps toward you. The metallic ring of its blade unsheathed and held out for a reaping blow. The reaper from the road turns at the commotion and rushes over, shining its spotlight onto you as well. This is it, you drop your backpack to the ground ready for whatever is to come, there’s no out-running a reaper. A red laser runs the length of your body, your being scanned. It’s carrying out your sentencing. But as you look into the bright light and watch the red laser run over you, all you hear is a boy yelling at you from across the street. “Stand the fuck up for yourself!” You hear it, as loud as if they were standing beside you tagging another wall. A panicked laugh escapes you. You were never supposed to be here, you should be home.

“Fuck! You!” You spit the words out “What do you even want with us?“ You step forward, taunting the un-tauntable and you know it’s over. You’ve no time left. You drop your head, waiting for the word.

“Noncompliant”

“Noncompliant”

Sentenced twice? You winch and duck down in anticipation. A loud crash rings out. Yet you feel nothing. Opening your eyes you see the scythes of two reapers locked together above your head.

You, fucking, run! Again!

You can hear them struggling, each pulling at their tangled weapons. You race down the street toward the bridge. It’s dark but the faint moonlight reflects off the rapidly moving river below, lighting the bridge and the roads along its side. Your almost there when you hear foot steps. Fast, coming straight for you. You turn briefly to see. They’re more than half way to you already. Running at an impossible speed. You haven’t much of a choice so you grip the railing and hurl yourself over and go plummeting down into the river.

Cold water shocks your system as you surface, gasping for air. But when your finally able to focus on the road above, you see nothing, they haven’t followed you?

“Argh!” you cry out in pain. You look to see blood oozing from a hole in your shoulder mixing in with the water that carries you. When you look back up you see the reapers taking aim on the bridge. You close your eyes and go to submerge yourself but It happens that next instant. You go flying backwards. Your body flipping violently through the air as the river gives way to a sudden drop. Your falling down a waterfall, towards the deep cold water outside the city walls.

Your alive, for now.