Chapter 1.
That night I had a dream. I was standing in line at a bureau much like the DMV with an application in hand. When it came my turn to speak to the clerk I passed the sheet beneath a barred window and said as nonchalantly as I was registering a car, “Hi I’m submitting a death request.”
“Application for death. The last name of the applicant?”
“Grangely.”
“First name?”
“Leandra.”
“One moment, please.”
I never saw the face of my teller, nor his hands, and to be quite honest I could not tell you what his voice sounded like. It was now that I realized the earth seemed to be moving. I was quite certain there was an earthquake occurring, and as strange as it sounds considering the aforementioned information, I feared for my life and tried to call out to the teller. I felt a tug at my pants and turned, expecting to see a lost child. However the hand came right out from the floor beneath my feet, and I discovered the floor was not linoleum, tile, wood, or the like. There was no earthquake, there was no lost child. The floor was a moving mass of bodies, crawling upon hands and knees, packed tight together.
