Deadline Is Death

Late one night, a courier scrolling through a work group chat sees a news headline about a night-shift courier hacked to death during a delivery. The photo shows the victim is him. His delivery app then vibrates with an urgent pickup: Unit 704, Building 7, Hawthorne Ridge Apartments, fifteen minutes, and death for a timeout. He has already died three times, each at 2:15 a.m. sharp, and the building has never had a Unit 704.

On his fourth attempt he finds a delivery envelope holding a photograph of his own dismembered body, timestamped tomorrow at 7:00 a.m., with a line in blood on the back. Back home, a scratch appears at the corner of his eye, his reflection smiles on its own, and a second photograph shows him dead on his own bedroom floor. A knock comes: his neighbour Mrs. Connie Calder, then a figure wearing his face and her blood-soaked slippers.

He survives the attack, but the police who respond to his report of dismembered remains grow serious, and the hallway footage shows Mrs. Calder leaving Unit 703 alone that night.