[ WP ] You are legally allowed to commit murder once , but you must fill out the proper paperwork and your proposed victim will be notified of your intentions

Like clockwork, I woke up at 2:43 AM, screaming. Sweat dripped from my hairline, leaving faint ghosts of sensation on my head, little droplets of sweat plopping quietly on the blanket. My breathing was heavy, fast, and I caught myself staring at my doorway. I took a deep breath, and started counting backwards from ten. 
 
 When it did n't help, I repeated the sequence, taking exaggeratedly slow breathes as I counted. The second time helped, and I released the muscle-deep tension that had gathered at my shoulders and neck, laying back down. The room was bathed in the blues and purples that accompany early morning, and I let my eyes unfocus while I got my breathing back to a normal level. The hardwood outside my room creaked as it settled. I could hear the rain outside, playing the rhythms of life against the windowpanes. 
 
 I awoke with a start, sat up, eyes narrowed suspiciously at my door. I stayed this way for a few seconds, trying to get my mind to catch up with whatever my instincts had picked up on. The room, and my house, was silent of anything other than the faint sounds of drizzle. With a small amount of intentional effort, I turned my eyes from the door and slipped on a shirt. After another second's hesitation, I paced slowly through the door and looked through my second story window. 
 
 The morning was just coming into sufficient light, only slightly muted by a small patch of light gray clouds. The rain had lowered significantly, bathing the distant horizon in fog. In my backyard, one of the neighborhood cats was curled up under the glass table I had used for barbecues years ago. It slept soundly, and I smiled briefly at it before turning around. 
 
 I started down the stairs, and froze suddenly. My instincts were raking at my senses, and I crept carefully back upstairs. In the corner of my bedroom, a small series of leather straps hung from a peg nearby my nightstand. I wrapped it around my shirt, shifting once or twice to help it settle in place, and unlocked the second drawer in my dresser. Inside was a small pistol, five loaded magazines, and few spare batteries of various sizes. I picked up the pistol, checked the chamber and safety reflexively, and slid one of the mags into place. I chambered a round, slipped the pistol into my hostler, put two mags opposite the pistol on the straps, and turned back to stairwell. 
 
 I turned just in time to see a shadow disappear down the stairs. I unholstered the weapon, flipped the safety off, and raised the weapon forward. My finger hovered just outside of the trigger guard. I took an experimental step forward, crouched, keeping my center low and my footsteps quiet. As I paced very carefully to the top of the stairs, I kept the weapon high, my right eye more or less along the sights. 
 
 I crested the stairs, muzzle pointed down, finger over the trigger. I barked `` Freeze!'' as loud as I could, sudden and sharp. The shadow twitched, and craned its head at me, curiously. I exhaled, carefully pulled my finger from the trigger, and pressed the decocker lever and safeties before holstering the gun. My dog, a sweet little Collie named Megan, wagged cheerfully at me from the foot of the stairs. I took another two shuddering breathes, and shook my head at the dog. `` Jesus, Meg, I could've shot you.'' She panted hopefully, sauntering up the stairs now that I'd visibly relaxed a little. 
 
 I ruffled her fur, and stood up. My second trip down the stairs was significantly less nerve-wracking. The dog skipped along with me, bouncing carelessly across the hardwood with the little click of paws on hardwood. My little kitchenette was n't terribly large, but it was reasonably well-stocked, and I fished around my fridge until I saw something that spoke to me. I started on the turkey first, cooking it fairly thoroughly before setting it aside and starting on the eggs. 
 
 After I'd prepared the omelet, and given Meg her treat for keeping me company without whining for food, I sat down to eat. I'd run out of coffee two days ago, but orange juice was better for me, so I only complained a lot to no one in particular while I ate. The talking, even one-sided, helped quiet the sense of panic rising from the back of my mind. Afterwards, I tried to ignore the increasing sense of dread I'd felt while I was doing the dishes I'd messied. 
 
 Outside, the day was transitioning from drizzle and clouds to full light, bathing the afternoon in bright sunlight. Flashes of orange gold fur passed as the neighborhood cat had woken and climbed atop my backyard grill to stand beside my kitchenette window and meow at me. I smiled at him, checked behind him just in case, and loaded the dishwasher. 
 
 The clock on my oven blinked 11:43, and I steeled my nerves. I hazarded a quick glance through the peephole in my door, checking the angles before deciding to step foot outside. It was a lovely day, just on the far end of spring, before the true heat of summer would set in. It still rained fairly often, but every day without clouds was the sort of picturesque utopia that begged families to have picnics and days at the beach. I smiled up at the bright sunlight for a brief moment of happiness, collected my mail, and started toward my home. It was n't until I was halfway to my door that my nerves bested me and I took the last ten or twelve steps at a run, spinning, and slamming the door closed. The blinds of a nearby window clattered loudly as the wall shook with the sudden slamming of the door. 
 
 I leaned against the door, sinking, and tried to reign the nerves in. The hardwood was cool against my pants, my head spun as it reeled with a sense of non-specific dread. I shook my head, feeling my shaggy hair shift and settle on my head. I repeated this a few times, simply to have the routine of it be something else I could focus on. My fingers danced absently on the floor for a moment, and I got unsteadily to my feet. My left knee hurt, and I winced. Probably overexerted myself again. 
 
 I gingerly recovered the mail I'd scattered all over the entryway, and brought it to the little office opposite the stairwell. Spam, spam, credit card application, spam, bank statement, hospital bill, and another four notices. `` Christ, seriously?'' I set the spam aside, and opened the hospital bill. 
 
 I'd been making some headway on my debt, but it seemed like even just a year in a hospital bed had done more to cripple me than the beating that'd put me there. I found my checkbook, wrote off the amount of this month's bill payment, signed it, and filled out the envelope. I frowned at my stamp roll, noticing I was running low again. I collected a stamp, placed it on the envelope, and dropped it into the overflowing outbox on the edge of my desk. 
 
 That settled, I shredded the credit card application, tossed the spam, and opened the four notices, reading them individually. The language was hauntingly familiar, explaining briefly what the notice was for, and what was going to happen. The form letter was almost always the same, only really explaining what the system was, and how it worked. The second page was the most important of the two, containing a little information on the person who'd filed to murder me. This batch was two young women named Elizabeth and Meaghann, a young man named Christopher, and the name of a television character. I frowned, and read over the last murderer again. From what I could tell, he'd had his name legally changed to that of a television show character, but was otherwise completely legitimate. Odd. 
 
 I got up, making pained noises as my left knee complained, and pinned them to my rear wall. The entire wall was plastered in notices. I had n't bothered keeping count anymore, but it could n't have been less than two hundred notices across the various bulletin boards. Each and every one a promise of someone who wanted me dead. I looked at the four new pages, swinging gently as they settled into their pegs, and blended seamlessly into the sea of paper. 
 
 Then I sat down, stared at the wall briefly, and cried. Emotions washed out in waves, ugly and calloused and hateful and wrong. There was something fundamentally wrong with such a world where this kind of thing was okay, and the ugly truth of that stared back at me. 
 
 I stayed that way for a long time, until shaking and crying and feeling miserable. When I finally sat up, stiff and pained from staying in one position for so long, evening light was waxing outside. I went back upstairs, showered, and dressed down for the night again. The last bit of twilight was fading away, and I found myself in bed early. 
 
 My thoughts drifted to my year in the hospital. It was my second year marked for death, and I'd already received tens of death notices. Without warning, one day while eating with my niece and her mother, I'd been attacked. Two men stood over me, pulled me to the ground, and beat me savagely. I remember little more than twisting, crying for help, and being hit. They kicked and punched, struggling to genuinely kill me as much as I struggled to get free. I was n't sure if it was my screaming, or my niece's, but someone came and pulled the men off me. 
 
 While in the hospital, I learned why I had been receiving so many murder notices. A political activist group had chosen their method of protesting the murder law by all signing up, and naming me. Even if almost all of the murder notices were from passive protestors, it was also likely that even just a few had the genuine intention to kill me. That hospital stay proved that. It was the last time I'd ever slept well. 
 
 This sick, disgusting, miserable law had ruined my life. I never should have made it... 
 
 Like clockwork, I woke up at 2:51 AM, screaming.
