Page 17 of The Life Experiment
Saira continued to provide Angus with items to use throughout the experiment. A stress ball, a pillow spray, playlists of relaxing music. Everything he was given seemed designed to calm Angus down, which made him worry more. Surely you would only give someone who was going to live to one hundred a round-the-world ticket and a thumbs up?
As Angus’s underarms dampened, Saira handed him an envelope with ‘Candidate 11 – Angus Fairview-Whitley’ written on it.
He gulped. ‘Is this… Is this it?’
When Saira nodded, the air thickened. No one spoke. No one breathed. They just sat, staring at the envelope.
Angus flipped it over in his hands, marvelling at how light it was. This thing with the power to smash his world in two. How easy it would be to scrunch it up and throw it in the bin, or tear it into tiny, indistinguishable pieces.
Biting his lip, Angus read his name and candidate number once more. Ten people had been before him. Ten people had sat in this chair and found out when they would die.
It was only when Angus noticed the envelope looked like it was vibrating that he realised he was shaking.
‘Take your time,’ Saira said. ‘There’s no rush. Remember, you can walk out of here, leave the envelope behind and never look back. You never need to see what’s inside.’
Angus nearly laughed. Saira made it sound so simple, but it wasn’t simple at all. Leaving the envelope wouldn’t reallyleave the envelope, would it? There would always be some part of Angus that yearned to know.
Temptation snapped at his heels, with fear close behind it. But fear had always been there, hadn’t it? It had stopped Angus telling Jasper noto a fourth night out in a row. It had stopped him admitting how much he was struggling. It had stopped him from trying again when he lost all that money.
But Angus didn’t want to be scared anymore. Ripping open the envelope, he pulled out the papers, ready to learn his fate.
9Layla
Layla didn’t know how long she’d been slouched on the squat, wooden seat, but it was starting to get uncomfortable. The slats pressed into her spine, prodding her bones with every wobbly inhale she took, but Layla was glad of the pain. It told her she was alive, something she hadn’t been sure of since opening that envelope.
The envelope…
Layla blinked her surroundings into focus in a last-ditch attempt to stop herself from crying. A hipster cafe was hardly the place she wanted to break down in. With tiny pots of brown sugar on each table and single flowers reaching out of small glass vases, it was like a ‘cool aesthetic’ Pinterest board come to life. But when Layla stumbled out of OPM Discoveries, she didn’t care where she ended up. She just needed somewhere to sit in solitude and process the news.
The news.
Her face crumpled at the memory.Hold it together,she scolded herself.
Desperately, Layla forced herself to count the cutlery in the mason jar on the table. Three knives, four forks, four spoons. Once she’d counted them, she counted the cutlery on the next table, then the one after that.
When she could no longer make out the silverware in the distance, Layla reached for the latte she had ordered. She flinched when herhand brushed the mug, now cold. How long had it been sitting there? How long hadshebeen sitting there?
Wasting time, yet again,her brain muttered, and that was it. That was the moment Layla realised there was no avoiding the truth. When she was thirty-one years, eight months and six days old, Layla Cannon would die.
Thirty-one years, eight months and six days.
That was Layla’s death date. Her horribly short, impossibly devastating death date. The words ‘BELOW AVERAGE’ were printed beside it, to really kick Layla in the gut, but that wasn’t the worst part. As Saira promised, in certain cases the data was strong enough to predict a cause of death. Layla was one of those lucky, or unlucky, cases.
Candidate 8’s organs and cells show significant signs of damage thanks to prolonged, heightened stress. Combined with her lifestyle responses, it is highly probable that a stroke will be her cause of death.
Groaning, Layla ran her hands through her tangled hair. A big, screaming part of her wanted to dismiss the study as bullshit. After all, OPM Discoveries weren’t God or fate, they didn’tknow.But, like a true top-of-the-class student, Layla had researched the organisation thoroughly. It was impressive, ground-breaking and in a league of its own. In short, the team knew what they were doing, meaning they knew when Layla was going to die.
And now so did she.
In two years’ time.
Everything paled into insignificance when Layla read her horrific timeline. Everything.
Before meeting with Saira, Layla had fretted about taking the afternoon off work. Taking leave meant missing important meetings. It meant falling behind. Even sat outside Saira’s office, Layla had beenmentally calculating how many emails she would miss because of their meeting.
As if reminding her that she had dared to take time away from the office, Layla’s phone rang. She closed her eyes. How could she talk to clients now, without telling them that their legal disputes weren’t worth it? How could she care enough to go in early and stay back late when all her hard work was going to be for nothing?
Sighing, Layla picked up her phone to throw it across the cafe, but she stopped when she saw Michelle’s name on the screen. Despite every instinct telling her not to, Layla accepted the call.
