For as long as you can remember, you've been able to see deaths before they happen. This time, however, it's personal. Tomorrow, at noon, the person you love will be in a fatal accident.

In 300 words, write about the moment the accident occurs. What is the accident you've foreseen? Will it actually happen? And what will you do—save the one you love, take their place or let fate play its hand?

It's all up to you.

"You look kinda sick, Reid," he says.

I shrug. We are close, like two peas in a pod since we're small. Normally I like hanging out with my twin brother. We always go to the park on Sunday mornings to cool off.

But not when I know he will die.

He lets me be, walking ahead by the trail. He knows I will follow. He's not wrong, especially today. When I close my eyes, I can see it, and my gut drops. I remember his face; a white Impala crashing into him full-speed. The hair on my neck stands when I recall his scream, his body flung like a bloody rag doll.

I hasten behind him, rubbing my face. When he looks back, I clip a smile, but I gulp. My palms feel cold.

It's alright, I tell myself. I'll save him.

"You okay?"

I nod. He smiles, and it's so nice I wonder why he's the target. But I don't set the target. I only see it. Dreamt it. This time, however, I'm stopping it. He hands me a towel, but my fingers shake. My clench is clumsy and tight. And he notices.

"Are you tired?" He turns, slings an arm over my shoulder. "Let's go home."

I let him talk all the way, until we arrive at the road crossing and suddenly I stifle. I can hear my heart pulse. My throat hurts. It's happening. I brisk with his pace, keeping on the lookout. My ribs tighten. I know it's soon. And I'm ready as ever. He leads me on.

One step. Two. Nothing.

We're almost there. Maybe it works. Maybe I did it. I can breathe again.

A screech of tyres swallow my hearing. It's all I can do to push him on, and look at the Impala hurdling right towards me.

"Reid!"

I scream. I don't feel the pain, until my limp body flings from the impact. Then it hurts. Everything hurts. Blood's everywhere. My vision blurs, and as I close my eyes, I realise my mistake. I didn't dream about him.

I dreamt about me.

I didn't let go of Mariana at all that day. My hand stayed fastened on her upper arm. She didn't ask why, not because she hadn't thought to, but because she already knew the answer.

It had been happening as long as I could remember, these flashes of the future. The worst part of the future, the one thing promised to everyone upon their birth. So she stayed close to me, face pale, voice quiet, and she didn't ask any questions I didn't want to answer.

Her face had been the first thing I had seen that morning, although she had been sleeping in her own bedroom as I sat straight up in bed, gasping at the sight of my sister's face contorted with pain and smeared with blood. It had been one of the worst sensations I had ever felt. Probably the second worst of all time. I was saving the first place for what was about to happen.

But what was about to happen came and went and Marina was still standing next to me, clutched in my white-knuckled grip.

My mother, on the other hand, lay on the ground, still, prone, the car that had clipped her pulling to a stop in front of us.

Marina was the first to move in the crowd of stilled people around us. She dashed to our mother, collapsed at her side. Holding her hand, begging, crying her name. Leaning down to rest her face on her stomach, on the growing bloodstain. When she looked at me, it was like an overlay on some terrible picture, one I had first taken this morning. Face bloodstained, screwed up with pain.

Not pain for herself, though. Not her blood.

I had been right. That vision was the second worst feeling in the world.

My eyes popped open. It was happening again – the visions. Those infernal visions!

They had come before, their source hiding within the shadows of my dreams, scaring me to my core. But this time it was different. Someone I knew would die, someone I loved – and I was powerless to save him because I didn't know who.

Throwing off the covers I got up from my bed and pretended to go about preparing for work as if nothing was wrong. But there was no one I could tell who would believe me. Lacking the stomach for breakfast, I left my house for the busy thoroughfare I took every noon, avoiding eye contact with anyone.

The thought of seeing someone familiar, and wondering if it was whom I'd seen in my visions, made the back of my throat coat with bile. Startled by the boom of thunder, I felt the terrible singing crackle across my skin as lightning zigzagged above...

And in that instant, the knowledge of death came again!

With nowhere to hide, I ignored each stinging slap of my feet against the unforgiving concrete beneath them as I pushed myself almost to the point of exhaustion in my relentless drive to get to a place of safety, a place where I prayed the visions wouldn't find me – and all before time ran out!

Just then, a drenching rain started. Still, I ran.

Struggling under the increasingly pounding downpour, it was impossible to ignore how my heart hammered and my muscles burned. But I kept going. I could sense the end was near and there was nothing I could do to stop it from happening.

Quickly, I turned a corner. The earsplitting sound of screeching brakes. Everyone had been wrong. There was no lingering pain, only the shock of an abrupt stop.

Looking down in stupefied disbelief at my dead self, a tear began its descent... And I could hear the wail of a baby crying in the distance.

I watched as various spectators cheered around me, the beginning of the parade coming into view. Clutching what appeared to be an old-fashioned looking camera, I smiled softly. Little Jack K. He had earned his celebrity status, as I always knew he would. I felt a presence approach and I straightened my shoulders.

"Reaper."

"Watcher," he replied, standing next to me. "Or should I say, babushka?"

"You like it?" I referred to my disguise, a cultural headscarf similar to that of elderly women in Russia, dark glasses, and a nondescript tan jacket with pink lapels.

He looked it over and nodded, before looking back out towards the motorcade. "This one's personal to you, isn't it?"

I nodded, taking a deep shaky breath. I had watched this man grow up. I was there for his wedding and I celebrated the birth of his first child. At various times in his life, I had even stepped in as a friend, never realizing that I would be assigned to watch his death.

"Must it be him?" I asked in a moment of weakness, "It would be so simple to warn someone."

"Perhaps," the Reaper replied. "But at what cost? Once you start a ripple you can't stop it, and if you try to?"

"You create more," I finished as the car pulled into view and the cheers got louder. "So there are those that reap..."

"And those that watch."

Tears streamed down my face, a mix of pride and sorrow, as the car finally took its place in front of us. I watched his face turn towards me, his arm up to wave. We locked eyes and I watched recognition and confusion flash in his eyes. Several shots rang out and I watched as he crumbled forward. It took a few minutes before anyone realized what happened. People ran to take cover as the Reaper strode forward to join the car. I stood, unmoving, as people swarmed around me. Amid the screams of terror, I heard someone shout the words that would signify the end of my watch.

"President Kennedy has been shot!"

*

Some people hate the shadows. They're the promise of something sinister. Something hiding. Something waiting for you.

I don't. Or, I didn't. Until now.

The shadows were my friends. They'd show me things. Bad things, but, once I'd become accustomed to it, things that needed to be seen. I was their witness. They showed me death. The ending of life. I would see people, strangers mostly, in the moments before they died. I could never stop it, and believe me I tried, but at least they never left this world with no-one to see their passing. In some way, I felt it to be a comfort to them, though they'd never know.

But today, just now, they've shown me something else. Something I wished they'd kept secret. The death of my son.

They gathered around me, eager to tell their story. I welcomed it, as ever. They appeared darker, this time. Frantic. Waves of thicker black running through them like a tangible thrill. Now I know why. My son it going to die.

Today.

I know all the details. The speed of the car. The look of horror on the driver's face. Her quick but too slow reflexes. The sound of his breaking bones. The spatter of blood. The look in his dead eyes, blaming me for seeing but doing nothing.

But I can't. Any actions I take would be ineffective. Fate likes to play, but by her rules. If I pulled my son back, he'd have a heart attack. Or advanced cancer would suddenly riddle his body. Or the car would swerve, hit another and that would kill him. And spare me. I always survive.

So I stand. And I watch. And I wait.

And the shadows lay at my feet like loyal dogs of death.