Disclaimer: I do not own Final Destination nor any of its characters, unfortunately. But the rest belongs to me, more or less. Thanks to James Wong and Glenn Morgan for not sueing me for borrowing the characters for this pathetic excuse for a story.

Hi there! This is the first fanfic I ever published in the NET, after a long hard struggle with myself. I usually don't show my stories to anyone except my best mate. But hey, the worst things that could happen are a) noone's gonna read it at all; b) no review; c) only "Fuck off" 's. So what? I can handle that! At least I know where the rope's hanging, so I can take it and shoot myself at the deepest and of the ocean, as someone used to say. Anyway: Apparently I'm actually no native English-speaker and so it's obviously kinda hard for me to do this in English, but - being the weird girl I am - I somehow considered it to be better to put it that way. Of course I won't be able to avoid a lot of really silly, disturbing mistakes and since translating it: some things / jokes don't work in both languages - if they do at all - . So forgive me my limited number of words (original ideas, ability to create something and so on and so forth), but I'm afraid I won't be able to use all the finesse(s) this language contains. Basically I'm better. Honestly. I still dunno what devil seduced me to take that wonderful story and spoil it with my own 'ideas'. I guess my addiction to it is my only excuse.

Though I invented new characters, this is not a Mary-Sue-Story (surely you've been knowing that term for years since you're the native English/American speakers, I only found out 'bout some weeks ago that there was a special expression, well .... for what this is not), which doesn't make it any better, I know. But as there are only 3 persons left and I don't believe that triangle-relationships really work, somebody's either gotta die or to be left alone in the end. Well, we'll see ....

Whoa, long enough! If you like: just shoot me. Or .... thinkin' .... better don't. Whatever: read it or leave it. I'm not trying to make you say *Whoa, look, the poor one, it's not even her mother tongue, she seems to be a little confused and nevertheless she's trying, she deserves being told how cool she is, even though it's a lie.* This is a free land .... NET and so don't ya worry to spit the truth into my face .... I'm old enough to know how to commit suicide when someone hurts me. :0)) At least I put it here, come what may. And even if it's only my imbecility that gives you a short laugh; I got used to be the dorkhead.

Sick as I am I have the nerve to translate the first lines without any professional help from my other best mate whose English is pretty much better than mine, may you forgive me.

"Writing a novel is like making love,
but it's also like having a tooth pulled.
Pleasure and pain. Sometimes it's like making love while having a tooth
pulled."

Dean Koontz

(Though I would never dare to call that crap I'm writing a novel.)

Prologue

They say that in the beginning, there was darkness. A great, impenetrable obscurity. It felt safe, being the ruler of the entire black space there was. On account of his vast power it never occurred to him that it could have an enemy, something, suddenly appearing out of nothing, a tiny little thing, even too small to be afraid of, that would arise an eternal fight between them.

One day - though he didn't know that term then - , the dark lord started up with a shiver, like having woken up from a bad dream, realising that something incredible had been taken place during his rest. For nothing had ever been able to harm him he could rest in those ancient times.

A bright little spot had hit his eyes and he closed them in pain. He tried to destroy it, but couldn't. So he covered it. Covered it with his gloom. But it was still present. Only the knowledge of its existence infuriated the master.

And it grew. Slowly, but constantly, until all his obscurity was no longer sufficient to hide it. At first the space got a shade of pale grey, then it cleared up more and more.

Though the lord refused to, he was slightly pushed back until there came a time he had to share his dark space with the brightness. Reluctantly he saw it extend.

Yet it had only started. Creatures of the dark began to taste the light and many of them decided to leave their side. But darkness wouldn't let them slip away so easily. It placed its seed into their souls, a painful longing, making them feel each moment where they actually belonged to. Light also lost its children as they followed gloom's sweet seductive call.

Brightness seemed to gain more power, becoming stronger than anything had ever been, and darkness was no more willing to let it grow, nor exist at all.

So the lurid master decided ....

****

He who dies a thousand deaths meets the final hour with the calmness of one who approaches a well remembered door.' Heywood Brown

*Beach: Thank you soooo much for your wonderful review!! I was really taken aback that someone already read this ‚p.e.f.a.s'. I hope you like the following as well, but even if not: be frank with me. Criticism is welcome and will surely help me to improve my writing. (Unless you just wanna tell me how full of shit I am: cuz I already know that. :o)) ) (Oops, sounds a little like the third paragraph of the ‚Writer's Etiquette', hm? But I really mean it.) TXL!!*

‚Death does not concern us, because as long as we exist, death is not here. And when it does come, we no longer exist.' Epicurus

Xmas 1991

Walkin' in a winterwonderland....

The snow softly fell to the ground, creating a beautiful wintry landscape. It was December 25th, 2 am, a time at which most of the children were sleeping, exitedly dreaming of all the presents they would finally be allowed to unwrap the next morning. The world outside their windows was peaceful, the white streets sleeping admidst the snowed up city.

The woman lives in one of those big old apartment houses, ya know, that kind, where they have metallic squiggled grids on their ventilation shafts She lives alone in this four-room-apartment with the high ceilings and the big windows. By day it's very quiet in there, you can only hear a little of the noise of the traffic, five floors down below. You don't see much of the other lodgers, mainly old and childless people. By night the streets are empty and the habitation is getting nearly deadly silent. Only some noises are getting through the ventilation shaft. Voices. At first they are like a whispering, but at nightfall they become increasingly louder. The woman's been living there for four months, hearing the voices for two weeks. In the first nights they are so vague, that she almost thinks, they're only imagination, but they get louder every night. She positions herself right under the shaft and tries to check out the direction they're coming from. After four days she's sure, that it's the apartment on floor above. She's able to distinguish between a male and a female; the female sounds shy, as if its owner was frightened, the male one infuriated. They seem to be quarreling. Within the eighth night the woman hears things rumbling in the above apartment. Certainly she'd like to go upstairs, to have a look at what's going on, but she does not dare. She's weak and since having been ill during the last two months, she's only recovering slowly. So she stays here, eavesdropping to the hubbub coming through to her. Another few times she hears something like a crack, then a bang, as if slamming a heavy door. Then .... nothing. In the following night it remains silent, the next one as well. As she doesn't hear anything even in te third night she decides to walk upstairs the next day for ringing the doorbell. But the following day again she feels worse: dizzy and she can hardly stand. Evening closes in and the noises come back, louder than they've ever been before. Though she doesn't feel that much better yet, the woman goes upstairs. Slowly taking each step, she's clasping the handrail, to prevent herself from falling. When she reaches the door, she stops, eavesdropping again. The light in the staircase is diffuse and she's not able to find a name tag. The entire house lies in a deadly silence, except behind this door you can hear loud voices. And for the first time even the female's louder. One can easily notice the fear in it, while the male is threatening an squalling unswervingly. Another earpiercing crash is heard and the female voice increases up to a shrill screaming. The woman from the fifth floor braces up and rings the bell. But nothing happens. The doorbell must be broken. There suddenly falls a deep silence behind the door as if somebody quickly turns off the TV. With a shiver she's knocking falteringly. Timidly in the beginning, then more violently. But it remains quiet. Taking a deep breath she presses down the handle. It's not closed. With an eerie creak the door opens. She helds her breath. The lamps on the outside floor don't give enough light to perceive much, but at least she's able to see one thing clearly, one thing, scaring her more than she ever imagined she could be horrified. In front of her there's .... nothing. Absolutey nothing. Just an empty room. Dusted. Cobwebs. And noone seems to be in there, in fact noone seems to have been there during the last years. Bracing up she asks:" Hello? Is somebody in?" Nobody's answering. She enters with her heart thumping at her ribs. BANG!! The door slams with a loud crack and she is standing in the darkness. Listening, not venturing to move. „Hello?" she asks again, „hello?" But nothing. No answer, no noise. No human soul is here, save her. But still she feels a sensation of being watched. Observed by something hiding itself skillfully. Again she stops breathing as she feels something tickling her neck. Assumedly, those are only the cobwebs she tries to persuade herself, but all of a sudden someone grabs her from behind and – „AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!" The girl let out a yell as suddenly out of nothing a hand swished down on her shoulder. „Are you fucking crazy??" she cried, looking at her roommate enraged. „What's up?" the other one asked smirking sneering. „I thought you wanted to listen to the story." „You nearly dislocated my arm when you suddenly grabbed me so brutally!!" she complained, indignantly rubbing the spot. „That's why I cried." „Yeah, for sure and therefore also your face turned white", her friend gave back unimpressed. „Because of the unbearable pain. When did you turn into such a wimp, O'Healy?" The other girl pouted. „The story was totally boring", she asserted, „construed ....illogical and aside from that .... I already knew it. I just didn't remember right away. And if .... stop that silly grinning, will ya?! Alright, I was scared, okay? I almost got a heart attack. You're the perfect horror queen, okay?" Her friend took a bow with an affected smile. „Thanks. And you're the perfect scream queen. What should I call you: rather Jamie or Sidney?" O'Healy grimaced, but then laughed. Her mate looked at the alarm clock at her nighstand. „Doesn't time pass by at all? I can hardly believe: now we've almost grown up and still I can't wait to unpack the presents. And then we weren't even allowed to open one the night before, like the kids do!"

„Whoa man, that's hard, you nearly killed your best friend just to find out that it's not that much later yet, tsisis." O'Healy slapped her head onto her forehead. „Shit!" it slipped from her mouth.

„Yeah? What a peccant word at such an unchristian time", the other one rebuked her for fun.

„We forgot, to bring down Lucas' and Tom's presents."

„Talkin' 'bout the huge toy-trucks we bought together?"

A nod was the answer. „We wanted them to unpack it together tomorrow. And after watching all that TV-X-mas-nonsense we've forgotten – yeah well, stay in bed, old lady, I'm gonna get them down in the morning, I'm the first one up in any case."

Her friend leaned over to her bed and gave her a big hug and kiss onto the nose. „You're so sweet."

She smirked and sighed: „ The heavy lot of the early risers. It's a curse. Good night."

****

It was about five o'clock when the girl surnamed O'Healy decided on her way back from the bathroom to bring her brothers's presents down to the living room herself. She didn't switch on the light, what for, after all she knew every single angle in this house inside out. It was her home, her haven, full of memories, familiar odors and noises. Here she was born and grown up and never had left it for more than four weeks running. But it never would have occured to her that she would also find death here. Not here, not such a peaceful morning.

The presents obstructed her sight onto the steps she'd been knwoing for so many years. She could've told which ones creaked and squeaked on her head and which one therefore were better avoided, coming home after a secret party, trying to sneak upstairs unnoticed since having forgotten to leave the bedroom-window open. Those steps, on which her little brothers preferred to leave their entire toys collection and on which from tomorrow on the trucks would also be found, guaranteed. Those steps, that were tidied up each evening by those beloved little chaotics. Those steps on which inexplicably one little toy-car laid, that had been overlooked. She couldn't see it, but when she felt it slipping away under her bare feet, it was already too late.

The packets slid out of her hands as she tried shaking to grab the handrail, but the weight of the presents had already pulled her forward too far and so she fell, her arms helplessly rowing in the air, behind it, downstairs, until her head hitshe hit hard on the ground. It happened so fast she didn't even have time to scream for help.

The short moment, in which the silence returned into the house as if nothing had happened was the last she lived to see consciously, before her eyes were closed forever.

Seconds later there was the sound of hurriedly clattered doors heard, being opened in discomposure, and the lamps went on one by one, until the entire house was ablazed with light.

***********

*Whoa, took me longer to translate that than I ever would've guessed. Hope that there are no more than 5000 mistakes. But anyway, I'm gonna load it up now, before I go to work. Have a nice time.*

************

*Hello and welcome back to the freak show. Sick as I am I even created kinda a private FD - soundtrack. Not that I didn't like the original - I love it - nor that I considered my stuff to deserve to be musically underlaid (phew, can I say so?) , it's just that these songs always cross my mind while working out the fic.

For Carter:

Nada Surf: Popular; Papa Roach: Last Resort (*hello Katey-Kinz, that's your fault :o)) *); Limp Bizkit: Break Stuff; Dennis Leary: Asshole; Dog Eat Dog: Sore Loser

For Clear:

Edie Brickell: Picture Perfect Morning (don't ask me why, I can't explain, it's not a likeness, it's how she makes me feel .... (hehe)) ; Ella Fitzgerald/Satchmo: Summertime; Aerosmith: Hole in My Soul (if Billy had survived in my story, it would've been his)

For Alex:

Bif Naked: Lucky (*for Fa*); Korn: Thoughtless; Die Aerzte: Ein Song namens Schunder

For Liz:

The entire Filter (Title of Record) - album ; Joe feat. Mariah Carey & Nas: Thank God I Found You (Make It Last-Remix Edit); Temple of the Dog: Times of Trouble (*Fa, Fa*)

Just a few more:

Him: Join me; Faith No More: Midlife Crisis; Nick Cave: There Is a Light; Don Henley: New York Minute; and some by Muse

OMG!! Am I pathetic or what?! I can hardly believe that I really put it down. It's so embarrassing .... I'm so sorry. So let's go on with the story.*

Paris, March 1996

„And? Who's next?"

Alex was horrified by seeing the huge iron scaffold - with the ‚Blue Café 801' neon sign – having been unfastened and now rushing down towards them in an awesome velocity. Carter started speaking again, then his eyes followed Alex' gaze and he slowly began to turn around. All of this seemed to be filmed in slow motion. For a single moment Alex was like paralyzed. Then he unexpectedly kicked into Carter's stomach who writhed down moaning in pain. Alex sat up a little, grabbed his collar and pulled him down to the ground. With an earpiercing screeching the scaffold ground over the asphalt behind them, until it suddenly unexpectedly stopped exactly at that point, Carter had stood only a second ago. Sparks rained down on them and little splinters of glass and iron fell onto the street.

For fractions of seconds there was no noise as if the entire world stood with bated breath.

Higher above, at the scaffold, a thinner of the diagonal braces had loosened after the crash, and only kept hanging on a single half-destroyed spike. Alex had just started to uprise, as it finally broke. The bar smashed at his chest and his head banged backwards onto the lane. He heard Clear desperately crying his name, before collapsing unconscious.

Cautiously Carter lifted his head, surmising to hear a familiar voice. It still boomed inside of his ears and his abdomen was damned hurting. This fucking little wanker! Pressing his hand on his paining body his eyes were caught by something big and dark near him. About a half foot away from him, there was a black shadow; the scaffold towering threateningly above his head, as if still considering to fall down within the next moment. He began to understand why it had stopped: if it had been only about two centimetres shorter or less robust it would've smashed them both like an oversized swinging door. A little dizzy he turned around, but recognizing the chaos, his mind was immediately clear again.

„Alex?"

He jerked round for his friend. Alex laid two metres away from him, not moving. „Alex?" He went along on his knees and since he didn't have time to worry yet, panic now attacked him. His friend's face was terrifying pale with lots of cuts and scratches, and he was heavily bleeding from a wound at the back of his head. „Alex?" He shook him, lightly at first, then, without any reaction, stronger. „C'mon man, not now", he murmured, as his trembling fingers tried to check the pulse, but either he was simply too shocked or –

„Stop shaking him like like a cocktail, we don't know how severe his injuries are", he heard Clear's strictly voice beside him. With an almost defiant gesture she swept the tears off her face and knelt down beside him. One hand on the ground she realised that there was a sizably big puddle of blood on the asphalt yet. Carter reached over pressing something against Alex' head; only at second glance Clear noticed that it was his expensive sweater. He usually burst out when only a little drop of coke touched it. She gave him an appreciatively smile.

The usual gawking crowd had sorrounded the place, but some of them fortunately rather decided to help than to gape and some passant having presence of mind must have called the ambulance immediately, because soon the sirens were wailing over the place. Still quite numb, Carter and Clear tried to explain in French, what had actually happened, but on the one hand they could hardly believe it themselves, and on the other all their linguistic knowledge suddenly seemed to have ended in smoke.

And for the only thing they absolutely knew for sure, they assumedly would've been sent straight to the locked ward in psychiatry.