Tuesday August 25, 2026 [8/8 +17]
Chicago, United States of America
One week later, Matthew McBride was famous the world over.
Matthew had found the cause of the Coma Imprisonment, and also gave the phenomenon a name. His previous work in the Middle East covering the Iraq Insurgency had been highlighted once again in the press. Interview requests were pouring in from several prominent American talk shows.
His boss, Perry Easton, could not have been more pleased, and even began overlooking Matthew’s generally shoddy appearance and his tendency to roll into work slightly hungover.
Even with all of the attention, Matthew McBride kept doing what he always did when a story broke hard: he worked. Like a fucking machine. Every day was a 14-hour marathon of writing, research, and interviews bookended with a six-pack of Sam Adams and a few hours crashing on his couch at home.
Matthew stared at the screen at his desk in the offices of The Daily Post and Register. He was banging out a story about the recent suicide spike in Chicago. Since the Coma Imprisonment struck humanity, for the first few days the suicide rate around the world was shockingly low. Psychologists suggested that this phenomenon was due to the new social stigma against killing. Also, perhaps the unprecendented event of the Coma Imprisonment persuaded would-be suicides to hang around for a bit longer to see what happened next.
After two weeks, however, suicides came back with a vengeance. Depressed people the world over offed themselves at double the rate and was now a big story.
Matthew knew that simply by writing about the suicide spike, he may be contributing to the problem. Medical studies done in the 1980’s and 90’s showed that suicides (as well as suspicious ‘accidents’) tended to spike right after a suicide was reported. Recently, however, journalists have justified suicide reporting to gain awareness of the problem, in the hope that the increased publicity will have caregivers, parents, and teachers look out more carefully for at-risk people.
Matthew really did not care about any of that stuff. What he cared about was getting impactful stories out into the world with his name on them. What people did after they read his material was not his business.
“Hey Matt, get in here!” Perry Easton called in his faded Scottish brogue.
Matthew banged out a couple more sentences in his suicide story, and got up to head to his boss’ office.
“Matt, you’re on the suicide spike story, right?” Perry asked as Matthew got into the office and shut the door.
“Yeah, almost done. Yvonne pulled the stats for me—it looks like the suicide rate has doubled in the past few days.”
“That’s great—get that done, but I’ve got something more urgent for you.”
Perry flipped over his tablet so that Matt could see the video playing on the screen. The news story was about a college kid who just killed his girlfriend. Idiot… he must have known about the Coma Imprisonment, Matthew thought.
The video continued. “The murder of Shana Brighton was apparently immediately followed by the suicide of the gunman…” the reporter intoned.
Wait a second… what the fuck?!
Perry Easton glanced at Matthew with a glint in his eye.
“That’s right, Matthew my boy. This may be the first murder-suicide since the Coma Imprisonment hit. It’s still possible to kill someone, and then kill yourself as long as you time it right.”
“Whoa. This is a big deal.”
“Yep. And you’re on it. Get this story covered, Matt. I have a feeling we’re about to see a big wave of these murder-suicides in the next few days!”
