diff --git a/src/bits.c b/src/bits.c
index 48391fb..6b7a351 100644
--- a/src/bits.c
+++ b/src/bits.c
@@ -7,6 +7,8 @@
 #include <stdlib.h>
 #include <string.h>
 
+#define noreturn __attribute__((noreturn))
+#define noinline __attribute__((noinline))
 #define BUFFER_SIZE 4096
 #define IGNORE(param) do { (void)(param); } while(0)
 #define LIKELY(ex) __builtin_expect((ex), 1)
@@ -39,19 +41,21 @@ static void pbits(char out[restrict 8], unsigned char byte, const char bit[stati
 	//TODO: In explicitly threaded version, we can use an atomic (atomic.h) 64-bit integer `store()` to output those 8 bytes in `out`, which will be re-cast as `uint64_t out[restrict 1]` 
 }
 
-// Light assertion (likely to succeed)
-static inline int lcheck(int val, const char* msg)
+static noinline noreturn void die(const char* msg)
 {
-	LIF(val) return val;
 	fprintf(stderr, "error: %s\n", msg);
 	exit(1);
 }
 
+// Light assertion (likely to succeed)
+//TODO: Where do we have the __builtin_expect here? On the inside or the outside of the expression? Or both? For now, both.
+#define Lcheck(value, message) (LIKELY(LIKELY(!!(value)) ? 1 : (die(message), 0)))
+
 int main(int argc, char **argv)
 {
 	IGNORE(argc);
 
-	const char* mask = argv[1] && lcheck(argv[1][0] && argv[1][1], "expected 2 character mask") ? argv[1] : "01";
+	const char* mask = argv[1] && Lcheck(argv[1][0] && argv[1][1], "expected 2 character mask") ? argv[1] : "01";
 	unsigned char buf[BUFFER_SIZE];
 	char tbuf[BUFFER_SIZE * 8];
 	size_t bsz = BUFFER_SIZE;