Zero Point

41

February 7th. 4:00 a.m.

I woke up, drenched in sweat. I stank.

Then I nearly fell off my bunk, because Julia was curled up beside me. She was wearing the same T-shirt and leggings as when I'd met her—dreamt I'd met her—on the coach to Hereford. She was soaked in blood, even more so than before.

She gazed up at me, but her beautiful face was darkened with worry, or illness, or both.

I glanced around the barracks. The others were asleep in their bunks. We'd been given a separate room to the rest of the people on base―which amounted to only about three dozen people or so. It was a tiny group for an organisation trying to take on a motherfucking hydra of an enemy.

I really was wide awake.

"Julia?" I whispered. "What the hell is going on? Is this real?"

"I miss you, Dave," she said. Tears streamed down her cheeks.

I cradled her small, slim body in my arms. She had lost weight dramatically. And she was freezing.

"Julia, what the hell is happening? Everything's going to be okay, I promise. I'm going to find you."

"You can't find me," she said. "Don't worry about me."

She began shivering violently. "You have more important things to worry about. You must be strong. Things are about to happen that will make you doubt yourself."

"Like that's supposed to be new?"

"Don't doubt yourself, David," she whispered between chattering teeth. "Because you're all that stands between us and Armageddon."

"Armageddon? What do you mean?"

I clutched her ice cold body tight, close to me, as her shivering intensified violently.

She buried her face in my chest. "The Ragnarok."

***

Then I woke up. I was still drenched in sweat. And I still stank. But there was no sign of Julia.

I clutched my head in both hands. What the hell was going on. Was this it? I'd finally lost the plot completely?

The Ragnarok. What the fuck was that?

***

I could still see the warehouse, I could still taste the blood of my fallen victims, Omar Farooq's stricken, broken face as I kicked him repeatedly in the teeth. But then as I leaned closer to the bodies strewn around me, I'd realised that they weren't terrorists at all. They weren't even armed. They were little children. Mothers. Families. Innocents. And they were piled on top of one another, endless corpses, mangled limbs, torn flesh, a sea of innocents stretching to the horizon, surrounding me.

What have I done?

What have I done?

I woke up.

I barely suppressed the urge to run screaming from the room. It took a few minutes, lying there breathing heavily, to regain a semblance of calm, to shake the images from my mind. First Julia, now this. I wished I had some meds.