Zero Point

51

Buried beneath a sea of skulls, I drowned.

The pressure bore down on me from all sides. I writhed, resisting, but each movement only intensified the pressure. I screamed but there was no sound.

Instead, blood filled my mouth, my nostrils, my ears, my eyes, my―

***

I stood upon the field. I was barefoot in the frost and snow, but I couldn't really feel the freezing cold. The sky was dark. I gazed around, then I saw the Bull Dog base. I saw Raymond Frost, Lisa, Andy, and Riz emerging from one of the gates, laughing. There was a rumbling, and I knew it was coming.

I screamed at them, to warn them, but it was futile. There was no sound. In fact, I just realised, I couldn't hear anything at all. I broke into a run toward them, before I realised that, somehow, I wasn't getting any closer. I screamed again, and this time it hurt, deep within, and I doubled over, coughing up blood and bile.

Then it was there. The fighter jet. It swept overhead and time slowed down. I watched helplessly as it unleashed its payload over the base. The explosion rippled out silently in a pulse of blinding light that ripped through my friends like a knife through butter, in a shower of blood and guts that was instantaneously consumed by the inferno radiating toward me. I held up my arms to shield myself, knowing it wouldn't, trying to steel myself for the inevitable―

***

I woke, sobbing. I found myself in our tent, dimly lit by a small lamp in the corner. My head was resting on Julia's legs, her palms stroking my head.

"Julia―" I pushed myself up onto my elbows, but she held a finger to her lips and shook her head.

She looked pale and thin, but at least she wasn't bleeding. I glanced around the tent. Everyone was asleep.

"What. The fuck. Is going on." I whispered. "Is this real? Am I going mad?"

She gazed at me, her eyes bright despite the fatigue etched into her face.

"I told you about the Ragnarok. The time approaches. You must prepare yourself."

I pulled myself away, overcome with the confusion of conflicting emotions.

"Julia... you're not real. This isn't real. You're a figment of my imagination." I turned away from her and tried to focus. My instinct was to hold her and never let go, but logic told me if I did that I might never wake up. "I can't believe I'm talking to a fucking hallucination. Holy shit. I can't believe this." Tears welled in my eyes at the futility of it all, the inevitability. I was going to end up like those old vets, alone and mad and unemployable. What was the point?

Then her fingers were in my hair again, and there I was laying in her lap, gazing into her eyes.