The Void by Bryan Healey Read Free Book Online Page B

want to see you again...
    "I suppose you would just call me a fool." And she laughs; more
ruffling of sheets.
    I would never call you a fool!
    "I need to believe you're somewhere waiting for me, Max... I just
need to. I don't care if I'm fooling myself, I don't care if you're
really just gone. Wherever you are, please don't judge me. Please. If
I don't hold on to that faith, if I don't believe I'll see you again,
I don't think I'd be able to handle losing you."
    I would never judge you...
    "I just need to believe!"
    I wish I could believe...
    "I need to believe... Do you understand?"
    I understand...
    "I hope you understand."
    I understand, Jenny!
    And she giggles. "Listen to me, I must be completely losing it."
And she giggles again. "I'm just glad the doctor left the room.
It's easier to be crazy when I'm alone with you."
    I like being alone with you...
    "I'm going to miss you more than you know."
    I don't want to leave you!
    "I'll be here every day you have left..."
    I don't want to die...
    "...being crazy with you..."
    I wonder what death will be like...
    "...right her, beside you..."
    I hope it doesn't hurt much.
    "...holding your hand..."
    I think my stomach is already starting to ache, the only feeling I
have experienced in as long as I can remember. Yet I wonder, am I
even really feeling it? Maybe it's all in my mind. I can
remember
hunger; am I expecting to be hungry?
    "...you're so warm..."
    I'm sure I'll feel something, as I start to die. I've never died
before; I'd come close, but was revived before the world started to
slip away. It felt like a heavy sleep. Time wasn't there; I was in a
bathroom and then suddenly, inexplicably, was not. Before the melting
of time, however, my chest felt crushed, my lungs ached, my throat
sore and tight. It was certainly not pleasant. I wonder if it will
feel the same...
    "...I'll miss cuddling with you like this..."
    She's cuddling with me?
    "...I wish you could hold me..."
    I wish I could feel her warmth...
    "...I wish we could be in our own bed..."
    I wish I could see home again...
    "...I wonder if I could take you home, for the end, to be in your
own bed..."
    I'd like that...
    "...I'd like that..."
    At least I could die with you.
    In my bed...
    My warm, soft bed...
    Surrounded by family I could not see...
    "Get down!"
    And then the Earth shakes.
    The air rattles with a burst of sand and fire, the furious warmth
snaking up my back as I am thrown against the wall behind me, my back
searing as a pipe tears into my shoulder. I hear shouting as my body
crumbles to the floor.
    "Max! Oh, God!"
    The echo of men, racked with agony, strewn across the now dirty and
bloody floor. I leap back to my feet and sprint across the floor,
into the burning sun, my eyes flaring at the brilliance before coming
back to focus and finding a flood of angry, shouting men rampaging
toward me, fists clasped onto large weaponry, aimed at the building I
had ran from.
    And, out from behind the wall, comes Jenny.
    "Jenny! Jesus!"
    I rush for her, throw my arms around her torso, and rip her to the
ground, as bullets unleash from their barrels and fling toward us
both. By the time our bodies collide with the ground, the air was
frothing with metal death.
    "What the hell are you doing?"
    "Stay down!"
    "Max, stop it!"
    "Jenny!" I shout, eyes fierce.
    She looks scared.
    "Max, what is wrong with you?"
    I feel myself starting to sweat. My heart is pounding. I don't know
how to get her out of here. She's not safe... how did she get here?
Wait...
    I look up, look around...
    How did I get here?
    I blink, shake my head...
    "Max!"
    I look down; Jenny is bleeding.
    Why is she bleeding?
    "Jenny, why are you bleeding?"
    "Max, you-"
    "Are you hit?" I immediately begin checking her body for
injuries. I find a gash across her left thigh; she must have been
grazed... It doesn't look life threatening, but it is bleeding. I
grab at my pants and remove my belt, trying to quickly fasten it
around her leg, tightly enough to act as a