“I’ve seen this place in my dreams.”

“You didn’t mention precognition.” Franks sounded accusatory. “You’re a terrible psychic.”

“Uh, well…” the major coughed. “I didn’t hear that at all. I’m going to go wait by the fence.” He waddled off.

“I can’t go down there, Franks. It’s dangerous.” Franks reached for his side instinctively, then realized he couldn’t reach his pistol through his suit. “No. I think the danger’s gone. I just can’t. I can’t see…Look, if the dream was right, there’s a mark down there. It’ll kill—I can’t explain…My father…It’s complicated.”

The faceless suit watched me.

“It’s not like that, Franks. I can’t go down there.”

“Hunters make everything complicated.”

The story came spilling out. “My dad was supposed to have died a long time ago, but he was kept alive by, I don’t even really know by who…all to prepare me for the end of the world. He warned me about a mark, and when I see it, then I know it means the end is here. He’s supposed to deliver a last message to me, but then he’ll die. I saw that mark in my dreams last night, scratched into whatever is at the bottom of that ladder. If I go down there, I’ll know it’s started. I’ll have no choice. I’ll have to hear him out. When his mission is over, his borrowed time is up and he dies. I can’t kill my father, Franks.”

Franks was puzzled. “Will the world end anyway?”

“I…” Probably. Dad certainly thought so. The war was coming, no matter what. “I just can’t.”

Franks looked at me, then the hole, then me again. It would have been easier if he’d called me a coward, but he simply went over to the hole, found the ladder, and began climbing down without me. Franks’ headlamp disappeared, then I was alone, standing in the blighted circle as the cold gradually leeched through my suit.

Dad was mad at me. He’d accepted his death, and couldn’t understand how come I couldn’t too. He had been preparing for it his entire life. I had only been kicked in the face with it recently. Finding out that I was the one who was supposed to fulfill his life’s work had been a relief for him, a burden lifted. The selfish old bastard had been glad to dump it all on me, and now he couldn’t grasp how come I wasn’t eager to simply hear his message and end his life.

The hole taunted me.