The End of the Beginning...

Max lay on a mattress on the floor. Maggie hovered over him with a damp cloth tending to his wounds. He was feverish and delusional at the moment in his world of pain. He didn't know what happening to him but he could feel immense pain. He could feel a warm liquid spreading through his shirt, he knew that it was not water.

"Where am I?" he asked.

"You are here," she answered him as a mother with a child.

"Where's here?" he questioned.

"Here in the now," she answered.

Outside the sound of combat was close. Machine gun fired like a symphony in the night, playing music to which no one really wanted to listen to in the first place. It was hot and Max could see that not only was she covered in sweat, but it looked like she had bathed in blood as well.

"What's going on?" he asked.

"Nothing that concerns you at the moment," she told him. 

Max tried to lift his head to see what was going on, but he found that task next to impossible. 

"Am I okay?"

"You are fine, darling," she answered.

Max knew that she was lying.