REBORN: ENTER INTO THE APOCALYPSE

CHAPTER TWO - One Week

Ray stood still at the entrance to his mother's room for a long time before she saw him.

She was sitting up in bed the same way she always did every morning with her back in a straight position and hot tea on a small stool beside her, reading glasses slightly balanced at her nose tip reading a church magazine.

Anna Parker never wasted her mornings, even though she had a heart attack which had been getting worse for the past three months she was always up before six and reading before seven.

She looked up and saw him.

“What's wrong dear, are you okay?.” She asked, staring at his face.

Ray almost burst into a loud laughter, nothing was wrong with him yet, not now.

“Nothing mom, I'm just happy I'm seeing you.”

An unreadable expression of surprise ran through her face then it disappeared immediately.

“Glad you're awake too.” She said,

She went back to her reading and Ray left to eat at the dining but instead he stood beside a large table to think of how to clear everything in his head.

He had only one week.

And he knew exactly everything that would happen in those days, he had lived through them and had remembered the events recurring in his head like a replayed video.

Tuesday, which was today, was the day he would leave the apartment at exactly 11am with $300 cash to buy his mother's tuberculosis medicine from Anders’ which was a few blocks away from Crescent street.

On the way two men would try to rob him before he reached the medicine store and they would take everything after punching him on the nose.

Then he would walk home bleeding only to find out that his mother had been rushed to St Emmanuel by the ambulance.

At the hospital a doctor named Arnold would tell him she needed a heart transplant that would cost $200,000. Ray would have nothing and he would promise the doctor to work extra time to gather as much as he could for the deposit.

That was exactly how day one had gone.

*****

Ray went towards the kitchen and opened a drawer then counted $300 cash in an envelope, it was at the same place where he had kept it, and he had remembered.

He would hack the process, since he was robbed at a silent alley before the medicine store, he will take a short cut, so that he could get to his mom in time before her health becomes worse.

So simple as he had planned.

He left the apartment very early, thirty minutes earlier than the last time, and this time around he took Denton avenue instead of Crescent street, it was a shorter route to the medicine store.

He reached Anders without any hitch. 

He bought the medicine and pocketed the remaining change then walked home using a different route.

He was back home after thirty minutes of walking holding a paper bag containing his mother's rifampicin's tablet and for the first time he felt relieved.

His mother took the drugs without any fuss which was normal enough that he had asked her twice if she was okay.

“I'm fine son, stop worrying yourself.” She said.

He took his phone and dialled Dani's number. She picked up after the second dial with a sleepy voice.

“Ray,” she grunted. “It's ten in the morning, why are you calling me?”

“Just checking on you D.” 

She paused. “I'm still asleep, how's mom doing?”

“Mom's okay, she took her drugs without fuss...” He paused and wanted to say something else but he wasn't sure what of to say.

He was aware of how Dani's face would look at the end of the phone.

“Just stay at home. Don't go anywhere.”

There was another pause. “Ray, what the hell is going on?” 

“Nothing, just stay at home.”

“Okay.” She said hurriedly and hung up.

Ray sat at the kitchen and stared blankly at nothing for almost thirty minutes.

He had made two changes that morning. Changing the route to Anders' medicine store and calling his sister to stay safe.

This, he never did in his previous life.

He didn't know where Wolfe and his men would be right now or which hospital administration had brought his mother's file to project X.

He was aware of what would happen but not aware of what would be beneath it.

*******

By Wednesday everything went on normally without any hitch.

His mother ate breakfast and argued about a TV programme. Ray went to work a six hour shift at the  supermarket in Greenfield, arranging the night shelves. As he watched his colleagues he thought about it, none of them knew what was coming in five days.

He almost told his manager, an obese man named Pete who had worked at Whitefield for eleven years that he would not survive the first five days of the outbreak.

Ray stood at the end of aisle nine and observed Larry argue with the delivery list and schedule on his clipboard, he opened his mouth but immediately closed it again.

What was he expected to say, there was no way he could place this. 

*That an apocalypse is coming and everyone should be prepared* 

Nobody would actually believe him, they would all think he was crazy.

He went back to the shelves to resume stacking.

At 11pm that night when he reached home, he was happy his mother was still there, no abnormality or changes.

She was sleeping quietly and had even switched off the lights before she went to bed.

He stood in the dark kitchen and began to run the figures again in his head.

Five days to the apocalypse and his mother was still stable, medicated and not hospitalized. Dani also has stayed indoors and those were actually wins for him.

But his thoughts went to Wolfe, he was still out there, where project X operated from, and he needed to put an end to this project X once and for all before it even came into limelight.

He needed information, names and location.

He had spent weeks inside Wolfe's compound and had never once seen a location document or facility address where the serum was manufactured.

But he knew the government letterhead on the consent form and he was also aware of the name of the department. “Advanced Medical Research.”

He pulled out a piece of paper and jotted it down. 

Then he stopped.

His pen was placed on the paper but he stared at what he had written and he knew immediately that something was wrong. He could feel it the way you feel something that can't be heard.

He thought about the hospital and about Wolfe walking in that same night how he had perfectly timed the moment.

The surgical team on stand-by and the already prepared documents, all these weren't coincidence, it was already preplanned, they had been watching his mother before she was even admitted.

And that actually meant someone in that hospital had been working with them.

If there's someone in the hospital already feeding them information. Then that actually means they were aware of his mother's condition before he came to the hospital, he just happened to fall into the trap.

They already knew where his mother was, they had always known.

And no matter the hospital he took his mom to, if her condition became worse, he would surely be found and the proposal would be presented to him.

It doesn't matter how he tried by rejecting the proposal, project X will surely have a way of getting to him.

He was already late, project X was up and running and it's just waiting for the right time to locate him.