NULL AND RISING

  Prelude: Where it all began

  He had been twenty-five when he met her.

  Leipzig, 2003.

  The city still carried the feeling of something unfinished. Construction cranes stood above the rooftops like patient metal birds, waiting for the next thing to build.

  Markus had been sitting on an overturned construction container eating lunch when he saw her walking across the yard.

  Not fast.

  Not hesitant.

  Just certain.

  There was a confidence in the way she moved that made people look up without realizing why.

  Markus noticed her before she reached him.

  First the movement in the corner of his eye.

  Then the sunlight catching in her hair.

  Then the simple fact that she was walking straight toward him.

  He set his lunch container aside.

  She stopped a few steps away.

  “You’re Markus, right?” she asked.

  Her voice was calm, but there was firmness in it.

  “Yes.”

  For a moment neither of them spoke.

  She was holding a clipboard, but she wasn’t looking at it anymore. She was looking at him.

  “There’s a delay here,” she said.

  Markus rubbed his hands on his trousers and stood.

  “Yeah.”

  He waited for the usual lecture that came from people in offices.

  Instead she tilted her head slightly, studying him.

  Not accusing.

  Thinking.

  Markus suddenly became aware of the dust on his boots. The sweat on his shirt. The concrete dust in his hair.

  And somehow—

  none of that seemed to matter to her.

  “Do you know what caused it?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” Markus said.

  He explained it briefly, pointing across the site with one hand.

  She listened.

  Actually listened.

  When he finished she glanced down at the clipboard for a moment, then back up at him.

  Something changed in her expression.

  The sharpness softened.

  “That makes sense,” she said quietly.

  Markus felt something strange in his chest.

  A tightening.

  The kind of feeling you got when someone saw you clearly.

  Not just the work.

  You.

  “How long will it take to fix?” she asked.

  “Ten days.”

  She watched him for a moment.

  Then she nodded once.

  “Alright.”

  She turned to go.

  Then paused.

  She looked back over her shoulder.

  Their eyes met again.

  That tight feeling in Markus’s chest pulled a little harder.

  “Nice to meet you, Markus.”

  Then she walked away.

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  Markus watched her cross the yard until she disappeared behind the scaffolding.

  He stood there longer than he meant to.

  Thinking about the sound of his name in her voice.

  Thinking about the way she had looked at him.

  He didn’t know it then.

  But that moment in a dusty construction yard would become the beginning of the next twenty years of his life.

  Twenty years.

  The number still didn’t fit inside his head.

  Twenty years of breakfast together.

  Twenty years of her voice in the apartment.

  Twenty years of arguments, laughter, quiet evenings, and ordinary days that slowly built something stronger than either of them had expected.

  Helga had warmth.

  Not loud warmth.

  Not dramatic.

  Just a steady warmth that filled rooms without effort.

  Markus had grown up in a house where love was expressed through work.

  You fixed things.

  You stayed.

  You showed up.

  Helga used words.

  “I love you.”

  “I’m proud of you.”

  “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

  Simple things.

  But they mattered.

  More than Markus had realized before her.

  The apartment on Sternwartenstra?e was small.

  Four rooms.

  A narrow kitchen.

  Windows that looked onto a courtyard.

  But when Helga was there, it felt like the correct place in the world.

  The place where things were right.

  And Markus had not said it enough.

  That thought had been sitting inside his chest since Wednesday morning.

  Since the lights went out.

  Since the city started screaming.

  He had been at work.

  Helga had been at home.

  Four kilometers apart.

  Four kilometers.

  A distance Markus could normally walk in forty-five minutes.

  But the city below his office window had filled with monsters.

  Fast.

  Hungry.

  Too many.

  A man alone would not survive the walk.

  So Markus stayed.

  He helped Igor move the group.

  He boarded windows.

  He carried supplies.

  And every time he passed a window he looked north.

  Toward home.

  Now he stood outside the building on Sternwartenstra?e.

  A candle burned in a third-floor window.

  Helga’s window.

  Thirty-eight hours remained on the timer.

  Back together again

  The door swung open before Markus could knock.

  Werner Brandt stepped aside, his shoulders squared, eyes sharp and alert. A flick of his hand—quick, precise—beckoned Markus forward. No words were needed; the urgency radiated from every line of Werner’s posture. Markus hesitated for a heartbeat, then followed, footsteps careful on the worn wooden stairs. The boards creaked beneath them, echoing faintly in the narrow stairwell, a subtle reminder of the apartment’s age and fragility.

  The air smelled faintly of dust and old varnish, carrying the quiet heaviness of an apartment left untouched for hours. A stray beam of moonlight fell through the stairwell window, catching motes of dust that danced like tiny embers in the dim light. Markus’s chest tightened. Each step up seemed longer than the last, and the knot of unease deepened.

  Werner moved methodically, one foot in front of the other, muscles coiled like a man ready to spring. Markus gripped the railing, knuckles whitening, following the rhythm silently set by Werner, every step measured, every pause weighted with unspoken questions.

  At the third-floor landing, Werner stopped, hand resting lightly on the bedroom doorframe. He inclined his head toward the door—a silent signal that this was where it had happened. Markus’s stomach lurched. The door seemed smaller than he remembered, yet somehow heavier, burdened with the weight of what awaited inside.

  He pushed it open.

  The room smelled faintly of antiseptic and something sharper—iron, faint and metallic. Moonlight spilled across the floor, illuminating Helga’s form on the bed. Her skin was pale, the ashen grey of exhaustion and blood loss, her body still and fragile beneath thick bandages that were darkening at the edges. The sheets around her were rumpled, pressed down unevenly where Werner had worked to make her comfortable.

  Markus froze. Every sound in the apartment seemed amplified—the shallow rasp of her breathing, the faint creak of the bedframe, the distant hum of the city that had once been alive outside these walls. His own heartbeat thudded in his ears.

  Werner moved to the window, his figure rigid and alert, shoulders tense, eyes scanning the shadowed corners of the room. His hand lingered on the curtain rod as if the fabric itself could conceal danger.

  “She’s alive because of me,” Werner said, voice low, steady, with a weight that pressed down into the room. “The monster got here first… I—” He swallowed, the line of his jaw tightening. “I killed it. She was trapped. If I hadn’t—she wouldn’t be here.”

  Markus’s throat went dry. He moved closer to the bed, careful with each step, letting his gaze sweep over the room—the uneven floorboards, the dark stains on the carpet, the faint scent of iron in the air. He knelt beside Helga, hands hovering above her bandaged torso, reluctant to touch, afraid to disturb the fragile hold she had on life.

  Her eyelids fluttered. She exhaled a shallow breath, and for the briefest instant, her lips curved into a faint, fragile smile.

  “I knew…” she whispered, the sound so soft it might have been carried away by the still air. “I knew you would come.”

  Her strength ebbed immediately after, as if she had given everything she had to produce that smile. Markus leaned closer, forehead brushing her trembling fingers. He took her hand gently, letting her grip just enough to anchor him, grounding himself in the delicate pulse of life beneath his palm....

  Resolve

  Igor crouched slightly, his eyes locked on Helga’s shallow chest. His voice was low, deliberate. “At this rate… she might not make it until the timer runs out.”

  The words struck Markus like a physical blow. Heat shot to his face. He dropped to one knee beside her and yanked Igor by the shirt, pulling him close. “What the hell are you talking about?!” His hands shook with desperation. “You can’t just say that!”

  Igor’s eyes didn’t waver. His fingers tightened on the machete at his belt, then relaxed, a slow, controlled motion that contrasted with Markus’s raw panic. “I’m telling you what’s real. If we wait, if we hesitate…” He let the words hang in the thick, still air of the apartment.

  Markus’s jaw clenched. His grip on Igor loosened slightly, replaced by a tremor of disbelief. “There has to be something we can do,” he spat, voice breaking, eyes flicking down to Helga’s fragile form.

  Igor straightened, the weight of his presence pressing into the small room. “There is a way,” he said, voice tight but firm. “But it’s not simple. Not safe. If you want to save her… everyone here will have to set their lives on the line. Every single one of you.”

  Markus froze, chest heaving. His fingers lingered on Igor’s shirt, anger flaring, frustration tangling with a sudden, sharp glimmer of hope. He looked from Igor’s unwavering gaze to Helga’s fragile face, and something shifted—a fire sparked amid the fear, a desperate resolve he hadn’t felt in days.

  Werner’s hands tightened on his axe, standing rigid near the doorway, eyes scanning the hallway even as the tension in the room coiled around him. Igor let the words sink, letting the pause stretch, heavy and suffocating, until every breath felt like a countdown.

  Markus released his grip, stepping back, fists still clenched. His eyes narrowed, body tense. “Tell me what we have to do,” he said, voice low but fierce.

  Igor’s lips curved slightly—not a smile, but the barest hint of acknowledgment. “Then you need to be ready. All of you. There’s no turning back.”

  The room went silent, the weight of the decision pressing down on them, mingling fear, anger, and the smallest spark of hope.

  And outside, the night waited. Dark. Silent. Watching.