“It’s the end you see. I’ve seen the end of the world and it’s coming soon.”

Stein rolled his eyes at me and sighed, “Oh it is, is it? I’ve heard this one before. So when’s the big event?”

“Just hear me out, ” I said, pacing the room restlessly. “It’s going to happen tomorrow at a quarter past three in the afternoon, and no one’s going to see it coming. It’s not going to be a meteor or a flood, a nuclear war or plague or any of that stuff that everyone’s always afraid of.” I started trembling as I spat the words out. I was afraid I was starting to lose my composure, and with it my credibility.

“So what’s it going to be?” Stein looked at me expectantly, his chin resting on his hands as he slouched over his desk at me.

“A child. Just one child, and she’s going to bring it all down to the ground. The chaos she’s going to bring will be the beginning of the end, but she won’t even know what horror she’s wrought.”

Across town, Dierdre booted up her laptop and found a message she had not been expecting.