CRIO

Fiction by: Aaron Z. Adams

© December 20, 2005

God told us he would come for us all one day. That day is today.

In 1937 the idea of preserving a body, then trying to reanimate it years

later was formed. To preserve the remains, scientists started by freezing the
body at absolute zero. Hoping that new medical cures in the future would
allow for the revival of a body that had been dead for several years. This was
known as putting someone into Crio-stasis. The scientific community never
had a set name for the revival of the body, because it had yet to happen.
From 1937 through 2000, the total number of people to be in stasis was
just shy of 1 thousand. There was only a very small group of people who
believed in the possibility that Crio-stasis may be a way to return from death
to live life again. By 2035 major advancements in micro-med technology
had given the general populace a boost of confidence in the reanimation of
dead tissue.
In 2039, just 4 years after these advancements of the micro-meds, Crio-
stasis participation went up exponentially. Over 6 million people had been
Crio-genically frozen. Nearly every person who had health care was getting
frozen after his or her demise, untimely or not. Human husks that were once
returned to ash by fire were now preserved whole by ice. But they would
have to wait for nearly 30 years before they would get their second lease on
life. And as those in the freeze waited for their grand return, others joined
them by the millions every year for 30 years. Now nearly 120 million people
sit in Crio-stasis. Everyone holding his or her breath as the medical
community inched closer and closer to everlasting life.
And as the doctors of the world continued to forecast the coming of the
first human reanimation, the world started to trade in their philosophical
questions for technical ones. Everyone had their own dream of life after
death. Nobody had ever thought for a moment that what came after death
might be so much better than anything life had to offer. We still believed it
was the body that gave us life, not the soul. That proved to be the biggest
mistake humanity could ever make. In 2079 the first human revival from
Crio-stasis was successfully performed. More would follow in that year, but

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it was the first one that caught Gods attention. For this was the first soul to
ever be removed from Heaven by someone other than God Himself. And
God knew the time had come. Heaven was about to be torn inside out, soul
by single soul, by his own creation, mankind. So now it was to become a
battle to the end, mankind verses his Maker; the only thing was that mankind
had no idea that a battle had begun. For all of humanity was now rejoicing
in its victory over death, this was certainly not a time of war, but one of
celebration.

Chapter 1-saying goodbye

Forever tends to stretch on forever when you can see to infinity. So while
one is within the walls of Heaven, one tends to limit their view as to not be
overwhelmed. But then again when you are new to Heaven, it’s impossible
not to be overwhelmed.
The Grand Canyon was not new to Heaven. There was nothing truly new
to heaven except for you. But as new spirits entered the Kingdom of God
for the first time, the first thing they usually saw was a place of comfort that
resides somewhere on Earth. To see Heaven as it truly is as you first enter
usually would leave one drooling for a year or two afterward, and that’s no
way to start your after-life. No, when one enters Heaven the first thing they
see is a place of comfort. So the Grand Canyon has been in Heaven just as
long as it’s been on Earth. But this version was slightly different than its
Earth bound counter part. It was bigger, say 10 times bigger, the view took
up entire states, and this canyon was 4 miles deep. But then again, Evan was
only a little boy the last time he had been there, so a slight exaduration could
be easily overlooked.
Evan thought back to a family vacation at the Grand Canyon, where mom
and dad were still in love, where the family was still whole. And here he sat
alone in Heaven of all places. His parents were still alive, as were his wife
and child. So Evan watched a never-ending sunset over a Grand Canyon
that would put the original to shame. He sat and he waited for his family to
die, one by one, and join him in Heaven.
This thought really gave him a good chuckle. How morbid any living
person would find that thought, how disgusted they would be. Waiting for
my family to die…but here in Heaven that is simply the way it is. You want

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to be the one to show your dad how to throw a ball like a champion. You
want to be the one to show your wife how to cook a meal fit for God
Himself, here in Heaven. Here I could show my son how to fly, not pretend,
but to truly lift his feet from the ground and sore from one endless point of
Heaven to another. Here anything is possible, I just have to wait for you all
to get here so I can share it with you, because right now I’m lonely. And
nothing makes me sadder than knowing that I am lonely in Heaven.
And then Evan knew he wasn’t alone anymore…but that wasn’t
necessarily a good thing. On the horizon of his Mega-Grand Canyon he saw
what he perceived to be a spirit coming towards him. Then a moment later
he caught a glint of light that revealed his error. That glint of light was off of
the silver feathers of a wing, the wing of an angel.
This was the second of three times that Evan would feel uncomfortable
within the walls of Heaven, the first was within his first second in Heaven.
One moment he was driving home late in the evening after a double shift at
the hospital, the next he was asleep at the wheel, and 13.59042 seconds
later…here in Heaven. That can be quit unsettling indeed, after all, not that
many people are anticipating to the second, their arrival in Heaven. It tends
to take you by surprise.
Now an angel coming to him? That is unsettling on a wholly different
level. Angels sang praise to God, angels did Gods bidding, and they
delivered his messages. Angels were seen all through out paradise, but they
where always busy doing Gods work. So why exactly was this angel
coming to him now?
In the matter of a few heartbeats, (funny that he measure time this way,
considering Evan no longer had a heart) the angel was standing to the left of
Evan. Turning to look at the angel, Evan caught his breath. (Again odd, due
to not having lungs, apparently old habits are hard to break, especially
considering the fact that they used to keep you alive.) It was magnificent to
view an angel this closely. Fully spread, their wings span was easily thirty
feet. Now the wings were folded back at the shoulder blades. Evan looked
up at the eight and a half foot angel, thinking that if its skin were any paler,
it may be confused for a statue of chiseled perfection. But anybody living or
dead would know that no artist could make something so utterly beautiful.
The angel now turned his head toward Evan and asked, “May I enter?”
“Uh…yeah, absolutely! Please, um let me know what you think.”
The angel took a step forward, and as he did so he passed through an
invisible curtain that separates the true view of Heaven from what Evan has
created in his mind. The angel gazed over the landscape, thought for a

3
moment and then said “I’ve seen this place before, through the eyes and the
minds of others before you…though I do not recall ever seeing it so big.”
“Well this is just as I remember it.” Replied Evan, but there was a hint of
doubt in his reply. Now Evan was starting to think this happy family
memory he’s had for so many years, may be beginning to tarnish with age.
Was this Grand Canyon really THAT much bigger?
“I believe this view to be truly beautiful” said the angel. Then he turned
and took a second look at it, and truly examined it in detail, the way one
would do if they knew they would never see it again. There was a moment
of stillness and quiet that Evan felt the need to interrupt.
“So can I ask you…how do you see it? Heaven I mean.”
The angel paused and thought of how to explain to this blind spirit what the
color of Glory looks like.
“I see Heaven as it truly is, as it was in the beginning and as it will be in the
end of time. I always found it curious that once your kind enters Paradise
you imagine yourself next to a large hole in the sand, or perhaps in a field of
grass, or a summer cottage complete with roach infestation.”
“Well, I tried to see it for, uh, what it is…but the next six months I couldn’t
see anything else. You know, like when you glance up toward the sun a
couple seconds too long, then when you close your eyes the sun is still
there.”
“Hmm, sounds like looking on the face of God, except that can take a
millennia to get over.”
“I thought all angels were used to seeing God everyday or like, weekly
meetings or something.”
“No, we angels do not see God directly per se. We sense Him everywhere,
we speak with Him, but we never look upon Him.”
“You mean since God created time, nobody has ever seen Him?” asked
Evan.
The answer came slowly from the angel, like he had to think about whether
he wanted to open this specific Pandora’s box right now. Then he simply
said “One. A former angel.” And that was all that needed to be said for Evan
to get the general idea of who that former angel was. There they both sat
now looking at a perfect sunset frozen over Evans oversized Mega Grand
Canyon and Evan started to realize how quiet the angel was now. Shifting
from one foot to another Evan just blurt out what was on his mind.
“So why are you here, I mean with me?”
“I have been sent to give you a message from God.”
“A message from God, for me?” Evan repeated.

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 “This is Heaven, don’t look so surprised.” Replied the angel flatly. The
angel now turned his back to the sunset so that he could face Evan. The first
thing that Evan noticed when the angel turned was that its eyes had their
own light to them. With the sun now to the angels back it was plainly
obvious. Then the angel ruffled his feathers quickly. Its wings stretched
from their folded position ever so slightly and all of the feathers quickly
flared out and slowly settled back again. Evan would find out later that the
feather ruffling was a signal from messenger angels. One ruffle was bad
news from God; two ruffles would be good news. Most everyone else in this
universe got two ruffles. With the angel looking directly at Evan now with
its glowing electric blue eyes, silver wings bouncing light everywhere and
an eight foot shadowed silhouette, Evan was feeling more intimidated in
Heaven than he ever had on earth. And that uneasy feeling that he had when
the angel first came to him started to get a lot worse.
A booming voice from the angel now started to deliver the word of God.
“You must remember that to break Gods law is to be damned forever and
that these rules may never be changed for any reason. To undo Gods will is
to undo the universe, Heaven, Earth and Hell. But you are to know this now,
you shall once again see Gods blessing, and in it you shall find his
forgiveness. What is about to happen was meant to be, and shall be dealt
with properly. In the meantime you must hold onto these words and never,
NEVER let go of them. You shall once again see Gods blessing, and in it
you shall find his forgiveness.” The angel stopped, and seemed to slouch
just a bit. Then added in a voice filled with sorrow, “I really am sorry for
what is about to happen, but it’s too late. It has already started.”
“What has already started?” pleaded Evan. “What are you talking about?”
And that is when Heaven started to unravel before Evans very eyes.

Chapter 2-the second birthing

David Mcgraw had spent most of his life in Chicago. It was only in the last
7 years that he had moved to Saginaw, Michigan. The reasoning was very
simple. He and his wife, Donna, wanted to start a family. And Davids
parents had never approved of Donna, so he didn’t expect a lot of support
from them when they became grandparents. Donna’s family however had
immediately welcomed David into their home. They thought he was exactly
what Donna needed to straighten her out. He was smart, and handsome, and
a doctor to boot! The only drugs David would encounter would be legal

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ones, a vast difference from the kind Donna had gotten involved with a few
years earlier when she lived in Chicago. But that was all before she met
David. Since David had entered her life things were different. He
understood what she was going through, he knew what the drugs did to her
and could help her better than her poor hurt blameful family.
And now they were ready to start a family of their own. Yes, Donna’s
family would be much more supportive during this crucial time in their life
together. And with all the research David had been working on lately, with
the solution almost on the tip of his tongue, he would probably require more
support from Donna’s family then Donna would.
David drove his regular route to work, not the most direct one, but not
completely out of the way either. The ritzy neighborhood was 3 blocks east
of the main drag, and David enjoyed taking his time, and viewing the nice
homes that he hoped to someday have for himself and Donna. Sure he was a
doctor, however he was a doctor that did research. He didn’t save lives, yet.
If his research ever came to fruition, David would find himself to be the
worlds most cherished man. More famous than the first man to craft the
wheel, more beloved than the man that first stepped on the surface of the
moon, for he…David Mcgraw had shown the world the door to immortality.
He…David Mcgraw had learned how to beat death and live forever.
And as he pulled through the gates of the hospital employee parking lot, he
knew something was going to be different today. He didn’t suspect how big
it was going to be and never could even guess what it was about to bring
about, but he did know there was something about today that was different
from any other day. It’s almost like when you can feel the air pressure
change and you can smell the storm a good half hour before it starts. It
carried a certainty with it that makes you accept it as a fact, not a guess. So
as David climbed out of his car he whistled a tuneless ditty. Nothing that
could be named, just a pure expression of a human being happy. As he
passed the front desk he nodded his head and stopped his tune long enough
to say “Mornin’ Brenda”.
Brenda “the gossip queen” had held her post at that front desk every day
for 17 years answering the phones. She looked up from her “very important
conversation on the phone” to recognize it was David. She put a check next
to his name marking that he was in and able to take phone calls, not that he
ever got any. As she did so she noticed that he was ten minutes late and
proceeded to tap her watch letting David know he was late.
“My patients are all dead, they won’t mind Bren’.” And with that he
smirked and walked away, picking his tuneless ditty back up and proceeded
to whistle all the way back to his lab.

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 “Sorry I’m late Mark.” David said as he stepped into the shiny aluminum
clad lab.
“Well, I can call of the search party. Welcome to work Dr. Mcgraw.”
Replied Mark in his driest possible delivery. And if anyone knew Mark,
then they knew that he can be drier than sand. Some wondered if he even
had any emotion at all. Certainly he was an emotional person but only his
closest circle of friends ever saw it. Mark didn’t interact well with the world
at large, but on a one to one basis he was a very decent person.
“So tell me there’s a good reason for you being late.” Mark asked. “You
know I live vicariously through you, I need something good.”
“Sorry to let you down bud, I got nothing.” David responded. “I guess my
mind has been busy. I wasn’t watching the clock. I know it’s not what you
where hoping for.”
“Shit, at least you could’ve lied to me and told me you were out all night
with a couple of hookers.”
“Hey, I’m a married man.” David replied in fake offense.
“Would’ve ended up making it that much juicer of a story.” And there it
was, a smirk. We got a smirk from Mark Allison at 9:15 Wednesday
morning October 30th, year of our Lord 2279. See, he does have emotions
after all, who would’ve guess he also had a sense of humor in there too.
“Well at least tell me what it is that’s keeping your mind so occupied. That
has got to have some entertainment value to it.”
David thought about it for a second. “Well it’s something that Evan had
told me before he died. He was working on this project with me before you
got here. Oh, I don’t remember how long ago this was, maybe 10 or 12
years ago. But he was saying how the micro-meds were the key to bringing
people out of criostasis. But you needed billions of them for one person and
there was just no way to keep a body alive with that much foreign material
inside of it. Surgeons never use more than five hundred thousand per
patient. As it is right now, I can see no other way to repair the damage from
the freezing done to the cells without the micro-meds. But if you are
successful in repairing the damage, we cant revive them with that many
meds still inside. But the meds…”
“…Were designed to stay inside the body and never come out.” Mark
finished for David.
“Exactly. So I’ve been trying to find out some way to keep them inside and
keep the body alive and I am so close. It’s like when a word is on the tip of
your tongue and you can’t spit it out to save your life. But I know its there
somewhere, waiting to pop out.”

7
 Mark looked at David for a long second before responding. He was
previously aware of Evans theory on the usage of micro-meds for cell
restructuring on crio patients. David had told him about the idea a few years
back, however this time he could sense Davids urgency. He knew that, at
least in Davids mind, he was close to a discovery. And that did get Marks
heart pumping a bit.
“Maybe you’ve been thinking about it to long. You know as soon as you
quit thinking about that word on the tip of your tongue, it magically
appears.” Mark finally said.
“Maybe your right. I have been obsessing about it the last few weeks. I
know there is a way, I just don’t know what it is yet.”
“Well get straightened up, Dr. Connors is coming down to have you sign
the papers for next years budget, which is a lot smaller by the way, and he
said he had some things that he wanted to iron out.” With that Mark picked
his notes up off the desk and moved back to his microscope to carry on with
his tests.
It had only been a very small handful of seconds that Mark had his eyes
back in his microscope when he heard David giggling to himself. Then a
few second of giggles turned to full out belly laughter. To be sure that he
wasn’t the reason for the laughter Mark took his eyes away from the
microscope to examine himself thoroughly. He did not have toilet paper
stuck to his shoe or coming from the rear of his pants. He couldn’t see any
sign of an ink pen explosion in his shirt pocket. Mildly befuddled Mark
asked, “What the hell is so funny? The fact that we get a smaller budget
next year? Is that funny?”
“What you said…I cant fucking believe it!” David managed to spit out
between guffaws.
“What did I say?” Mark was now truly deeply befuddled.
“Iron out. That’s it, that’s the answer.”
“Dr. Connors coming here to Iron some things out is the answer? Ok partner
you have truly lost me. What is the answer?”
Spinning wildly in his swivel desk chair David proclaimed, “take the iron
out. Out of the blood and replace it with the meds because they are made of
the various metals that you would find in blood. That’s why they can make
it in the blood stream for so many years. Living people have iron in their
blood…”
“Yeah yeah, I made it past 10th grade science class. I am a doctor too ya
know.” Mark said in his typical monotone voice.
“…But dead people have no blood at all.” David said this part slowly, to see
if Mark could pick up on the importance of this factor.

8
“Which means…what?” Mark sat there with his blank stare that David had
come to accept as Marks day to day face.
“Which means we can remove all of the iron and other metals from the
blood and replace it with the meds before it goes into the subject. Which
means we don’t give the subject an O.D. of iron and we can actually bring
them back.”
“There is no way it is that easy.”
“It is that easy my friend. It is that fucking easy.”
“Thousands of years in the making, and the answer relies on taking the iron
out of the blood to make room for itty bitty doctors by the billions.”
“That fucking easy.” David repeated again.
“Well then Dr. Mcgraw, who shall be our first?” Mark said in a manner that
you would imagine the way that royalty would speak.
“I feel it only right to bring back the man whose idea this was in the first
place.” David replied in the most dignified manner he could muster, playing
to Marks impromptu performance.
That was the moment where Mark lost all handle of his British accent, due
mostly to his jaw hitting the floor.
“You mean Dr. Turner?” Mark managed to spit out.
“Yes, I am bringing Evan back tonight.”
“It’s that fucking easy.” Mark said more to himself than to David. As If he
only needs to convince himself, then it would make it more probable to
succeed.
And to imagine that in order to prepare a body, the very first body for
reanimation, it only took 3 hours. But really, the dead body has nothing to
do but come back to life. The micro meds start working on the cells as soon
as they are administered into the body. There really wasn’t much to prepare,
nothing but the blood, really. It had taken an hour and a half to remove all of
the iron from a full amount of blood. It had taken one hour to mix the micro
meds into the blood, and 30 minutes to get the blood in to Evan. Now it was
just a matter of time. David held on to the belief that the massive number of
micro meds would be able to restore Evans cells by 11pm. With the results
of transplant patients over the last 30 years, David felt that his guess of
11pm was a fair guess. So they would find out now in approximately 3
hours if the idea needed more thought or if it was indeed just that fucking
easy.
He was only off by about 45 minutes on the plus side of 11pm, and
considering there is no point of comparison, David was extremely happy
with himself. The fact that he was about to successfully bring a person, no,
a friend back from the dead was not enough. Always striving for an inch

9
more after every success was Davids way. And watching the micro meds
work was something onto itself entirely. Looking one moment at a corpse as
pale as parchment, and as the blood goes in through the artery in the inner
thigh; you could actually see color spread up the leg and into the lower
torso. With all of their scientific background, both Mark and David had
more of a feeling that something magical was happening. And as the Meds
worked their magic on the inside of Evan, Mark and David prepared for the
2nd half of the process.
Inside of Evan would have been an amazing site for the two doctors to see.
A lot of damage had been done to the head in Evans fatal car crash. Now
Micro-Meds by the billions all working together, the blood system
circulating them to all of the many parts of the body without the aid of a
beating heart. The Micro Meds were now working under their own power,
creating a current from their own movement. If you could put an electron
microscope inside of Evan, you would’ve seen the Meds reorganizing each
atom, first Neutron, then the protons and electrons. Then the atoms binding
back together to recreate the cells that had once existed and died on with the
rest of the body. His body was actually living before his mind, spurred on
by the efforts of millions of Micro-Meds working together throughout Evans
body.
Even though the 2 doctors were fascinated with their own ideas of what
was really happening in that body on the table, they moved forward and
started the revival of the body. Oxygen was fed in through tubes down
Evans trachea; nutrient drips were fed through IV’s into the arm, tubes, and
cables all feeding into different parts of Evans still corpse. The moment of
truth was at hand. Mark and David started their attempts to resuscitate the
body.

Chapter 3-the downward spiral

Before the Angel could even try to answer any of Evans questions, Evan
realized that it was already too late. Whatever the Angel had come to say, it
was said and now it was too late. There would be no way to ponder the
hidden meanings that may have been buried in this message from God
himself. One second Evan was looking at the chiseled perfection of the
angels face, the next he was falling. Well it was a little more complicated
then that, to the point were you couldn’t simply call it falling. It was almost
like being pulled downward. Skydivers talk of a floating feeling even

10
though they are in freefall. This was like a place deep in your gut had a
magnet in it, and it pulled you down to meet the earth faster than gravity
wanted to. And there was something very backwards about the whole
experience. At first he couldn’t place it, but then for some reason he started
imagining photo negatives. Everyone had talked of the light at the end of
the tunnel when they had a near death experience. But this was all light with
a dark spot in the center. And the longer Evan fell, or was pulled rather, this
black spot got bigger and bigger. And as soon as Evan realized that this dark
little black spot was to be his destination, something even more bizarre
started to happen. He couldn’t catch his breath, which was very unsettling
since he hasn’t had a need to breath since he died 7 years ago. And there he
was being pulled to this dark hole, which started as a pinprick and was now
a gaping tunnel that all the light in Heaven could not penetrate and he
couldn’t breathe.
And as Evan mind raced several thoughts occurred to him all at once.
“Have I been damned to hell? Did I do something wrong? Couldn’t the
angel warn me that I was 10 seconds away from getting Asthma again?
Why was there so much idle chit chat between that angel and me, when
obviously he had a message of the utmost importance to deliver?” But most
of all his mind screamed, “why in the fuck is this happening to me?”
Now it seemed to Evan that the light was starting to fade, almost like a fall
day that started out the brightest blue and at some magical moment you look
and it a bitter cold gray. Straight ahead the dark cavern continued to grow,
filling up almost his entire vision. But looking back he saw nothing but
gray, and there in the midst of all that gray he a small blotch of pure white
light that was quickly shrinking to a pinprick.
That’s when it got worse for Evan, because now, not only could he not
breathe but also his chest was killing him. Just as he had spent the last seven
years trying to remember that he no longer had a body, heart or lungs, now
he had to remember how to use them again. And as he looked for that
pinprick of pure Heavenly light he now saw to his dismay that the gray that
had fought off the light was quickly turning to black. Now turning his
attention back to his destination he could see nothing but black, he had
entered the void. His lungs felt as if they were about to explode. Maybe
implode was more appropriate due to them lacking any gases inside required
for an explosion. His chest tingled like electricity was surging through it.
He thought back of the time he was unplugging the refrigerator for his dad.
He was only 11 and had small skinny arms able to reach back there and yank
the plug so dad cut put it on a dolly and wheel it away. However Evan
couldn’t fit his head in that small crevice with his arm to look and see where

11
he was reaching. Had he been able to steal a peek he would have noticed
that the plug was already halfway out of the socket. But not knowing that,
Evan fumbled blindly for the refrigerator plug, and when his hand landed on
hit he got watts of attention. Pardon the bad pun, but that was how he
referred to it when passing the story on to friends and family, and it always
got a cheap laugh. Well that experience left a good tingle in his whole right
arm for a good 5 minutes. Now he felt that electrical surge again rippling
through were he imagined his chest would be. Evan started to wonder if
these were anything like the “ghost pains” that amputee patients would often
feel. For he had no chest yet tingles were felt in spades in the region were
his chest would be. All these sensations and now forwards and backwards
there was nothing but darkness around him.
Silence. Darkness. Pain. These were the only things Evan could now
wrap his mind around. There were no other thoughts. Even the questions of
why this was happening disappeared like the light in the darkness.
And as he thought he was going to lose whatever was left of him to these
three powerful enemies there was light. Now he had a new thought. Of a
time when he was very young, maybe 7 or 8. He had been dared by a friend
to swim down and touch the bottom of the deep end of the pool. Not a very
big challenge, nut one that needed to be answered none the less. The way
down was no problem for Evan. He felt the pressure building in his ears,
and then the pop. He had touched the bottom, but on his way up he didn’t
know enough to push off from the bottom of the pool to rocket straight up.
Instead he flipped in the water to right himself and kept kicking. Using this
little bit of energy was enough to burn that little bit of oxygen in his lungs.
And the more it burned the harder he kicked his legs fighting to get to air.
Then like a blessing you’ve taken for granted your whole life, there it was
again, precious air on his face.
At that moment Evan took his second first breath into the world of the
living. Though at the time he did not know that. All he knew is that he had
been ripped from within Heaven and he felt like absolute shit. Light was
everywhere but it didn’t make any sense. There were no shadows, no
objects just a very intense light. This was most definitely not the same type
of intense light you get in Heaven. Because no matter how bright it was
there, you could look directly at it and it never hurt. Here it hurt to see this
light. How sad, that his journey through darkness has finally brought him
again to light, only to find out it hurts to see it. Yes pain was still here with
him, even though his allies silence and darkness had retreated together. He
had to be in hell, there could be no other explanation. Somehow Evan had
unwittingly offended the Lord and was cast out from Heaven to rot in hell,

12
forever in pain. His mouth was jammed open with some device that seemed
to go down forever inside of him. His arms felt as though they were beaten
on severely, and just ached from shoulder to finger. His right leg ached in
the thigh something fierce. Like a burn, a stinging reminder that lasts much
longer than the event that created it. A long lasting, no curing kind of pain.
He felt with his hands to his thigh. Something long and metal and sharp was
inserted deep inside of him.
That was it, he couldn’t be trapped here in hell, there had to be a way out.
If he had a body for Lucifer to use as a pincushion, then he could destroy
that body. Maybe end all sense of pain by placing this long implement deep
into his brain and ending it all. He had already died. That part was a bit
easier then he would’ve ever thought. But after all he had no clue it was
coming either. So the fact that he was trying to kill himself to get out of this
hell didn’t seem all that strange. He wanted to get back into Heaven. Or
more importantly he wanted out of here. So without so much as a hint of
second thought Evan removed the long steel tube from his thigh and jammed
it in his ear. Before his newly active brain ceased to work again Evan
thought to himself, “ah, I got the ear. Pretty good considering it has been 7
years since I’ve had an ear.”
And then the downward spiral continued again. As Evans soul began its
journey anew he was pleased to see that light at the end of the tunnel again.
The tingling sensations were easing up; all the pain was starting to melt
away. Pleasure started to fill him as he raced towards that beacon in the
darkness. Evan could sense that he was going much faster toward the light
then when he was leaving it only moments ago. Just as he prepared to
embrace the light and all of Heaven beyond it he got the shock of his
afterlife. Evan had just passed straight through all of that light in a
nanosecond, and was now on his way back toward darkness. Except the last
time he thought that the blackness he saw was as black as he could possibly
imagine. He now corrected himself, this is indeed as dark as darkness could
possibly get. There was no steel gray of autumn as a precursor to the
darkness. As soon as he passed the light he assumed to be the gates of
heaven, a complete total darkness immediately established its dominance.
Darker than the oldest most desolate places in the universe. This was a place
before light was made, this place will be here after light goes away again,
and through it all it will be forever dark.
And now that he found his not so long lost nemesis darkness and silence
together again, it only seems fitting that pain comes back too. Pain is
something he thought he was feeling about 10 seconds ago, back in the light.
This was something entirely new to him. The burn analogy would do no

13
good here. How can one explain the feel of rotting and decaying? Yet at
this point Evan has no body, so it must only mean that it is indeed his soul
that is undergoing this process.
With these three guides, super darkness, uber silence, and mega pain, Evan
took his first step into hell for the crimes that he had committed. Not for
anything he had done in his first life. No, Evan was here for the one crime
he committed in his second life, a life that only lasted a total of 4 seconds. A
4 second life that was ended prematurely by his own hand. Evan was in hell
for killing himself, and he never even knew that he had lived again.

Chapter 4-missed by 2 caught by 1

David rarely ever gets ahead of himself, but there had been so much
success so far. It was almost impossible for him to think that this was not
going to work. So he had started to look for Kimberly’s phone number.
Kimberly had kept her husbands name even now a full seven years after his
early departure. She had loved him deeply and believed just as deeply in his
research. After being with him for so many years, it was hard not to catch
his enthusiasm about the possibilities of life after death. And if you were to
ask Kim, she would deny it, but there was a part of her that firmly believed
that one day David would finish the puzzle and bring Evan back to her.
Other men were never an option for her, marriage was until death do you
part, and now even death wasn’t a certainty any more. Which meant she was
going to wait until David brought Evan back to her, again she would deny
this to the end of time if you were to ask her. David knew this much, so he
was getting ready to make that phone call, but first he had to find the blasted
phone number.
Mark was eyeball deep in a microscope as normal. He couldn’t resist
seeing what those Micro-Meds were doing and decided to take a very small
skin sample to see if he could catch any of those little buggers in the act. To
his right lay the body of Doctor Evan Turner, full of needles and tubes.
Across his chest lay an electric blanket. Not quit the type you grab in the
cold winter months, but instead a type that David had come up with for
resuscitation use. It kept a very small electrical current flowing in the chest,
which would end up reaching its way into the heart. Using the traditional
shock paddles does too much damage after so many uses. This allows the
energy to work its way in to the body and continuously try to tickle the heart
into working, as opposed to jump starting it.

14
 So, with the two momentarily distracted it was easy for them to miss their 4
seconds of success. But in 5 seconds they would see their disaster and learn
something very important in the process. Mark was closer to the source of
the sound but had finally found a few micro meds at work and didn’t want to
pry his eyes away at that second, he dint realize he only had 3 seconds left to
prevent disaster. David didn’t hear the sound at all due to his rifling through
his papers, looking for Kimberlys phone number. So it wasn’t Evans gasp
for air that got Davids attention, it was Marks.
David spun around first seeing the look of horror on Marks face then
proceeded to follow his gaze down to the table. There lay Evan just as
before, except for 2 major differences. The feed into his artery in the thigh
had been removed. The second difference is that the feed was now jammed
into Evans right ear, and by the looks of its depth, really close to coming out
the other side.
“What in the fuck did you do Mark? What in the fuck happened?”
“I swear to Christ I did not do this, I was looking at a tissue sample. I
heard a noise and, and this!”
“Well he certainly didn’t do this…”
“Hey, look at this…his arm is dangling off the table. You don’t think we
had a success of some sort do you?”
“Why would someone kill themselves after we worked so hard to bring
them back from the dead. After all it was Evans idea to be put into stasis so
that he could be brought back. You would think he would shake our hand or
something, but this. This is just not right.”
“Shock then?” Shot out Mark.
“Possibly, but it still doesn’t quit explain it. I mean we don’t even know if
he came back or not. God look at this mess. He totally destroyed his brain.
I don’t even know if the best Neurosurgeon could piece that back together.”
“So what do we do Mark?”
Mark gave it a moments thought then answered with “We put him back in
the freeze. We get a fresh body and we try again. But this time we need to
be ready.”
“Ready for what?” asked David.
Again Mark gave a second to think before he answered. “All I can think is
that we have to try to bring them out slowly. Maybe sedate them. Put them
into a coma before you bring them to life again. Give them more time to
adjust. Damn Evan, I am sorry. I thought you were on your way home.
Forgive me.”

15
 “I can’t believe we both missed the instant of the worlds first reanimation.”
Tony said with such a heavyhearted sigh, you would’ve thought that that
heart weighed a hundred tons.

A Shepard knows his flock, and they have an instinct about them. If the
flock is spread over much land, and the Shepard can’t see all of them, he still
may have a sense that one or two have gone astray and have left the safety of
the flock. This is the point where the Shepard peers from one end of the
horizon to the other, and after a moment of gathering information, he sends
his dogs out to round up those lost few.
God, in this way has been referred to as our Shepard. It’s in the prayers, in
the Bible and in our sermons. So now in Heaven, God sees the
disappearance of one of his flock. Though unlike the Shepard, God need not
scan the horizon. After all wasn’t it God that sent the angel to Evan in order
to warn him? No, God had been waiting for this moment to come. It was
this moment God had been waiting for all along. He knew that mankind
would make tremendous advancements throughout its history. And he also
knew that they feared death above all because they never truly knew what
was beyond it. So it only seem logical that mankind try to defeat death.
Even though he had given us the Bible, and told us that one-day He would
come to take us all away. That book was called Revelations.
Nobody ever could have guessed that Revelations came with a hair trigger.
A trigger that was pulled the moment they revived a person from the dead
and took their soul from their rightful place in Heaven. Revelations was
written very cryptically because at the time it was written nobody knew what
it meant. The authors thought of it as symbolism, not a reality that would
come. The fact that all those that were alive would stand next to all of those
that were once dead, now alive again. A fiery mountain was to fall from the
sky and this would be the moment of Gods judgment. The authors would
never understand the reality of some of their words.
Now an angel kneels with his head down and wings spread wide. The light
of God reflects off of the silver wings of the angel to reflect the glory of God
to God himself.
“It is time my Lord?”
There is silence even though the angel acts as if he hears something
disturbing.
“I always knew that the moment would be at hand, however I do not have
the gift of foresight as you do my Lord. I beg of you, forgive my surprise in
this matter.”

16
 Again silence, and again the distress of an angel, which is truly a
heartbreaking site.
“Yes my Lord. I serve in thine own Glory from the beginning and until the
end of time. I shall go and pick up my flaming sword that has been in its
sheath awaiting my return. On this day the angel of death shall resume Gods
bidding.”
The Angel slowly pulled its wings together and back into their folded
positions, and as he did so the light faded. This angel had been through this
process a few times before. This was the beginning of the end. Once there
was a flood, but God had decided to give man a second chance. So he gave
a warning to a man named Noah. God had sent this angel out to kill
firstborn males as a warning to a pharaoh. God had sent this angel out many
times to do His bidding, and even though it was this angels job, he never
found pleasure in his work. Sure he was bringing them to a much better
place than where they were. But humans never see that. They beg and plead
and cry and sniffle for salvation. Yet salvation is exactly what he was
brining them. This angel never wanted to be a frightening figure. He had
wished for mankind to welcome him with open arms whenever they saw
him, for it meant that they were about to go to Heaven. And who exactly
would not rejoice for something like that? Yet people of Earth see him as a
demon, full of rot and disease. No, taking life by the thousands or one at a
time never brought him joy, even though he had every reason to be joyful
about his purpose.
It was this very moment the angel had dreaded for millennia. This was to
be the beginning of the end. Not just another one of the many ends God had
brought upon us before, but the final end. God had seen mankind take its
first soul from his kingdom, and this God could not allow. Mans fear of
death is what brought death to all of them. God had sent His dogs out to
take care of his flock just as a Shepard would have. The trigger had been
pulled, Revelations would come.

Chapter 5-speak of the devil

Darkness and pain and silence. These are Evans newest companions.
Companions he never wanted never asked for. Lost in the darkness and full
of pain, Evans only thought was to break the silence. Better to have control
over one nemesis than none at all.

17
 “Hello…where in the hell am I?” Screamed Evan. And as Evan heard the
break in the silence he felt his heart drop. There were no echoes like there
were in the Grand Canyon he had imagined in Heaven. It was as though he
were in a soundproofed room. Even more disturbing, was that he didn’t hear
his own voice until half a second after he had finished screaming. This place
was not natural.
“Indeed, where in Hell are you? A rather good question, one I have heard
millions of times, I assure you.” Came a voice from the distance, or it could
have been next to his ear, Evan had no clue.
“Hello? Where are you?” Evan yelled, turning left and right looking for
the source of the voice.
“Are you sure you wish to see me Evan? Your mind may not be able to
grasp what you are about to see.” Replied the voice from near and far.
“Please.” Evan breaks into sobs. “I want to know where I am, I want to
know how to get back to Heaven.”
“And you know the answer to both already my friend. The first has already
been answered, you are in hell. The second I must leave up to you to
discover on your own.” Came the voice from everywhere.
“Who are you?” Pleaded Evan.
“Well I thought that part would be obvious by now.”
And as Evan continued to turn back and forth looking for the owner of the
voice, he found him, right beside him to his left. Smiling a very large
genuine smile. A man. A very normal looking, albeit very attractive man.
Well, normal isn’t exactly right. Due to the darkness Evan was surprised he
could see anything at all. Then Evan noticed were the source of light came
from to reveal this man next to him. It came from the mans eyes. As the
angel in Heaven had electric blue light illuminating his eyes, so this man too
has light. Though it is not electric blue, it is orange and yellow. As a matter
of fact, upon closer inspection Evan sees that this light is indeed fire.
“I am Lucifer. And you Evan, are my guest for all of eternity.”
“Why? What did I do to…”
“Deserve this?” The devil finished for him. “I am not here to keep track of
your sins. That is God; he’s the one with the score sheet, not me. I am here
just as you are. This fiery hell was not my chosen kingdom. God put me
here just as he did you. And the way He tells it is that we all have the
answer to get back to Heaven, but I’ll be damned if I know what it is. Ha ha,
I guess that’s backwards, I’m damned because I don’t know what it is.”
Evan sits in silence. There is no way this could really be happening to him.
Why, why was he here? What had he done so wrong to deserve this?

18
 “The point, Evan my friend, is that you and I are stuck here until the end of
time. And God says that this is a training ground. A place for those who are
not worthy of Heaven to become worthy.”
“But I was already there, I was worthy…AM WORTHY!”
“Hey, I was there too. And I also was worthy. Notice how I accept it and
keep it in the past tense. WAS worthy. You are here because you broke one
of Gods laws, and now you must do the time for the crime. It really is very
simple.”
“Why can’t I see anything, why can’t I hear anything except for you?”
“Well, just taking a very well educated guess, I would say that you had a
moment of despair. You were in a terrible dark and lonely place. And it was
in this place that you broke Gods law.”
“Yes, I thought I was in hell.” Replied Evan.
“You are in Hell.” Lucifer confirmed.
“No, before here, I was pulled from Heaven and there was light with a dark
black hole. And I went into the hole and there was light again.”
“That sounds more like birth to me. But I do have good news for you
Evan.” Lucifer said with a grin. “You have until the end of time to figure it
out, and with nobody here to distract you, you may figure it out a year or
two before the end of time. Until then, enjoy my kingdom.”
Evan expected him to disappear like a magician in the blink of an eye, but
instead Devil turned to walk away. No echoes bounced as his feet hit the
floor, and as far as Evan could see there was no floor. But Evan did see
something else as Lucifer turned to walk away. He saw the nubs of were his
wings used to be, coming from his back. That was something Evan had
forgotten over time. That Lucifer had once been an angel of God. And now
this was the second conversation Evan had with an angel, and he was
starting to think that any discussion with an angel led to bad or worse news.
So now Evan walked, arms outstretched feeling and straining to see a break
in the eternal darkness. As Evan wandered in the darkness of hell, so did his
mind.

Chapter 6-the first plague

News programs are running the story nonstop. It is the conversation

around every water cooler. People in Asia have been dying every day by the
thousands. Doctors have no clue as to what it is. Some feel it is a disease
that is lightning fast, some feel it is so widespread it must be in the water

19
supply. But the thing that boggles the collective minds of the scientists and
doctors the most is the fact that all the dead bodies seem to have died from
natural causes. There is no sign of disease, no sign of breakdown in any of
the organs. This is what is found on all of todays news networks and what is
currently on the television in the lab of Doctors David McGraw and Mark
Allison.
The TV blares loudly in the background and Mark is found as usual,
eyeball deep in a microscope, scribbling notes between glances. Behind
Mark are 25 beds, each with a crio patient ready to be reanimated. David
moves from one bed to another checking the amount of sedatives in each IV
drip.
It has been a few weeks of steady work since their unfortunate success with
Evan. And in every corpse, David sees the possibility of life, and at the
same time knows that disaster can strike, taking that life away again. So
now with 25 bodies being repaired, then pumped full of sedatives so that
when the reanimation process begins, they will come from death, to coma,
then God willing to a waking state. So far they had gotten 50 people to a
coma state, after this group it would be 75. The 50 in a coma were strapped
down to the beds to prevent a similar instance to Evans, and all of them were
under a 24-hour watch.
Nobody knew exactly when the right time would be to try and bring them
out of the collective coma. But David and Marks minor success had moved
the small one lab operation to the highest priority level. An entire wing had
been cleared to make room for all of the patients they would be working on.
Certainly the hospital would love to be regarded as the home of life after
death, however the prospect of having a fully filled hospital 24 hours a day,
7 days a week, full of the quietest, non complaining, easy to care for patients
on the planet. This would be the dream hospital for anyone to work in.
There would never be an emergency again that would mean some ones life
may be on the line. Instead it would be a nice easy stroll from death to life.
First the coma for 4 or 5 months, then awake and out the door. Yup, the
ideal hospital for the doctor and nurse that hated the life and death situations
they’ve dealt with since the beginning of human healing. As a matter of
fact, they may throw out the term hospital all together. But first they needed
a true success to give to the public eye. Something to divert this horrid
attention being paid to the far eastern plague that has plagued the television
channels as well.
Today was to be the 2nd attempt at life after death. The 2nd patients name
was Margaret Lorey. Margaret, or Maggy as her husband and friends
referred to her, had come from a well off family. As her family had grown in

20
their wealth over the generations, they grew further away from God. So
with a lot less faith in eternal life in Heaven, Maggy put all of her faith in the
almighty dollar to bring her back from her dirt nap, as she called it.
Maggy had been in her coma since the day after Evan. So today has been
two weeks. David was now standing next to her bed, going over the charts
examining each vital statistic one by one. Maggy looked like she was in
perfect condition to come out from her deep sleep.
“Nurse could you bring me 30cc’s of adrenaline please?” David asked and
held out his hand until the nurse had returned with the syringe. He was deep
in thought still examining the charts in his other hand. This could be it, or it
just may be another disaster. And if it were another disaster, what was it that
was causing it? All Maggy required was a little booster to wake her up,
everything about her vitals looked perfect. David would half expect her to
jump out of bed and ask if she could go roller-blading. She was as healthy
as any other walking, breathing human. Now as he pieced all of this over in
his mind David finds a whole new level of appreciation for the work the
micro meds had done.
The nurse returns to David and sees his hand sticking out awaiting the
syringe just as it was when she left. She places the syringe delicately in
Davids hand so as not to disrupt the deep thoughts he was obviously having.
As David feels the syringe placed in his open hand, he looks from the
reports in his left hand to the syringe in his right, then up to the nurse almost
befuddled.
“Oh, thank you Jennifer.” David said after a brief second. He was starting
to get nervous. More nervous than when he made his attempts with Evan,
because now he knew that there could be new unexpected obstacles he had
never conceived of before. Yet here he stood once again at the moment of
truth wondering what was going to happen after this one injection. And as a
scientist and doctor he knew the only way to find out was to stick the needle
in the vein and push the plunger. So with a deep breath, that is exactly what
he did. Then he waited. First one minute, then two. Finally out of nowhere
one blood-curdling scream.
“Nooooooo! Put me back, put me back. I am not supposed to be here, put
me back!” It was Maggie’s voice, though no body who ever knew Maggy in
the past would ever have guessed she could make that much noise. That
voice held nothing but pain, despair and deep loss. She jerked her body like
she were having a seizure of some sort, and kept the screaming and crying at
full volume.
Nurses in the room jumped up in shock and covered their ears with their
hands. It was only David and Mark who were really not all that shocked.

21
Standing next to Maggie’s bed, David and Mark were trying to hold her
down and stop her violent shaking, speaking soothing words.
“Please, Mrs. Lorey, please calm down, everything is going to be ok.”
Mark eased these words into the ear of the screaming patient.
“Why God, Why do you forsake me?” continued Maggies overwhelming
screams.
“We got to put her back under David.” Mark said matter of factly. “There is
still something missing and I don’t know what it is yet.”
“No, I don’t want to put her back in. We need to monitor her while we
have this chance.” David argued.
And as if by divine intervention, the instruments in the room chirped and
whistled and buzzed in concert to announce that disaster was on its way,
proving Mark right.
“We’re running out of time. We put her back now or we lose this one
forever. And I don’t want to be the one responsible for that. Lets give her
another shot in another week. We NEED more time David.”
“Fine! Do it, take her back to never land.” David gave up, admitting
defeat. They still had another 49 patients to work with. They were there
now. This was their second success, albeit another short lived one. But she
spoke, which is more than Evan did. The final piece of the puzzle was
closer to being put into place. Now it was only a matter of time.
Mark now pushed the plunger on a second syringe, one that had been ready
and waiting before the first syringe had ever been readied. And almost
thankfully Maggy slipped back into the peace of a coma. And as she settled
back into the bed David wondered, “so was this a success or a failure?”
“She was aware.” Mark said flatly.
“Hm?” David mumbled, still examining his own questions.
“She was aware that she was alive. Didn’t you hear her? What she said?
She said She wasn’t supposed to be here, she asked us to put her back
David.”
“Back where? In an ice box?” David asked, more befuddled now about
the mysterious comments made by the former Mrs. Lorey, than he was on
whether her revival could be considered a success or not.
“Our quest this whole time has been to find out whether or not we can
bring the dead back to the land of the living. I think we have, two times
now. And if we progress, we may discover that these people no longer want
to return to the land of the living.” Mark started to explain to his colleague.
“What do you mean IF we progress? I have spent the last 15 years of my
life working on this project. Now that we see a glimmer of, no fuck that…
now that we see a shining beacon in the night showing us that we are indeed

22
on the right path, you start to have second thoughts? Because of two less
than perfect results?”
“All I’m saying David, is that she was aware that she was with us. And she
did not want to be here. And that alone raises new questions in my mind”
“Such as…”
“Such as, why would she not want to come back, why did Evan put a metal
tube through his brain? We expected them to not know what had happened,
like coming out of a coma. No clue that they had died. However these
people, I don’t know, they don’t want to come back is the only thing I can
think. And that’s a significant piece of our puzzle.” Mark explained as best
he could.
It wasn’t that he was losing his backbone for their work. It was because
now he had a whole set of new questions they had never considered. Men of
science and men of faith are usually kept within separate communities. Now
it seemed he may want to talk to someone from the other camp and see if he
could glean any insight from them. Because there was one specific question
on Marks mind right now, and he would never dare and ask it in Davids
presence. This was not a question of science, but one of faith and he would
need a completely different audience to ask this question.
“Well it does give us something else to think about. Maybe if we try
bringing in a therapist for them?” David said, not knowing if he was making
a joke or not.
“That’s not quit what I was thinking.” Mark said flatly.
“Well enlighten me. What do you want to do with someone who’s last
known experience is dying? Because I think they may have some sever
post-traumatic stress going on in there. Maybe a head shrink is exactly what
they need.”
Mark didn’t say what was on his mind. He let it go, because at the time, it
was a little far fetched for him. The day progressed into the night, and
neither Mark nor David said much of anything the rest of the day. They
compared the charts of all of the patients they had lined up and decided on
their next step for tomorrows attempt at revival. David had made up his
mind that a different type of drug cocktail would solve the problem. To perk
them yet keep them sedated mentally, which is a dangerous combination.
That’s chemistry 101, uppers and downers don’t mix. However, this was the
procedure that David was cooking up for tomorrow.
Mark didn’t complain or disagree in the slightest. He didn’t expect the
results to change much from the previous two attempts. But they did indeed
need to continue their work. With the plague in the Far East sweeping the
continent, their work seemed more important now than ever.

23
 After a long night in the hospital, David took a trip to a place he had never
been, a church. And that night he spoke with a total stranger, a priest, who
gave him a whole new set of questions Mark never dreamed of. Questions
that terrified him deeply.

Chapter 7-a question of life after death

Inside of a confessional it is stuffy, and it tends to smell of old musty fabric

and wood polish. The father of this congregation has been here for the last
18 years. He knows everyone by voice, and of course he knows everyones
sins, big and small. From petty shoplifting, to chronic masturbating and
more severe sexual sins, he had heard it all. From taking the Lords name in
vain, to having immoral thoughts, slapping a child in punishment harder
than they thought was necessary for the crime, all of the minor events that
make up a day that any one can feel guilty about. Even things like parking
in a handicapped parking spot for 2 minutes while they went to go get a pack
of smokes. They don’t even need to be sins now a day, and Father Harris
was starting to grow tired of certain aspects of his title.
This is one of those moments where he sits in the confessional and waits
for the clock to reach ten so that he can go and have his dinner, and a good
nights rest. So as Father Harris waited for the same voices to come and ask
forgiveness over the same sins, he was mildly surprised to hear a new voice.
There were no new members in the church recently. So this must be
someone off of the street with an emergency confession. Those tend to be
the juiciest of all of the confessions, the emergency confession.
“Do you believe that life after death is possible?” A soft voice said, as if
trading secrets.
“My son, I wouldn’t be a very good priest if I did not believe in the
afterlife.”
“Maybe I’m asking the question wrong. Do you believe that someone
could be brought back to life, after being dead sometime?” The same soft
voice came back through the divider in the confessional with a touch of
urgency.
Most voices here were hushed. Nobody wanted for anyone outside to hear
their sins, their crimes on mankind and God. But this soft voice wasn’t here
to confess apparently. But some had to beat around the bush before they
could say what was truly on their mind. However this man didn’t seem to
have that in mind either.

24
 “Are you unfamiliar with the rising of Christ our savior?”
“Someone human, not Jesus…” the soft voice said with frustration now
playing as a major character in his voice. Almost if this voice expected that
answer from the priest, and was waiting to swat it down.
“Lazarus rose from the dead by the hand of Jesus. Is that more what you
were looking for?” the priest offered.
“Exactly!” The voice replied more enthusiastically. “So then you can say
you believe that living after dying is possible?”
“Yes I would say that is a fair assumption.” Replied the priest, almost
finding humor at this odd exchange. Wondering exactly this conversation
was headed.
“So what happened to Lazarus when he died?” Asked the soft voice.
“His soul went to Heaven.” The priest said as flatly as if stating two plus
two is four.
“And what happened to his soul when Jesus resurrected him?” The voice
asked now a bit more desperately.
“It returned to his body.” Again another simple statement of a fact from the
priest. “What exactly are you trying to ask me my son?”
“I guess I am trying to figure out why someone would choose death over a
second chance at life. If someone brought you back to life you would be
happy wouldn’t you? Isn’t that what we all want?”
“And there lies a major difference in our beliefs. You believe that you must
live forever without interruption to have everlasting life. But my beliefs
require me to die before I can experience everlasting life. So yes, it is what
we all want, but no, I would not want to be brought back to this life after
death.” The priest had no idea that this conversation would turn so
philosophical so rapidly. One moment he was losing his patience now he is
wondering where this soft voiced man has come from. What events have
brought him here to ask questions like these?
“Just one more question Father. Lets say that someone did bring you back
to life. What do you think your first reaction would be upon waking up?”
The priest did not respond for a second. Then after a moments
consideration he said, “Well, I honestly don’t know, I guess if it were to be
part of Gods plan then I would…”
“Come on, treat it like word association or a Rorschach test. What’s the
first thing you think you would do?” Demanded the voice that was not so
soft anymore.
“Kill myself, however that would damn my soul to hell, so I really don’t
know. Imagine being ripped from Gods glory to be brought back to all this.
With that disease, and the wars all over the world. This would indeed seem

25
like a hell compared to Heaven. So I guess I would live until God came
back to judge all of the living and dead if that’s what I had to do. But, no I
would never kill my self no matter what.” This was an odd line of questions,
and it did not seem to be leading to any sort of confession.
“But suicide was your first thought, even after sitting there and giving it a
second to stew, suicide was still the first response you had?”
“Why are you asking me these things? The priest inquired.
Silence. Whoever was on the other side of this partition was deep in
thought. Then, “thank you for your time father.” And the voice left the
confessional.
Mark walked from the church with more questions in his mind than when
he went in. As a man of science, Heaven and Hell were never a part of the
equation, just living or dead. Now he was wondering if there was indeed a
place for God in science. His whole life had gone fine with no interaction
with the church. Yet here as he is about to be one of the most famous
scientists ever, along with Dr. McGraw, he starts to think that his work will
be the undoing of man, not its savior. After all, according to the church,
mankind already had a savior and they crucified him.
Mark walked home from the church and let the many questions swirl in his
head until they started to settle down. He didn’t get much sleep that night,
but he was able to make it to work on time and was ready for resuscitation
attempt number 3.

Chapter 8-seperated at birth

In the darkness and silence of Hell, Evan believes himself to be the only
soul here. He couldn’t be more wrong. As he screams in vain, waiting for
an answer that will never reach his ears, he would be surprised to find that
there are indeed many others here with him. There are countless souls in
Hell, just as there are in Heaven. However those that are here are kept deaf,
blind, and dumb. They will never bump into one another by accident, they
will never hear one anothers cries, they will never know of the existence of
another being here in Hell.
The reasons for this are very simple. Lucifer found it much easier to
control individuals rather than groups. So he keeps them in isolation, and
besides that, the minds of humans can come up with their own demons. Left
alone in the dark and quiet, man has done just fine punishing himself for his
own sins. Rather ironic that the one that does all of the punishing of the

26
damned in Hell turns out to be the damned themselves. The only being that
can witness all of these lost, blind, and wandering souls is Lucifer himself.
But he finds it rather boring to interfere with the humans punishing
themselves, so he keeps to himself for the majority of the time.
So it was a great surprise to the king of Hades to have someone standing
off to his left, for there has never been a guest in Hell that wasn’t one of the
damned. And even though eons had passed since he had last seen this face
he recognized it easily.
“Brother, what brings you here to my kingdom after all this time?”
Proclaimed Lucifer.
“I am here to ask you a favor. I require the keys to death and Hades.”
Replied Michael the angel of death.
“The keys are to be guarded by me, and me alone until the day of
reckoning. And unless that day is at hand, I must regretfully inform you that
no such request shall be granted, brother.” Even though eons have passed
since these two have last seen one another, angels either good or bad always
give every formality to one another, even when they are war with one
another.
“And it is my duty dear brother, to inform you that the day of reckoning is
indeed at hand. The time of judgment draws near and I must have the keys
to the Malebolges so that the damned may be judged, as was prophesized.”
Michael had no desire to be in this realm, nor did he ever want to have to
come here. However he had known throughout the existence of time that
this day would come, just as he had known that he would once again have to
pick up his sword and finish this work that was started so long ago.
“Then my time of freedom has come as well? Indeed this is glorious news!
Oh brother, how sweet to see your face again, as this joyous news tumbles
from thine lips, I should want to kiss you.” Exclaimed Lucifer in his most
noble delivery.
“No.” Michael replied simply.
“Well of coarse I would not embarrass you with a kiss from the enemy, but
this is the first time I have known happiness since I was last in...”
“No, my brother, you misunderstand. It is not a kiss that you are denied, it
is your freedom.” Michael replied once again lacking any trace of emotion.
“What do you mean? It was written in the prophecy, I was to unleash the 7
plagues and ride across the land slaying…” The devil started in but was cut
off by Michael.
“No it was not to be you. It was to be the angel of death. A position which
you had renounced once you started your unholy crusade. A position that I
now hold in your stead.”

27
 “But I still have the key to Death and the key to Hades, therefore it is still
my position. I am to be unleashed unto the world so that I can continue my
work.” Lucifer argued.
“And it is I Michael, eldest of the angels who is here to take those keys
from you, by any means necessary. It is I Michael who has already
unleashed the first of the seven plagues. And it is I Michael who holds the
flaming sword of death.” With this last statement Michael withdrew the
sword from its sheath and as he did so the sword became wrapped in fire.
He showed this sword to Lucifer knowing that he need no other proof to
show that what he said is true. Lucifer averted his own flaming eyes from
those of the sword and knew then that, like always, there would be no
arguing with the will of God.
“So it is you who has taken up my position. I always was a bit curious as
to who would wield my old sword. The plagues have begun then. The 6
other angels shall be arriving shortly and soon all of you will start blaring
your damned trumpets. And what am I to do here? Rot for the rest of
eternity? I had purpose and He stripped it all from me!” Lucifer now
growing enranged started to yell at his brother.
“No, you quit your post in the hopes of attaining a rank that shall not exist.
You tried to achieve the rank higher than that of God Himself, and that is
quite impossible. You shall do as you were commanded to do by God. You
shall remain here until you learn how to become worthy of His grace once
again.”
“And what exactly does that entail dear Brother?” Lucifer spit out at
Michael.
“You have all of eternity to figure it out…dear Brother. Now if you please,
my time runs short and I have a lot to do, I must have the keys.” Michael
held out his hand awaiting Lucifer to give up the totems that would unlock
Death and Hades.
“Tell me something. Do you enjoy doing my work, the killing I mean?
Doesn’t it bring you great satisfaction ending the lives of these worthless
beings that God spends so much time and attention on? These beings that he
forsakes you…us for. All of your life is dedicated to doing His work,
singing His praise. When ever shall we be rewarded for our eternity of
servitude and praise?” Lucifer smirked, this has been the foundation of his
argument from the very beginning. He had always felt that angels were so
much more than humans could ever hope to be. So why was it that God had
spent so much time letting them evolve. Why had he let them make so many
mistakes, and so many wars. Why could humans be allowed to make
decisions on their own in every way an angel never could.

28
 “Yes, it brings me joy to kill them because I know when my work is done
they will be delivered to a better place. However it also brings me great
sadness because they never can see the blessing that I bring them. All they
do is beg and plead for their life, however that is the gift I bring, life
everlasting.” Michael said.
“But that is the best part, the begging and the pleading! How can you not
enjoy that? Finally someone offering his or her eternal soul to you, begging
for salvation that only YOU can provide. That is the joy of the work.”
Lucifer howled.
“No, the joy of the work is knowing that I am serving Gods will. And that
is what I must do now. So if you please, give me the keys.” Again Michael
held out his hand and awaited the keys.
“You know, Jesus gave me these keys after his resurrection. He told me
one day I would freely give them away. I never believed him. But that was
because I thought I still had a job to do, I see that I was mistaken. I am a
prisoner here just as all these useless human souls. Well at least it is good to
know that He keeps His word, I thought the day of judgment was never
going to arrive. Here, take the keys. And promise me you will come back
again, someday.”
“When it is time for you to go home, I shall return for you and we shall
walk the whole way together, arm in arm…Brother.” With these final
words, Michael turned away to finish his business. With the help of these
two keys, the key of death fashioned from a rotted bone, and the key of
Hades made of smoldering sulpher.
Due to the prophecies in the book of Revelations, Lucifer was certain that
Michaels next stop would take him back to Earth. Had he suspected that
Michael was going to remain in Hell, he would have accompanied him.
After all he was the ruler over this unpleasant kingdom, it only right that he
escort his guests.
But Michael was relying on this, so that his next visit may go unnoticed.
He was only to remain in Hell for a few more minutes, but that didn’t mean
that his work was any less significant.
It didn’t take long for Michael to find Evan, wandering and screaming in
the void. For Michael had the key of Hades with him and this key would
unlock the Malebolge, the ditches of Hell where the souls remained trapped
wandering in circles for all of eternity.
“Evan, follow my voice and look upon my face.” Michael said in the
unending darkness.
Hearing the voice to his left Evan turned quickly, surprised and happy to
hear the voice of another. Upon hearing the chiming lilting qualities of the

29
voice Evan recognized it immediately. It was the voice of the first angel to
ever speak to him.
“It’s you. You have come to save me.” Evan said in outright joy.
“No I cannot free you. Only you can free yourself. But I can give you a
key to help you unlocking the secret. Here take this. Never let anyone see
that you have this key. ” Michael held out the key to Hades and placed it in
Evans outstretched hands. “And never forget the word I told you in Heaven.
You have already been given the answer, it is up to you as to what you do
with it.” Michael said.
“Please, tell me why God is doing this to me. What did I do to deserve
this?” Evan pleaded to Michael for more information, but he got none.
“You are asking the wrong question. Take that key and use it to find others
here. Maybe after talking with them you will find the right question to ask.
And once you do, you will know the answer. I must go now Evan.” And
without another word, or a chance for Evan to ask a multitude of questions,
Michael turned his back and left Evan alone again in Hell. However, Evan
now had the key to Hades, he just needed to figure out what in the hell to do
with it.

Chapter 9-the road of science

On May 18th 1980 Mount Saint Helens erupted with a blast heard around
the world. That doesn’t mean that everyone on the planet heard the eruption,
however the tremors were picked up on the other side of the world. There
have been only a handful of disasters this world has faced that has
announced its presence so forcefully.
Today was to be the first of many more announcements to come. However,
unlike the blast heard round the world, this was truly heard by every ear on
the planet. The sounds of a trumpet blasted through country sides, over
oceans and across deserts. Though many thought themselves crazy and
preferred to think that they had imagined the sound, others shrugged it off
after a moment and continued about their daily lives. David and Mark heard
the sounds clearly in the wing now dedicated to crio patients in the hospital.
Though with the plague in the far East showing no signs of slowing, neither
of them even questioned what the sound was that they had just heard. They
continued their work on patient number three, the next person who was
about to have a chance at a second life.

30
 The television remained on as it has been since the plague started about 2
weeks ago. It was the constant reminder and driving force behind Davids
work, and Mark followed suit to a certain extent. However the conversation
Mark had the night before with the priest has changed some of his views
significantly. Never before had God played any part in his life, and God
almost never had any presence in the world of science. So as a scientist and
a doctor, Mark never gave Him a second thought, or a first thought for that
matter. Now he was having a multitude of thoughts invading his mind
without invitation.
If there was a God and a soul and a Heaven as well as a Hell, then that
would change the meaning of their work dramatically. Mark knew down to
the core of his being that patient two, Maggie, was aware of her reanimation.
It was not a failure as David had perceived it to be, it was a glaring success.
And if his instincts were correct that meant that Evan was aware of his
reanimation as well, and the tragedy that followed was no accident, but
instead Evan taking his own life.
Mark continued to follow this new logic as defined by the priest. If Evan
did indeed take his own life, then he was now damned to Hell because of it,
and that Mark felt responsible for. All of these thoughts coming to a man
whom until now had never had a thought of faith in his entire life. But it
wasn’t just these things related to his work that filled him full of dread, it
was that damned plague that started in China a few weeks back.
With the advancements of the medical community over the last fifty years,
it is very hard to conceive of a fatal plague that shows no signs of itself even
after death. Even when AIDS was one of the biggest life takers in the day, it
was still able to be located no matter how many mutations the virus went
through to beat the immune system. The fact that nobody could locate any
trace of this disease during or after infection was completely mind boggling
to Mark.
Then as if the News Director of CNN was waiting for Mark to put all of
these details together in his head, the News changed for the first time in 15
days.
A polished veteran of the news channel sat behind his desk with a look of
bewilderment for a moment. Then looked up to the camera and said very
slowly to his audience of millions, “I have just been informed of some
breaking news that defies description. We have an affiliate reporter standing
by trying to get a satellite signal. Aziza Bahiti is our Egyptian reporter on
the scene, and from what we know from the initial report is that a great fire
has broken out in Africa, and I don’t know the accuracy of the initial report,

31
but it appears that a great area of sand has caught fire. Aziza can you hear
me? We have a signal from you but it is very weak.”
“Jerry I don’t know if you can hear me, the smoke here is so thick that it is
interfering with our satellite uplink. Moments ago the entire desert from
Egypt to Algeria went ablaze.” The novice reporter started to weave her tale
in the hopes that this was the event that would launch her career. Simply a
matter of right place, right time and you’ve hit the big time. “No
explanation at the time is available, at least not a logical one. I don’t know
if you can see behind me, the smoke is very thick but if you can make out
the glow at ground level, that is sand and it is on fire. The interesting thing
to note here is that this fire isn’t a huge blaze that you would find associated
with a forest fire. Instead the fire seems to stay very close to the sand and
doesn’t rise up more than a few inches. And with the intense heat that this
type of burning creates we may start to see this entire desert turned to glass
within a few hours. We had several eyewitnesses to the start of the blaze,
though none of them claim to have seen anything that seemed to cause the
flames.”
That was it, the last sign Mark needed to be a full on believer. The fact that
the plague started the day after Evans short lived second life came and went
was just coincidence. But an entire desert spontaneously combusting and
melting itself into the worlds largest glass ashtray, that is a sign of God.
Mark was now a full time believer.
David hadn’t heard a peep of this new broadcast, he remained busy
prepping number three, Mr. Dennis Holstrome. Mark knew deep down that
their results would be the same as yesterday, even though David had a new
technique planned for today. It was simply a matter of a different drug
cocktail. Over the last two weeks David kept his attitude of “Its that fucking
easy.” And had Mark not just discovered his faith, he would have seen that
as a great quality. However at this moment Davids can do attitude was
becoming a hollow pit in Marks stomach. The question was, was Mark
going to express his new found beliefs now or after Mr. Holstrome is put
back into his comfy coma and labeled as a disaster.
Looking over at David, and examining the way he was carefully pouring
over the details of Mr. Holstromes charts, Mark decided to wait until after
the attempt, for a few reasons. First, he may be completely wrong, Dennis
could awake from his slumber and be ready to take life in once again.
Second, there was no way that David would be diverted from his goals for
today so easily. So, as in baseball, lets get three strikes before we are out.
Then we can talk more about what it is keeping our patients from
reanimation. Yes, better to get philosophical after the failure then before it.

32
 The new cocktail that David had created worked very well. There wasn’t
as much screaming this time. It was clear that Mr. Holstrome was not in a
coma due to his mumbling and slow lethargic movements. But it was
equally clear that he too had no taste for a second chance at life. Throughout
a dead silent room everyone stood and watched and listened to the words of
a dead man.
“No…it can’t be. Why God? What did I do to deserve this? Please, let me
go home, let me go, let me go.” Mr. Holstrome muttered in a slow, drugged
fashion. But it was evident that all this man was feeling was pain and
sorrow, and he very clearly did not want to be here just as Evan and Maggie
did not want to be here.
David looked over to Mark and said, “Maybe you were right. Maybe we
should have gotten a shrink.”
“I never recommended a psychiatrist, that was you, remember?” Mark
replied. “Look David, it isn’t happening, not today. The new drug cocktail
is not the answer to this.”
“Does that mean you know what the answer is then, if you know what the
answer isn’t?” David questioned his younger partner.
This was the moment that Mark had been dreading. Bringing up his new
beliefs to his mentor. “Honestly…I don’t know how to say this…”
“Just say it. What is the answer Mark, what is keeping these folks from
being able to live again? Because I am dying to find out.”
“Well, have you ever wondered if we have a soul?” This seemed to be the
best route to Mark. Pose the question to David and let him create his on
theory as to how a soul might affect their work.
“Why, what has that to do with anything?” David asked back.
So much for that David thought to himself. “Well I’ve been having these
thoughts about a soul, like the conscience of a person after they die, their
memory…about what happens to it after they die.”
“Their memory stays in the same place that it originated from, it’s in their
brain. Where is this coming from Mark?” David could see by the look on
Marks face that there was more to this than just a question of whether we
had a soul or not.
“Both number 2 and 3 cried out to God as soon as we boosted them from
the coma, and with the way Evan…well so far we have had 3 attempts and 3
failures. On top of that…” As Mark spoke his peace he watched Davids jaw
slowly start to drop open in disbelief.
“Is that what this is about?” David said incredulously. “God? You want to
know what God is Mark? God is what science has not yet explained to the
rest of humanity. The sun was God for a while and then astronomy proved it

33
was a ball of gas. The wind got to play God until meteorology was born.
Volcanoes were God for a bit until vulcanology started to take place in the
science family. You name it, the moon, planets and stars, the rivers and
mountains, they all were God to someone at one point until science removed
their mystery. You want to know what is God today, Mark? Money. Money
is God, look at it and read the words on it. In God we trust. That is what
people believe in today, that is what people worship. So if you have any
more questions about God take a look in your wallet for the answer, until
then we work in the world of science.” David looked away for a moment.
He started to feel he was a bit too harsh on Mark. A lot had been happening
the last few weeks and David was clearly feeling the pressure lately. He
couldn’t walk down a hallway in the hospital with out someone mentioning
that nasty, vile plague. They would remind him that it hasn’t gotten any
better “over there” and that if he were to find a victory in his work soon that
he would certainly be looked at as the savior of mankind. Yes, David had
not had a decent night sleep since the night before “Evan”.
“You are absolutely right, I guess I was just grasping at straws.” Mark had
decided to let it go for now. He knew that any scientist would normally
laugh at you for just mentioning God, so this response wasn’t entirely
unexpected. But what David said next was unexpected.
“I have to be right. Because if I am wrong, you and I are two damned
fools.”
“I’m sorry?” Mark asked for more elaboration on the previous statement.
“What do you mean by that?”
“I mean if there was a God, He would be really pissed at us right now.
Kind of like we were a couple of thieves snatching souls from Heaven one
by one. Yeah, if there is a God, you and I are fucked. So, that leaves us only
one road to travel, the road of science.”
If last nights trip to the church hadn’t been overwhelming enough, he now
had a whole new set of quandaries thrown into his lap to ponder. If there
was a soul, if there was a Heaven and Hell, then that meant there had to be a
God and a devil. Along with that line of thinking, that leads us to Evans self
execution, and that leads to an eternity of Hell. And now according to
David, if there is a God, then chances are God has a wanted poster with their
pictures on it waiting at the pearly gates.
He could almost see it posted on a 100 foot tall pearl gate, the bleached
paper all tattered around the edges, and it would read “WANTED for
stealing of human souls from heaven.” Of coarse there would be no need for
money in Heaven so there would be no reward posted. It was just the mere

34
thought that their lifetime of work has turned out less than desirable results,
such as damnation and an eternity of torment.
The first set of thoughts was enough, the second group of thoughts was too
much for Mark, and just as he started to think that it couldn’t get any worse
he heard the sound of a trumpet. Which was kind of weird because he had
imagined he had heard a trumpet about a half an hour ago. Right around the
same time he saw the news about the fire in the desert. Then Mark
remembered the fire in the desert. Before the reanimation attempt on
number three, it seemed so very important, so relevant somehow. But after
they had started working on Mr. Holstrome all thoughts not directly
pertaining to the procedures went out the window. But now after they were
done for the day, and none the wiser, now after what David had said, now it
all seemed relevant again.
Mark looked up to the television still on the news channel in the corner of
the room, mounted high up on the wall. As his eyes settled on the television
screen he became confused as to what he was seeing exactly. Earlier in the
day it was hundreds of bodies in the streets of China and spreading fast
through out Asia. Later on it had changed to smoke as black as ink and red
glowing sand that was about to melt itself into glass. Now the screen was
full of black, and it was like a cloud, but it didn’t look like any smoke Mark
had ever seen before. He started to walk closer to the television trying to
figure out exactly what he was looking at.
As he got closer the speaker told him what his eyes couldn’t figure out.
“…millions of locust, seemingly from nowhere, just tore through two
villages in Saudi Arabia. All crops, livestock and even the people of these
villages were eaten alive in a matter of moments. An evacuation is being
started right now in the nearby villages of…” This was not the same
reporter as before, this was a different ambitious young woman who thought
that this story was going to be her big break. Neither of these ladies could
have ever guessed how many newsworthy stories would unfold in the next
few days, and little did they realize how irrelevant their reporting would be
in the end of it all.
Mark turned off the TV and walked out of the room. This was more than
Evans soul. This was more than David and his pissing God off by snatching
souls away from Heaven. This was the end, not just for them, but for
everyone. There was just too much disaster all at once for it to be
coincidence.
As Mark walked out the door of the hospital he chuckled to himself. A few
days ago he had still believed that he and David were going to be the saviors
of the planet, now they were the unwitting destroyers of it. The irony of it

35
made him laugh, to not laugh at it would drive him crazy. Now Mark found
himself cursing his newfound faith. Had it been a few days ago and he
learned he was the undoer of mankind, he could have still killed himself.
Now, that idea meant immediate occupancy in Hades. Yes, damn his new
found faith, all it has brought him these last 24 hours is misery. As David
had said, “So, that leaves us only one road to travel, the road of science.”

Chapter 10-the opening of the first Malebolge’s

Millions of souls, wandering blind and dumb in the eternal darkness, and
one of them holds the key to Hell. Evan was still holding it in his hand, but
after the angel had left darkness once again had surrounded him completely,
so he still wasn’t sure exactly what it was that he was so desperately holding
onto. The angel had told him to take this key and use it to find others here.
As far as Evan could tell, he was the only one here in the darkness. No one
had responded to his screams, nor did he hear cries of torment coming from
anywhere else. Evan had walked for what seemed to be an eternity, yet he
never bumped into any walls, he hadn’t so much as tripped over anything
underfoot. So the thought that there were in fact others around him came to
Evan as quit a surprise.
All Evan could do is keep thinking the two same thoughts over and over.
The first was, I have the key to get outta here. The second was, Now if I
could only find a door to use it on.
As if the key were reading his mind a door appeared before Evan. It looked
to be more of a gate made of bone, yet it had hinges and a handle to grab,
but most importantly it had a keyhole. Evan walked toward the gate in mild
disbelief, not sure if it was wishful thinking that created this image or
whether there was truly a door there in front of him. To make certain Evan
put his hand to the grimy bone gate. Feeling the grit of dirt, the deep pores
of decayed bone, Evan quickly changed gears from feeling the gate to ensure
its reality, to thrusting the key into the hole and giving it a turn.
There was no click indicating that anything had been unlocked, yet the door
started to swing open freely. Everything around Evan was still shrouded in
blackness, the only things he could see was the door and what was being
revealed on the other side of it as the gate swung open further.
Evan had still been waiting to set his eyes upon the fiery hell that had
always been depicted in the Bible, but that is not what he was seeing. In
fact, there wasn’t much change from what was on one side of the door to the

36
other. But there was one thing on the other side that wasn’t on this side,
another person. Evan started to pass through the doorway ready to greet this
new found soul, and as he took his first step through the door, he heard the
screaming.
“Please, make them stop…I can’t take it any more…Why is God doing this
to me? All I ever did was love…Why must I be punished for loving?”
Screamed the tortured soul.
Evan looked around and started to see more in the blackness than just this
other person. He could see that this person had been strapped to a chair with
razor bladed barbed wire. Every time the prisoner squirmed the razor blades
dug deeper into his flesh. Evan continued to examine this persons prison
closer to see that there was more than barbed wire keeping him in check.
Between his legs was a long metal cage filled with razor blades, and from
the looks of it this mans penis had been put into this cage, but for what
purpose Evan couldn’t immediately tell.
It took a little while before Evan had realized that there were two other
people in this room with them. They too were clad in barbed wire, however
they didn’t seem to mind its tearing at their flesh. The longer that Evan
looked at these twin beauties, the more he realized that they were in fact
getting off from the razor blades tearing and cutting process. The two razor
clad women kept grinding their pelvises against one another, licking and
touching ever so slightly. At the peak of their show one of the razor blades
actually sliced the right nipple off of one of the girls, to which she barely
even noticed. No matter what act they performed on one another, their eyes
always stayed focused on their target…this man strapped to the chair.
It was a battle of the eyes, the girls watching the prisoner, the prisoner
watching the girls, and Evan watching everything trying to figure out what it
was that was happening here exactly. It didn’t take to long to see the
obvious, these women were here for one reason only, to seduce this man
over and over until the end of time. As soon as the girls thought the captive
was loosing his interest they would take a few steps closer. One would get
on her knees and gentley caress the underside of the mans balls, while the
other would stick her tongue in the mans ear. Upon which his dick started to
get hard and Evan almost had to turn away as he started to understand the
punishment that was being acted out here.
Every time this poor man would get an erection, his dick would start to
press against the razor blades, until they started to penetrate the skin and cut
deep into him. Once the women in razor blades would see this start to
happen they would step back and turn their attention to one another.
Knowing that they had a captive audience, quit literally, the women would

37
caress and fondle, tickle and kiss, making the mans erection larger, which in
turn cut him deeper and deeper with the razorblades that were mounted
inside the box. Once the erection started to fade away they would come
close to him once again, shower him in soft touches and retreat once the hard
on had been reestablished.
The screams continued from the man strapped to the chair. “I never hurt
anyone, why God? Why do you do this to me? So I had a few girlfriends
that my wife never knew about, is that why you punish me, because I loved
too much?”
It seemed that these outbursts of rage came only with the erections, because
as soon as the man started to sob, his hard on started to fade away and the
girls came in to resuscitate the fallen member.
Evan could see the mans punishment as clearly as he could see the mans
sins. This man had been an adulterer in his life, and now he was to pay for
his sins in much the same way he had committed them. Evan felt the need
to get out of this torture chamber, but he didn’t want to go back to the empty
oblivion that he had just emerged from. So instead of looking back to the
gate through which he had entered the room, he instead looked forward door
a new doorway. And just as he hoped, a new door appeared in the blackness
ahead of him, now all he had to do was gather the strength to walk through
this next doorway. He had to get ready for what he was about to see next,
what horrors Hell had ready to reveal to him.
Evan slowly took his first steps to the new doorway, no sounds came from
his footsteps, the only sounds were the sobs of the poor adulterer with the
mutilated prick. Evan again took the key, slid it soundlessly into the
keyhole, and gave it a silent turn, the door swung open freely just as the last
had done. Taking a deep breath, Evan walked through into the next
malbolgia. At first he had know idea at the reason for the odd collection of
people here.
There was a bronze skinned man who was engulfed in flame as he stared
up at a ball of fire dangling over head, singing some sort of hymn in a
foreign language.
There was an older chubby man with a comb over that appeared to be
baptising hundreds of others in a vat of excrement. As he performed his
rites upon his followers he exclaimed that there was no God, that everything
we know of comes from the powers of the human mind.
Past the baptising area a few native Americans knelt before a pile of dirt
and pebbles. They all had their heads bowed in reverance as a single gray
wolf stepped forward from the shadows.

38
 Out of the groups that Evan could see, the Native Americans seemed to be
the least repulsive, and most approachable. At least he wouldn’t have to be
bathed in shit to ask a simple question or two, so Evan moved away from the
flaming egyptian, the excremental baptiser, and moved toward the Natives.
Once Evan got close enough to speak with the Native Americans, he then
thought to himself ‘would they even be able to hear my voice?’ So far
everything Evan had learned about Hell is that most everything is silent.
The reason the Native Americans aren’t freaked out about the old white guy
dumping shit on peoples heads is because they can’t see or here him, just as
they cant see the burning Egyptians. So odds are that they wont see or here
him either, but that’s no reason to not try, right?
“Hello there? Can you hear me?” Evan said softly, in case they could hear
him, he did not want to frighten them. No response, nothing whatsoever.
Well, then if Evan couldn’t speak with them, he might as well observe them
and try to figure out what this part of Hell was meant for.
The native Americans spoke in their natural tongue, and even though Evan
did not know how to speak nor understand the Cherokee language, here he
understood every syllable of their words. They were praying, but the prayer
went to the wolf and to the dirt asking why the Wind Goddess had forsaken
them. They knew that this place was not where the rest of their tribe went in
the afterlife, so they pray to the messenger wolf, in hopes that he will take
their pleas and cries to the ears of the Wind Goddess. The prayers that were
sent to the piles of dirt and pebbles were prayers to the mother Earth, asking
her to talk with her daughter, Wind, on their behalf.
After listening to the prayers being sent out, Evan started to get a good
idea of the purpose of this Malbolge. Evan started to walk away from the
Charokee group and past the balding Baptiser as he continued his rant on
Dianetics and the powers of the mind, all the while dumping excrement on
the willing flock of folks gathered around him. Evan continued past this
scene towards the flaming Egyptian, and that is when it all clicked for him.
This Burning Egyptian kept his melting eyes toward the ball of fire over
head. This ball of fire was the sun, or appeared as such to the Egyptian, and
like before with the Cherokee Indians, Evan understood every word said by
the Egyptian. And much like the Cherokee prayers, the Egyptian asked his
Sun God why he had been forsaken, why did he not get to walk up the
pyramid he was buried in, to join the Sun in the sky like his ancestors had?
Evan now understood this Malbolge perfectly. This is where idolotors
came for worshipping anyone other than the one true God. Had an Atheist
been placed in this situation they would never had seen the connection
between these groups of people, however Evan had been to Heaven and

39
knew what was in the afterlife. These people here were sun worshipers,
wind and Earth worshipers, people that believed in the power of the mind
and not in the divinity of God.
Now that Evan knew the reason for this Malbolge he pondered for a
moment to wonder if this had any clues to get him out of Hell. He had Faith
in God before death, and had more than faith, he had undeniable proof of
Gods existence after death when he entered Heaven. So he felt that this
Malbolge was not going to be of any use to him in solving the mystery of
how in the hell to get out of Hell. With a deep breath Evan looked at the key
in his hand and prepared himself for the next doorway to appear. He didn’t
want to see what was on the other side, as a matter of fact he was terrified of
what could possibly be on the other side of the next door, but his journey
must continue forward. With that thought in mind Evan slid the silent bone
key into the keyhole when the third door appeared, took one deep breath,
turned the key and unlocked the door to the third Malbolge. As the door
opened and revealed what lay on the other side Evan took a good long look
at the mayhem that lay before him and said to himself, “Now this is Hell.”

Chapter 11-the vision

Mark hadn’t had a decent nights sleep in what seemed to be weeks. With
the plague and the bazaar locust swarms and fires in the desert, not to
mention the pressures that he and David were up against every day, it was a
wonder he had slept at all this month. It may have been exhaustion or the
fact that Mark had given up hope on the worlds’ fate, whatever the reason,
tonight he slept like a baby. And with his sleep came a dream, a very vivid
dream that seemed too real to be anything that his mind could conger up on
its own.
In this dream, he was at the lab looking over his notes then peering over
Davids shoulder to see what his partner had been working on. Then like the
tinkling of chimes in the distance, Mark heard the cooing of a dove.
Looking over to the window he saw a snow white dove perched on the
windowsill, cool as a cucumber, with out a care in the world. And again the
dove started cooing. That was when the unbelievable started to happen. All
of the crio patients had slowly begun to rise from their beds. These patients
had not been reanimated by either David or Mark, none the less, the whole
ward full of crio patients had simultaneously sat upright in bed, swung out
one leg, then the other from the bed and proceeded to the front door. Not

40
knowing whether it was the way the dream planned it or if this is how
normal citizens would react to this situation, but no one, not a nurse, doctor
or any of the living patients said a word as the comatose group started their
trek to the front door. As in all other dream states, Mark could not help but
to follow the group, if only to find out what their destination was.
Where could a group of people in a Coma have to go that was so urgent?
And the fact that they still have not opened their eyes, yet they never walked
into a wall, they never bumped into one another. They could most certainly
see their surroundings, even with their eyes still closed. Now David, the
only awake person in this dream is marching with 50 comatose people to an
unknown destination and for some reason, paranoia never once started to
creep into Marks heart. The question of where this group was heading was
too important to let fear stand in the way of his answer. The group was
headed east, toward the ocean, and the walk there was only 6 blocks away
from the hospital, yet Mark found himself there in a much shorter time than
he thought it should have taken.
Now that the parade of the comatose had reached what seemed to be their
destination, Mark took a long look at where they were, and what it meant.
By first glance, it meant nothing. 50 comatose people plus one observant,
and the observant cant find anything peculiar about this gathering, or the
location chosen for this gallery.
Getting frustrated and tired with what the dream had to offer, Mark thought
it about time to head back to the hospital and to try to explain to David what
he just witnessed. That was when the screaming started. All 50 Crio
patients who could still not open their eyes, decided instead to open their
mouths all at once and cry out in pain and misery.
“Please take us, this was not our choice. We want to return home, please
we beg of you in His name, take us back home.”
Now that something had started to happen, Mark forgot about heading back
to the hospital to investigate what it was that made all of these people start
their pleas for a trip home. As Mark scanned the seas, the sands and the
skies, he saw something so utterly beautiful that shame immediately filled
his heart. What Mark looked at was the most beautiful creature he had ever
seen, sleeping or awake, and what caused the shame in his heart? It was
because as Mark examined every detail of this creature, he could not identify
whether it was a man or woman, yet he still found himself getting an
erection, none the less. This creature must have been an angel, because of
the huge silver wings it had. But the angel did not flap its silver wings to fly,
it just had them spread out in all of their glory, and the angel stayed
motionless in the air.

41
 Now it was the angels voice that was to fill Marks head, and the fact that
the voice did not help identify a specific gender for the angel only aroused
him and frustrated him that much more.
“You shall once again see Gods blessing, and in it you shall find his
forgiveness.” Stated the ambiguous angel. Words that meant nothing to
Mark, but created a frenzy of “Hosanahs” from the crowd of the comatose.
Then came the sound of water…not trickling water from a faucet, not even
the steady murmer of a stream, this was the sound of water that very few
have ever heard and lived to tell about it. It was like the sound of a wave
that breaks on the shore, however the main difference is this sound never
breaks, it just gets louder and louder until that is all you can hear.
The sound of waves building gets so great that all that can be heard is the
sound of water moving, building, and growing. Mark puts his hands over
his ears to block out the noise, but now the comatose are singing their
Hosanahs even louder, some started to cheer wildly, now a mingling of noise
from the never ending wave and the screams of rejoice, then silence and
darkness.
Mark wakes up covered in sweat and one thin sheet which is now soaked.
What Mark has just witnessed is very important, but like most dreams you
have, the details are becoming a bit fuzzy, all he can remember now is a
beach, a noise, and the weirdest picnic with the Crio patients. No there was
more than that. There was something bigger about this dream. Silver
Wings. What was it about silver wings, and why was it that Marks’ heart
carried dread, yet he had this undeniably huge hard on?
Today was going to be a big day. The attempt at reviving another crio
patient, but mostly it was the dream that weighted his mind down, thinking
that it was the dream that was going to be a major factor in the way today
played out.
Climbing out of bed Mark stepped into the shower and proceeded to
masturbate furiously in order to get rid of his raging wood and clean all the
thoughts out of his head. He had work to do today. Mark was getting ready
to walk down the road of science no matter how hard the road of faith tried
to reveal itself to him.

Chapter 12-cannonballs and matchsticks

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 CNN still covered the disasters spreading across the world. Swarms of
locusts, deserts covered in fire, a plague that killed hundreds of thousands in
the far East, yet showed no trace of disease or sickness in its host.
These stories filled television screens around the planet. Every home that
had basic cable was watching the end of the world, like it didn’t affect them
the viewers. To them it was still “out there”, it hadn’t hit our home ground
in America, so there wasn’t too much chaos. Certainly there were those few
who were predicting the end of our days, but you see that on a daily basis in
larger cities, so nobody paid any mind to the doomsday prophets who
preached from their street corners.
It wasn’t any of the stories on the TV or any of the words from the prophets
that had bothered our nations government officials, it was a part of the
government, NORAD specifically, that alerted our world leaders to the next
threat.
The phone discussion was brief, the meeting of the Cabinet lasted about as
long as the phone call from NORAD. NORADs phone call to the White
House consisted of 3 facts. Fact number 1 was that there was a asteroid that
was about to hit Earth in the next half-hour. Fact number 2 was that the
asteroid was heading at us from the sun, so there was no for warning, and
nobody would see it coming when it was about to hit. Fact number 3, there
was absolutely no way to stop it from impacting our fragile planet.
The Cabinet meeting only stated one fact to its members. That fact was
that everyone was to be loaded onto Air Force One and moved to a secure
location. Nobody except the president and his 3 top Colonels had access to
this privileged information, so there were questions being flung from every
mouth as soon as the announcement that everyone was to get to Air Force
One was made.
To avoid further panic, a decision was made by the Colonels not to release
the facts of this impending disaster to any cabinet members until the plane
was off the ground, and by no means what so ever should the public ever be
informed. If there were a nation left after impact, the government would
deal with the situation then. Their first priority for now was survival.
Within ten minutes everybody who had been in the cabinet meeting with
the president was now boarding Air Force One. As they climbed up the
stairway leading into the plane, several heads all turned at once, as the sound
of a trumpet blared clear as a bell through the noisy Washington DC
backdrop.
“What the Hell is that noise? It’s like the forth time I’ve heard that, and I
still cant figure out what it is.” Exclaimed the vice president.

43
 But the Generals wouldn’t let the vice presidents curiosity stop them from
boarding the plane. Two of the lower ranking officials got a quick nod from
the general and proceeded to pick up the vice president by his elbows and
proceeded to carry him on board Air Force One.
After everyone had boarded the plane, they all took their appropriate seats
around the conference table located in the dead center of the plane. Nobody
except the Generals and the president knew what this was about so all other
parties concerned was yammering away as to what all the commotion was
about. But the decision was made in the White House that nobody would
reveal the nature of this disaster until the plane had left the ground. Once
that happened the meeting could begin.
“Ladies and gentlemen of the Cabinet,” started the president, “you all know
the procedures for national disaster. You also know that what we are doing
right now is not part of the procedure. That is because our government has
never had a plan for what is about to happen.”
“Just tell us what is going on Mr. President.” Nancy Edmonds, the head of
the Department of the Treasury blurted out. Nancy had no patients for the
set up of the story she wanted facts. Nancy was a number cruncher, you
don’t have to wait too long with numbers because you get results from the
calculator as fast as you press the buttons. So Nancy had no taste for
formalities, she was a woman who wanted immediate results or in this case,
answers.
“Alright, I guess there is no need to beat around the bush here…NORAD
called us just a few moments ago to tell us all to get on Air Force One
because a asteroid is about 25 minutes from hitting the Earth. Global
devastation is expected.” The President stated these as facts, you couldn’t
see any hint of emotion on his face. He could have just as easily said that
his favorite color tie was blue. Instead he said that the world was about to
end.
“Can’t we do something to stop it?” Asked the Vice President, showing
much more emotion than his boss.
“No, we don’t have any time. The asteroids’ course was from the other
side of the sun, which is why we had no for-warning. Chances are we’ll
never even see it until 30 seconds before impact.” Replied the highest-
ranking General in the group. This was the man, General Munn, which
answered the call from NORAD and relayed the info to the president.
“What about nuclear missiles, can’t we shoot a bunch of our missiles…”
the vice president started but was cut off by General Munn.
“It would be the equivalent of throwing matchsticks at a cannonball, Mr.
Vice president. It would do no good.”

44
 Now it was the presidents turn to start to show a touch of emotion to the
good general Munn. “Then what you’re saying is that there is absolutely
nothing we can do but let it hit us?”
“Yes sir…that is exactly what I am saying. And that is why we are all on
Air Force One right now. Because there is no way to stop it from
happening.”
A moment passed where everyone sat in silence. All of them sharing the
same thoughts, ‘so this is the end of the world’. Then the president broke
the silence and turned to face General Munn.
“Fuck it, throw every match stick we have at the cannonball.”
“But Mr. President it wont do any goo…”
“I said launch them” the president said in a very even voice.
“But if the other countries have no idea what we are doing, they could
mistake it as an attack on our behalf, we could start a global war!” The
General knew the risks of any missile ever leaving the ground. Once a
missile is air-born, you have the attention of the whole world.
“As your commander and leader…as President of the U.S. of Fucking A, I
say launch every God Damned matchstick we have. Who cares if we start a
global war, because if we don’t do this, we have no globe to war over. Now
make the call, launch every last one we have at the cannonball, that is an
ORDER.”
“Yes sir.” Two small humble words tumbled
from the lips of one very large and powerful man. The General went to the
phone with his notebook. He made the calls, gave out the proper codes, and
gave the order to launch every nuclear missile at the asteroids’ trajectory.
The name of this operation was to be called “Cannonball and Matchsticks”.
The name of the operation would let everyone involved know that the
General had no hopes of surviving this event.
With the order given and executed the cabinet, the President and the
Generals sat back on Air Force One in silence and waited for the matchsticks
to be delivered to the cannonball.

Chapter 13-the sleepers wake (or “the sleepwalk”)

Mark had arrived a little late to the hospital. David was normally the one
to stroll in a few minutes after nine, but today Mark had the honor of

45
apologizing for his tardiness. His dream had caused him to lose track of
time as he was cooking his breakfast. As a result he ended up with burned
bacon, and some really nasty scrambled eggs, which stuck more to the pan
than they did his stomach. Now it was 9:30 in the morning and David was
already hard at work, looking over his notes, reading through some medical
books, and trying to figure out what the next step should be. Apparently
David was deep in thought because he did not acknowledge Marks presence,
nor did he later comment on Marks being late.
Mark settled in with his notes and tried to take a gaze over Davids shoulder
to measure his notes against Davids. As soon as his eyes settled on the paper
in Davids hands an over whelming sense of déjà vu as well as an even more
crippling sense of dread. That was when he heard the cooing of the snow
white dove on the windowsill.
Mark dropped his note pad from his right hand and his pen from his left
causing David to turn around from his desk and look to see what the
disturbance was. As David turned to face Mark, Mark fell to his knees and
put his hands over his eyes.
“Mark are you ok…Mark what’s wrong?” asked David.
“You’ll see.” Mark replied through a mad little giggle. “The next time that
dove over there coo’s…you’ll see. I’ve already seen it…and God help me, I
don’t think I could bare to see it happen again.”
“Dove? Wha-, Mark have you gone mad?”
“Here it comes…” just barely a whisper from the man on his knees.
Coo. The bird gave the signal again as he did in the dream. Just as
happened in Marks dream, happened now in the waking world. The crio
patients started to slowly sit up, and as if in a strictly choreographed
production, they all simultaneously put their left foot on the floor, then the
right. Together they stood from their beds and started to make their way to
the door leading out of the wing and then out of the hospital altogether.
As this show was being performed, the sole spectator, David, looked on in
disbelief. After a moment, he had thought that they finally had a serious
victory on their hands. The crio patients had appeared to have naturally
pulled out of their comas and wake up. Could it be so simple, that all you
had to due was keep them unconscious for a matter of days? No, it wasn’t
that simple, and it was apparent to David almost immediately after he had
the thought of a simple victory. David was now noticing how uniform their
movements were, and the fact that they could walk just fine despite having
bandages still covering their eyes.
Now the previous feeling of victory had completely shriveled up to
nothing, and in its place grew a healthy dose of fear. Fear of the unknown,

46
fear of knowing that something epic was taking place before his very eyes
and if given a thousand years he would never be able to comprehend what it
was that he saw that day.
Mark continued to sit on his knees, but now his hands were covering his
ears, and he was bent over so far his nose was touching the floor. The
swishing of the paper slippers on the feet of the crio patients was driving
him crazy. All of them in unison shuffling the right foot, then the left, then
right…like the worlds laziest marching band, a marching band with no
instruments and barely the body muscle to let them walk, let alone march.
Mark clenched his eyes shut as hard as he could and pressed on his ears with
his hands so hard, he thought he might actually crush his own skull in.
Looking down at him David started to realize that maybe Mark was in tune
with something. Why it was only yesterday or the day before that Mark
brought up his worries about a God and a soul, and Mark never even listened
to what he was trying to say. He was batting down Marks ideas on the
subject left and right. There was only one thing that David had ever truly
believed in, and that was science. Science proved things to be either true or
false, and once the answer was determined, that was that. But now David
was starting to wonder if there was something bigger in this world than even
science, that maybe Mark was on to something, and that he should have
listened when he had the chance.
“What’s happening? Where are they going?” David asked Mark.
No response. Leaning down on one knee David attempted to pry Marks
hands away from his ears so he could repeat the question.
“Where are they going Mark?” David was now shouting in his ear as he
pulled Marks hands from his ears.
“To the beach, they are going to the beach.” Now through sobs, the mad
giggles had dissipated once the crio’s had stood up.
“Why to the beach?” David asked.
“So God can take them home.” With that being sad, Mark put his hands
back to his ears and doubled over again until his forehead was resting
against the floor.
Outside the troop of crio’s, still blindfolded made their way to the beach
just as Mark had said they would. Traffic stopped as they passed, and
people crossed to the other side of the street when they saw the group
headed toward them, and absolutely everyone watched them make their way
toward the beach until they were out of sight.
Once they had arrived at the beach the turned their bandaged eyes skyward
all at the same time, as if they shared the same neck. Though none of them
could see, they all new that the angel would be coming soon to take them all

47
home. If they could see, they might believe that the fire in the sky was the
oncoming angel. Most other people in this world would never see the flame,
because it was positioned so close to the sun. Only the people on Air Force
One and everyone in NORAD knew what that flame really was. It was a
asteroid, now only 2 minutes away from impact. It would take a minute and
a half before it was within the Earths atmosphere, and only 30 seconds or
less before it was making its best attempt at digging its way through to the
core of the planet.

Chapter 14-broken matches

Everything had been executed with a precision that we could only expect
from the United States Military. The matches were on their way to meet
with the cannonball. NORAD tracked them the second they were off the
ground all the way up to the moment of impact on the asteroid. Fifteen of
the warheads hit just as predicted, and even though they did not destroy the
asteroid, they did fracture it. Another round of fifteen warheads hit the
asteroid in a second wave and this time the asteroid now fully split it in two.
Ten more warheads were detonated early, in front of the asteroid halves in an
attempt to deflect the asteroid away from the planet. These last ten had no
affect what so ever. Now instead of one five mile wide asteroid, there were
two two and a half mile wide asteroids that were now one minute from
impact.
Aboard Air Force One a voice coming from a speakerphone started to relay
the status of operation: Cannonballs and Matchsticks.
“Impact one…no noticed affect. Round two inpacting in 5…4…3…2…
impact. We now have 2 asteroids sir. That’s 2 asteroids both 2 and a half
miles in diameter. Round three, the deflection round detonating in 5…4…
3…2…detonation. No affect sir.” Reported the voice in the speaker box.
“That’s it, that’s all we could throw at it?” Asked the President.
“Most of our nuclear weapons are delivered by plane or sub, they don’t
have the range to get to the asteroid.” Replied the general as if explaining to
a child.
“What is the trajectory of the two asteroid halves now.” The President felt
he needed to exert a little command, he didn’t like being talked down to no
matter what the situation.
“The first half is headed about 100 miles off the Carolina coast and target 2
appears that it will hit the Indian Ocean. But it’s hard to tell, it may skip off

48
the atmosphere and pass us by. Target ones ETA is 20 seconds. Target twos
ETA is 35 seconds.” Replied the voice coming from deep inside NORAD.
If a normal citizen were aboard Air Force One to see the looks on the faces
of our nations leaders, fear and dread would creep into the deepest parts of
their being. Here they were; men trained to face any situation in the world,
and to over come it at any cost. And if you could have been there to see the
eyes, set deep in their sockets, staring blankly off into nothing, slack jawed
like a child that had lost his first pet and it would be the end of the world for
that child. Except these weren’t children we were looking at, these were the
leaders of our mighty nation, and unlike the scenario of the child, this really
was the end of the world. Indeed if you were to see the look of doom on
these men who were bread to face war and casualties day in and day out, you
too would find a new level of fear. Not even fear for yourself, no this doom
meant the end of tens millions, hundreds of millions and quite possibly, God
forbid, the end of humanity as a whole.
They sat silently and waited for the events to unfold. Why bark orders at
someone on the ground when there was a 90% chance that they would all be
dead in less than a minute? Maybe all of humanity was going to be
destroyed, maybe this plane would be thrown out of the sky after the impact
blast catches up with them. What use would orders be then? They were all
going to sit and wait and see what damage was going to be done. When
damage was assessed they would see if there were any survivors, if there
were any, then they would organize and start barking orders at them.
“Sir? Sir, what should we do?” Came the voice from the speaker box.
“Hold on tight and pray for everyone you’ve ever known and loved, son.”
Replied the president. With that being said, everyone sat to contemplate
the last 20 seconds of their life.

Most anyone could ever conjure about the end of the world was dreadful
images of death and destruction. Nobody could dream of the beautiful
things of Armageddon, things such as the moments previous to Armageddon.
There are random acts of kindness, moments were forgiveness magically
appears but earlier, when impending doom was not present, forgiveness
could not be found anywhere. In these very same moments you will find
mothers covering the heads of their children in some attempt to shelter them
from the incoming terror that will certainly take all of their lives. You will
see lovers embrace as though it were the very first time as it most certainly
is their last. You will see those with faith through their arms in the air and
rejoice at the coming of their maker just as you will see the evil drop to their
knees and beg for forgiveness. And who judges which of these last two is

49
more beautiful? For God finds them equally glorious, the longtime friends
welcoming you to their homes and hearths, and longtime enemies who
finally have found error in their ways and welcome you into their hearts. Yet
it takes the end of the world to create such love and passion in all of these
people.
Also I would like to note, that if you will look around the world you will
notice that God is an exceptionally fine artist. From the rich green forested
mountains of Brazil to the deep blues of the oceans and perfect white of
snowcapped mountain peaks you see Gods paintbrush painting life into our
world. Why should the worlds end be any less spectacular?
In Africa one man, named Tony Moore saw this splendor in the most
unique perspective. He was a scientist investigating how the desert had
spontaneously combusted into flames a few days ago. The flames had gone
out yesterday afternoon, shortly after the flames died away a rain shower
came through, a rain shower that was presumed to be caused from the
intense heat of the massive fire because the clouds came from every
direction around the desert, they came hard and fast from every direction.
Tony had witnessed the first of the rain drops. They sounded like thunder
when they hit the glass because every drop that hit the glass cooled it so
quick that it made the glass crack. A few days ago all you could see for
miles was sand, a few yours ago all you could see was glass for miles, now
miles and miles of glass started to crack with every rain drop. Shards of
glass flew into the air high enough and far enough for Tony to seek shelter in
his jeep and watch through the window.
Today Tony was wearing thick boots and long pants tucked into his boots.
He was out about a half mile out into the desert and was looking down into
several large plates of glass pieces that were so smooth and flat they
reflected the sky just as clear as any mirror. As he admired these large
chunks of glass he saw the reflection of a fireball whizzing through the sky.
Coupled with the fact that Tony was essentially looking at miles of fractured
mirrored glass at the time he saw this fireball from thousands of different
angles for miles around. He only caught the smallest glimpses of it in the
glass but when he raised his head to the sky he saw what it was as clear and
plain as the nose on his face. A small mountain encased in fire racing
through the sky, racing to meet the ground.
Tony lost sight of the meteor as it dropped over the horizon, but it was
about to reveal its presence to Tony again in just a moment. It only took a
second or two, then the south sky that was just as bright a blue as the rest of
the world was now lighting up to a pure white sky. The rest of the world

50
that was once bright noon was now looking to be like dusk compared to the
sky that now lie to the south.
Vision started to blur a bit and at first Tony thought it to be his eyes,
because he couldn’t remember blinking in the last 30 seconds or so. The
blur that Tony was seeing was the heat waves from the impact over 700
miles away. Now it was 8 seconds since the south sky lit up and the heat
waves made themselves visible, to Tony it had been an hour since this had
happened. It was then that the Earth under Tonys feet started to shake, the
heat waves started to take over the sky and as the ground continued quaking
now came a sound. Tony was certain this sound was not coming from
within the ground, he had been in an Earthquake before and new the sounds
of tectonic plates shifting positions. This sound was of the impact 700 miles
away. It was as relentless as the sound of a heavy freight train at top speed,
it also carries with it the sound of a wind to fast for this world. That was the
last thing that Tony could witness because the wind and the heat that came
with it ripped the skin and flesh from his bones and the whole time Tony
never blinked once, because he knew he was seeing something very few ever
got to see, the glory of God.
Others around the world had seen this happen, and if you want to be
romantic about it, you could imagine a mountain of fire flying over the
Eiffel Tower, or maybe the Great Wall of China, or in honor of Evan you
might even see this mountain flying over the Grand Canyon. But very few
in this world saw the true beauty in what was happening, they could only
imagine the horror it was about to present.
On the coast of America for example, there is a group of hospital patients
taking a little filed trip to the beach today. What is different about this group
of patients are technically still dead. And believe it or not they walked under
their own power and will to this little piece of beach. They were followed
by two doctors, one amazed and bewildered, the other not as much,
surprisingly, it seemed as the other doctor had seen this happen before and it
was no mystery to him at all.
The group of fifty patients total all lined up to the surf so that the water just
touched the tips of their toes when the waves came in. Once they had all
lined up they raised their arms to the sky and waited.
Doctor Mark Allison and his long time mentor and friend Doctor David
McGraw saw what was now clear in the sky, it was one half of the asteroid.
Without having to be told, somehow they both clearly understood why these
people who had once paid so much money to be resurrected from the dead,
now come to the front line of a disaster and await its swift blow. They

51
wanted to go home. They wanted to go to the better place you were always
promised after they died.
“You were right, Mark.” David looked back to his younger friend.
“I wish I wasn’t.” Mark replied softly. Then he looked to stare at the last
thing his eyes would ever see. He looked out to the water. The asteroid
piece hit a few miles off the coast of North Carolina. Its impact created a
tidal wave that wiped out most of the Eastern seaboard. As they looked at
the oncoming tidal wave Mark noticed a glimmer in its mile high surface
that reminded him of something from his dream.
That was when he heard the roar of the wave as it crept closer and closer.
It was hard to judge its speed, he knew it was moving very fast, but it was
still quit far out in the ocean. And no matter how the wave moved the
glimmer remained constant. Within the roar of the waves Mark was also
picking out another sound, like the soothing voice of an old friend, but what
was it saying. All he could pick out for sure was one word, that word was
glory. As soon as he heard that word and could clearly identify it all of the
crio patients, still waiting with their arms stretched out to the sky started to
shout in unison. They chanted only one word, and that word was
“Hosanna.”
Apparently the wave was moving quicker than Mark had guessed because by
the time he was getting ready to look back out to the ocean he was dead and
so was his longtime friend and mentor David as well as all 50 crio patients.
The piece of asteroid that was headed for the Indian Ocean killed exactly
one third of the life in the Oceans across the globe. The piece that was
headed for the coast of the Carolinas wiped out most of North America. As
a matter of a fact, if you totaled all of the deaths due to the plague up to the
impact of the asteroid halves, you would see that exactly one third of the
human population had been snuffed out in the last few days. One other item
of note that you may find interesting in the statistics of death in the last three
days, it appears that nobody in that time had died from natural causes. It
appears Death had been working overtime elsewhere and did not have time
for his day to day duties.

Chapter 15-the inner circle

“Now this is Hell.” That was all Evan could utter. For a moment he was
kind of wishing he had stayed in his little solitary confinement circle. Now
here he was at the innermost Malbolge of Hell. This was essentially the

52
throne room for Lucifer. Though Lucifer very rarely entertained his
audience, only when he was in a foul mood did he come here to torture his
subjects.
When you spend eons torturing people it tends to get old. The Devil was
not placed in this Hell because he enjoyed torturing humans, although he did
enjoy it quit a bit, that was still not the reason for his incarceration. He was
imprisoned here for his wanting to control the world, and its people. He
hated our free will, the fact that we could choose to be ignorant and deny
any knowledge of Gods existence. And Even those who believed in the
Almighty, had no certain knowledge that he was there, yet they had faith,
nonetheless.
Angels were made directly by Gods hands just as Adam and Eve had been.
Unlike Adam and Eve however, angels could hear Gods voice. Give that to
any man, Even the Pope and their chest would explode, yet with out any sign
of one true God they went on blindly believing in his grace.
Certainly over the years Lucifer had put his hands into some of the
different religions just to irk God a bit. Take the crusades for example. Or
better yet, and this one Lucifer was very fond of…in the catholic church he
had implemented the Dogma of saying a hail Mary for forgiveness. Oh it
had taken years of finding the right Cardinal and the right Pope and the right
timing and just the right set of circumstances, but eventually he had gotten it
through. Now you may wonder what the big deal is about saying a hail
Mary, but if you look at the fundamentals of it, it is breaking the first
commandment. “Though Shalt have no Gods before Me.” Number one, top
of the list. And when you say a prayer to Mary you say a prayer to someone
who is not God, therefore breaking the first commandment. Just a clever
way to steal praise away from God, to remind Him that Lucifer was still
around and he still was a manipulator to the end.
So here it was in the center of Hell, in the throne room for Lucifer himself
and all Evan could do was say “Now this is Hell” and stare slackjawed at the
vile images that surrounded him at every side.
Some people were buried upside down in shit and maggots so that only
their ankles and feet were exposed, and there were grueling viscous forms
that were poking the feet with white hot pokers. Most normal people would
wonder how one could breathe when buried in shit and maggots but Evan
had already been dead and knew that you don’t need to breathe when you
are dead, you simply exist in spirit form and what he was viewing now was a
terrible way to exist for all of eternity.
Evan turned his eyes away from that horror and they landed upon another.
Now he saw men raping one another in the most brutal fashion. They would

53
beat on one another, and when one man went down the victor would jump
on top and enter his fallen enemy anally. One man was even beaten and
raped while he was raping his own downed opponent. This vision was so
vile that Evan again averted his eyes, and tried to further shield his vision by
placing his hand over his eyes a bit and trying to look mostly down, and
second look for an exit out of here.
No matter where he looked he never saw any flame nor did he see
brimstone, and he most certainly so no clear sign out, what he did happen to
see every where was flesh. Bits, pieces and parts strewn everywhere as if
this where the worlds messiest slaughter house whose only job was to cover
every inch of the place with blood, guts and gore. There was so much of it
that Evan didn’t even realize that was what made up the content of this
Malbolge, at first glance it just seems to be glistening red rock. Until he saw
that the rock was pliant and moved quit easily and bled more when stepped
upon.
Evan tried to keep moving, and to keep his eyes low. As he walked he
glanced many horrific sights and many demons, or what he could only guess
a demon might be, he couldn’t imagine any other names for the things that
he saw. One type of demon slithered about as if it had no skeletal structure
of any kind, others had the stiff mechanical movement of a creature with a
thick exoskeleton. But in saying the movement was mechanical and stiff by
no means implies that these things moved slow, just the opposite, they were
lightning fast.
As Evan walked through this Malbolge he wondered if these demons had
the ability to see him. He had become used to the idea that nobody in Hell
could see him and he was for the most part now, a spectator of Hell which is
much better than being a full fledged participant as he had been earlier. But
these demon forms clearly saw the souls they were torturing, did they not
see his presence as well? Perhaps they were only to do as instructed and
torture the souls in their region, or maybe it was because they had never seen
a soul walking freely in Hell and didn’t know what to do about it? What
ever the case, the demons paid him no mind and walked past him as if he
were not there just as every other soul had done so far. So it was with
relative freedom, as much freedom as one could pray for in Hell anyways,
that Evan ventured through the inner circle, hiding his eyes the whole way.
As Evan entered the center of the inner circle Evan started to wish he had
hands so he could cover his ears. A din of voices could be heard from every
corner of this Malbolge as he had first entered, but now as he reached the
center, that din had steadily climbed into a full on roar. Each of those voices

54
begging for their specific torture to be stopped, each of them pleading for
just a moment of mercy, and none of them finding it.
Here in the center of the Malbolge was the throne of Lucifer himself. No
human could have conjured this type of craftsmanship mainly due to the fact
that so few craftsman make furniture of bone and flesh. Well, there was Ed
Gein who was basis for both movies “the Texas Chainsaw Massacre” as well
as “Psycho”. He had made a chair of bone and flesh, and now thinking
about may indeed have been the designer of this one. But for some reason
Evan doubted that seriously. Whomever made this throne had never seen
daylight on Earth, they were permanent residents of this place. As Evan
glanced over the chair he easily envisioned a large demon with wings, horns,
and tail sitting in this throne, even though he had met Lucifer and knows for
a fact he has no wings…well not anymore anyways.
Evan wanted to press forward, the noise here at the center of the chamber
was making Evans head feel as if it were splitting down the center, a noise
that no doubt brought great joy to Lucifer. He started to take a few steps
forward but the sound was overwhelming him. If there were tile in this
room the sound would have reverberated much more than it did, however the
Malbolge was wall to wall flesh, and it did reverberate almost as clearly as if
it were tile.
That thought coupled with the noise itself and the vision of the blood made
Evan want to vomit. If he had a body complete with stomach he was certain
its contents would be all over the floor and dribbling down his chin. But
being in spirit form, he didn’t have the luxury of throwing up and feeling
better afterwards. Instead the feeling of impending sickness remained and
grew steadily, then dizziness started to take hold of him. The sounds, the
visions now swam through his head as if it were all as fluid as a liquid. All
of this was more than any human could bear, and Evan collapsed onto the
ground were his vomit would have been had he had a body.
From behind Evan came the sound of footsteps, and as quiet as they may
have been, they were still clearly heard over all of the voices that screamed
from torture. It was the only other being who could see everything going on
in Hell besides Evan. Apparently the king had been in his throne room after
all.
“Well, well, well, look at what we have here!” The voice of Lucifer heard
just as clearly over the roar of screaming voices as his footsteps had been.
“And what pray tell are you doing just wandering about? Did your previous
accommodations prove to be not to your liking?”

55
 “Please make the voices stop…I can’t take it.” Evan spit out trying in vain
to cover either eyes or ears, but unable to accomplish the task due to being a
spirit and not having solid hands that could block vision or sound.
“And what makes your plea any different from the thousands of others that
fill this room?”
“I can’t…answer you with that noise.” Even pleaded.
“I know more ways to make a man talk than you could ever think of in a
millennia. So don’t give me that drivel. Now what are you doing here and
how did you get here?”
“I’m just trying to get out of here.” Even said still trying like mad to cover
up his eyes and ears by wrapping his ghost arms around his head.
Now laughter erupts from the devil at Evans side.
“Get out? Of Hell? By coming into the center of it? My Throne room?”
Now more full throated laughter from the king of Hades. You come to the
inner most circle of Hell looking for the way out, that is rich indeed. There
is no way out of here!” This last statement was expelled with so much force
that spittle flew from his lips. “Trust me, I have been here in this Hell since
the day God created man. There is no way out of here.”
“But weren’t you on Earth as a snake in the garden?” Evan asked trying to
remember other moments in the bible where the devil was mentioned to be
on the Earth.
“My presence was felt very strongly there, and I did speak through the
snakes forked tongue. That was what God had ordered, that I was to slither
as a snake, in the beginning that is the only form I could inhabit. But I
assure you that my true physical form remained here in this very location
during all of my trips to earth.”
“In the beginning? Does that mean that you can inhabit other forms now?”
Evan inquired.
“Most certainly.”
“What changed.”
“My last meeting with Jesus.”
“Was that when he was praying in the garden?”
“No. It was when he was on the cross.”
“So what happened?” Evan pressed even though his head was still filled
with a horrid buzz from the noise.
“I offered to take him off of the cross. I offered him life.”
“And…then what happened?”
“I thought that would be obvious to you. He said no. He wanted to die,
wanted to be a martyr. I disagreed with him many times on the subject. Tell
me, how can you really die when you know you are the son of God? How

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can you face death like a man, a real man born from a man and woman,
when you know that there is a Heaven? Jesus knew he was the product of
God, he KNEW for a fact that God existed simply because he himself also
existed. How can you have any fear of death when you know these things.
A real man fears death because they don’t know what happens after death,
they think that’s all there is. Jesus knew otherwise, that is why he did not
come down from the cross. But it was what he did next that really shocked
me, though looking back it shouldn’t have surprised me at all.”
“What did he do?” Evan asked.
“Well if you know your bible study, then you may remember the part that
goes something like…”And Jesus looked to the heavens and said ‘Forgive
them Father for they know not what they do.’” Well right after he said that
he looked down at me and he said…”
“…Said?”
“…He said ‘I forgive you Lucifer Morningstar’”
There was a silence then. Not just between Evan and Lucifer, but an
overall silence through out the entire Malbolge. Neither of them noticed it at
first, as a matter of a fact Evan realized it first when the screams slowly
started to pick up again. He made a mental note of it and went on with his
questions that he had for Lucifer. Evan hated to think this but Lucifer is a
very complex individual, and the more time he spends in his presence the
harder it is to imagine him as the ruler over all things evil and arcane.
“Then what happened after that?”
“I could take any form I wanted. But no matter what form I was able to
take on Earth, my true self remained here in this room. Enough questions
from you, tell me how you got in here?”
Evan figured the king of lies would be able to smell a lie like a shark smells
blood in the water, so he figured if he left it simple and at least partly true he
may get away with this escapade relatively unscathed.
“I think I was lead here by an angel.” Evan stated flatly. The less he said
the better.
“Michael…Damn him. What is he up to? I am afraid you have taken
enough of my time. I think you should return to where you belong.”
There wasn’t even a flash. Just instant darkness. Evan was back where he
started from, in darkness and silence. Except this time Evan welcomed the
darkness and the quiet. He had seen and heard to much lately. And there
was something that got his brain thinking again. It was the silence. It
reminded him of one point in the conversation when Lucifer was telling the
story of Jesus on the cross, and there was silence for no apparent reason at
one point. What was it that caused a silence through a hall full of tortured

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souls. What word triggered the silence, and why? Yes this was something
Evan was going to think long and hard about for a while.

Chapter 16-the sound of the last four trumpets

When one angels trumpet sounds it can be heard by every ear on Earth.
When four angels trumpets sound it can destroy every mind on the planet.
So they never blew them at the same instant, but they did alternate who
would play they trumpet at a very quick rate. One might even get a sense
that they were hearing one note from one instrument with a very heavy
vibrato to it. Angels have impeccable timing and these four angels have had
all of eternity to practice their piece before their performance on this day.
These horn blasts seemed to go on and on for well over five minutes, but
these were the most significant horn blasts in the group of seven because
these were the last to come.
For the next 122 years there would be punishment, but first there must be
judgment. These four trumpets blown by these four angels brought with
them the four horsemen of the apocalypse. Four who were ordered around
by no one, except for God Himself and by Michael, the angel of death, the
one who was charged with the duty of casting Lucifer from Heaven.
By this time Air Force One had been thrown from the sky and there were
very few countries that had any form of government in tact. The citizens of
the world at large went into panic mode and looting was one of the highest
priorities on everyones mind.
Deaths were in the hundreds of thousands in a matter of a few hours, and
not from these catastrophes thrown down upon us by the hand of God, these
deaths were caused by fellow humans. With all of the chaos that ensued
after the meteor hit, there were large masses of people that were trampled in
the blind running that panic can force one into. It is survival instinct that
causes this type of behavior, just as animals that would normally stay in their
separate groups will run as one from a forest fire. Oh certainly there were
countless murders, most of which were completely random, having no real
target outside of creating more anarchy.
These last few moments of the day has definitely shown the many different
sides of the human spirit. We have seen the countless mothers hide the
heads of their children in a futile attempt at survival, if not for themselves
then for that of their family. We have seen large groups of strangers unite in
creating chaos across the many cities of the world in their looting and

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murder. We have even seen two friends with different perspectives on one
subject share in one single vision before their lives were taken from them.
The end of time can bring out the best or the worst in a person, depending
which of the two fills your soul more.
The end is truly at hand now, as the four horsemen come from the four
corners of the globe to finish up and pave the way clear for the judge to
make His way here to rule in His court. The plagues that Michael the
Archangel had overseen in the East had taken about one tenth of the worlds
population. The Meteor that hit took another one third of the total
population. The chaos that mankind brought upon itself following these
incidents, another tenth. As you ponder those numbers you would think that
is a lot of people to have died so suddenly, and in a certain point of view, it
can be looked at as a healthy number of people to die all at once. But there
was still a lot of death that still needed to be handed out, the job isn’t even
half done after all.
The four horsemen were incredibly swift in taking out their mission
objective. Together they created four independent freeways of death. Miles
of bodies lay in their wake. Some people even came out to meet them so as
to end the suffering early. What hopes would one have at having a life now?
Money has no value, there is no stock market anymore, there is actually less
value to a home than there is to a good can of peaches. Survival is the only
thing on your mind, and if it isn’t that means you are only thinking of death,
so you don’t have to endure the struggles that life will surely present to you.
It would only be a matter of a few days before the smell of death would
start to permeate the globe. There will be very few places left in this world
that will be secluded enough to escape the scent of decaying flesh, a place
where you can actually smell the cleanness in the air. No longer will there
be a fresh ocean breeze, instead it will smell as if the oceans contents were
purged from the depths and lie rotting in the sun. Mixed with the fact that
there would also be a pile of defecation attached to every corpse, the world
was becoming more and more foul by the moment.
None of this bothered any of the horsemen. They went about their business
with the zeal of one doing the work of God, which of course, they were.
They had zigzagged across the continents creating their highway of death
making very good time. It wasn’t until they got to the southern border of
Russia that the killing stopped abruptly. It wasn’t that they had completed
their job. It was the fact that they met someone. Someone they did not
expect to see for a very long time to come. They even had to call on
Michael for help, because they couldn’t think of another strong enough to
take this obstacle down.

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Chapter 17-the devil went down to Georgia

Somewhere on a snow filled mountain top in the former soviet state of

Georgia two winged figures converse under the light of the stars.
“Well this is certainly unexpected.” The voice of the eldest of all the
angels.
“Really? I thought for sure you had something to do with it.” The voice of
his younger brother.
“Me? No. I don’t have the power to do something like that.”
“So who would let me out? There’s not one angel that would go against
God and free me from that prison.”
“So it must’ve been God then. He is the only one capable of such a thing.”
“Really Michael…I don’t think God would just open a hole in Hell after
one hundred thousand years and let me roam about, no questions asked.”
“Are you naïve enough to claim to know the will of the Lord, Lucifer
Morningstar?”
“I know enough to know God wouldn’t just let me out now that
Armageddon has started. This has been the moment I have been dreaming
of. He wouldn’t dare give me something I wanted this badly.”
“And what would He do then? This is the end as has been prophesied, and
you are to be here for it.”
“But for what purpose? You hold my sword. How may I go into battle
with no weapon?”
“Take the sword of flames. Carry it up high over your head and bring it
down with swift justice as you were meant to do.” This voice was not the
voice of either of the angels. This voice did come from an angel, but it was
one of the most special angels among the ranks, for this was the Metatron,
the voice of God.
Looks of surprise now from both angels.
“People always believed I was the greatest manipulator in the world.”
Lucifer spat. “Little do they realize who is the True King of manipulation.
Of coarse I will take up the sword, because You said I would. It hath been
foretold, and you are ineffable. But when I take up my sword, it will not be
the humans I swing at first.”
The Metatron had heard many outbursts from Lucifer eons ago before his
imprisonment. This was no surprise to see how little a millennia truly
changes a being.

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 “Do as you wish. God does not control or manipulate others into doing
His will. He merely reveals a path, if they choose to follow it, it is of their
own free will.” Replied Metatron, speaking in his own voice and not that of
God.
Michael the eldest of the angels dropped to his knees and held the flaming
blade in one hand as he presented the hilt of the sword to Lucifer. This
move confused Lucifer at first. Something about this scenario had a certain
familiarty to it, but on the other hand it felt incredibly wrong. Something
that could make the devil himself feel this uneasy must be pretty loathsome
indeed.
“In the earliest copy of Revelations, there was something written that God
had destroyed.” Lucifer began. “You know what that thing was don’t you
Michael? What was written that God asked for it to be destroyed? What
was that piece of information that God felt he had to hide it from the
world…from me? I say that I am ready to take my sword and start the war
with all my former brethren, Metatron says its ‘fine by him…and Him’ and
you drop to your knees and offer up the sword. Tell me Brother, what was it
that was written and destroyed in Revelations?”
“It is what will be.” These were the only words Michael was willing to say.
He lowered his head and once again held the hilt of the sword so that Lucifer
would take it. If Michael were to have raised his head he would have seen
thousands of years of torment flame up in the eyes of Lucifer Morningstar in
one radiant moment.
Most events like this one are usually preceded by a howl of rage and anger,
sometimes a final curse to the antagonist. This time there were no screams,
no curses. It happened swiftly and quietly. Lucifer reached out and grabbed
the sword from Michaels hands, and with one swift motion beheaded his
older brother.
Mankind had been wading through one spectacular disaster through
another, the whole time believing it was a sign of the end of time. To all of
the angels and demons, this was the moment that truly marked the beginning
of the end. When the eldest of all the angels was gone, the rest would
follow. This was the moment taken from the book of Revelations. This was
the one thing Lucifer had to do himself, a decision he had to make on his
own. Even though Lucifer now believed he was doing what he felt was a
personal mission, he in reality was now doing the work of God.
“Now it begins.” The Metatron had taken a few steps back form the
lifeless body of Michael.

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 “You’re wrong brother. It began in the beginning of creation. It has just
taken this long to finish. Time to start raising some Hell around here.
Where are the keys?”
“I assume you are referring to the key to Death and the key to Hades?”
asked the Metatron.
“Of coarse those are the keys I am referring to. Where are they?”
“I believe that Michael has delivered them to the Christ.” The Metatron
said in his unwavering soothing tone.
Lucifer looked away from the Metatron, now the howl of rage was
unleashed, echoing of the mountain walls. With that the devil started to
walk out of the Mountains of Georgia.
And what was removed from the text of Revelations?
A little line that went something along the lines of…
“…and so did the devil go forth doing the work of the Lord, the whole time
believing it was his own will that pressed Lucifer forward.”

Chapter 18-the end of all things known to man

There is so much to do when wiping out a civilization. There’s the

technology, the history, the architecture. But let us not forget the people, the
many races and creed of people: male, female, child, and adult.
This was the time of destruction such as the world has never known. Of
coarse throwing an asteroid and a comet to the Earth really gets things
moving along and puts the planets destruction ahead of schedule. The Four
Horseman were now sweeping through hills and valleys as swift as a breeze
killing all those that remained in sight.
The black Horseman easing the pain of all those who have disease growing
in their limbs and bodies…cancer that was once eating its victim from the
inside out, now acted as a beacon to the black horseman. The red Horseman
rode down the evil-doers, those who hadn’t had a shred of decency in their
mortal lives were run though and slaughtered in the most vicious fashions, to
end their lives as brutally as they lived them. It was the white Horseman
that frightened the most of the worlds’ populace. It was the white horseman
that took our children from us. No mother, no matter how much love she
had, could hold onto her child hard enough to prevent the white horseman
from taking them from her. And it was the screams of the parents that were
heard loudest at this moment, drowning out all other cries for salvation,
redemption, and deliverance from this mad chaos.

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 The Blue Horseman was the one that went most unnoticed. This was the
horseman that took all non-believers, those that believe that all of this world
sprang from nothingness. These people left the planet silently…because
they did not believe what it was that was happening to them. These were the
people that thought both an asteroid and a comet hitting Earth in the same
week was a galactic coincidence, they believed that science could explain
the desserts being set aflame, and the plagues that killed millions yet showed
no trace of itself once it had run its coarse. And once they did believe that
humanity was being wiped away from existence right before their very eyes,
it was too late to do anything, they were already gone. Without a word a
whole classification of people had just disappeared.
That leaves just one other soul out there to help cleanse the world. That
soul used to be Michael the Arch-Angel, but since his dispatch, that duty has
been handed back to its rightful owner…Lucifer.
Lucifer’s job was more on the ironic side of Armageddon, if there is an
ironic side to Armageddon. Lucifer had the duty of bringing all of the
Lords believers home.
While Michael held this post, it caused him great sadness. Every time he
brought one of the Lords followers into His kingdom, Michael had to endure
the cries and pleas for him to Passover them and let them live. But this
could not be done. It was Michaels job to end their worldly life so that they
may continue on into the Heavenly life. But the endless amount of tears and
crying brought nothing but sadness to Michael, even though it should
ultimately bring joy.
Lucifer on the other hand loved this aspect of slaying Gods followers
immensely. The funny thing about it is that those people who truly had
faith…those that had to meet their end at the hand of the devil himself, never
felt any pain from his swift stroke. Actually what they felt was much closer
to rapture. An endless feeling of love spread from a wound where only
blood should flow, and a tingling of ecstasy replaced what should have been
pain. This was the last gift from God to his loyal believers.
And so this is the way that mankind spent the last of his days. Being
slaughtered as we would slaughter cattle. With no remorse or feeling in any
way other than something that needs to be done. All of the people you have
come to know and love in this life are gone, and all those that you spite are
gone as well. There is only one lesson left to learn, and to learn the way into
Heaven we must first travel into the depths of a dark and quiet Hell where
Evan stumbles blindly and waits for a beacon in the night.

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Chapter 19-at the end of the tunnel

Darkness. Silence. Two things we encounter in every day life that make
up this eternal Hell. Yet the silence on Earth is never truly silent. We here
the refrigerator hum as it keeps our food cool, we hear airplanes pass a mile
over head, we hear the house settle as we try to sleep, even in the quietest of
moments on Earth, we are still bombarded with sounds.
Not here. Here is a deep silence, that lets you know that you are utterly
alone. It was in this place that Evan let his mind wander. And it was in this
silence that Evan heard a voice. A voice cutting through the quiet like a
church bell chorus on Sunday morning, calling to gather its patrons from
miles around to worship. It was a glorious sound, a familiar sound, the
voice made of bells, the voice of an angel.
It was Michael.
“I thought you would have made more progress by now.” Came the tinkling
of the voice through the dark. “God had assured me that you would be back
in Heaven before the last soul was claimed from Earth.”
“I thought I was gonna be stuck here forever. Thank God you’re here.”
“Actually you can thank Lucifer I am here, he is the one who killed me.”
“Killed you?! How…you are an angel, angels can’t die.”
“All things die, Evan.” came the tinkle of Michaels voice. “But that is not
important now. Now it is time for you to be freed of this prison. Have you
figured it out yet?”
“What am I supposed to figure out? I’ve had this key, but it lead me from
darkness to something I don’t ever want to see again.” Evan stuttered and
looked around, now thankful for the darkness. “I’m terrified to use it again,
for fear of what else I might see.”
“I thought you might be more afraid to not use it, for fear you will be locked
up here forever. I told you when we first met ‘…you must hold onto these
words and never, NEVER let go of them. You shall once again see Gods
blessing, and in it you shall find his forgiveness.’ Was that not enough for
you?”
“Look, maybe because you know the answer, it seems easy to you…but I
just don’t know what you are trying to say.” Evan was now getting more
frustrated by this help than he was relieved by it.
“I’m trying to say that some things are eternal, and not only must you ask for
it, you must give it to everyone…freely. This is something Lucifer never
could do in his millennia of entrapment here, it is something he will never

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see or know, because he never had it to begin with.” The voice of the angel
was now spinning in circles around Evan.
“Where are you, I can hear you but I can’t see you.” Evan was starting to
get disoriented from the spinning voice and it was making him sick.
“I am with God. Where ever you look there I am. For He is Everywhere
and so am I now that I am with him.”
“Great, so can you and God give me a hand here and get me out of here?”
Along with his dizziness, Evan was starting to feel like Michael was playing
games with him. If he wanted to help Evan escape, why not just tell him
how?
“You have the key, all you have to do is use it.” The tinkling of the voice
now seemed further away.
“I told you I used it once and I am afraid to use it again.” Evan now fully
exhasperated.
“That which you hold in your hand is not the key that I refer to. The key is
inside of you, inside of everyone, even Lucifer…that is Gods gift to
mankind. A gift that could end all war, the gift that could return Earth to the
paradise once known as Eden. That is the key of which I speak.”
That was when the light at the end of the tunnel finally appeared. It was
when Lucifer and Evan were talking earlier, Lucifer mentioned how Jesus
had forgiven him while he was up on the cross. It was at that moment that
the voices that were filling Evans head had stopped.

“But you are to know this now, you shall once again see Gods blessing, and
in it you shall find his forgiveness.” Words from when Evan first met
Michael.

“That which you hold in your hand is not the key that I refer to. The key is
inside of you, inside of everyone, even Lucifer…that is Gods gift to
mankind. A gift that could end all war, the gift that could return Earth to the
paradise once known as Eden. That is the key of which I speak.” Words
from Michael now.

Something the devil had the power to do himself, yet never did. Forgive.
Forgive himself, forgive God, forgive all.

It was with this last revelation that Evan through the key from his hands and
screamed at the top of his lungs, “I forgive myself, I forgive God for putting
me here, I forgive Lucifer for…well for being Lucifer…I
FORGIIIIIIIIVE….

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The darkness started to turn to a gray, then to a silver then to a bright light
that you had to shield your eyes from. The tinkling of Michaels voice, that
one moment ago seemed to be fading away, now was racing closer and
closer, Evan was catching up to it, he was going home.

Chapter 20-the last revelation

All of the world, past and present, is here now. Nobody needs to create
their own comfortable view of Heaven. You can see it for what it is. Many
who are here now are confused…overjoyed to be here, yet confused as to
how they got here. Shoulder to shoulder stand the entire inhabitants of the
planet, all looking into the light. Around the light stand all of the angels of
the Lord singing “Hossanna, Hossanna”. The time that man had feared and
God had strived for had come and gone. We are all now in His kingdom that
he had made for us. Some of those with true faith realized that it was
mankind that had brought about the end of the world…and in all honesty,
they couldn’t be happier. Of coarse at the time it was dreadfully frightening.
There is always that little piece of your mind that wonders, when I die, will I
go somewhere or will I just cease to be? Now there answers are revealed,
you do indeed go somewhere, somewhere much better than any place you’ve
ever been to before. And all you had to do to get there was just die. Much
easier directions to remember than “left at the third stoplight, right on Grand
River Avenue.” Yet infinitely more difficult to follow than “left at the third
stoplight, right on Grand River Avenue.”
It’s something mankind never put a lot of thought into. The end of time is
the beginning of LIFE.
Now everyone starts to understand…Gods love spreads through the crowd,
and with it comes the explanation.
“To fear death, is to fear coming home to Me. Thank you for being brave
my children. You will have nothing to fear ever again.”
Then everyone knew. And they all sang “Hossanna, Hossanna”.
Here Evan got to show his father how to throw a ball like a champion. Here
Evan got to show his son how to fly…truly fly. Here Evan was no longer
lonely, here anything is possible.
The world was over and life had finally begun.

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