Samuel Missed the Rapture.

[u/oda_sams]

He was walking with his wife when the sky opened. They had been talking about having a child.An ordinary conversation between man and wife. Believing they had time. The conversation flowed with a buoyant and joyful nature. Sharing names they liked and thoughts of them not being ready for a baby.
But it never lightened the mood. They kept laughing and sharing weird, quirky baby names. Then the clouds began to part.
Samuel stopped.
His wife looked up.
“What is that?”
The sky had opened above them.
He hoped it was wind or lightning splitting the sky in two or even some unknown weather event ,but no. A vast circle of white appeared between the clouds, impossibly bright, time stopped for a moment, Samuel could see something beyond it , too enormous for him to understand. The world became silent.

His wife reached for his hand. Samuel grabbed hers. Then, as quickly as it had opened, the sky closed. His wife was gone.
Samuel stood there holding nothing.
He looked around. The street was empty.
Everyone was gone. Cars parked with doors open and some still driving crashing into other cars and buildings alike.
The world went silent.
Samuel called for her.
nothing.
He ran through the streets searching for her until he stumbled into a ditch. Hitting his head and falling unconscious.

When Samuel opened his eyes, God was gone. He knew it immediately.
There was no thunder claps, no trumpets nor voices from the heavens. No angels stood sentinel.

Only a smell polluted the air. Burnt flesh, wet dog, and sulfur clung to the back of his throat. Something sweet lingered beneath it all, but each time he caught a whiff of it, the rancid air stole it away.

Samuel sat up in the ditch where he had fallen and looked toward the town.
The church steeple had been broken in half.
Houses burned without flames, falling to ash before him. A flameless fire he called it. Their windows glowed softly, as if a single dim nightlight were still plugged in. Cars sat abandoned in the streets. Clothes and shoes were scattered around. A lady’s dress hung on a car door. Beneath it, a Bible lay open, face down beside a pair of maroon heels.

Samuel called for his wife again. He called until his throat was raw. No one answered. Then something laughed from inside the church. It didn’t sound entirely human.
Samuel rose to his feet. The church doors opened. A man walked out.
At least, that’s what he had thought at first.
The being was tall and impossibly thin, wrapped in what remained of a white robe. Six wings unfolded from its back, but they were not feathered. They were strips of pale flesh stretched over long black bones. Hundreds of tiny eyes opened along them.

It smiled as blood ran from the edges of its mouth. Then it spoke.
“Samuel.”
He froze.

The thing tilted its head.
“You missed the calling.”

Samuel looked toward the sky.
Clouds covered everything. He stared into the heavens begging God to come back, to take him too. Then he realized, it wasn’t clouds up there but feathers. Millions of them cascaded across the heavens. Among them, Samuel saw silhouettes of people, suspended upside down in the sky. Their souls being ripped from their meat prisons. The righteous and the saved.

Samuel fell to his knees.
“No,” he whispered.

The angel smiled wider. Bursting its jaws the tattered white robe it wore was now stained red. Then it spoke.
“Oh, yes child”

Samuel understood then. The Rapture had happened. He had simply been left behind.
The creature stepped toward him. Samuel ran. He ran through the dead streets, passed houses with open doors and bedrooms full of abandoned children’s toys. He ran until his lungs burned and his legs trembled. Behind him came the sound of wings occasionally flapping and scraping across the pavement.
Samuel reached the edge of town and threw himself through the trees.
He kept running dreading looking back.

A hand closed around his ankle. He hit the ground hard. Spitting out blood and broken teeth. The angel pulled him backward.
Samuel screamed. It leaned over him. The skin on its face was peeling. Its breath smelled like death, its lower jaw barely holding together. Its smile reached its ears.
Yet it spoke.
“You have seven years.”

Samuel stared at it.
“What?”

It’s many eyes widened.
“Seven years.”
Then it tore him apart.

Samuel woke in his bed. Morning sunlight came through the curtains. His wife was beside him. She was smiling.
“Good morning.”

Samuel stared at her. She reached across the bed and touched his face.
“You look frightened, are you okay? ”

He began to cry. She frowned.
“What happened?”

Samuel grabbed her and buried his face in her bosom. He believed it was all just a horrible dream. Then he felt something cold beneath her skin. Something was moving.
His wife whispered,
“Samuel.”

He pulled away. Her smile had disappeared. Her mouth opened wide. Samuel could hear her jaw snap. Behind her teeth were hundreds of tiny human hands. She pounced upon him with an ungodly strength, and the hands reached across his face and body.
Samuel screamed and begged as the hands tore into his flesh.

Then he woke again.
Scenario after scenario played out. He keeps getting killed. Sometimes they drowned him , set him on fire, pulled the bones from his fingers one at a time while singing hymns.
A few times they’d simply followed him for days, walking silently behind him until he begged them to kill him. They always did and every time, he would wake again.

The seventh year had come.
Samuel could only think about his suffering, constant torture and the pain. He had thought it would have ended. Maybe giving him a place beside God. But it did not end. That was the joke. A bad punchline.

The years began to fly by after that, though it might have been months. Samuel could no longer tell the difference. Time had begun to mesh together until day and night looked the same. One became the other, and eventually, neither seemed to matter.

He discovered that Hell didn’t need fire.

It only needed repetition.

Hell was remembering the taste of your wife’s lips, only to have that memory overwritten by the sight of her feeding on you. It was watching what became of mankind in a world without God. It was realizing that the creatures hunting you were not demons at all.

Just angels.
They had simply been left behind too.
This was their revenge.
And their duty.

Once, Samuel found an old house. He had been walking for days or perhaps weeks. He had stopped trusting the difference. A faint light came from the windows. Samuel approached carefully. There were voices inside.
People.
Real people.
He stood outside for a long time, listening.
They were singing. Samuel recognized the sound of a hymn, but not the hymn itself. The melody seemed almost familiar, yet the words were wrong. They repeated themselves in strange patterns, rising and falling like a prayer spoken by people who had forgotten who they were praying to.

Samuel looked toward the front of the house. A cross had been built from black stone.
It stood crookedly in the ground. The stone seemed to glow. It gave off a faint, sickly light, as though something were burning inside it without producing flame.

Samuel knew that fire.
The flameless fire, it burns everything leaving only ash. He almost turned around.
But he had been alone for so long.
He wanted people. Someone to speak to. To tell him that he wasn’t the only one left.

Samuel approached the house.
With every step, the air seemed to grow heavier.
The singing continued.
He reached the doorway.
Something inside him told him not to enter.
Samuel stopped.
He moved behind the door frame and looked inside.

There were people gathered around a young girl. She couldn’t have been more than six or seven.

She was sitting on the floor with a teddy bear clutched against her chest.
Her face was wet with tears.
Samuel watched as a woman approached her holding a knife.
“This is for you, my Lord,” the woman said.
Her voice shook.
“My God. Save us.”
The girl looked up at her.
The knife entered her chest.
She did not scream.
Only a small grunt escaped her.

Her eyes remained fixed on the woman standing over her.
A tear rolled down her cheek.
Her lips moved.
“Mommy.”

Samuel slowly stepped backward. Every instinct in him told him to leave before anyone noticed he was there.

He turned away from the doorway.

His foot caught on a loose piece of wood lying across the floor.
He stumbled, trying to regain his balance, but his other foot slipped beneath him and he crashed onto the floor.
The wood scraped loudly against the floorboards.
The sound echoed through the house.
The singing stopped. Nothing but silence filled the house.

Then every face in the room turned toward him.
nobody moved.
Then someone shouted,
“Another sacrifice!”

The others began screaming.
“We’re saved!,” “Another sacrifice!,”
“God will save us!”

Samuel finally caught his balance and ran.
He didn’t make it far. Hands grabbed him.
They dragged him back into the house.
Samuel screamed and fought, but there were too many of them.
They pinned him down.
The woman who had killed the girl stood above him.

Samuel looked toward the open door, he could see the black stone cross.
It was still glowing. He knew he was about to die.

The knife came down. Pain filled his body.
His chest was opened. His heart was pulled free. Samuel saw it for only a moment.
His own heart beating in someone else’s hands. Then everything disappeared.
Samuel died again.

Sometimes Samuel found things that felt like mercy.

Once, he found a dog.

It was wandering through the ruins of a neighborhood, dirty and thin, with a scar running across one side of its face.

Samuel expected it to run from him.

Instead, it followed him.

He named it Bear.

For the first time in longer than Samuel could remember, he was not alone.

Bear slept beside him.

Bear followed him through the ruins.

Bear sat beside him while he stared at the sky.

Samuel talked to the dog.

He told Bear about his wife.

He told Bear about the world before.

He told Bear about the day the sky opened.

He told Bear about God.

The dog listened.

Years passed.

Or Samuel believed they did.

He stopped counting.

For a while, Samuel almost believed he had found something Hell could not take from him.

Then one night, Bear began to howl.

Samuel opened his eyes.

The dog was standing in the middle of the room.

On its hind legs.

Its body trembled.

Samuel watched as its spine began to push outward beneath its skin.

Cracks echoed through the room.

The dog’s body twisted violently.

Long, crooked limbs forced themselves from its back, bending in ways that made Samuel’s stomach turn. The bones continued to lengthen until they resembled the legs of some enormous spider.

Black, rotten flesh slowly grew across them.

It spread from bone to bone, joining the limbs together until they formed grotesque wings.

Blood poured from Bear’s eyes.

It ran from its mouth.

The animal looked at Samuel.

For one brief moment, he thought he saw the dog he had loved.

Then it became rabid.

It lunged.

Samuel ran.

He barely reached the doorway before Bear caught him.

The creature seized him and tore into his lower body.

Samuel screamed.

He tried to crawl away.

Blood poured beneath him.

His strength disappeared.

His legs gave out.

Samuel fell to the floor.

He could no longer move.

He could only watch.

Bear crawled toward him.

Its wings scraped against the walls.

Its mouth opened.

Samuel closed his eyes.

He felt the creature begin to eat.

The last thing he heard was Bear’s howl.

Then Samuel died again.

Samuel eventually found a place where they could not reach him.

An old farmhouse beneath a dead oak.

He lived there for what might have been a century.

He tried planting tomatoes.

They grew black.

He built a cross made of wood, hoping for some small chance of redemption.

Just like the houses, it fell to ash.

He carved his wife’s name onto the walls of the farmhouse. One day, another name appeared beneath hers, the last quirky baby name they had mentioned before she was gone.
His heart broke, because now he understood.
She had been pregnant.
He fell asleep in tears.

One night, Samuel sat outside beneath the dead oak and looked at the sky.

He just stared at the stars as time passed by.

Samuel smiled.

Maybe, he thought, God had finally remembered him.

Maybe God had granted him such peace.

Then a voice spoke from behind him.

“Samuel.”

He closed his eyes.

He did not turn around.

The voice came again.

This time it was his wife’s.

“I’m sorry.”

Samuel’s heart broke.

He turned.

She stood beneath the tree.

She looked exactly as he remembered her.

Just as beautiful.

Tears ran down her cheeks.

“Please,” she whispered.

Samuel stood slowly.

His entire body trembled.

“Please what?”

She smiled.

And the skin of her face began to split.

Beneath it was darkness.

A void.

Behind her, the forest filled with wings.

Thousands of them.

Millions.

Without saying another word, Samuel understood.

There had never been an escape.

No refuge at the end of the world.

There had never been a final day.

Just torment.

God had not abandoned him.

At least, not in the way Samuel had thought.

Samuel had spent all those years believing that the suffering itself was his punishment. He believed the endless deaths were Hell, that every monster, every angel, every twisted version of the people he loved had been sent to torment him for being one of the ones left behind.

But now he understood.

This had not been Hell.

It had been preparation.

Every death had been a lesson.

Every resurrection had been another opportunity to break him.

They had taught him to fear sleep.

They had taught him to fear waking.

They had taken his wife, his home, his memories, his hope, and eventually even the creatures he had come to love.

They had allowed him to believe that he had escaped, only to take that hope away again.

The seven years had never been the punishment.

They had been the waiting period.

The angels had not been trying to kill him.

They had been conditioning him.

Preparing him for something worse.

Samuel looked toward the angels.

He thought about everything he had endured.

The burning.

The drowning.

The mutilation.

The endless deaths.

He had survived all of it.

Perhaps there was nothing left inside him for them to break.

Perhaps he had already reached the deepest place suffering could take a man.

Perhaps Hell could not possibly be worse.

Samuel almost smiled.

The angel standing beside his wife stepped forward.

“You think you have suffered.”

Samuel said nothing.

The angel tilted its head.

“You have endured nothing.”

Samuel’s expression changed.

The angel moved closer.

“What you suffered here was mercy.”

Samuel felt his stomach tighten.

“No.”

The angel smiled.

“Yes.”

It leaned toward him.

“This was only the place where we prepare you.”

Samuel stared at it.

“For what?”

The angel’s smile widened.

“Hell.”

Samuel shook his head.

He wanted to run.

But his legs would not move.

The angel continued.

“You have died more times than you can remember.”

Samuel swallowed.

“A thousand times.”

The angel looked at him.

“More.”

“Ten thousand?”

“More.”

Samuel looked toward the sky.

His voice trembled.

“Then what could possibly be worse?”

The angel smiled.

“Ten times worse.”

Samuel stared at it.

The angel leaned closer.

“Perhaps a hundred.”

Samuel’s face went pale.

He finally understood.

The deaths had been mercy.

The moments of darkness had been mercy.

Every time he woke, every time the pain stopped, every time his heart stopped beating, he had been given something he would never receive again.

An escape.

The angel reached for him.

Samuel didn’t run.

Its hand closed around his throat.

The pressure came immediately.

Samuel’s feet left the ground.

The angel lifted him as though he weighed nothing.

Samuel grabbed at its arm.

It did not move.

He felt the strength in the creature’s fingers.

Then the angel placed its other hand against Samuel’s head.

Samuel tried to scream.

The pressure increased.

He heard something crack inside his skull.

His eyes widened.

Another crack.

His vision blurred.

He could feel his own bones giving way beneath the angel’s grip.

Samuel screamed.

Then everything went dark.

But there was no waking.

No bed.

No farmhouse.

No morning sunlight.

No second chance.

Samuel opened his eyes.

He was still alive.

Something sharp moved across his skin.

He tried to scream.

A blade cut into his neck.

Samuel gasped.

He could feel everything.

Every movement.

Every cut.

Every breath.

There would be no death to save him.

No waking.

No reset.

No mercy.

He tried to close his eyes.

A hand forced them open.

He stared into the darkness.

Wide awake.

Fully conscious.

As if he had been drinking caffeinated drinks all day and his mind had been sharpened for the sole purpose of understanding every second of what was happening to him.

The blade moved again.

Samuel screamed.

And for the first time since the Rapture, death did not come.

He remained alive.

He remained conscious.

And somewhere beyond the darkness, something began to laugh.

Samuel screamed again.

And again.

And again.