9th Basement floor, Pentagon, Arlington County, Virginia, Monday, October 7th, 2019. 17:40d.
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She knew it happened when she felt the Mana flood into her. At the same time, the interrogators in the room all fell down with a single scream, lost their consciousness, and started burning as Mana seared their flesh, leaking steam like every orifice in their bodies was a tea kettle. Sara retched.
The smell of burnt meat and hair was horrible. Sara broke her restraints, summoned her scythe, then cut her way out by infusing the weapon with Mana.
Behind the blaring sirens and air raid klaxon, she heard the impacts of otherworldly debris above her while she searched for the stairs. The elevators had power but they were locked down during what the Pentagon systems thought was a foreign attack.
It took her about twenty minutes to get out of the Pentagon through a window. She took to the skies lamenting the state of the city. Washington, DC was in flames. Sara navigated the clouds of black smoke until she found the White House intact. Go figure. She knew the President had survived and she later found him in an underground room protected by concrete walls six feet wide. It was super easy to find him, barely an inconvenience. She just needed to follow the trail of dead Secret Service agents. Though she found two of them alive. She checked their documents for names, then moved everyone alive to safe places.
Sara moved the President to his bed, scanned the place for survivors, found only four among the staff. She put them in guest rooms, then waited.
*
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*
Presidential suite, White House, Washington, District of Columbia, Wednesday, October 9th, 2019. 10:00d.
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President Ted Cruz woke up screaming. He sat up, hyperventilated, looked around. He was in his bedroom, not the last place he remembered going to. The room was empty. He checked his wristwatch, tried to remember. He'd lost two whole days and felt like shit. The door opened. The girl, the winged girl that came to warn him of impending doom, entered carrying a tray.
"I guess you want some water," Sara said. "Good morning, Mr. President." She poured him a glass of water. "Please, quench your thirst. It's not poisoned."
He took the glass, drank the water in one go, then asked for seconds. He was parched. Sara obliged.
"Feeling better now?"
He nodded. "What happened? What about my family?"
"Sorry if the CIA is not here to give you the daily brief. That can wait. Your family is all dead. Their bodies are in the next room."
"Did you?"
"Hells, no," Sara glared. "I was locked up in the Pentagon until shit started falling down. All I did was warn you. Go see them."
He went out. Sara walked after him and waited on the corridor. He spent about half an hour in there, then came out. His eyes were swollen but it was the only sign he had cried.
"Who did this?" The President asked, his glare screaming 'I'm going to nuke the Bastard.'
Instead of talking, Sara handed (she wanted to throw it, though) him a Bible, the red ribbon bookmark on the last part of the New Testament. He took the book, gave its brown cover a long stare, then let his shoulders slump. His pride went out of his mouth with a long sigh.
"I know the scriptures. Just talk to me, Sara."
"Are you ready to listen now?"
He nodded.
Sara inhaled, then gave him the mother of all tongue lashings.
"I fucking told you, asshole. What the hell was that Texan stubbornness? I can't believe that instead of believing me, you fucking locked me up. I had no idea the Pentagon had nine floors of basement. Now, welcome to the Apocalypse, Mr. President. I am afraid your constituency was reduced to one in ten thousand at best. Come, let's go for a walk. Let me show you how fucked up we are."
Not letting him time to reply, she grabbed him by the wrist and dragged the President outside, then flew him onto the White House roof.
"Everything the sun touches is your kingdom, Simba," Sara bitterly remarked.
The most powerful man in the world, bereft of his nuclear suitcase and, well, a nation, fell on his knees. There, he didn't weep but stared at the ruined Capitol, and other buildings. He regained his composure fast enough. "What can we do? How damaged is everything else?"
"What you see here happened everywhere, worldwide. All infrastructures shall be considered destroyed unless we get confirmation. Downtown Atlanta was reduced to two skyscrapers. One in ten thousand people is dead, worldwide. More will die in the following days, mostly because a lot of shitheads will want to become local warlords. Worse, the highways will become crowded with ghouls. Not zombies. There are millions of burnt bodies out there. Animals who feed on dead people will mutate into monsters."
She summoned her scythe. "This is the Apocalypse. Almost exactly as foretold in the Book of Revelation. I was marked to become the Grim Reaper, the Angel of Death, Fourth Horseman. Though the official name the guys up there gave the job was Herald. Ride the Pale Horse, and stuff. And no, I feel no inclination to get out and start slaughtering people."
"I read this book many times," wistful, he looked at the Bible still in his hand. "Never thought I would get to see the end times."
"Please tell me you guys have plans for this kind of catastrophe."
"We do. Were the deaths random?"
"Yes. Almost all survivors lost everyone they knew. I know of only one family who had two natural survivors."
"A one in ten billion odds, if what you told me was true."
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"I have no reason to lie to you, sir. Please tell me. Is there anything I could've done when I arrived that would make you believe in what I said?"
He thought for a while, then shook his head. "What difference does it make?"
"I can go back in time. Repeat our meeting. I want to help mitigate the effect of this," she waved her hand to the demolished city. "Save our people. Our American people. Those you sworn to protect. Do your job, President. Help me help not you but another version of you. There's still hope."
Hope for other realities. This one was doomed too. Several minutes of silence followed.
The man wiped his face. Resigned, he explained.
"You were too meek," Ted Cruz replied. "This 'I came in peace, take me to your leader' bullshit doesn't work. What you needed to do was to prove you were someone to be heard. Beat the Secret Service guys a bit, without killing or maiming them. You almost got me with the bulletproof act and the demand for fifty Cal ordnance."
"Not an act."
He let out a wry chuckle.
"Next time, start a small war. Knock some fighter jets. Use that scythe of yours to rip open a tank like a can or sardines. Show me you mean business, that I have no choice but to listen to you. Negotiate from a position of strength. I'm afraid this Texan here is too stubborn to listen otherwise."
She almost punched him right there. Sara breathed, counted to five, then asked, "Are you sure?"
He met her eyes with firm determination. "Sara, politics is a cutthroat business. If you want the President of the United States to listen to you out of the blue, negotiate with you, you need to meet me as equals. You need to convince me that short of dropping a nuke on your head, the best path for me is to hear what you have to say."
"Is there something I can tell the past you that will help?"
"Anything personal you tell me will make me suspicious of you. Anything confidential will make me very suspicious of you. Your best bet is to use those wings and scythe of yours. Prove me you are a real envoy of God and I’ll believe you."
Sara groaned, and not the gormandizing kind. She massaged her temples. "Damn stubborn conservatives. I bet it would be easier to convince Barack Obama."
"I'll refrain from commenting. But I believe you would have another completely different kind of problem dealing with my predecessor."
His eyes squinted as he flashed a faint but mysterious smile. Ted Cruz refused to comment further.
"I highly doubt that sir. No offense. I didn't nor wouldn't vote for either of you." Sara took him back to the lawn but she didn't land. "I'm going back to Georgia then. I need to prepare to jump back in time."
*
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*
Rooftop, Bank of America Building, Downtown, Atlanta, Fulton County, Georgia, Thursday, October 31st, 2019. 21:00d.
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Sara cleared some intersections and shoved buses, trucks, and shipping containers to open a safe passage for the survivors but she didn't interact with them. She did arrest the Necropolis King and the Downtown gang down before they could harm the survivors but mostly left them to their own devices.
Without Verachiel, the time bubble didn't appear. Sara spent all this time hunting ghouls, killing corrupted animals, using the Mana to charge the Mark of Time so she could make the jump. This time, the Seals opened on schedule. She was waiting for the Fourth Seal and Charon's visit now.
**************
DOOOOM!
***************
And there it was. Sara still winced at the loud magical noise that propagated even in a vacuum.
She looked around. Nothing happened. Time passed. Sara tapped her feet, walked around. Nothing. Then the scythe vanished from her hand. She tried to summon it back but something was resisting.
A rift in reality appeared behind her. She heard bones rattling.
"Give it up, time-traveling Nephilim," Charon said. "You are not as special as you believe."
"What?" She turned around.
"We still remember," the skeletal boatman grinned. "More than you do. Good job killing me, by the way."
"What?" Sara was stupefied.
"You, in the original reality. Never mind. So, I came here just to give you a... heads up. Did I say it right? The Fourth Living Being and I, we decided to go with the second candidate for the Fourth Seal. Please don't try to take the scythe from him."
"What?" Yeah. Poor girl was so confused. She felt defenseless as she remembered what this asshole did to Mary. Without the scythe, however, she couldn't do anything.
"As you kids like to say these days, toodles!" Charon waved.
The boatman vanished into another rift. Sara felt a shiver down her spine. She took off and flew to the University.
*
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*
Campus, Clayton State University, Clayton County, Georgia. Thursday, October 31st, 2019. 21:20d.
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Death rode on the Pale Horse, laughing, brandishing his scythe, killing left and right. Behind him, Charon, underworld's boatman, collected the souls and ferried them to Hades.
Sara landed in front of the madman on the horse. "Stop!"
"Ignore her, Herald!" Charon clamored.
Death rode past Sara. Illuminated by the pale horse's fiery blue mane, she saw his face. Corporal Peterson. Sara ran up to Charon.
"What? You made the Necropolis King Death?"
"The WHAT?" The cackling ferryman on vacation chortled as he bent over the waist, slapping his bony hand over his fleshless knee. "You called him what? Oh, oh, ho, ho, ho, damn. That's hilarious!"
"Dammit. Fuck y'all all!" Sara cursed. She flew away.
"Good riddance," Charon snickered. He jogged to catch up with the Horseman, ushering him forward, "More killing! A thousand years of killing."
A few minutes later, Sara returned. She was too late to save the survivors who gathered at the University. Everyone at the Halloween party – this time no wedding took place because neither groom nor bride had survived – was dead. All the survivors in the Atlanta metropolitan region were dead. She felt it was kind of her fault.
But she wasn't too late to avenge them. She braced the ma deuce on her hips and laid down a barrage of .50 Cal API rounds on the Necropolis King and Chloe. Not her Chloe and she tried to aim at the man. Some shots hit the Pale Horse and she felt bad for it but this reality was done for anyway.
Pete, the Necropolis King, apparently Death, fell down. Sara dropped the gun and rushed him, boosting Alacrity. She took the scythe from the ground and spun as she infused it, driving the pointy blade into the Herald's skull.
The angry girl dragged his soul out of the body, kicking and screaming.
"Damn, I hoped you hadn't done that," Charon clicked his tongue. How, it was anyone's guess. The skeleton didn't have one.
"Fool! What have you done!" Fourth appeared behind her.
Sara screeched as she lashed out with the imbued scythe. A golden shield sprung to life and blocked her blow.
"You are too weak to fight a Cherub, girl," Charon said. "Break my chains instead! I'll help you!"
Sara had a vague recollection of what he meant. She remembered now what happened back at the System Administrative Dimension.
She slashed in front of Charon. Invisible and metaphysical chains broke. The spell backlashed and struck Fourth.
"I’m free!" Charon cheered.
"Now, help me fight!" Sara demanded as she prepared to fight and faced Fourth. "Let's strike before he recovers!"
Charon snorted, making Sara look at him. The skeletal boatman flipped two bony birds at her. "Fuck you, crazy bitch. I'm out of here! "
Charon created a rift in reality and fled before Sara could react. The rift remained open, and she heard Mark Hart's voice.
> Ah but I'm free as a bird
> As I walk right out that door
> You have my word
> I won't bother you no more
>
> > Fair use notice: The lyrics above are used for no personal gain, only four verses, for comedic effect.
"Motherfucker!" She cursed.
Chloe approached Sara. She noticed the Pale Horse had not a single bullet wound on her.
Fourth recovered from the backlash. "Sara, what have you done? Another reality ruined. The souls of this realm will never get their due reward!"
"You're making me side with the Fallen, Fourth. This Apocalypse is bullshit!" Sara almost committed another copyright infringement. But Nixia is an awesome person and wouldn't mind even if she did.
"It's the Lord's plan! You only say that because you do not understand. But there's still hope. Take the pale horse and the scythe, become Death once again. Ride, and complete your mission."
Fourth cast some spell on them. She rejected only the shackles.
Sara felt her bond to the pale horse and the scythe click in place. "No, I'm not participating in this slaughter fest shit show!"
She climbed on Chloe, held tight onto the scythe, then triggered the Mark of Time. The spell connected to the horse and they were taken away. Fourth tried to stop them but it triggered some trap left by Verachiel on the spell burnt into her shoulder. The Cherub's magic was stolen and then it catapulted Sara back in time violently.