Seal Two

by Sara Shanning

  Snow began to fall again, heavy flakes that clung to the ground. Within minutes, visibility was gone.

  “We should settle here until this stops.” Irv spoke to them all, unstrapping a tarp from his pack. Together, they spread it, creating a shelter from the heavy snow. Ashar felt crowded and the proximity of the others was making him strangely jumpy.

  “I need a little more space,” he announced, rising and pulling his pack into place as he stood.

  “Ash…” Carl’s voice followed him, but Ashar didn’t care. He used his axe to hack at thin trees, the snow harmless against his waterproof coat.

  He welcomed the exertion, the hum that spiraled through his body as the axe connected with bark. He gathered three into a tripod and used rope to secure them. Adding more limbs, he created a teepee shelter, adding pine branches over the sides to keep out the snow.

  Inside, he cleared a wide space for a fire and got one burning before bringing in more pine to line one side. The heat from the fire would dry them and the tripod design created a vent for the smoke from the fire to escape. Sweating, but feeling calmer alone within the walls, Ashar shed his coat, hat and boots to lay out on the ground to dry.

  He’d found a few rocks to line around the perimeter of the structure, stuffing pine into the cracks to help preserve the heat.

  Sliding his hands into his jacket pocket, he felt the soft leather cover of his bible and pulled it free. Ashar opened it, turning to Revelations. He knew the basics of what was there, but had always found the chapter difficult to read and had never spent much time on it. Knowing it mentioned a war and wanting to refresh his memory on what it said, he started at the beginning.

  Ashar favored biblical chapters of redemption and grace. Revelations seemed to speak heavily of the wrath of God and he’d never liked pondering that side of his Creator. He understood the need for justice, but it was reading about God’s grace and mercy that often brought him comfort.

  Maybe because he was angry, he sought the words God had written about His redemption over the earth. As was typical of some books of the Bible, he was more confused than ever as he read through chapter after chapter. The words were like riddles to him, until Revelations six, when Ashar read the vision of the second seal being opened.

  Words from verse four jumped out at him. ‘…take peace away from the earth and to make people slaughter one another.’

  Had others living in a time of war read the same words and felt the same fear that curled inside of him? The same dread? He couldn’t imagine what it would be like to live just before God sent His Son back to claim His people. Revelations was an account of those times. Ashar did not want to be living during the trials that he vaguely remembered were prophesied next. He was sure he did not possess the strength and courage one would need to endure such a time.

  It wasn’t that time, Ashar assured himself. The earth had suffered war before, and God had not come back. He read on, wanting assurance. His mind did its best to process, to form an inkling of meaning and comprehension. After reading the account of the seventh seal meant to be released upon the world, Ashar lowered the book to his lap.

  Hunched over the small volume, his spirit quaked. Ashar was seeing parallels, horrifying possibilities that alarmed him. An antichrist, wars. Death and destruction.

  He prayed, his words tumbling over each other, becoming unrecognizable to him. His spirit spoke straight to God, bypassing the simplicity of his mind to speak from the soul.

  Ashar could not accept that he was living a prophecy come to fruition. Many wars had happened, he reminded himself again. He assured himself that it was a natural fear to think one could be living during the end. Wars were horrific and traumatizing. They played with the mind’s ability to adapt and forced one to reach into the deepest recesses of one’s soul to survive.

  The things Irv had spoken of were secondhand accounts, but Ashar gave color and faces to the words in his mind, and tried to put himself there with Irv. He grasped at the experience, and compassion flared inside of him.

  Clutching the book close, Ashar stretched out in his sleeping bag, his heart still crying out to God. If it was the end times, more terror and suffering would come and he would have no choice but to face it, to endure it. To live it.

  Was Irv right, then? Was he about to see suffering so great people would beg to die just to be free of it? Would he?

  “God,” he pleaded. “Give me the strength I need to face this time that I live in now. Take my fear. I’m not enough, but you are. Always you have been there for me, patient and good. I need you now more than ever. Tell me who I am. Please, God. Tell me I’m strong enough to do what you want me to do.”

  Darkness poured in as sleep claimed him, vivid, startling and terrifying. Ashar struggled to wake from it, each time failing and falling back into the darkness that shook him. Lightning seemed to strike him and jolt him with pain, thunder rumbling from deep inside of him.

  Angels rose up, multitudes of them, feathers black and misting with evil as they spread their wings to shake the earth and burn it. They swallowed the screams of those they killed by method of tearing their hearts out, squeezing the organs so blood spilled from between their fingers.

  The blood fell to the earth, covering the ground like rain. The rumbling rose in decibel until it roared and the earth split open, claiming lives as many fell to their deaths.

  The dark angels flew above it all, grasping at more people and throwing them into the gaping rifts, only stopping when those that were left fell to their knees and bowed, surrendering to the dark beings.

  The people who worshiped the dark creatures were given black robes, spiked crowns, and marked on their foreheads. The angels breathed into the mouths of those worshiping them, and they turned one by one. In the dream it was as though they looked right at him. They chanted, mouths moving as one, and this time Ashar woke screaming with the pain that pulsated along his wing bones.

  He thrashed as he reached behind him and dug his hand under his clothing, terrified his hands would find feathers, pull one away and see that it was black. Thunder crashed outside his shelter and, still trembling, he rolled to his side, convinced the earth would be split open beside him.

  “Ash?” Carl entered his shelter, snow clinging to his hair and long sleeved shirt. “What’s wrong? Are you sick?” Carl knelt and leaned over Ashar’s shaking form.

  “Earthquake,” Ashar gasped. “Was there an earthquake?”

  “No Ash, it’s just a snowstorm.” Concern etched on his face, Carl peered into his friend’s face. “You must have been having a bad dream. No earthquake.”

  “Everything okay? I thought I heard screaming.” Adam crowded into the shelter, his hair glittering with white droplets, coatless, his boots unlaced.

  “He was dreaming,” Carl explained over his shoulder. “Must have been a bad one.”

  Adam frowned at Ashar. “You okay? Want me to get you some water?”

  Their presence and assurance calmed Ashar somewhat. Stinging pain pulsated along his bones. His mind honed in on the storm still parading through his head.

  The images were vivid, lingering like the wetness that clung to your skin from a snowflake. Apprehension played along his nerves. His fingers brushed along the spine of his bible that lay beside him in the bed of pine, remembering the words he had read.

  Carl stayed with him until he slept again.

  They questioned him in the morning. Irv only watched him and said nothing. Ashar was still haunted by the dream and muttered a vague response to Carl. He hurried about his reasons for venturing out into the storm. He had jerky to eat and snow melting in a pan. He could keep to himself. It had only been a dream, he told himself over and over again, but he couldn’t relinquish the feeling that it had been so much more.

  The snow continued its heavy fall, keeping them from moving on. Driven by the storm still happening inside of him, Ashar huddled on his pallet and prayed, seeking God as he never had before, desperate for an answer to the r
aging unrest that had taken him over. His bones still hurt.

  Compelled to continue his prayer vigil, Ash stayed in his shelter on his knees. Later, Carl came in, kneeling beside him. “Ash, have you eaten? Drank anything?”

  “I’m fine,” Ashar murmured, “I just need to pray.”

  “I’ll pray for you, Ash. Not sure if it will mean anything. We’re here if you need us.”

  It was late into the night when he finally fell into an exhausted sleep. The dark angels came again, pouring into a clear sky. This time they cast fire down upon churches, the humans bearing the mark they had been given joining in the angels’ destruction, shattering windows, and colored glass fell like bleeding prisms to the grass.

  Pews were smashed. Crosses burned. Communion tables tipped over, bread and wine staining the floor.

  Humans without the mark were dragged into the churches. Their throats were slashed and the bodies thrown into baptismal waters, red marbling the clear waters in eerie tentacles.

  Large, heavy stone slabs were carried in and built into alters. Men, women, and children, one after the other, were held down on them and murdered, the blood of the slain rising to cover the fallen bodies. The robes of the angels greedily drank of the blood, climbing up the fabric like vines.

  Crosses were torn down off walls, symbols of Christ’s sacrifice. Men were nailed to them upside down, screaming in pain, while women and children were forced to watch the painful and bloody deaths.

  Ashar saw inside churches all over the world, until not a single unmarked man or woman was left alive. Then those bearing the mark turned to look at Ashar as though he really watched, and their mouths began to move in the silent chant as they stood around the piles of lost souls.

  The chant terrified him, screams clawed up in his throat, their intensity choking him. Ashar pushed up to his knees in his sleeping bag, dropping his forehead to his arms, beseeching God to save the dying. His back burned.

  A pain zinged along the floating bone that crossed his back over his heart, as though it were being pulled from his skin. Ashar flailed, wrapping an arm around himself and covering it with his hand, pressing.

  Cold dark fingers brushed over his skin, chasing the heat away. Fearful that one of the dark angels had come for him, he curled back into his covers, shivering, clutching at his back as he pulled his knees up.

  “Help me, God!” Ashar begged. He had never known such darkness, such despair. Was this what it felt like to die?

  He was panic-stricken, fearful of closing his eyes and what he would see if he slept again, so he kept his eyes fixed on the wall of his shelter.

  “The peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus,” he recited. “Don’t let the darkness take me, God.” His limbs trembled from tight muscles, and his heart scrambled for a hold on the peace the words promised. Fear coated his forehead, and glazed his eyes. Tears left a cold wet trail down his cheek and dampened the cloth beneath his face. He didn’t want to see any more. No more. He was afraid it would break him.

  Exhausted from pain and fear, Ashar pulled an arm free from beneath his body and traced a finger around a button on his jacket. The metal was smooth and warm. Around and around the hard edge. He couldn’t sleep. He knew if he did, the angels would take him.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Irv sat up, his heart pounding. Ashar’s screams pierced through the night. He fought with his anger and lost. His friend was in trouble. He had let Carl go once.

  “What’s wrong with him?” Adam asked as Irv pulled on his boots.

  “He’s not well,” Carl answered as he sat up and reached for his boots as well.

  “I’ll go,” Irv said. Guilt plagued him. Carl had said Ashar was acting as though he were being tormented. Still angry, Irv had cast aside compassion and decided it would be good for Ashar to suffer. He was afraid his words had forced it upon his friend.

  He hadn’t meant it. He didn’t wish the things he had seen on anyone. Never in his life had he known that such wickedness existed in people. Reading about it in history books was far different from living during great tribulation and experiencing it oneself.

  Entering Ashar’s teepee shelter, he added some wood to the embers of the fire before crouching beside his friend. Ashar slept still, his face pale and drawn with shadows. Dark circles cradled his eyes, and though he slept, distress was evident on the angles of his face.

  Irv reached out and grasped Ashar’s shoulder. “Ash?” He shook several times before Ashar’s eyes opened slowly. They were haunted and dilated, as though he were in great pain.

  “More death…” The words were whispered out, grief clinging to them.

  Irv’s heart began to pound. A coldness seemed to move in the space. He leaned closer as Ashar’s mouth moved, but no sound emerged. “What are ya talking about Ash?”

  Ashar stared at him, his brown eyes so dark they looked black. His long curly hair was damp and clung to his jaw and neck, a strand moving with each shallow breath, each one ending in a hitch that seemed to rattle his body. Irv had seen the same labored breathing in a dying man before.

  Alarmed, he tugged at the sleeping bag. “Ash? Are ya hurt?”

  Ashar’s hand shot out to grip his arm with a strength that defied the state that he was in.

  “My secret, Irv,” Ashar said, the three words stealing his breath. The sound of Ashar breathing in air was ragged. “I never told you,” Ashar continued. A finger rounded along a button on his jacket. Irv watched the circle, remembering all the times he had seen Ashar slide his fingers over his jacket hem when he was feeling anxious.

  “What secret are ya talking about? It doesn’t matter, Ash. Whatever ya haven’t told me, it doesn’t matter.” Irv hadn’t been aware that Ashar was keeping a secret at all. Even as he said it didn’t matter, he hoped he meant it. Monty had carried a secret that would have changed everything had anyone known.

  Pain seemed to tremble along Ash’s body, his fingers spasming on Irv’s arm. “I’m not… normal,” Ashar breathed.

  Shaking his head, trying to understand what his friend was trying to tell him, Irv began to pray, his mouth moving as he pleaded for Ashar to be spared. Ashar had to be delirious. How had he missed how sick his friend was? “It’s okay, Ash,” he promised, tears slipping out to roll down his cheeks.

  It wasn’t okay. He had made a grave mistake. He had left his friend alone when he should have been there.

  “My back.” Ash pulled a couple of times at his arm, let go and pushed away the flap of the sleeping bag. His fingers fumbled with the zipper of his jacket, shaking so hard it barely moved with the tug.

  “Let me do it,” Irv said quietly. Ashar’s clothing was damp from sweat. As Irv maneuvered Ashar’s arms free of the jacket, then his sweatshirt, he wondered if Ashar had fallen or bumped into something and cut himself. An infection probably raged through his body because he had said nothing. They’d all been avoiding each other since the confrontation on the path.

  Ashar tensed when Irv began to lift the long-sleeved shirt he wore to reveal his back. Curiosity and confusion had him leaning close as two raised ridges of bone were revealed, just above his waist, spanning in and up toward the center of Ashar’s back, ending before the spine. An inch above those, another set began, spanning up and out, ending just before touching the shoulder blades. Seeing Ashar’s back in whole, it looked like an X made out of bone with a gap at the center. Two identical sets of one-inch thick, six-inch long lines, covered by skin, that had no business being there at all.

  “What are they?” Irv knew they were bone. That his mind comprehended. Why they were there, how they had happened, why Ashar was in pain. He had no answers for those questions. Nothing was bruised or bled.

  “Wings,” Ash murmured in answer, shuddering.

  Irv squinted at the bones. Wings had feathers. There was nothing to suggest that Ash knew what he was saying. His friend was delirious.

  “They aren’t w
ings, Ash. It’s just bones.” Irv gently lowered Ashar’s shirt back into place, sitting back on his heels to look into Ash’s eyes. He could see pain. Pain was an emotion he recognized easily.

  “How long have ya had these?”

  Another shudder wracked Ashar’s body. He seemed to need to collect breath before he could answer. “Since I was twelve.”

  Irv didn’t know much about anatomy, but he’d still been expecting Ashar to tell him they’d just appeared. It would at least explain the symptoms. The revelation did explain other things. Ashar had always seemed to be very self-conscious and unwilling to bare any part of his body in front of another. He never shed his jacket, even in the heat, and angled his body away if someone had reached out with the intent to clap him on the shoulder or arm.

  “Are they why you’re in pain? I can get the medical kit.” Irv wasn’t sure there was anything in the kit that would help. Maybe some aspirin.

  Ashar clutched at his arm.

  “The churches…”

  “What do ya mean, Ash?” What did churches have to do with bones? Just talking about churches made him remember plenty. The church of his childhood. The church they’d first approached at the start of the war. Steeples and bells lying among rubble. The church that had been burning with people inside. Rolling his shoulders, Irv shook his head to free it of the images.

  Ashar grimaced, his body twitched from pain. “Why did they burn the church?”

  Irv startled. It felt like Ashar was looking right through him. He crossed his arms, fighting nausea. Ashar knew. “I didn’t want to tell ya,” he whispered.

  “Why?” Ashar asked again.

  Speaking it would be admitting the truth to himself. Irv swallowed hard. “God has been speaking to me. I’ve tried to ignore Him.” He rubbed his palms over his arms. “I remember all of these things from when I was a kid. Things my dad preached on. It all sounded crazy to a young kid, but now…”