by Ric Nero
“Well everything the Bible says about the world falling apart is coming together, if that makes any sense. But, for those guys to bomb each other and act like enemies is a hell of an act. I mean this all seems too strategic to be anything else,” Jefferey says.
“So, what now? What’s our next move?” James asked.
The room grows quiet with thought for a second. Then Auron looks to James who was by his right side and says, “We pray, my young friend. We pray.”
“Auron…how do you… pray?” Jessie asks with hesitating uncertainty in his voice.
Auron looked at him with such compassion in his eyes. “Well, do you believe in God, and know who He is as the one true supreme Lord and father?” Auron asked him. James nods his head up and down. “Do you know that He sent His son, His only son, to die for our sins that we may receive His gift?”
“What gift, Auron?” James asks.
“Salvation. The greatest gift of all,” Auron answered. The young child nods again in the same motion.
Jessie jumps down off the table and runs around to the front side of Auron next to his brother. “Me too, I believe, Auron,” Jessie says with all sincerity in his eyes and voice.
Auron smiles at the desire the twins have for God, then he leans in close to the brothers. Looking them both in their eyes while he asks them a very important question. “Jessie and James, do you want to be saved by Jesus who will be your brother through the adoption of God’s Holy Spirit?” They both agree yes together at the same time.
“Glory be to God,” Auron says with a smile. “Well then, how about the rest of you?” Auron asked us all. “If there’s ever a time or point in our lives to believe in God, I’d say now would be the time,” Auron says to us all. “Jerome, what do you say?”
Bazz sits up and looks at Auron. “Yes, I believe,” Bazz answered Auron. “How about you Shane?”
Shane’s face quickly returned to his proper coloration and was no longer red once he was questioned by Auron. “I believe,” Shane answered. Julie, Dana and Jefferey answered the questions enthusiastically before Auron even attempted to ask them. It’s odd, even in the midst of what we just felt and thought to be a devastating situation a few moments ago; it’s as if now something was going around the room. It was something uplifting, something encouraging that gave us strength to go on, something like…hope.
“Well, alight then,” Auron said standing to his feet with his arms reaching out in between the twin brothers. “Would anyone else like to join us?” Auron asked. Everyone created a circle chaining together at the hands. “Would you like to join?” he asks looking at me. Everyone had turned and locked eyes on me awaiting my answer and reaction. The sight is something I remember from a long time ago as a younger man in church. I walked over and joined hands with everyone else.
“Hey, that a boy, Tommy!” Shane exclaimed happily.
“Uh oh, soldier!”Julie shouted. Everyone in the circle says something encouraging to the fact that I joined them. I smile with a slight blush.
Auron looking at the twins says, “Bow your heads and close your eyes. Everything that I say you must be in agreeance with and believe totally in your heart and mind that God exists and will hear you. And during the prayer, do not let anything distract you from concentrating on my words and your desire of God, do you understand?” Auron asked them before they replied with a nod. “This is the model prayer, Our father which are in heaven, hollowed be thy name, give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever and ever, amen. Dear heavenly Father in Heaven, we stand in union and one belief that You are the Alpha and Omega. The beginning and the end, and knowing that, Father, we apologize that our sins in the beginning have kept us from the face of Your grace and left us in the end of days here, Father. But in our unity we confess that Jesus is the Messiah that you sent as the holy offering and that by decision of believing in that truth we may be saved from damnation. We asked to be granted the gift of salvation that we were ignorant to all this time, oh Jesus. We also ask to be spiritually adopted by You Lord God and accepted as an addition to the body of the church, Father. And protection and guidance in these days, oh Lord.”
He continued on in prayer for another fifteen minutes. Focusing on asking for salvation, protection, strength and guidance, he made an urgent and necessary prayer to God for all of us. Everyone felt better after the prayer, including myself. Afterwards, everyone pretty much spread out going into the other room on the other floors or grabbed a blanket and camped out in the security room. Auron had said he wanted to speak with me and took me atop the parking garage on the roof. It was becoming dark but looking in the direction where the blast was it was black, just black as if no light could penetrate it. I lean on the brick banister that is maybe a little shorter than waist high. Contrasting between the two skies, I see the split in life as we presently know it right now. One side, a beautifully decorated canvas designed by God himself as if He had His own custom made pastels of orange, blue and red. Then the other, just erieely dark and blackened as if it were a void, the fantasy of heaven and the ugliness of hell.
“Seems almost impossible, doesn’t it?” Auron asks me while placing his left hand on my right shoulder. I turn and look at him curious as to what he was referring towards. “The sky I mean,” he said in reply to a pair of raised eyebrows.
“Yeah, I was just looking at it,” I said turning my eyes back to the sky.
“In a way, it’s symbolic,” Auron says.
“I was just thinking that as well, the forces of good and evil? The whole heaven and hell ordeal, right?” I ask.
He bends down placing extended hands on the concrete surface of the banister, “Yes, yes, that’s all true. But I mean in life generally. How some people you meet are on the same path as you, and others are not, some even switch directions. Fathers and mothers, friends and associates, sisters and,” he sighs,” “brothers.” The topic of conversation easily suggested he wanted to get something off his chest. He turns and looks at me. “Do you have any, Thomas?” he asked me. Catching me by surprise with that question, I looked at him and seeing the expression on his face caught me off guard. His slightly pale tone is now red with a heavy flow of tears as he stares off into the skies. His body is shaking and he heaves for air almost as if it’s had to breathe right now.
“No,” I answered placing my hand on his back to console him. I can see for some reason his family is a hardship in itself. “I’m all alone,” I said. “You?” I asked him in a concerned tone.
He sniffles and wipes his face to regain his composure and answers, “Well, yes and no.”
I remove my hand out of respect of him getting himself back together. “What does that mean? Was he taken up in the rapture?”
“No, no, no,” Auron says with a smile. “I have a twin brother just like Jessie and James,” he says.
“So, where is he, what happened to him?” I ask Auron.
His tears begin to try and return to the cheeks of his face, but get no further than being held back at the crevice of his eyes. “In the Bible it says that Jesus came not to bring peace, but a sword separating his believers from the world. Though I didn’t truly become saved until recently, I still believed in God. And he, on the other hand, fell prey to the massacre of the world,” he says.
“So how long has it been since he passed?” I asked, keeping the same concern in my voice.
“No, no, he’s not dead at all,” he answers.
“So, was he taken in the rapture?” I ask.
He almost chuckles. “No, definitely not that either,” he replies.
“Auron, it’s clear you want to say something important to you. Go ahead, get it off your chest and let yourself be free of it.” I tell him.
“My brother, Eric, is the reason I’m aware of the secret societies of the world. For months I noticed he had been acting in w
ays unbecoming of those in priesthood; angry at times and a bit selfish. But it was to be expected at times, the walk of the cloth gets weary at times. Of course I tried to speak with my brother and reason with him as to how his conduct was harming not only him but the church, but he didn’t listen. That alone was a sign to me, it was unlike him to ever reject the voice of reason entirely. He was always one to correct error within himself, even before I would. Then, others and I began to realize he was getting worse; missing church, not being accounted for, for days at a time among other things.”
Auron got quiet, almost as if he didn’t want to go on any further about his brother. He turns around and sits down on the cement surfaced banister. With arms folded and lips clenched tightly he finally chooses to continue on. “And then it finally brought me to be more than just curious of my brother’s actions in the church. I had to see what he was so intrigued with outside of the church,” Auron says.
“So, you followed him?” I ask.
Auron nods his head up and down. “I followed him through Vatican City streets, buildings and down tunnels into catacombs. Finding out what I had suspected for some time…. That he was a priest no longer, a believer of God no longer and my brother…no longer. He … was the one… who sacrificed the life of that innocent young girl. That was the day I witnessed the evil of the world,” Auron said with a sigh releasing great pain from his body.
“So he was the one you mentioned before?” I ask and Auron nods. “So, this whole time you been trying to screw up their plans?” I ask Auron.
He looks at me and in a calm voice says, “How could I, they’re too big to stop by myself. All I want to do is spread knowledge, if I can get people to know that the devil exist in trying to corrupt the world in the ways that it is that would be enough.” Silence falls from the air for a moment.
“I never knew any of this, even after all these years I never would of thought you held so much pain. I always saw you as the person two steps ahead with the next step planned out. Impervious to pain, then to see you cry just--”
“Everyone cries, don’t believe God equipped you with tear ducts for no reason. Some of the mightiest men have been recorded in the Bible to shed tears. Moses, David and even Jesus wept. No one is above it, no matter how they hide it,” Auron says, interrupting me.
“You got me there, I know I sure cried when I lost a comrade, especially…Green,” I said.
“I heard you say his name earlier in the Camaro before … well, you remember,” Auron said with a certain look in his eye trying not to bring up the rememberance of the recent nuclear strike.
“Green is, or was at least, a she. A female soldier I was pretty close to in the army. She had just made it back from a convoy mission outside the wire… and she died.” I began to feel a shake in my body and all oxygen escaping my throat and lungs as my eyes begin to burn. “She died because of me,” I said in a whimper.
“So, did you personally take her life?” Auron asked me.
“I may as well have,” I answer in return. “Had I not even disturbed her or even knew her then she’d be alive today. And her death wouldn’t be my fault.”
Auron stands up and faces me. “Now I see. You think your friend won’t forgive you because her time on Earth had reached its limit in the presence of you and now you won’t ever forgive yourself, right?” Auron asks, but I don’t respond. Instead, I look into the lens of the surveillance camera that me and Jessie repaired, wondering if he was listening in. “I apologize for your friend, I understand that she was a victim of the cruelty of this world. But it’s that same cruelty that scorched that sky! Not you, Thomas! Understand that!” Auron shouts out, pointing to the dark shaded region.
I look at the divided skies, then back to Auron. “Why are you shouting?” I asked him.
He calms his tone and steadies his eyes on me and says, “Because I finally realized why you are still here. You refuse to forgive yourself and no one… no one can make it into heaven with unforgiveness in their hearts. Even if they don’t forgive themselves.”
Hearing those words come out the way they did made me feel strange inside. A feeling I never felt before. As if I am released, but from what exactly?
“Forgive us our transgressions as we forgive those who transgress against us.” He quotes scripture to me. “Does that sound the least bit familiar to you? Let me ask you, Thomas. Do you feel free?”
“I feel warm inside, it’s hard to describe I guess.” I tell him.
“Understand you’re here not because God held anything against you, but because you held something against yourself,” Auron explains. As those words Auron uses fell upon my ears, they began to quickly circulate into the center of my chest, chaining themselves to my heart and slowly anchoring it down to my stomach. I failed myself. All this time I asked God why he passed over me, when it was me all this time. It wasn’t that he wouldn’t accept me; it was my holding on to being unacceptable. I turn and look at the separated skies and down into the anarchy of the city streets. I could of avoided all of this, all of it.
“I’m sorry,” Auron says.
“Why should you apologize, it’s my fault I’m still here, right?” I ask him. “I can deal with it. I mean, I was before.”
Auron looks at me in a peculiar way. I guess he knew I really didn’t want to think about it anymore. “Well, I guess there’s nothing else to talk about, then. I’ll be downstairs in prayer if you need me,” Auron says walking around the helicopter that takes up the majority of the roof.
“Wait!” I shout out.
Auron stops beside the helicopter and turns around.
“There’s something else,” I said to him.
“Like what, Thomas?” he asks.
I push up from the half of wall banister and walk towards Auron. “There was this… I don’t know, like this thing.” I try to find the right words to explain what’s on my mind but it just won’t come out. I even use my hands in weird motions to help explain what’s on my mind but to no avail. I finally stand in front of him and almost want to give up on the idea. I take one last deep breath and try to get my words together. “I had a dream. I was trapped in this strange place where everyone was being controlled by some type of a… like… ghastly thing and that thing was being controlled by some huge monster in the sky. He was terrifying to everyone, even the smaller balls of gas that followed him in fear. Then there was this white building that had the American flag on top and he spit fire on it and the whole thing burned to the…” I stop my rambling in mid-sentence just to exhale and relieve the tension in my chest. “What I’m saying is that I had a dream that the White House was going to be destroyed, but I had this dream the night before it happened. But when I had the dream I didn’t know what the building was that was being destroyed. It didn’t really resemble the White House it was just big and white with the American flag on it.” I start feeling a bit nauseated causing me to grab my stomach and squat down.
“Ha ha!” Auron laughs. “There’s nothing to be concerned or worried about, at least not in a negative perspective. God has just given you the gift of prophecy through dream. Maybe in the future it will manifest to where you can interpret them before they come to pass,” Auron says as he heads for the elevator doors. I wanted to say more, ask him more. But, deep down inside I already knew the answer to any question I could ask him. I guess I only asked him for my own confirmation.
I hear the elevator doors slide open and I stand to my feet and accompany Auron on the ride down. “Thomas, I’ve been given the same gift of prophecy as well.” He explains to me. “I received a vision, a revelation if you will from God,” Auron says, peering at me from the corner of his eye knowing it would catch my attention.
“Oh, really?” I ask him. “So is everyone getting this gift or jut us?”
“As far as I know it’s just me and you for right now,” he replies.
“So, are you gonna make me ask?” I ask Auron.
He smirks and drops his head, then raising
it, he answers. “We’re supposed to find two things which I’ll be discussing with the others. The first is about leaving here; it’s not safe to stay here much longer,” Auron says.
“I know. I pretty much been wondering how long we would be safe hiding out here myself.” I tell Auron. “Anything I need to do to prepare?” I ask.
“Well, we will be carrying all the food and medical supplies that we can carry in the rear of the truck so we will need another.”
“Alright, no problem.” I say as we exit the elevator. “What’s the second thing?” I ask. The question makes him bite his lips in hesitation.
“That we head west and help others lost as we were and…find the president and answers that lie with him.” He looks at me and, I look back at him.
“This goes back to the secrets of the societies, doesn’t it?” I ask him.
Auron nods reluctantly. “You’d think with all that’s going on they would be far from what God would even have us concerned about.” The elevator door open and we both get out, but he heads to the security room corridor. He looks back at me and asks, “Thomas, aren’t you coming?”
“I will, but I have to do something first.”
Auron nod’s and heads through the door letting it close behind him. I walk to the rear of the S.W.A.T. truck and open the double doors. It’s still empty inside, no one started loading it just yet. I climb inside and close the doors behind. Turning back around I see two wooden benches on the side walls extend all the way down the side walls. I kneel down to the right placing my elbows on the bench, folding my hands and bow my head.
“Heavenly Father, I come before You scared and confused about what’s happening in my life. But God, I know You have not given us the spirit of fear, because it’s contrary to faith we have in You. I thank You for helping us get this far, because honestly, I see no way we made it this length of time on our own. I believe and understand You protected us as well as this place and all that I ask of You is to keep protecting us and answer the questions that present themselves before us, almighty and all-knowing Father. This gift of prophecy You’ve given me please allow it to manifest, not just for me, but that I can interpret better for others. For your word says, ‘He who speaks in tongues edifies himself, but he who prophecies edifies the church.’ Strengthen Auron as he takes the leading role under Your instruction, dear God. Strengthen me in Your word and will, Father, the others too, as we follow his lead.” I continue this prayer for another five minutes and finish up with this statement, “I ask all these things believing it to be done in your darling son Jesus name, amen.”
