I can't help but feel my girlfriend was taken advantage of. This is an update to my post about empathy which I took down and will be providing more context.
My girlfriend grew up in an abusive environment and her parents were super controlling so she also grew up isolated.
When she got to college she hooked up with two guys in the span of a week and has felt a lot of remorse for it and has a deep hatred of men.
She also accuses me of trying to pretend to be nice and caring to get in her pants which isn't true.
From what I gather those experiences were the only two sexual experiences she has which I asked when we talked about it because it's been bothering me and I'm trying to understand where she's coming from.
Both guys fucked her and kicked her to the curb afterwards as well as being verbally abusive during the sex. Not in the fun way in a bullying hateful way. No foreplay no oral nothing. I asked her if those guys pretended to be into her to get in her pants and what's why she's accusing me of doing it and she said she doesn't want to talk about it. The whole vibe around sex with her screams SA. She feels a lot of embarrassment and seems to have a need for control in the bedroom. Which the need for control is fine. I just hate having to pay for other men's shortcomings.
I really suspect she was made to feel cared about and used for sex at best and possibly pressured or scared to say no at worst.
It all just had an icky feeling to it. The general vibe is more abuse and less no strings attached fun. It bothers me to no end. There's been times I've tried to ask if she was hurt and she just shuts the convo down I don't bring it up unless she does, but I do worry about her. It bothers me most that someone I have grown to love and value felt the need for casual sex to feel a human connection and then was thrown away as soon as the dudes got off. She said she did it because she was lonely and never had male attention so it felt good to get that attention. Yet when she talks about it she talks about the disparaging comments the guys made about her and her body. It makes me sick for real. I told her I think she was taken advantage of in some capacity and that the dudes seem like real pieces of shit
If someone pretends to like someone to gain access to them sexually that feels like some form of assault. I've been assaulted a few times myself nothing too violent. Not your stereotypical rape. Several times I was touched by an older kid when I was in preschool and in kindergarten I had a kid pressure me into letting him watch me pee and the memory is blurry and I worry other stuff Happed that I blocked out. I also was pressured into sex multiple times by an ex who wouldn't take no. So I'm familiar with subtle forms of SA.
My insecurities about hookups that is common in this community was replaced with anger. It's common and somewhat understandable to be a little insecure about hookups. I was don't ask don't tell on my relationship for a reason. I've always had a policy of I'm not gonna hook up with a girl that I wouldn't date because I don't want to hurt anyone and if I don't wanna be seen with the girl I'm going to be respectful and leave her alone even if she wants it because I don't wanna hurt anyone so I haven't had hook ups.
My anger is at her family who raised her abusive and controlling environment. Her mom for letting men hit my girlfriend and worse. Anger at The men who did it. The fact she never truly felt loved in her life and any affection came with strings attached. I'm angry at her other family who's made disparaging comments about her. I'm angry at the men that fucked her verbally abused her and threw her away like trash. I'm angry at the fact she felt the need to be intimate with strangers who treated her with such disrespect. Id feel better if it was sexual exploration and done safe sane and consentual. Sure I'd feel a insecure again. Id rather take the insecurity over feeling pissed at abstract things from the past that I couldn't change and happened before me. It's anger with no outlet.
Ive talked to some in here and id like to thank all the ones who have gave me positive and understanding feed back. I don't want any misogynistic slut shaming on my post. Abused people seek comfort wherever they can. Be that substances, sex, spending, food. If my girlfriend grew up with love and acceptance I doubt she would have had these encounters. When I put myself in her place I can see why she did it. Hell I've sexted women and put myself in relationships with abusive women seeking the same comfort and connection.
I feel guilty at her RJ about my relationships and women I've talked to before her. I've gathered that overall I'm more experienced than her. I've talked to more women then she has men. I've had more sexual experience even though our number is the same. Her encounters to my long term relationships. Time for time I have more experience. I feel like shit for stuff I can't change even if she isn't vocal about RJ. It still effects me both my own and hers.

“Before I met the Savior, I was a worthless piece of garbage, barely a human being,” Lovebug droned at the front of the enormous room. Lovebug was a monster of a man, two-hundred and fifty pounds of hard tattooed muscle. Like myself, he was a high-ranking member of the Church.
His flat gray eyes scanned the room with a fanatical gleam. I sat in the first row, watching and waiting. Followers of the Savior would tell their stories, how the Savior had reached down and lifted them out of sin and filth to bring them up to the divine. The bright fluorescent lights overhead droned on with a low hum. Thousands of men crammed together in seats or stood at the back of the room.
The Savior taught only two commandments: to murder is holy, and to die for the Savior is the highest bliss. An army of warriors followed the Savior, knights on a holy crusade, priests who wouldn’t hesitate to burn the foul bodies of any witches or demons we encountered. I thought of myself as a knight for the holy king, our Savior, the mouthpiece of the eternal.
“Now, it is like the hand of God has reached into my heart and loosened all the knots there, the knots of anxiety and fear and uncertainty.” He raised his black, military-style rifle into the air for emphasis. “I never realized the true nature of reality before- the fact that we are living in a simulation where the final battle of good versus evil is playing out before our very eyes. And I will be on the side of the good, until my dying breath. I will be on the side of the Savior and of God!”
The crowd roared and clapped. Men got to their feet, sweating heavily in the boiling hot conference room. I felt the surge of energy pass through me like a tidal wave, the pure confidence and iron will of truth. Lovebug lumbered down off the stage as the Savior came out from behind the red curtains, walking with the straight spine of a soldier. He wore a silky black robe that fluttered softly around him, the hood pulled back.
The Savior had horrific burns running the length of his body. His arms had melted folds of keloid scars visible all the way to the tips of his fingers. His scalp had also melted, and the Savior had no hair except for his eyelashes and eyebrows. But the fire that had nearly killed him had spared his face, an aristocratic visage with ferocious green eyes like those of a cat. That face seemed like it had been sculpted out of marble by DaVinci himself, the high cheekbones jutting out over a chin so sharp that it looked like it could have hammered nails into boards. He stared out at the crowd for a long moment, his gaze unblinking.
“The final battle has begun,” he said in a low voice, no more than a whisper. Yet, in the deathly silence of the hall, his words rang out loud and clear. “Those in charge of this illusory world know that we see them. We see them very well, how they hide behind the curtain. They control the world economy, the justice system. Every government, whether they call themselves communist, authoritarian or democratic, is no more than a puppet in their dancing fingers.
“When anyone tries to stand up and lead the masses of suffering people towards freedom from slavery, they are vilified by the mainstream media, brought up on false charges or killed, their bodies staged to look like a suicide. Look what they did to Jesus, and for what? For telling people to love God more than their rulers? And those who speak out today are also crucified, murdered in prisons or killed by their governments. Truth is the most precious commodity, after all. It is one that can only be purchased with blood.
“So what can we do? How can we fight against such evil?” There was a quiet muttering among the pale, frozen faces that stared up at the stage with adoration and love.
“We can fight it by using their own weapons against them!” the Savior said, his voice rising in speed and pitch. He raised his fisted hands to his chest, accentuating each syllable with a back and forth stab of his hands. “Fight fire with fire, and pay back blood with blood! The only thing these global terrorists understand is greater levels of force. We must show them death on a scale they have never before imagined.” I felt nervous as the Savior delivered his message. I saw other men shuffle anxiously in the crowded auditorium, most of them having high-caliber rifles slung around their shoulders.
I felt the rising violence and bloodlust in the air like electricity before a lightning storm. At that moment, I knew we would all have to fight before too long.
***
The Savior called me and Lovebug back to his office after the speech had ended, sending his squirrely assistant over to deliver the hand-written note in the Savior’s blocky, copperplate handwriting. For a long moment, I simply watched the crowd filtering out of the doors, heading back towards the complex where all the holy soldiers of the Savior lived. Feeling dissociated and light-headed, I followed behind the massive muscular form of Lovebug, the heavy weight of the M16 bouncing against my chest. We pushed through the blood-red velvet curtains, winding our way past stage equipment and down a hallway of pure marble.
Mystical paintings similar to those of Alex Grey covered both walls, showing the inside workings of the human body through art. It was as if the painter had X-ray vision and could see the heart chakra and the countless thin vessels that spiderwebbed up to the crown. But, unlike Alex Grey’s hopeful depictions of mysticism, these showed men and women being burned alive, crucified, decapitated or strangled. Dark colors composed the paintings: the dark blue of a suffocating face, the clotted red of an infected stab wound, the black of death. They captured the essence of struggle perfectly.
The Savior’s office had a thick mahogany door with silver engravings of leaves and vines running the length of it. At the top stood a single staring eye with twelve wavy tentacles emerging from the perimeter of it- the symbol of God, who the Savior had seen personally. God would sometimes speak through the mouth of the Savior, always during times of great tribulation or suffering. Lovebug knocked at the door. The Savior’s deep voice echoed out faintly.
“Come in.”
We entered slowly, the sprawling desk of the Savior filling half of the room. He sat in a comfortable chair behind it, reclining. On the walls behind him, he had pictures of Jesus, Saint Stephen, Gandhi, Hitler, Jim Jones, Shoko Asahara and others who he taught had fought against the world elites and been killed for it.
The Church of the Final Rapture was not a church in the conventional sense. The main teachings didn’t revolve around the divinity of Christ or the nature of original sin. What the Savior taught was far more profound- an illusory or simulated world where every single person could become their own Christ, could awaken to the truth and perform miracles, but only if they believed fully and followed the Savior.
“Sit down, please,” he said in his gravelly voice. “I have a mission I would like to discuss, and you two are the only ones competent and loyal enough to carry it out.”
***
“There is another anomaly spreading,” the Savior said, staring between me and Lovebug with his fanatical emerald eyes. “It is located in a rural part of the United States, in a town called-” he glanced down at the sheet of paper in front of him- “Frost Hollow. Supposedly, there are black-ops sites located nearby, secret alphabet agencies experimenting with magnetic distortion systems and creating rips in the fabric of spacetime with micro-wormholes.
“I don’t think it is much of a leap to say that the anomaly was likely started, either intentionally or unintentionally, by the government, as part of their research. The Cleaners would like to control that power, after all. They have been sending their men after it for years like sheep to the slaughter, expending billions of dollars researching it. If they and the US government end up being able to control the creation and spread of anomalies, they will use it to enslave the world. There is no question about it in my mind.” He leaned forwards towards us, his eyes growing cold.
“There is only one path forward I can see. We need to spread the anomaly, make it become unstable so the demons of Hell contained within it can spill out onto the real world. Perhaps it will awaken the downtrodden masses enough to begin the final revolution. We must fight terrorism with greater terrorism, and violence with greater levels of violence. For this mission, I am sending the two of you into Frost Hollow.
“Your job will be to find the Titan or Titans and lead them out to the border of the anomaly. These are horrendous beasts- indeed, the Church has seen them before. They are nearly impossible to kill. I want you two to go inside, bait it and have it follow you back to the edge, beyond the veil.”
“What’s a Titan?” Lovebug asked, his eyes flicking left and right nervously. The Savior stared at him stonily for a long moment. Then his eyes rolled back in his head, showing only the whites. All the blood seemed to drain from his face. His teeth chattered, his mouth opened, and through it, God spoke, the words pouring out like crashing stones. The voice did not sound anything like the Savior’s. It sounded much deeper, more mechanical, more alien somehow.
“I see you very well. I saw you when you were no more than a blood clot in your mother’s body. I see you even as corpses, rotted, putrefying, crawling with scavengers and insects. I see everything, every moment of time. But, in the anomaly, there are things I cannot see. For this, my holy ones must go forth.
“In the center of Hell, you will find a rose, a bird and a stone. These will be your salvation, if salvation can be found at all. Go with the blessing of Yaldabaoth.” The voice cut off abruptly, the silence deafening. I could hear my own heart pounding in my ears.
The Savior’s eyes came back down, looking confused and uncertain. His pupils were dilated and he was sweating heavily, even though it was cool and air-conditioned back here in his private office. We stared at each other across the table, a no-man’s land that protected me like a shield. For there seemed to be something dark in the Savior along with the light, and I didn’t know if any man could contain that power.
But there was no question of disobeying. Within the hour, Lovebug and I were on one of the Church’s private jets flying to the town of Frost Hollow.
***
The gently rolling hills of Frost Hollow loomed below us as the plane circled the small dirt airstrip in the middle of some cow farms. I looked up at Lovebug, trying to judge his stony expression. He had done many years in prison before joining the Church and finding salvation, even being the leader of one of the gangs. I knew he wasn’t afraid of violence. He had never told me what he did, what tortured him so much.
The Savior had told us much secret knowledge- how to find a Titan, a massive, bloated abomination that could come into being only within an anomaly, a combination of many rotted body pieces fused together in some sort of hellish black magic. The Savior had spies around Frost Hollow and the surrounding towns who had been monitoring the anomaly, watching the unstable gateways leading in and out and mapping them as best they could. We would be given a fast car, plenty of weapons and some body armor. I had no idea how nightmarish the journey would become, however.
“I’m driving,” Lovebug said as we descended the steps. A man in a black suit with the symbol of the eye and tentacles pinned on his black button-up shirt pulled up with a Mercedes AMG-One. It was a sleek, silver thing of immense luxury and power. The craftsmanship made it look like a work of art. I sighed, keeping my finger nervously on the trigger of my rifle as I glanced around the strange, empty town.
“If this thing won’t outrun a Titan, then nothing will,” I said, trying to break the tension. I looked at the speedometer, seeing it went up to 220 miles an hour.
“Damn fucking right,” Lovebug growled as we slid into the futuristic-looking leather seats. The engine turned on like a softly purring kitten. The GPS automatically turned on as well, the soft robotic voice leading us toward one of the more stable portals to the anomaly.
Lovebug sped down the empty forest roads of Frost Hollow, going twice the legal speed limit the entire way.
“The speed limit is only for the lowest common denominator,” Lovebug said pedantically, waggling a tattooed finger for emphasis. The GPS said we would reach the gateway to the anomaly in five minutes. Based on Lovebug’s speed, I thought it would be more like two. “Someone who actually knows how to drive and isn’t drunk or high can easily do 80 in a 40. Easily.” I glanced nervously at the speedometer, realizing he was going over 100 miles an hour now. The sports car hugged the tight corners of the winding forest roads with absolute precision.
“Turn right onto Snake Island Road Extension in five hundred feet,” the robotic female voice. Lovebug slammed on the brakes a few seconds later, the tires skidding and locking up. We looked around frantically, seeing no streets anywhere except the one we were on.
“What the hell?” Lovebug asked. The night was crawling in by now, the darkness covering the forests like a curtain. I squinted, looking at the thick grove of trees on our right, scanning it back and forth over and over. After a few seconds, I realized there was an overgrown dirt path there with no sign. It was nearly impossible to see at night, however, and calling it a road was somewhat of a joke.
“Oh, damn,” I said. “They should’ve given us an SUV.”
***
According to the GPS, our destination was only a thousand feet down Snake Island Road Extension. The low clearance of the Mercedes was a problem as Lovebug tried to navigate the flooded forest path. Deep tread marks flooded with black, stagnant water marked the entirety of Snake Island Road Extension. But ahead, the headlights illuminated something unusual.
Cutting straight across the trees and brush like a razorblade was a shimmering wall of translucent energy. It reminded me of a mirage, curving upwards in wavy spiral patterns. I could see through it easily, but it gave everything a dark, sinister covering. The forest seemed to be in constant motion as the grayish light distorted it.
“Look how huge it is!” I said in awe, staring up at the starry sky. The flat wall rose up seemingly forever, disappearing in the cold void of infinite space. Lovebug slowly ambled the car towards the anomaly, trying to keep the Mercedes from getting stuck with its low clearance.
“You ready for this, man?” Lovebug asked in a quavering voice as we inched towards the anomaly. It was only seconds away now. He grabbed my shoulder. “This is it. Remember the commandments.” I closed my eyes, concentrating my heart on the Savior’s words. Dying for the good is the highest bliss, he had told us.
“Let’s do this,” I said, my eyes flying open from my silent prayer as the hood passed through the anomaly. It disappeared in front of our eyes. We could see the forest on the other side, but the Mercedes looked like it was going through some sort of teleportation portal, being ripped apart layer by layer and sent somewhere else. Lovebug nervously grabbed my hand.
“For the Savior and for the Good,” he whispered as we passed through.
***
I heard screaming and wailing, full of agony and unimaginable horror, like the screams of those burning in Hell. My vision went white. A carpet of morphing dark colors covered everything as the shrieking intensified, until I thought my eardrums would explode.
“Stop!” I cried, feeling the pressure in my head like a splitting migraine. “Stop screaming!” I started kicking, punching, trying to get away.
“Calm the fuck down!” someone whispered, slapping me hard across the face. Stunned, I looked up, seeing Lovebug holding me down in the seat. He was covered in sweat, his face a blank mask of terror. “Don’t scream. There’s things outside that are looking this way.” I blinked fast, my senses coming back to me. I felt like a man waking up from surgery, confused and disoriented, my memories only returning in small trickles and drops.
We were sitting in the Mercedes on a road that looked like it had been made of human skin. The headlights showed the ragged patches of pale, leathery flesh sewn together with black thread. The road disappeared ahead of us in a straight line. The land here looked as flat as Kansas. Like a mirror world, it had houses and restaurants and churches lining both sides of the road, but they were all wrong.
The stone church looked like it was constructed of some kind of red volcanic rock. Baphomets and upside-down pentagrams covered the outer walls, engraved deeply into the glossy surface. Mutilated bodies covered the front lawn, impaled, crucified, skinned alive or burned at the stake. Hundreds of men, women and children lay dead in front of the Satanic temple.
Overhead, the sky bubbled and frothed with red clouds and constant explosions of blue lightning. Like missile flashes, the lightning illuminated the world around us, shining brightly before going dark. The incessant strobing gave the entire place a kind of circus freakshow vibe.
Many of the homes looked like they had been constructed from bones and covered in human skin, like some sort of hellish teepee. Arm and leg bones wrapped in razor-wire formed the pillars. Grinning skulls lined the top of the flat, rectangular roofs, thousands of bleached human heads staring down.
Staring out of the dark doorways, I saw gleaming, silvery eyes. They loomed eight or nine feet in the air on spidery bodies. Their limbs looked as thin as bones, jet-black and dull. The only color from these still revenants was from their unblinking eyes and grinning mouths, where teeth like those of a dragonfish jutted out. Every pair of eyes on that street was fixed intently on the Mercedes, the sick rictus grins on their alien faces never faltering.
“Jesus Christ, I’m sorry,” I whispered, feeling weak. “I thought I was in a nightmare for a minute there.” Lovebug shrugged his massive shoulders.
“Yeah, I felt it too, though I came out of it a lot faster than you did,” he said, glancing over at the Satanic church as we passed. It had protective black spikes rising high into the air all around it. The broken body of a child who had been burnt at the stake stood in front of the gates like a death omen, his small, withered hand holding a black rose. Lovebug choked, retching. He nearly rolled down the window, until his eyes met the silvery ones of a nearby abomination.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, looking closer at the church. On top of the roof, I saw an enormous statue of a black raven, its wings spread as if it were flying. It had three gleaming, silvery eyes embedded into the dark rock.
“That boy just reminds me of my son,” Lovebug whispered glumly, inching along the streets.
“I didn’t know you had a son,” I said, surprised. Lovebug had never mentioned a family. He shrugged.
“I don’t. Not anymore. I killed him. I got drunk and high one night back when I was selling drugs. Fell asleep in the living room with a lit cigarette and burned down the whole house. I killed my wife and son, burned them. They sent me to prison, but what did that matter? The prison up here is far worse.” He tapped the side of his temple.
I was about to say something, but at that moment, many things happened at once.
***
Lovebug was staring at the corpse of the child when an inhumanly long arm reached up from the side of the car. It had fingers like spikes, as sharp as a knife and twice as long as normal human fingers. I gasped, a warning shout welling up in my throat, but the hand came smashing down into the driver’s side window and grabbed Lovebug’s neck.
The window exploded in a shower of safety glass, shattering like brittle bones. Lovebug’s scream was cut off as he was dragged, kicking and screaming, out of the car. I swung open my door, leaping out and bringing my rifle around.
The Cheshire Cat grin of the abomination never faltered as it held Lovebug in front of its body like a human shield, holding him by the neck above the ground. Lovebug’s legs kicked and squirmed, his face turning blue as he slowly suffocated. His eyes bulged from their sockets, panicked and rolling, uncomprehending in their total animal panic.
I flicked on the laser sight. It danced over the ground, flashing over the body of Lovebug and the abomination. But I couldn’t aim for its torso or face, as I would probably hit Lovebug in the process. It was far too close.
I aimed for the monster’s thin, skeletal feet, the black toes twisting over each other like the roots of a tree. The gunshots rang out as a deafening counterpoint to the thunder blasts.
The monster gave a hissing gurgle as two bullets caught it in the right ankle. The creature seemed bloodless, and only dust and ashes rolled out of the exploded insectile flesh. It tried to skitter away, but its destroyed ankle caused it to fall forward, throwing Lovebug.
His body rolled across the road, the soft leather that looked like it was made from tens of thousands of human skins. Gasping, his lips still showing a faint blue cast, he struggled to crawl away.
I saw furtive movement from all around us. The creatures in the houses and doorways were moving forwards, drawn by the bloodshed or noise. Hundreds of glowing, silvery eyes surrounded us. I sprinted forward, dragging Lovebug to his feet.
“The church,” I hissed. “It’s the only place.” Still pulling the weak, confused Lovebug behind me, we staggered towards the black gates. They opened with a shriek of rusted metal.
***
The creatures stopped at the gates to the blood-red church, simply staring at us like statues. They didn’t even seem to breathe, their lidless eyes never blinking, the silvery glow never fading.
“I think this is the place we’re meant to go,” I whispered as we made our way towards the massive pointed doors. “When God spoke to us, he said something about a stone, a bird and a rose, that we would find the Titan through that.” I pointed back at the burnt body of the boy. “He’s holding a rose. On top of the building, there’s a bird. And the church is all stone. Maybe this is the place where God wanted us to go all along.”
“Maybe,” Lovebug muttered through heaving gasps, still grabbing at his bruised neck. “God, this hurts. It feels like I got hanged.” Side by side, we pushed open the doors to the Satanic church and walked inside.
***
Row after row of pews stretched out in front of us. Thousands of black candles were set up all around the perimeter of the enormous chamber. They sputtered and flickered constantly, throwing dancing shadows in every direction.
A small pair of bright eyes glanced up at us from under one of the nearby pews. I nearly jumped out of my skin, pointing the rifle at them and yelling.
“Show yourself! Come out now, or I shoot!” Lovebug looked at me, confused. He hadn’t seen it. But a few heartbeats later, a little girl crawled out, her eyes big and blue, her body an emaciated wreck. She wore ripped strands of what looked like leathery human skin to cover herself, tied together with black string. In one small, grime-streaked hand, she held a half-eaten raw mouse.
“Please, don’t kill me,” she said in a small voice. “I’m Emma. My mommy and daddy got dragged away and I’m scared.” I felt sick and weak looking at this small victim. I reached down and helped her up.
“I wouldn’t hurt you,” I said, kneeling down to her level. “I thought you were one of the bad guys. This is Lovebug, and I’m Jack.”
“This isn’t part of the mission, man,” Lovebug said nervously. “What are we supposed to do with her?”
“Well, we can’t just fucking leave her here,” I whispered back. “We need…” But I never got to finish that thought. Because, at that moment, the church woke up.
***
A red glow started at the front of the chamber, the altar where the priest would have stood and given speeches or holy communion. Here, they had a podium that looked like it was carved from a single block of obsidian. Reflected in it, I saw the screaming faces of people burning in Hell, grinning demons ripping off strips of human flesh and spiraling waves of flames, all sculpted by an artist who was able to capture the most miniscule details of agony and torture.
I looked around, realizing Emma had gone. I hadn’t seen her scurry away and hide, but her absence gave me a feeling of crushing dread in my chest.
“Lovebug, something’s wrong,” I whispered, still staring up at the altar. I heard a floorboard creak behind me. I glanced back just in time to see a man wearing full SWAT gear. I caught the flash of a pistol coming down, the butt aimed at my forehead. I heard the cracking, felt the immense pressure and pain. For a few moments, I swam in the currents of consciousness, trying to stay awake, but then the blackness crept in and stole me away.
***
I awoke suddenly, my hands tied so tightly behind my back that I couldn’t feel my fingers. I felt sick and wanted to throw up. I quickly choked those feelings back down. I tried to shake my head, to clear it, but that just brought jolts of pain like electricity shooting through my skull. Nearby, I heard a gunshot, then another.
“Bring it, fuckers!” Lovebug screamed in an insane voice. The explosion of a grenade rocked the building, and I smelled choking black smoke. I opened my eyes, seeing three men in SWAT gear laying dead, their bodies scattered haphazardly around the chaotic scene. One wall of the church had blown outwards, the stone still sending out gray wisps of wavy smoke into the air. I looked at my partner, seeing he had a bullet hole in his left arm and another one in his stomach. He was bleeding heavily, but the adrenaline and insanity seemed to keep him afloat- for now, at least.
I saw something walking towards us from the stage. It looked like a small boy, but black shadows spiraled up around his chest and face, translucent and shimmering darkly. He looked about five or six, his skin pale and smooth. As Lovebug’s face grew slack and distant, the boy abruptly erupted into flames.
“Don’t kill me again, Dad,” the small boy whispered in a hoarse voice choked with pain. The flames rose from his head and skin, melting his flesh, blackening it. Drops of boiling fat dribbled off his nose and chin. “Don’t send me to the dark place again, Dad…” He continued creeping closer to Lovebug, moving like a lion stalking an antelope.
“I didn’t know!” Lovebug cried, his face going paler. Tears streamed from his eyes as the rifle trembled wildly in his shaking hands. For a long moment, he looked torn, the finger tightening on the trigger as sobs escaped his chattering lips.
“Kill it, Lovebug!” I screamed. “Don’t let it get to you!” But as he dropped the rifle and knelt before the small boy, I knew it was too late.
The shadows spun faster and faster around the burning, dying body of the boy. He gave a scream of soul-shattering agony, reaching out to a small hand towards Lovebug.
“Help me!” the boy cried. Lovebug hesitated before bringing an arm up to take the boy’s hand.
“I missed you, Robbie,” Lovebug said before his fingers brushed the boys. The boy lunged forward, grabbing Lovebug’s hand with an iron grip. I saw Lovebug’s eyes widen in shock and surprise. A moment later, I heard the bones in his hand grinding together before breaking with a sound like snapping tree branches. The boy’s eyes darkened into jet-black orbs, the melted lips splitting into a sadistic grin.
“I missed you, too,” the thing hissed as its right arm changed, melting and reforming into something black and blade-like. The insectile limb swung forward in a blur, coming straight at Lovebug’s heart. He gave a panicked squeal a moment before it hit, trying to pull away with all of his considerable strength, his face turning chalk-white as the shattered bones in his hands ground together.
I closed my eyes, rolling away, trying to undo the knots that held my hands in place. Lovebug must have been greatly outnumbered. He would never have let that man tie me up. I heard the sounds of tearing meat and crunching bone nearby. Lovebug’s final breaths gurgled through the air, but I still kept my eyes closed, not wanting to look.
I felt a small tickle on my wrists, then heard a little voice next to my ear.
“I’ll get you out of here,” Emma whispered. I waited a few moments, then I heard the ropes snap. I looked back, seeing her holding a piece of sharp, broken glass in one tiny hand. In her other, she had the car keys. I wondered how she had gotten them, the little pickpocket.
“Thank God,” I said, rubbing my wrists. I looked around for my rifle, seeing it was laying next to the body of one of the SWAT guys. I wondered who these men were. I crawled towards it slowly, not wanting to draw attention.
“Don’t move another step,” a voice growled behind me. I glanced back, seeing the small boy, his features morphing into those of a demon. Curving horns spiraled from his temples. His jet-black eyes stared down at me with hatred and coldness. “You’ll follow your friend who killed my servants. His soul will stay alive forever within my body, a sickly thing wrapped up in an eternal shriek.”
“Fuck you,” I cried, lunging for my rifle. Emma disappeared behind a pew, running on all fours without looking back. I spun as I hit the ground, turning the barrel towards the morphing face of the shape-shifter. Its jaw unhinged, a snake-like tongue flicking out as it flew through the air towards me. Hollow fangs dripping clear venom grew from its mouth in a heartbeat, elongating and sharpening before my very eyes.
I fired twice, the bullets entering through its mouth and coming out the back of its head. Its flesh disintegrated in an instant, the body turning into light, gray ashes that disappeared in the breeze. Breathing hard, I waited, wondering if it was all over.
I heard a rumbling far below me, as if an earthquake were starting. A moment later, the church floor exploded upwards, sharp rubble and splintered boards flying in every direction.
***
“It’s coming!” Emma screamed, running over and grabbing my hand. I lay there, shell-shocked and unmoving for a long moment. In hindsight, the girl was a natural born survivor with much sharper reflexes than me. It was likely the only reason she survived as long as she had.
“The Titan,” I whispered grimly, trying to pull myself up to my feet. But it was like trying to walk on a heaving, sinking ship. Parts of the floor collapsed down into a seemingly never-ending abyss beneath us.
Near the stage, I saw hundreds of long, pale arms pulling something bloated and monstrous out of the ground. It was a Titan, and no explanation can ever convey the true horror of that thing.
It looked like countless human corpses had been melted together, fused into a ball with sagging, boneless chests, deformed faces and millions of writhing maggots. It groaned and gurgled with many lungs, exhaling a rotting, sulfurous breeze that made me want to retch. A soft susurration of many pained, muttering voices continuously emanated from the Titan.
“Emma, run!” I screamed, but she was already sprinting back towards the front door of the church. I backpedaled, afraid to look away from the creeping monstrosity, the juggernaut of rotting flesh moving towards us.
I heard the Titan closing the distance as I sprinted through the front door. The abominations with the silver eyes still slunk around the gate, blocking the car. I raised the rifle, firing blindly at the creatures, careful not to hit the little girl.
“Go to the car!” I screamed at Emma, feeling around for the keys. As the abominations saw the Titan, those still alive scattered, moving in a blur back into the shadows and homes of this rotten place.
The Titan broke the front wall of the church, sending splinters of red stone flying in every direction like bullets. It groaned and gurgled faster, its sickly cries more insistent. I ran to the Mercedes, starting it up and pressing the accelerator to the floor. I pulled a U-turn, heading back to the border of the anomaly.
***
The engine roared, the car bucking like a wild stallion as it pressed me and Emma back into our seats. But the creeping Titan continued gaining speed behind us, and for a few seconds, I feared we would be crushed to death under its massive weight.
The anomaly shimmered ahead of us. I crashed through it at two hundred miles an hour, skidding wildly as the Mercedes hit the dirt road. I nearly flew into a tree. I managed to right it at the last second, pulling onto the paved street as the Titan broke through behind us.
It followed us out. It’s in the real world now.

“Before I met the Savior, I was a worthless piece of garbage, barely a human being,” Lovebug droned at the front of the enormous room. Lovebug was a monster of a man, two-hundred and fifty pounds of hard tattooed muscle. Like myself, he was a high-ranking member of the Church.
His flat gray eyes scanned the room with a fanatical gleam. I sat in the first row, watching and waiting. Followers of the Savior would tell their stories, how the Savior had reached down and lifted them out of sin and filth to bring them up to the divine. The bright fluorescent lights overhead droned on with a low hum. Thousands of men crammed together in seats or stood at the back of the room.
The Savior taught only two commandments: to murder is holy, and to die for the Savior is the highest bliss. An army of warriors followed the Savior, knights on a holy crusade, priests who wouldn’t hesitate to burn the foul bodies of any witches or demons we encountered. I thought of myself as a knight for the holy king, our Savior, the mouthpiece of the eternal.
“Now, it is like the hand of God has reached into my heart and loosened all the knots there, the knots of anxiety and fear and uncertainty.” He raised his black, military-style rifle into the air for emphasis. “I never realized the true nature of reality before- the fact that we are living in a simulation where the final battle of good versus evil is playing out before our very eyes. And I will be on the side of the good, until my dying breath. I will be on the side of the Savior and of God!”
The crowd roared and clapped. Men got to their feet, sweating heavily in the boiling hot conference room. I felt the surge of energy pass through me like a tidal wave, the pure confidence and iron will of truth. Lovebug lumbered down off the stage as the Savior came out from behind the red curtains, walking with the straight spine of a soldier. He wore a silky black robe that fluttered softly around him, the hood pulled back.
The Savior had horrific burns running the length of his body. His arms had melted folds of keloid scars visible all the way to the tips of his fingers. His scalp had also melted, and the Savior had no hair except for his eyelashes and eyebrows. But the fire that had nearly killed him had spared his face, an aristocratic visage with ferocious green eyes like those of a cat. That face seemed like it had been sculpted out of marble by DaVinci himself, the high cheekbones jutting out over a chin so sharp that it looked like it could have hammered nails into boards. He stared out at the crowd for a long moment, his gaze unblinking.
“The final battle has begun,” he said in a low voice, no more than a whisper. Yet, in the deathly silence of the hall, his words rang out loud and clear. “Those in charge of this illusory world know that we see them. We see them very well, how they hide behind the curtain. They control the world economy, the justice system. Every government, whether they call themselves communist, authoritarian or democratic, is no more than a puppet in their dancing fingers.
“When anyone tries to stand up and lead the masses of suffering people towards freedom from slavery, they are vilified by the mainstream media, brought up on false charges or killed, their bodies staged to look like a suicide. Look what they did to Jesus, and for what? For telling people to love God more than their rulers? And those who speak out today are also crucified, murdered in prisons or killed by their governments. Truth is the most precious commodity, after all. It is one that can only be purchased with blood.
“So what can we do? How can we fight against such evil?” There was a quiet muttering among the pale, frozen faces that stared up at the stage with adoration and love.
“We can fight it by using their own weapons against them!” the Savior said, his voice rising in speed and pitch. He raised his fisted hands to his chest, accentuating each syllable with a back and forth stab of his hands. “Fight fire with fire, and pay back blood with blood! The only thing these global terrorists understand is greater levels of force. We must show them death on a scale they have never before imagined.” I felt nervous as the Savior delivered his message. I saw other men shuffle anxiously in the crowded auditorium, most of them having high-caliber rifles slung around their shoulders.
I felt the rising violence and bloodlust in the air like electricity before a lightning storm. At that moment, I knew we would all have to fight before too long.
***
The Savior called me and Lovebug back to his office after the speech had ended, sending his squirrely assistant over to deliver the hand-written note in the Savior’s blocky, copperplate handwriting. For a long moment, I simply watched the crowd filtering out of the doors, heading back towards the complex where all the holy soldiers of the Savior lived. Feeling dissociated and light-headed, I followed behind the massive muscular form of Lovebug, the heavy weight of the M16 bouncing against my chest. We pushed through the blood-red velvet curtains, winding our way past stage equipment and down a hallway of pure marble.
Mystical paintings similar to those of Alex Grey covered both walls, showing the inside workings of the human body through art. It was as if the painter had X-ray vision and could see the heart chakra and the countless thin vessels that spiderwebbed up to the crown. But, unlike Alex Grey’s hopeful depictions of mysticism, these showed men and women being burned alive, crucified, decapitated or strangled. Dark colors composed the paintings: the dark blue of a suffocating face, the clotted red of an infected stab wound, the black of death. They captured the essence of struggle perfectly.
The Savior’s office had a thick mahogany door with silver engravings of leaves and vines running the length of it. At the top stood a single staring eye with twelve wavy tentacles emerging from the perimeter of it- the symbol of God, who the Savior had seen personally. God would sometimes speak through the mouth of the Savior, always during times of great tribulation or suffering. Lovebug knocked at the door. The Savior’s deep voice echoed out faintly.
“Come in.”
We entered slowly, the sprawling desk of the Savior filling half of the room. He sat in a comfortable chair behind it, reclining. On the walls behind him, he had pictures of Jesus, Saint Stephen, Gandhi, Hitler, Jim Jones, Shoko Asahara and others who he taught had fought against the world elites and been killed for it.
The Church of the Final Rapture was not a church in the conventional sense. The main teachings didn’t revolve around the divinity of Christ or the nature of original sin. What the Savior taught was far more profound- an illusory or simulated world where every single person could become their own Christ, could awaken to the truth and perform miracles, but only if they believed fully and followed the Savior.
“Sit down, please,” he said in his gravelly voice. “I have a mission I would like to discuss, and you two are the only ones competent and loyal enough to carry it out.”
***
“There is another anomaly spreading,” the Savior said, staring between me and Lovebug with his fanatical emerald eyes. “It is located in a rural part of the United States, in a town called-” he glanced down at the sheet of paper in front of him- “Frost Hollow. Supposedly, there are black-ops sites located nearby, secret alphabet agencies experimenting with magnetic distortion systems and creating rips in the fabric of spacetime with micro-wormholes.
“I don’t think it is much of a leap to say that the anomaly was likely started, either intentionally or unintentionally, by the government, as part of their research. The Cleaners would like to control that power, after all. They have been sending their men after it for years like sheep to the slaughter, expending billions of dollars researching it. If they and the US government end up being able to control the creation and spread of anomalies, they will use it to enslave the world. There is no question about it in my mind.” He leaned forwards towards us, his eyes growing cold.
“There is only one path forward I can see. We need to spread the anomaly, make it become unstable so the demons of Hell contained within it can spill out onto the real world. Perhaps it will awaken the downtrodden masses enough to begin the final revolution. We must fight terrorism with greater terrorism, and violence with greater levels of violence. For this mission, I am sending the two of you into Frost Hollow.
“Your job will be to find the Titan or Titans and lead them out to the border of the anomaly. These are horrendous beasts- indeed, the Church has seen them before. They are nearly impossible to kill. I want you two to go inside, bait it and have it follow you back to the edge, beyond the veil.”
“What’s a Titan?” Lovebug asked, his eyes flicking left and right nervously. The Savior stared at him stonily for a long moment. Then his eyes rolled back in his head, showing only the whites. All the blood seemed to drain from his face. His teeth chattered, his mouth opened, and through it, God spoke, the words pouring out like crashing stones. The voice did not sound anything like the Savior’s. It sounded much deeper, more mechanical, more alien somehow.
“I see you very well. I saw you when you were no more than a blood clot in your mother’s body. I see you even as corpses, rotted, putrefying, crawling with scavengers and insects. I see everything, every moment of time. But, in the anomaly, there are things I cannot see. For this, my holy ones must go forth.
“In the center of Hell, you will find a rose, a bird and a stone. These will be your salvation, if salvation can be found at all. Go with the blessing of Yaldabaoth.” The voice cut off abruptly, the silence deafening. I could hear my own heart pounding in my ears.
The Savior’s eyes came back down, looking confused and uncertain. His pupils were dilated and he was sweating heavily, even though it was cool and air-conditioned back here in his private office. We stared at each other across the table, a no-man’s land that protected me like a shield. For there seemed to be something dark in the Savior along with the light, and I didn’t know if any man could contain that power.
But there was no question of disobeying. Within the hour, Lovebug and I were on one of the Church’s private jets flying to the town of Frost Hollow.
***
The gently rolling hills of Frost Hollow loomed below us as the plane circled the small dirt airstrip in the middle of some cow farms. I looked up at Lovebug, trying to judge his stony expression. He had done many years in prison before joining the Church and finding salvation, even being the leader of one of the gangs. I knew he wasn’t afraid of violence. He had never told me what he did, what tortured him so much.
The Savior had told us much secret knowledge- how to find a Titan, a massive, bloated abomination that could come into being only within an anomaly, a combination of many rotted body pieces fused together in some sort of hellish black magic. The Savior had spies around Frost Hollow and the surrounding towns who had been monitoring the anomaly, watching the unstable gateways leading in and out and mapping them as best they could. We would be given a fast car, plenty of weapons and some body armor. I had no idea how nightmarish the journey would become, however.
“I’m driving,” Lovebug said as we descended the steps. A man in a black suit with the symbol of the eye and tentacles pinned on his black button-up shirt pulled up with a Mercedes AMG-One. It was a sleek, silver thing of immense luxury and power. The craftsmanship made it look like a work of art. I sighed, keeping my finger nervously on the trigger of my rifle as I glanced around the strange, empty town.
“If this thing won’t outrun a Titan, then nothing will,” I said, trying to break the tension. I looked at the speedometer, seeing it went up to 220 miles an hour.
“Damn fucking right,” Lovebug growled as we slid into the futuristic-looking leather seats. The engine turned on like a softly purring kitten. The GPS automatically turned on as well, the soft robotic voice leading us toward one of the more stable portals to the anomaly.
Lovebug sped down the empty forest roads of Frost Hollow, going twice the legal speed limit the entire way.
“The speed limit is only for the lowest common denominator,” Lovebug said pedantically, waggling a tattooed finger for emphasis. The GPS said we would reach the gateway to the anomaly in five minutes. Based on Lovebug’s speed, I thought it would be more like two. “Someone who actually knows how to drive and isn’t drunk or high can easily do 80 in a 40. Easily.” I glanced nervously at the speedometer, realizing he was going over 100 miles an hour now. The sports car hugged the tight corners of the winding forest roads with absolute precision.
“Turn right onto Snake Island Road Extension in five hundred feet,” the robotic female voice. Lovebug slammed on the brakes a few seconds later, the tires skidding and locking up. We looked around frantically, seeing no streets anywhere except the one we were on.
“What the hell?” Lovebug asked. The night was crawling in by now, the darkness covering the forests like a curtain. I squinted, looking at the thick grove of trees on our right, scanning it back and forth over and over. After a few seconds, I realized there was an overgrown dirt path there with no sign. It was nearly impossible to see at night, however, and calling it a road was somewhat of a joke.
“Oh, damn,” I said. “They should’ve given us an SUV.”
***
According to the GPS, our destination was only a thousand feet down Snake Island Road Extension. The low clearance of the Mercedes was a problem as Lovebug tried to navigate the flooded forest path. Deep tread marks flooded with black, stagnant water marked the entirety of Snake Island Road Extension. But ahead, the headlights illuminated something unusual.
Cutting straight across the trees and brush like a razorblade was a shimmering wall of translucent energy. It reminded me of a mirage, curving upwards in wavy spiral patterns. I could see through it easily, but it gave everything a dark, sinister covering. The forest seemed to be in constant motion as the grayish light distorted it.
“Look how huge it is!” I said in awe, staring up at the starry sky. The flat wall rose up seemingly forever, disappearing in the cold void of infinite space. Lovebug slowly ambled the car towards the anomaly, trying to keep the Mercedes from getting stuck with its low clearance.
“You ready for this, man?” Lovebug asked in a quavering voice as we inched towards the anomaly. It was only seconds away now. He grabbed my shoulder. “This is it. Remember the commandments.” I closed my eyes, concentrating my heart on the Savior’s words. Dying for the good is the highest bliss, he had told us.
“Let’s do this,” I said, my eyes flying open from my silent prayer as the hood passed through the anomaly. It disappeared in front of our eyes. We could see the forest on the other side, but the Mercedes looked like it was going through some sort of teleportation portal, being ripped apart layer by layer and sent somewhere else. Lovebug nervously grabbed my hand.
“For the Savior and for the Good,” he whispered as we passed through.
***
I heard screaming and wailing, full of agony and unimaginable horror, like the screams of those burning in Hell. My vision went white. A carpet of morphing dark colors covered everything as the shrieking intensified, until I thought my eardrums would explode.
“Stop!” I cried, feeling the pressure in my head like a splitting migraine. “Stop screaming!” I started kicking, punching, trying to get away.
“Calm the fuck down!” someone whispered, slapping me hard across the face. Stunned, I looked up, seeing Lovebug holding me down in the seat. He was covered in sweat, his face a blank mask of terror. “Don’t scream. There’s things outside that are looking this way.” I blinked fast, my senses coming back to me. I felt like a man waking up from surgery, confused and disoriented, my memories only returning in small trickles and drops.
We were sitting in the Mercedes on a road that looked like it had been made of human skin. The headlights showed the ragged patches of pale, leathery flesh sewn together with black thread. The road disappeared ahead of us in a straight line. The land here looked as flat as Kansas. Like a mirror world, it had houses and restaurants and churches lining both sides of the road, but they were all wrong.
The stone church looked like it was constructed of some kind of red volcanic rock. Baphomets and upside-down pentagrams covered the outer walls, engraved deeply into the glossy surface. Mutilated bodies covered the front lawn, impaled, crucified, skinned alive or burned at the stake. Hundreds of men, women and children lay dead in front of the Satanic temple.
Overhead, the sky bubbled and frothed with red clouds and constant explosions of blue lightning. Like missile flashes, the lightning illuminated the world around us, shining brightly before going dark. The incessant strobing gave the entire place a kind of circus freakshow vibe.
Many of the homes looked like they had been constructed from bones and covered in human skin, like some sort of hellish teepee. Arm and leg bones wrapped in razor-wire formed the pillars. Grinning skulls lined the top of the flat, rectangular roofs, thousands of bleached human heads staring down.
Staring out of the dark doorways, I saw gleaming, silvery eyes. They loomed eight or nine feet in the air on spidery bodies. Their limbs looked as thin as bones, jet-black and dull. The only color from these still revenants was from their unblinking eyes and grinning mouths, where teeth like those of a dragonfish jutted out. Every pair of eyes on that street was fixed intently on the Mercedes, the sick rictus grins on their alien faces never faltering.
“Jesus Christ, I’m sorry,” I whispered, feeling weak. “I thought I was in a nightmare for a minute there.” Lovebug shrugged his massive shoulders.
“Yeah, I felt it too, though I came out of it a lot faster than you did,” he said, glancing over at the Satanic church as we passed. It had protective black spikes rising high into the air all around it. The broken body of a child who had been burnt at the stake stood in front of the gates like a death omen, his small, withered hand holding a black rose. Lovebug choked, retching. He nearly rolled down the window, until his eyes met the silvery ones of a nearby abomination.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, looking closer at the church. On top of the roof, I saw an enormous statue of a black raven, its wings spread as if it were flying. It had three gleaming, silvery eyes embedded into the dark rock.
“That boy just reminds me of my son,” Lovebug whispered glumly, inching along the streets.
“I didn’t know you had a son,” I said, surprised. Lovebug had never mentioned a family. He shrugged.
“I don’t. Not anymore. I killed him. I got drunk and high one night back when I was selling drugs. Fell asleep in the living room with a lit cigarette and burned down the whole house. I killed my wife and son, burned them. They sent me to prison, but what did that matter? The prison up here is far worse.” He tapped the side of his temple.
I was about to say something, but at that moment, many things happened at once.
***
Lovebug was staring at the corpse of the child when an inhumanly long arm reached up from the side of the car. It had fingers like spikes, as sharp as a knife and twice as long as normal human fingers. I gasped, a warning shout welling up in my throat, but the hand came smashing down into the driver’s side window and grabbed Lovebug’s neck.
The window exploded in a shower of safety glass, shattering like brittle bones. Lovebug’s scream was cut off as he was dragged, kicking and screaming, out of the car. I swung open my door, leaping out and bringing my rifle around.
The Cheshire Cat grin of the abomination never faltered as it held Lovebug in front of its body like a human shield, holding him by the neck above the ground. Lovebug’s legs kicked and squirmed, his face turning blue as he slowly suffocated. His eyes bulged from their sockets, panicked and rolling, uncomprehending in their total animal panic.
I flicked on the laser sight. It danced over the ground, flashing over the body of Lovebug and the abomination. But I couldn’t aim for its torso or face, as I would probably hit Lovebug in the process. It was far too close.
I aimed for the monster’s thin, skeletal feet, the black toes twisting over each other like the roots of a tree. The gunshots rang out as a deafening counterpoint to the thunder blasts.
The monster gave a hissing gurgle as two bullets caught it in the right ankle. The creature seemed bloodless, and only dust and ashes rolled out of the exploded insectile flesh. It tried to skitter away, but its destroyed ankle caused it to fall forward, throwing Lovebug.
His body rolled across the road, the soft leather that looked like it was made from tens of thousands of human skins. Gasping, his lips still showing a faint blue cast, he struggled to crawl away.
I saw furtive movement from all around us. The creatures in the houses and doorways were moving forwards, drawn by the bloodshed or noise. Hundreds of glowing, silvery eyes surrounded us. I sprinted forward, dragging Lovebug to his feet.
“The church,” I hissed. “It’s the only place.” Still pulling the weak, confused Lovebug behind me, we staggered towards the black gates. They opened with a shriek of rusted metal.
***
The creatures stopped at the gates to the blood-red church, simply staring at us like statues. They didn’t even seem to breathe, their lidless eyes never blinking, the silvery glow never fading.
“I think this is the place we’re meant to go,” I whispered as we made our way towards the massive pointed doors. “When God spoke to us, he said something about a stone, a bird and a rose, that we would find the Titan through that.” I pointed back at the burnt body of the boy. “He’s holding a rose. On top of the building, there’s a bird. And the church is all stone. Maybe this is the place where God wanted us to go all along.”
“Maybe,” Lovebug muttered through heaving gasps, still grabbing at his bruised neck. “God, this hurts. It feels like I got hanged.” Side by side, we pushed open the doors to the Satanic church and walked inside.
***
Row after row of pews stretched out in front of us. Thousands of black candles were set up all around the perimeter of the enormous chamber. They sputtered and flickered constantly, throwing dancing shadows in every direction.
A small pair of bright eyes glanced up at us from under one of the nearby pews. I nearly jumped out of my skin, pointing the rifle at them and yelling.
“Show yourself! Come out now, or I shoot!” Lovebug looked at me, confused. He hadn’t seen it. But a few heartbeats later, a little girl crawled out, her eyes big and blue, her body an emaciated wreck. She wore ripped strands of what looked like leathery human skin to cover herself, tied together with black string. In one small, grime-streaked hand, she held a half-eaten raw mouse.
“Please, don’t kill me,” she said in a small voice. “I’m Emma. My mommy and daddy got dragged away and I’m scared.” I felt sick and weak looking at this small victim. I reached down and helped her up.
“I wouldn’t hurt you,” I said, kneeling down to her level. “I thought you were one of the bad guys. This is Lovebug, and I’m Jack.”
“This isn’t part of the mission, man,” Lovebug said nervously. “What are we supposed to do with her?”
“Well, we can’t just fucking leave her here,” I whispered back. “We need…” But I never got to finish that thought. Because, at that moment, the church woke up.
***
A red glow started at the front of the chamber, the altar where the priest would have stood and given speeches or holy communion. Here, they had a podium that looked like it was carved from a single block of obsidian. Reflected in it, I saw the screaming faces of people burning in Hell, grinning demons ripping off strips of human flesh and spiraling waves of flames, all sculpted by an artist who was able to capture the most miniscule details of agony and torture.
I looked around, realizing Emma had gone. I hadn’t seen her scurry away and hide, but her absence gave me a feeling of crushing dread in my chest.
“Lovebug, something’s wrong,” I whispered, still staring up at the altar. I heard a floorboard creak behind me. I glanced back just in time to see a man wearing full SWAT gear. I caught the flash of a pistol coming down, the butt aimed at my forehead. I heard the cracking, felt the immense pressure and pain. For a few moments, I swam in the currents of consciousness, trying to stay awake, but then the blackness crept in and stole me away.
***
I awoke suddenly, my hands tied so tightly behind my back that I couldn’t feel my fingers. I felt sick and wanted to throw up. I quickly choked those feelings back down. I tried to shake my head, to clear it, but that just brought jolts of pain like electricity shooting through my skull. Nearby, I heard a gunshot, then another.
“Bring it, fuckers!” Lovebug screamed in an insane voice. The explosion of a grenade rocked the building, and I smelled choking black smoke. I opened my eyes, seeing three men in SWAT gear laying dead, their bodies scattered haphazardly around the chaotic scene. One wall of the church had blown outwards, the stone still sending out gray wisps of wavy smoke into the air. I looked at my partner, seeing he had a bullet hole in his left arm and another one in his stomach. He was bleeding heavily, but the adrenaline and insanity seemed to keep him afloat- for now, at least.
I saw something walking towards us from the stage. It looked like a small boy, but black shadows spiraled up around his chest and face, translucent and shimmering darkly. He looked about five or six, his skin pale and smooth. As Lovebug’s face grew slack and distant, the boy abruptly erupted into flames.
“Don’t kill me again, Dad,” the small boy whispered in a hoarse voice choked with pain. The flames rose from his head and skin, melting his flesh, blackening it. Drops of boiling fat dribbled off his nose and chin. “Don’t send me to the dark place again, Dad…” He continued creeping closer to Lovebug, moving like a lion stalking an antelope.
“I didn’t know!” Lovebug cried, his face going paler. Tears streamed from his eyes as the rifle trembled wildly in his shaking hands. For a long moment, he looked torn, the finger tightening on the trigger as sobs escaped his chattering lips.
“Kill it, Lovebug!” I screamed. “Don’t let it get to you!” But as he dropped the rifle and knelt before the small boy, I knew it was too late.
The shadows spun faster and faster around the burning, dying body of the boy. He gave a scream of soul-shattering agony, reaching out to a small hand towards Lovebug.
“Help me!” the boy cried. Lovebug hesitated before bringing an arm up to take the boy’s hand.
“I missed you, Robbie,” Lovebug said before his fingers brushed the boys. The boy lunged forward, grabbing Lovebug’s hand with an iron grip. I saw Lovebug’s eyes widen in shock and surprise. A moment later, I heard the bones in his hand grinding together before breaking with a sound like snapping tree branches. The boy’s eyes darkened into jet-black orbs, the melted lips splitting into a sadistic grin.
“I missed you, too,” the thing hissed as its right arm changed, melting and reforming into something black and blade-like. The insectile limb swung forward in a blur, coming straight at Lovebug’s heart. He gave a panicked squeal a moment before it hit, trying to pull away with all of his considerable strength, his face turning chalk-white as the shattered bones in his hands ground together.
I closed my eyes, rolling away, trying to undo the knots that held my hands in place. Lovebug must have been greatly outnumbered. He would never have let that man tie me up. I heard the sounds of tearing meat and crunching bone nearby. Lovebug’s final breaths gurgled through the air, but I still kept my eyes closed, not wanting to look.
I felt a small tickle on my wrists, then heard a little voice next to my ear.
“I’ll get you out of here,” Emma whispered. I waited a few moments, then I heard the ropes snap. I looked back, seeing her holding a piece of sharp, broken glass in one tiny hand. In her other, she had the car keys. I wondered how she had gotten them, the little pickpocket.
“Thank God,” I said, rubbing my wrists. I looked around for my rifle, seeing it was laying next to the body of one of the SWAT guys. I wondered who these men were. I crawled towards it slowly, not wanting to draw attention.
“Don’t move another step,” a voice growled behind me. I glanced back, seeing the small boy, his features morphing into those of a demon. Curving horns spiraled from his temples. His jet-black eyes stared down at me with hatred and coldness. “You’ll follow your friend who killed my servants. His soul will stay alive forever within my body, a sickly thing wrapped up in an eternal shriek.”
“Fuck you,” I cried, lunging for my rifle. Emma disappeared behind a pew, running on all fours without looking back. I spun as I hit the ground, turning the barrel towards the morphing face of the shape-shifter. Its jaw unhinged, a snake-like tongue flicking out as it flew through the air towards me. Hollow fangs dripping clear venom grew from its mouth in a heartbeat, elongating and sharpening before my very eyes.
I fired twice, the bullets entering through its mouth and coming out the back of its head. Its flesh disintegrated in an instant, the body turning into light, gray ashes that disappeared in the breeze. Breathing hard, I waited, wondering if it was all over.
I heard a rumbling far below me, as if an earthquake were starting. A moment later, the church floor exploded upwards, sharp rubble and splintered boards flying in every direction.
***
“It’s coming!” Emma screamed, running over and grabbing my hand. I lay there, shell-shocked and unmoving for a long moment. In hindsight, the girl was a natural born survivor with much sharper reflexes than me. It was likely the only reason she survived as long as she had.
“The Titan,” I whispered grimly, trying to pull myself up to my feet. But it was like trying to walk on a heaving, sinking ship. Parts of the floor collapsed down into a seemingly never-ending abyss beneath us.
Near the stage, I saw hundreds of long, pale arms pulling something bloated and monstrous out of the ground. It was a Titan, and no explanation can ever convey the true horror of that thing.
It looked like countless human corpses had been melted together, fused into a ball with sagging, boneless chests, deformed faces and millions of writhing maggots. It groaned and gurgled with many lungs, exhaling a rotting, sulfurous breeze that made me want to retch. A soft susurration of many pained, muttering voices continuously emanated from the Titan.
“Emma, run!” I screamed, but she was already sprinting back towards the front door of the church. I backpedaled, afraid to look away from the creeping monstrosity, the juggernaut of rotting flesh moving towards us.
I heard the Titan closing the distance as I sprinted through the front door. The abominations with the silver eyes still slunk around the gate, blocking the car. I raised the rifle, firing blindly at the creatures, careful not to hit the little girl.
“Go to the car!” I screamed at Emma, feeling around for the keys. As the abominations saw the Titan, those still alive scattered, moving in a blur back into the shadows and homes of this rotten place.
The Titan broke the front wall of the church, sending splinters of red stone flying in every direction like bullets. It groaned and gurgled faster, its sickly cries more insistent. I ran to the Mercedes, starting it up and pressing the accelerator to the floor. I pulled a U-turn, heading back to the border of the anomaly.
***
The engine roared, the car bucking like a wild stallion as it pressed me and Emma back into our seats. But the creeping Titan continued gaining speed behind us, and for a few seconds, I feared we would be crushed to death under its massive weight.
The anomaly shimmered ahead of us. I crashed through it at two hundred miles an hour, skidding wildly as the Mercedes hit the dirt road. I nearly flew into a tree. I managed to right it at the last second, pulling onto the paved street as the Titan broke through behind us.
It followed us out. It’s in the real world now.

“Before I met the Savior, I was a worthless piece of garbage, barely a human being,” Lovebug droned at the front of the enormous room. Lovebug was a monster of a man, two-hundred and fifty pounds of hard tattooed muscle. Like myself, he was a high-ranking member of the Church.
His flat gray eyes scanned the room with a fanatical gleam. I sat in the first row, watching and waiting. Followers of the Savior would tell their stories, how the Savior had reached down and lifted them out of sin and filth to bring them up to the divine. The bright fluorescent lights overhead droned on with a low hum. Thousands of men crammed together in seats or stood at the back of the room.
The Savior taught only two commandments: to murder is holy, and to die for the Savior is the highest bliss. An army of warriors followed the Savior, knights on a holy crusade, priests who wouldn’t hesitate to burn the foul bodies of any witches or demons we encountered. I thought of myself as a knight for the holy king, our Savior, the mouthpiece of the eternal.
“Now, it is like the hand of God has reached into my heart and loosened all the knots there, the knots of anxiety and fear and uncertainty.” He raised his black, military-style rifle into the air for emphasis. “I never realized the true nature of reality before- the fact that we are living in a simulation where the final battle of good versus evil is playing out before our very eyes. And I will be on the side of the good, until my dying breath. I will be on the side of the Savior and of God!”
The crowd roared and clapped. Men got to their feet, sweating heavily in the boiling hot conference room. I felt the surge of energy pass through me like a tidal wave, the pure confidence and iron will of truth. Lovebug lumbered down off the stage as the Savior came out from behind the red curtains, walking with the straight spine of a soldier. He wore a silky black robe that fluttered softly around him, the hood pulled back.
The Savior had horrific burns running the length of his body. His arms had melted folds of keloid scars visible all the way to the tips of his fingers. His scalp had also melted, and the Savior had no hair except for his eyelashes and eyebrows. But the fire that had nearly killed him had spared his face, an aristocratic visage with ferocious green eyes like those of a cat. That face seemed like it had been sculpted out of marble by DaVinci himself, the high cheekbones jutting out over a chin so sharp that it looked like it could have hammered nails into boards. He stared out at the crowd for a long moment, his gaze unblinking.
“The final battle has begun,” he said in a low voice, no more than a whisper. Yet, in the deathly silence of the hall, his words rang out loud and clear. “Those in charge of this illusory world know that we see them. We see them very well, how they hide behind the curtain. They control the world economy, the justice system. Every government, whether they call themselves communist, authoritarian or democratic, is no more than a puppet in their dancing fingers.
“When anyone tries to stand up and lead the masses of suffering people towards freedom from slavery, they are vilified by the mainstream media, brought up on false charges or killed, their bodies staged to look like a suicide. Look what they did to Jesus, and for what? For telling people to love God more than their rulers? And those who speak out today are also crucified, murdered in prisons or killed by their governments. Truth is the most precious commodity, after all. It is one that can only be purchased with blood.
“So what can we do? How can we fight against such evil?” There was a quiet muttering among the pale, frozen faces that stared up at the stage with adoration and love.
“We can fight it by using their own weapons against them!” the Savior said, his voice rising in speed and pitch. He raised his fisted hands to his chest, accentuating each syllable with a back and forth stab of his hands. “Fight fire with fire, and pay back blood with blood! The only thing these global terrorists understand is greater levels of force. We must show them death on a scale they have never before imagined.” I felt nervous as the Savior delivered his message. I saw other men shuffle anxiously in the crowded auditorium, most of them having high-caliber rifles slung around their shoulders.
I felt the rising violence and bloodlust in the air like electricity before a lightning storm. At that moment, I knew we would all have to fight before too long.
***
The Savior called me and Lovebug back to his office after the speech had ended, sending his squirrely assistant over to deliver the hand-written note in the Savior’s blocky, copperplate handwriting. For a long moment, I simply watched the crowd filtering out of the doors, heading back towards the complex where all the holy soldiers of the Savior lived. Feeling dissociated and light-headed, I followed behind the massive muscular form of Lovebug, the heavy weight of the M16 bouncing against my chest. We pushed through the blood-red velvet curtains, winding our way past stage equipment and down a hallway of pure marble.
Mystical paintings similar to those of Alex Grey covered both walls, showing the inside workings of the human body through art. It was as if the painter had X-ray vision and could see the heart chakra and the countless thin vessels that spiderwebbed up to the crown. But, unlike Alex Grey’s hopeful depictions of mysticism, these showed men and women being burned alive, crucified, decapitated or strangled. Dark colors composed the paintings: the dark blue of a suffocating face, the clotted red of an infected stab wound, the black of death. They captured the essence of struggle perfectly.
The Savior’s office had a thick mahogany door with silver engravings of leaves and vines running the length of it. At the top stood a single staring eye with twelve wavy tentacles emerging from the perimeter of it- the symbol of God, who the Savior had seen personally. God would sometimes speak through the mouth of the Savior, always during times of great tribulation or suffering. Lovebug knocked at the door. The Savior’s deep voice echoed out faintly.
“Come in.”
We entered slowly, the sprawling desk of the Savior filling half of the room. He sat in a comfortable chair behind it, reclining. On the walls behind him, he had pictures of Jesus, Saint Stephen, Gandhi, Hitler, Jim Jones, Shoko Asahara and others who he taught had fought against the world elites and been killed for it.
The Church of the Final Rapture was not a church in the conventional sense. The main teachings didn’t revolve around the divinity of Christ or the nature of original sin. What the Savior taught was far more profound- an illusory or simulated world where every single person could become their own Christ, could awaken to the truth and perform miracles, but only if they believed fully and followed the Savior.
“Sit down, please,” he said in his gravelly voice. “I have a mission I would like to discuss, and you two are the only ones competent and loyal enough to carry it out.”
***
“There is another anomaly spreading,” the Savior said, staring between me and Lovebug with his fanatical emerald eyes. “It is located in a rural part of the United States, in a town called-” he glanced down at the sheet of paper in front of him- “Frost Hollow. Supposedly, there are black-ops sites located nearby, secret alphabet agencies experimenting with magnetic distortion systems and creating rips in the fabric of spacetime with micro-wormholes.
“I don’t think it is much of a leap to say that the anomaly was likely started, either intentionally or unintentionally, by the government, as part of their research. The Cleaners would like to control that power, after all. They have been sending their men after it for years like sheep to the slaughter, expending billions of dollars researching it. If they and the US government end up being able to control the creation and spread of anomalies, they will use it to enslave the world. There is no question about it in my mind.” He leaned forwards towards us, his eyes growing cold.
“There is only one path forward I can see. We need to spread the anomaly, make it become unstable so the demons of Hell contained within it can spill out onto the real world. Perhaps it will awaken the downtrodden masses enough to begin the final revolution. We must fight terrorism with greater terrorism, and violence with greater levels of violence. For this mission, I am sending the two of you into Frost Hollow.
“Your job will be to find the Titan or Titans and lead them out to the border of the anomaly. These are horrendous beasts- indeed, the Church has seen them before. They are nearly impossible to kill. I want you two to go inside, bait it and have it follow you back to the edge, beyond the veil.”
“What’s a Titan?” Lovebug asked, his eyes flicking left and right nervously. The Savior stared at him stonily for a long moment. Then his eyes rolled back in his head, showing only the whites. All the blood seemed to drain from his face. His teeth chattered, his mouth opened, and through it, God spoke, the words pouring out like crashing stones. The voice did not sound anything like the Savior’s. It sounded much deeper, more mechanical, more alien somehow.
“I see you very well. I saw you when you were no more than a blood clot in your mother’s body. I see you even as corpses, rotted, putrefying, crawling with scavengers and insects. I see everything, every moment of time. But, in the anomaly, there are things I cannot see. For this, my holy ones must go forth.
“In the center of Hell, you will find a rose, a bird and a stone. These will be your salvation, if salvation can be found at all. Go with the blessing of Yaldabaoth.” The voice cut off abruptly, the silence deafening. I could hear my own heart pounding in my ears.
The Savior’s eyes came back down, looking confused and uncertain. His pupils were dilated and he was sweating heavily, even though it was cool and air-conditioned back here in his private office. We stared at each other across the table, a no-man’s land that protected me like a shield. For there seemed to be something dark in the Savior along with the light, and I didn’t know if any man could contain that power.
But there was no question of disobeying. Within the hour, Lovebug and I were on one of the Church’s private jets flying to the town of Frost Hollow.
***
The gently rolling hills of Frost Hollow loomed below us as the plane circled the small dirt airstrip in the middle of some cow farms. I looked up at Lovebug, trying to judge his stony expression. He had done many years in prison before joining the Church and finding salvation, even being the leader of one of the gangs. I knew he wasn’t afraid of violence. He had never told me what he did, what tortured him so much.
The Savior had told us much secret knowledge- how to find a Titan, a massive, bloated abomination that could come into being only within an anomaly, a combination of many rotted body pieces fused together in some sort of hellish black magic. The Savior had spies around Frost Hollow and the surrounding towns who had been monitoring the anomaly, watching the unstable gateways leading in and out and mapping them as best they could. We would be given a fast car, plenty of weapons and some body armor. I had no idea how nightmarish the journey would become, however.
“I’m driving,” Lovebug said as we descended the steps. A man in a black suit with the symbol of the eye and tentacles pinned on his black button-up shirt pulled up with a Mercedes AMG-One. It was a sleek, silver thing of immense luxury and power. The craftsmanship made it look like a work of art. I sighed, keeping my finger nervously on the trigger of my rifle as I glanced around the strange, empty town.
“If this thing won’t outrun a Titan, then nothing will,” I said, trying to break the tension. I looked at the speedometer, seeing it went up to 220 miles an hour.
“Damn fucking right,” Lovebug growled as we slid into the futuristic-looking leather seats. The engine turned on like a softly purring kitten. The GPS automatically turned on as well, the soft robotic voice leading us toward one of the more stable portals to the anomaly.
Lovebug sped down the empty forest roads of Frost Hollow, going twice the legal speed limit the entire way.
“The speed limit is only for the lowest common denominator,” Lovebug said pedantically, waggling a tattooed finger for emphasis. The GPS said we would reach the gateway to the anomaly in five minutes. Based on Lovebug’s speed, I thought it would be more like two. “Someone who actually knows how to drive and isn’t drunk or high can easily do 80 in a 40. Easily.” I glanced nervously at the speedometer, realizing he was going over 100 miles an hour now. The sports car hugged the tight corners of the winding forest roads with absolute precision.
“Turn right onto Snake Island Road Extension in five hundred feet,” the robotic female voice. Lovebug slammed on the brakes a few seconds later, the tires skidding and locking up. We looked around frantically, seeing no streets anywhere except the one we were on.
“What the hell?” Lovebug asked. The night was crawling in by now, the darkness covering the forests like a curtain. I squinted, looking at the thick grove of trees on our right, scanning it back and forth over and over. After a few seconds, I realized there was an overgrown dirt path there with no sign. It was nearly impossible to see at night, however, and calling it a road was somewhat of a joke.
“Oh, damn,” I said. “They should’ve given us an SUV.”
***
According to the GPS, our destination was only a thousand feet down Snake Island Road Extension. The low clearance of the Mercedes was a problem as Lovebug tried to navigate the flooded forest path. Deep tread marks flooded with black, stagnant water marked the entirety of Snake Island Road Extension. But ahead, the headlights illuminated something unusual.
Cutting straight across the trees and brush like a razorblade was a shimmering wall of translucent energy. It reminded me of a mirage, curving upwards in wavy spiral patterns. I could see through it easily, but it gave everything a dark, sinister covering. The forest seemed to be in constant motion as the grayish light distorted it.
“Look how huge it is!” I said in awe, staring up at the starry sky. The flat wall rose up seemingly forever, disappearing in the cold void of infinite space. Lovebug slowly ambled the car towards the anomaly, trying to keep the Mercedes from getting stuck with its low clearance.
“You ready for this, man?” Lovebug asked in a quavering voice as we inched towards the anomaly. It was only seconds away now. He grabbed my shoulder. “This is it. Remember the commandments.” I closed my eyes, concentrating my heart on the Savior’s words. Dying for the good is the highest bliss, he had told us.
“Let’s do this,” I said, my eyes flying open from my silent prayer as the hood passed through the anomaly. It disappeared in front of our eyes. We could see the forest on the other side, but the Mercedes looked like it was going through some sort of teleportation portal, being ripped apart layer by layer and sent somewhere else. Lovebug nervously grabbed my hand.
“For the Savior and for the Good,” he whispered as we passed through.
***
I heard screaming and wailing, full of agony and unimaginable horror, like the screams of those burning in Hell. My vision went white. A carpet of morphing dark colors covered everything as the shrieking intensified, until I thought my eardrums would explode.
“Stop!” I cried, feeling the pressure in my head like a splitting migraine. “Stop screaming!” I started kicking, punching, trying to get away.
“Calm the fuck down!” someone whispered, slapping me hard across the face. Stunned, I looked up, seeing Lovebug holding me down in the seat. He was covered in sweat, his face a blank mask of terror. “Don’t scream. There’s things outside that are looking this way.” I blinked fast, my senses coming back to me. I felt like a man waking up from surgery, confused and disoriented, my memories only returning in small trickles and drops.
We were sitting in the Mercedes on a road that looked like it had been made of human skin. The headlights showed the ragged patches of pale, leathery flesh sewn together with black thread. The road disappeared ahead of us in a straight line. The land here looked as flat as Kansas. Like a mirror world, it had houses and restaurants and churches lining both sides of the road, but they were all wrong.
The stone church looked like it was constructed of some kind of red volcanic rock. Baphomets and upside-down pentagrams covered the outer walls, engraved deeply into the glossy surface. Mutilated bodies covered the front lawn, impaled, crucified, skinned alive or burned at the stake. Hundreds of men, women and children lay dead in front of the Satanic temple.
Overhead, the sky bubbled and frothed with red clouds and constant explosions of blue lightning. Like missile flashes, the lightning illuminated the world around us, shining brightly before going dark. The incessant strobing gave the entire place a kind of circus freakshow vibe.
Many of the homes looked like they had been constructed from bones and covered in human skin, like some sort of hellish teepee. Arm and leg bones wrapped in razor-wire formed the pillars. Grinning skulls lined the top of the flat, rectangular roofs, thousands of bleached human heads staring down.
Staring out of the dark doorways, I saw gleaming, silvery eyes. They loomed eight or nine feet in the air on spidery bodies. Their limbs looked as thin as bones, jet-black and dull. The only color from these still revenants was from their unblinking eyes and grinning mouths, where teeth like those of a dragonfish jutted out. Every pair of eyes on that street was fixed intently on the Mercedes, the sick rictus grins on their alien faces never faltering.
“Jesus Christ, I’m sorry,” I whispered, feeling weak. “I thought I was in a nightmare for a minute there.” Lovebug shrugged his massive shoulders.
“Yeah, I felt it too, though I came out of it a lot faster than you did,” he said, glancing over at the Satanic church as we passed. It had protective black spikes rising high into the air all around it. The broken body of a child who had been burnt at the stake stood in front of the gates like a death omen, his small, withered hand holding a black rose. Lovebug choked, retching. He nearly rolled down the window, until his eyes met the silvery ones of a nearby abomination.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, looking closer at the church. On top of the roof, I saw an enormous statue of a black raven, its wings spread as if it were flying. It had three gleaming, silvery eyes embedded into the dark rock.
“That boy just reminds me of my son,” Lovebug whispered glumly, inching along the streets.
“I didn’t know you had a son,” I said, surprised. Lovebug had never mentioned a family. He shrugged.
“I don’t. Not anymore. I killed him. I got drunk and high one night back when I was selling drugs. Fell asleep in the living room with a lit cigarette and burned down the whole house. I killed my wife and son, burned them. They sent me to prison, but what did that matter? The prison up here is far worse.” He tapped the side of his temple.
I was about to say something, but at that moment, many things happened at once.
***
Lovebug was staring at the corpse of the child when an inhumanly long arm reached up from the side of the car. It had fingers like spikes, as sharp as a knife and twice as long as normal human fingers. I gasped, a warning shout welling up in my throat, but the hand came smashing down into the driver’s side window and grabbed Lovebug’s neck.
The window exploded in a shower of safety glass, shattering like brittle bones. Lovebug’s scream was cut off as he was dragged, kicking and screaming, out of the car. I swung open my door, leaping out and bringing my rifle around.
The Cheshire Cat grin of the abomination never faltered as it held Lovebug in front of its body like a human shield, holding him by the neck above the ground. Lovebug’s legs kicked and squirmed, his face turning blue as he slowly suffocated. His eyes bulged from their sockets, panicked and rolling, uncomprehending in their total animal panic.
I flicked on the laser sight. It danced over the ground, flashing over the body of Lovebug and the abomination. But I couldn’t aim for its torso or face, as I would probably hit Lovebug in the process. It was far too close.
I aimed for the monster’s thin, skeletal feet, the black toes twisting over each other like the roots of a tree. The gunshots rang out as a deafening counterpoint to the thunder blasts.
The monster gave a hissing gurgle as two bullets caught it in the right ankle. The creature seemed bloodless, and only dust and ashes rolled out of the exploded insectile flesh. It tried to skitter away, but its destroyed ankle caused it to fall forward, throwing Lovebug.
His body rolled across the road, the soft leather that looked like it was made from tens of thousands of human skins. Gasping, his lips still showing a faint blue cast, he struggled to crawl away.
I saw furtive movement from all around us. The creatures in the houses and doorways were moving forwards, drawn by the bloodshed or noise. Hundreds of glowing, silvery eyes surrounded us. I sprinted forward, dragging Lovebug to his feet.
“The church,” I hissed. “It’s the only place.” Still pulling the weak, confused Lovebug behind me, we staggered towards the black gates. They opened with a shriek of rusted metal.
***
The creatures stopped at the gates to the blood-red church, simply staring at us like statues. They didn’t even seem to breathe, their lidless eyes never blinking, the silvery glow never fading.
“I think this is the place we’re meant to go,” I whispered as we made our way towards the massive pointed doors. “When God spoke to us, he said something about a stone, a bird and a rose, that we would find the Titan through that.” I pointed back at the burnt body of the boy. “He’s holding a rose. On top of the building, there’s a bird. And the church is all stone. Maybe this is the place where God wanted us to go all along.”
“Maybe,” Lovebug muttered through heaving gasps, still grabbing at his bruised neck. “God, this hurts. It feels like I got hanged.” Side by side, we pushed open the doors to the Satanic church and walked inside.
***
Row after row of pews stretched out in front of us. Thousands of black candles were set up all around the perimeter of the enormous chamber. They sputtered and flickered constantly, throwing dancing shadows in every direction.
A small pair of bright eyes glanced up at us from under one of the nearby pews. I nearly jumped out of my skin, pointing the rifle at them and yelling.
“Show yourself! Come out now, or I shoot!” Lovebug looked at me, confused. He hadn’t seen it. But a few heartbeats later, a little girl crawled out, her eyes big and blue, her body an emaciated wreck. She wore ripped strands of what looked like leathery human skin to cover herself, tied together with black string. In one small, grime-streaked hand, she held a half-eaten raw mouse.
“Please, don’t kill me,” she said in a small voice. “I’m Emma. My mommy and daddy got dragged away and I’m scared.” I felt sick and weak looking at this small victim. I reached down and helped her up.
“I wouldn’t hurt you,” I said, kneeling down to her level. “I thought you were one of the bad guys. This is Lovebug, and I’m Jack.”
“This isn’t part of the mission, man,” Lovebug said nervously. “What are we supposed to do with her?”
“Well, we can’t just fucking leave her here,” I whispered back. “We need…” But I never got to finish that thought. Because, at that moment, the church woke up.
***
A red glow started at the front of the chamber, the altar where the priest would have stood and given speeches or holy communion. Here, they had a podium that looked like it was carved from a single block of obsidian. Reflected in it, I saw the screaming faces of people burning in Hell, grinning demons ripping off strips of human flesh and spiraling waves of flames, all sculpted by an artist who was able to capture the most miniscule details of agony and torture.
I looked around, realizing Emma had gone. I hadn’t seen her scurry away and hide, but her absence gave me a feeling of crushing dread in my chest.
“Lovebug, something’s wrong,” I whispered, still staring up at the altar. I heard a floorboard creak behind me. I glanced back just in time to see a man wearing full SWAT gear. I caught the flash of a pistol coming down, the butt aimed at my forehead. I heard the cracking, felt the immense pressure and pain. For a few moments, I swam in the currents of consciousness, trying to stay awake, but then the blackness crept in and stole me away.
***
I awoke suddenly, my hands tied so tightly behind my back that I couldn’t feel my fingers. I felt sick and wanted to throw up. I quickly choked those feelings back down. I tried to shake my head, to clear it, but that just brought jolts of pain like electricity shooting through my skull. Nearby, I heard a gunshot, then another.
“Bring it, fuckers!” Lovebug screamed in an insane voice. The explosion of a grenade rocked the building, and I smelled choking black smoke. I opened my eyes, seeing three men in SWAT gear laying dead, their bodies scattered haphazardly around the chaotic scene. One wall of the church had blown outwards, the stone still sending out gray wisps of wavy smoke into the air. I looked at my partner, seeing he had a bullet hole in his left arm and another one in his stomach. He was bleeding heavily, but the adrenaline and insanity seemed to keep him afloat- for now, at least.
I saw something walking towards us from the stage. It looked like a small boy, but black shadows spiraled up around his chest and face, translucent and shimmering darkly. He looked about five or six, his skin pale and smooth. As Lovebug’s face grew slack and distant, the boy abruptly erupted into flames.
“Don’t kill me again, Dad,” the small boy whispered in a hoarse voice choked with pain. The flames rose from his head and skin, melting his flesh, blackening it. Drops of boiling fat dribbled off his nose and chin. “Don’t send me to the dark place again, Dad…” He continued creeping closer to Lovebug, moving like a lion stalking an antelope.
“I didn’t know!” Lovebug cried, his face going paler. Tears streamed from his eyes as the rifle trembled wildly in his shaking hands. For a long moment, he looked torn, the finger tightening on the trigger as sobs escaped his chattering lips.
“Kill it, Lovebug!” I screamed. “Don’t let it get to you!” But as he dropped the rifle and knelt before the small boy, I knew it was too late.
The shadows spun faster and faster around the burning, dying body of the boy. He gave a scream of soul-shattering agony, reaching out to a small hand towards Lovebug.
“Help me!” the boy cried. Lovebug hesitated before bringing an arm up to take the boy’s hand.
“I missed you, Robbie,” Lovebug said before his fingers brushed the boys. The boy lunged forward, grabbing Lovebug’s hand with an iron grip. I saw Lovebug’s eyes widen in shock and surprise. A moment later, I heard the bones in his hand grinding together before breaking with a sound like snapping tree branches. The boy’s eyes darkened into jet-black orbs, the melted lips splitting into a sadistic grin.
“I missed you, too,” the thing hissed as its right arm changed, melting and reforming into something black and blade-like. The insectile limb swung forward in a blur, coming straight at Lovebug’s heart. He gave a panicked squeal a moment before it hit, trying to pull away with all of his considerable strength, his face turning chalk-white as the shattered bones in his hands ground together.
I closed my eyes, rolling away, trying to undo the knots that held my hands in place. Lovebug must have been greatly outnumbered. He would never have let that man tie me up. I heard the sounds of tearing meat and crunching bone nearby. Lovebug’s final breaths gurgled through the air, but I still kept my eyes closed, not wanting to look.
I felt a small tickle on my wrists, then heard a little voice next to my ear.
“I’ll get you out of here,” Emma whispered. I waited a few moments, then I heard the ropes snap. I looked back, seeing her holding a piece of sharp, broken glass in one tiny hand. In her other, she had the car keys. I wondered how she had gotten them, the little pickpocket.
“Thank God,” I said, rubbing my wrists. I looked around for my rifle, seeing it was laying next to the body of one of the SWAT guys. I wondered who these men were. I crawled towards it slowly, not wanting to draw attention.
“Don’t move another step,” a voice growled behind me. I glanced back, seeing the small boy, his features morphing into those of a demon. Curving horns spiraled from his temples. His jet-black eyes stared down at me with hatred and coldness. “You’ll follow your friend who killed my servants. His soul will stay alive forever within my body, a sickly thing wrapped up in an eternal shriek.”
“Fuck you,” I cried, lunging for my rifle. Emma disappeared behind a pew, running on all fours without looking back. I spun as I hit the ground, turning the barrel towards the morphing face of the shape-shifter. Its jaw unhinged, a snake-like tongue flicking out as it flew through the air towards me. Hollow fangs dripping clear venom grew from its mouth in a heartbeat, elongating and sharpening before my very eyes.
I fired twice, the bullets entering through its mouth and coming out the back of its head. Its flesh disintegrated in an instant, the body turning into light, gray ashes that disappeared in the breeze. Breathing hard, I waited, wondering if it was all over.
I heard a rumbling far below me, as if an earthquake were starting. A moment later, the church floor exploded upwards, sharp rubble and splintered boards flying in every direction.
***
“It’s coming!” Emma screamed, running over and grabbing my hand. I lay there, shell-shocked and unmoving for a long moment. In hindsight, the girl was a natural born survivor with much sharper reflexes than me. It was likely the only reason she survived as long as she had.
“The Titan,” I whispered grimly, trying to pull myself up to my feet. But it was like trying to walk on a heaving, sinking ship. Parts of the floor collapsed down into a seemingly never-ending abyss beneath us.
Near the stage, I saw hundreds of long, pale arms pulling something bloated and monstrous out of the ground. It was a Titan, and no explanation can ever convey the true horror of that thing.
It looked like countless human corpses had been melted together, fused into a ball with sagging, boneless chests, deformed faces and millions of writhing maggots. It groaned and gurgled with many lungs, exhaling a rotting, sulfurous breeze that made me want to retch. A soft susurration of many pained, muttering voices continuously emanated from the Titan.
“Emma, run!” I screamed, but she was already sprinting back towards the front door of the church. I backpedaled, afraid to look away from the creeping monstrosity, the juggernaut of rotting flesh moving towards us.
I heard the Titan closing the distance as I sprinted through the front door. The abominations with the silver eyes still slunk around the gate, blocking the car. I raised the rifle, firing blindly at the creatures, careful not to hit the little girl.
“Go to the car!” I screamed at Emma, feeling around for the keys. As the abominations saw the Titan, those still alive scattered, moving in a blur back into the shadows and homes of this rotten place.
The Titan broke the front wall of the church, sending splinters of red stone flying in every direction like bullets. It groaned and gurgled faster, its sickly cries more insistent. I ran to the Mercedes, starting it up and pressing the accelerator to the floor. I pulled a U-turn, heading back to the border of the anomaly.
***
The engine roared, the car bucking like a wild stallion as it pressed me and Emma back into our seats. But the creeping Titan continued gaining speed behind us, and for a few seconds, I feared we would be crushed to death under its massive weight.
The anomaly shimmered ahead of us. I crashed through it at two hundred miles an hour, skidding wildly as the Mercedes hit the dirt road. I nearly flew into a tree. I managed to right it at the last second, pulling onto the paved street as the Titan broke through behind us.
It followed us out. It’s in the real world now.

“Before I met the Savior, I was a worthless piece of garbage, barely a human being,” Lovebug droned at the front of the enormous room. Lovebug was a monster of a man, two-hundred and fifty pounds of hard tattooed muscle. Like myself, he was a high-ranking member of the Church.
His flat gray eyes scanned the room with a fanatical gleam. I sat in the first row, watching and waiting. Followers of the Savior would tell their stories, how the Savior had reached down and lifted them out of sin and filth to bring them up to the divine. The bright fluorescent lights overhead droned on with a low hum. Thousands of men crammed together in seats or stood at the back of the room.
The Savior taught only two commandments: to murder is holy, and to die for the Savior is the highest bliss. An army of warriors followed the Savior, knights on a holy crusade, priests who wouldn’t hesitate to burn the foul bodies of any witches or demons we encountered. I thought of myself as a knight for the holy king, our Savior, the mouthpiece of the eternal.
“Now, it is like the hand of God has reached into my heart and loosened all the knots there, the knots of anxiety and fear and uncertainty.” He raised his black, military-style rifle into the air for emphasis. “I never realized the true nature of reality before- the fact that we are living in a simulation where the final battle of good versus evil is playing out before our very eyes. And I will be on the side of the good, until my dying breath. I will be on the side of the Savior and of God!”
The crowd roared and clapped. Men got to their feet, sweating heavily in the boiling hot conference room. I felt the surge of energy pass through me like a tidal wave, the pure confidence and iron will of truth. Lovebug lumbered down off the stage as the Savior came out from behind the red curtains, walking with the straight spine of a soldier. He wore a silky black robe that fluttered softly around him, the hood pulled back.
The Savior had horrific burns running the length of his body. His arms had melted folds of keloid scars visible all the way to the tips of his fingers. His scalp had also melted, and the Savior had no hair except for his eyelashes and eyebrows. But the fire that had nearly killed him had spared his face, an aristocratic visage with ferocious green eyes like those of a cat. That face seemed like it had been sculpted out of marble by DaVinci himself, the high cheekbones jutting out over a chin so sharp that it looked like it could have hammered nails into boards. He stared out at the crowd for a long moment, his gaze unblinking.
“The final battle has begun,” he said in a low voice, no more than a whisper. Yet, in the deathly silence of the hall, his words rang out loud and clear. “Those in charge of this illusory world know that we see them. We see them very well, how they hide behind the curtain. They control the world economy, the justice system. Every government, whether they call themselves communist, authoritarian or democratic, is no more than a puppet in their dancing fingers.
“When anyone tries to stand up and lead the masses of suffering people towards freedom from slavery, they are vilified by the mainstream media, brought up on false charges or killed, their bodies staged to look like a suicide. Look what they did to Jesus, and for what? For telling people to love God more than their rulers? And those who speak out today are also crucified, murdered in prisons or killed by their governments. Truth is the most precious commodity, after all. It is one that can only be purchased with blood.
“So what can we do? How can we fight against such evil?” There was a quiet muttering among the pale, frozen faces that stared up at the stage with adoration and love.
“We can fight it by using their own weapons against them!” the Savior said, his voice rising in speed and pitch. He raised his fisted hands to his chest, accentuating each syllable with a back and forth stab of his hands. “Fight fire with fire, and pay back blood with blood! The only thing these global terrorists understand is greater levels of force. We must show them death on a scale they have never before imagined.” I felt nervous as the Savior delivered his message. I saw other men shuffle anxiously in the crowded auditorium, most of them having high-caliber rifles slung around their shoulders.
I felt the rising violence and bloodlust in the air like electricity before a lightning storm. At that moment, I knew we would all have to fight before too long.
***
The Savior called me and Lovebug back to his office after the speech had ended, sending his squirrely assistant over to deliver the hand-written note in the Savior’s blocky, copperplate handwriting. For a long moment, I simply watched the crowd filtering out of the doors, heading back towards the complex where all the holy soldiers of the Savior lived. Feeling dissociated and light-headed, I followed behind the massive muscular form of Lovebug, the heavy weight of the M16 bouncing against my chest. We pushed through the blood-red velvet curtains, winding our way past stage equipment and down a hallway of pure marble.
Mystical paintings similar to those of Alex Grey covered both walls, showing the inside workings of the human body through art. It was as if the painter had X-ray vision and could see the heart chakra and the countless thin vessels that spiderwebbed up to the crown. But, unlike Alex Grey’s hopeful depictions of mysticism, these showed men and women being burned alive, crucified, decapitated or strangled. Dark colors composed the paintings: the dark blue of a suffocating face, the clotted red of an infected stab wound, the black of death. They captured the essence of struggle perfectly.
The Savior’s office had a thick mahogany door with silver engravings of leaves and vines running the length of it. At the top stood a single staring eye with twelve wavy tentacles emerging from the perimeter of it- the symbol of God, who the Savior had seen personally. God would sometimes speak through the mouth of the Savior, always during times of great tribulation or suffering. Lovebug knocked at the door. The Savior’s deep voice echoed out faintly.
“Come in.”
We entered slowly, the sprawling desk of the Savior filling half of the room. He sat in a comfortable chair behind it, reclining. On the walls behind him, he had pictures of Jesus, Saint Stephen, Gandhi, Hitler, Jim Jones, Shoko Asahara and others who he taught had fought against the world elites and been killed for it.
The Church of the Final Rapture was not a church in the conventional sense. The main teachings didn’t revolve around the divinity of Christ or the nature of original sin. What the Savior taught was far more profound- an illusory or simulated world where every single person could become their own Christ, could awaken to the truth and perform miracles, but only if they believed fully and followed the Savior.
“Sit down, please,” he said in his gravelly voice. “I have a mission I would like to discuss, and you two are the only ones competent and loyal enough to carry it out.”
***
“There is another anomaly spreading,” the Savior said, staring between me and Lovebug with his fanatical emerald eyes. “It is located in a rural part of the United States, in a town called-” he glanced down at the sheet of paper in front of him- “Frost Hollow. Supposedly, there are black-ops sites located nearby, secret alphabet agencies experimenting with magnetic distortion systems and creating rips in the fabric of spacetime with micro-wormholes.
“I don’t think it is much of a leap to say that the anomaly was likely started, either intentionally or unintentionally, by the government, as part of their research. The Cleaners would like to control that power, after all. They have been sending their men after it for years like sheep to the slaughter, expending billions of dollars researching it. If they and the US government end up being able to control the creation and spread of anomalies, they will use it to enslave the world. There is no question about it in my mind.” He leaned forwards towards us, his eyes growing cold.
“There is only one path forward I can see. We need to spread the anomaly, make it become unstable so the demons of Hell contained within it can spill out onto the real world. Perhaps it will awaken the downtrodden masses enough to begin the final revolution. We must fight terrorism with greater terrorism, and violence with greater levels of violence. For this mission, I am sending the two of you into Frost Hollow.
“Your job will be to find the Titan or Titans and lead them out to the border of the anomaly. These are horrendous beasts- indeed, the Church has seen them before. They are nearly impossible to kill. I want you two to go inside, bait it and have it follow you back to the edge, beyond the veil.”
“What’s a Titan?” Lovebug asked, his eyes flicking left and right nervously. The Savior stared at him stonily for a long moment. Then his eyes rolled back in his head, showing only the whites. All the blood seemed to drain from his face. His teeth chattered, his mouth opened, and through it, God spoke, the words pouring out like crashing stones. The voice did not sound anything like the Savior’s. It sounded much deeper, more mechanical, more alien somehow.
“I see you very well. I saw you when you were no more than a blood clot in your mother’s body. I see you even as corpses, rotted, putrefying, crawling with scavengers and insects. I see everything, every moment of time. But, in the anomaly, there are things I cannot see. For this, my holy ones must go forth.
“In the center of Hell, you will find a rose, a bird and a stone. These will be your salvation, if salvation can be found at all. Go with the blessing of Yaldabaoth.” The voice cut off abruptly, the silence deafening. I could hear my own heart pounding in my ears.
The Savior’s eyes came back down, looking confused and uncertain. His pupils were dilated and he was sweating heavily, even though it was cool and air-conditioned back here in his private office. We stared at each other across the table, a no-man’s land that protected me like a shield. For there seemed to be something dark in the Savior along with the light, and I didn’t know if any man could contain that power.
But there was no question of disobeying. Within the hour, Lovebug and I were on one of the Church’s private jets flying to the town of Frost Hollow.
***
The gently rolling hills of Frost Hollow loomed below us as the plane circled the small dirt airstrip in the middle of some cow farms. I looked up at Lovebug, trying to judge his stony expression. He had done many years in prison before joining the Church and finding salvation, even being the leader of one of the gangs. I knew he wasn’t afraid of violence. He had never told me what he did, what tortured him so much.
The Savior had told us much secret knowledge- how to find a Titan, a massive, bloated abomination that could come into being only within an anomaly, a combination of many rotted body pieces fused together in some sort of hellish black magic. The Savior had spies around Frost Hollow and the surrounding towns who had been monitoring the anomaly, watching the unstable gateways leading in and out and mapping them as best they could. We would be given a fast car, plenty of weapons and some body armor. I had no idea how nightmarish the journey would become, however.
“I’m driving,” Lovebug said as we descended the steps. A man in a black suit with the symbol of the eye and tentacles pinned on his black button-up shirt pulled up with a Mercedes AMG-One. It was a sleek, silver thing of immense luxury and power. The craftsmanship made it look like a work of art. I sighed, keeping my finger nervously on the trigger of my rifle as I glanced around the strange, empty town.
“If this thing won’t outrun a Titan, then nothing will,” I said, trying to break the tension. I looked at the speedometer, seeing it went up to 220 miles an hour.
“Damn fucking right,” Lovebug growled as we slid into the futuristic-looking leather seats. The engine turned on like a softly purring kitten. The GPS automatically turned on as well, the soft robotic voice leading us toward one of the more stable portals to the anomaly.
Lovebug sped down the empty forest roads of Frost Hollow, going twice the legal speed limit the entire way.
“The speed limit is only for the lowest common denominator,” Lovebug said pedantically, waggling a tattooed finger for emphasis. The GPS said we would reach the gateway to the anomaly in five minutes. Based on Lovebug’s speed, I thought it would be more like two. “Someone who actually knows how to drive and isn’t drunk or high can easily do 80 in a 40. Easily.” I glanced nervously at the speedometer, realizing he was going over 100 miles an hour now. The sports car hugged the tight corners of the winding forest roads with absolute precision.
“Turn right onto Snake Island Road Extension in five hundred feet,” the robotic female voice. Lovebug slammed on the brakes a few seconds later, the tires skidding and locking up. We looked around frantically, seeing no streets anywhere except the one we were on.
“What the hell?” Lovebug asked. The night was crawling in by now, the darkness covering the forests like a curtain. I squinted, looking at the thick grove of trees on our right, scanning it back and forth over and over. After a few seconds, I realized there was an overgrown dirt path there with no sign. It was nearly impossible to see at night, however, and calling it a road was somewhat of a joke.
“Oh, damn,” I said. “They should’ve given us an SUV.”
***
According to the GPS, our destination was only a thousand feet down Snake Island Road Extension. The low clearance of the Mercedes was a problem as Lovebug tried to navigate the flooded forest path. Deep tread marks flooded with black, stagnant water marked the entirety of Snake Island Road Extension. But ahead, the headlights illuminated something unusual.
Cutting straight across the trees and brush like a razorblade was a shimmering wall of translucent energy. It reminded me of a mirage, curving upwards in wavy spiral patterns. I could see through it easily, but it gave everything a dark, sinister covering. The forest seemed to be in constant motion as the grayish light distorted it.
“Look how huge it is!” I said in awe, staring up at the starry sky. The flat wall rose up seemingly forever, disappearing in the cold void of infinite space. Lovebug slowly ambled the car towards the anomaly, trying to keep the Mercedes from getting stuck with its low clearance.
“You ready for this, man?” Lovebug asked in a quavering voice as we inched towards the anomaly. It was only seconds away now. He grabbed my shoulder. “This is it. Remember the commandments.” I closed my eyes, concentrating my heart on the Savior’s words. Dying for the good is the highest bliss, he had told us.
“Let’s do this,” I said, my eyes flying open from my silent prayer as the hood passed through the anomaly. It disappeared in front of our eyes. We could see the forest on the other side, but the Mercedes looked like it was going through some sort of teleportation portal, being ripped apart layer by layer and sent somewhere else. Lovebug nervously grabbed my hand.
“For the Savior and for the Good,” he whispered as we passed through.
***
I heard screaming and wailing, full of agony and unimaginable horror, like the screams of those burning in Hell. My vision went white. A carpet of morphing dark colors covered everything as the shrieking intensified, until I thought my eardrums would explode.
“Stop!” I cried, feeling the pressure in my head like a splitting migraine. “Stop screaming!” I started kicking, punching, trying to get away.
“Calm the fuck down!” someone whispered, slapping me hard across the face. Stunned, I looked up, seeing Lovebug holding me down in the seat. He was covered in sweat, his face a blank mask of terror. “Don’t scream. There’s things outside that are looking this way.” I blinked fast, my senses coming back to me. I felt like a man waking up from surgery, confused and disoriented, my memories only returning in small trickles and drops.
We were sitting in the Mercedes on a road that looked like it had been made of human skin. The headlights showed the ragged patches of pale, leathery flesh sewn together with black thread. The road disappeared ahead of us in a straight line. The land here looked as flat as Kansas. Like a mirror world, it had houses and restaurants and churches lining both sides of the road, but they were all wrong.
The stone church looked like it was constructed of some kind of red volcanic rock. Baphomets and upside-down pentagrams covered the outer walls, engraved deeply into the glossy surface. Mutilated bodies covered the front lawn, impaled, crucified, skinned alive or burned at the stake. Hundreds of men, women and children lay dead in front of the Satanic temple.
Overhead, the sky bubbled and frothed with red clouds and constant explosions of blue lightning. Like missile flashes, the lightning illuminated the world around us, shining brightly before going dark. The incessant strobing gave the entire place a kind of circus freakshow vibe.
Many of the homes looked like they had been constructed from bones and covered in human skin, like some sort of hellish teepee. Arm and leg bones wrapped in razor-wire formed the pillars. Grinning skulls lined the top of the flat, rectangular roofs, thousands of bleached human heads staring down.
Staring out of the dark doorways, I saw gleaming, silvery eyes. They loomed eight or nine feet in the air on spidery bodies. Their limbs looked as thin as bones, jet-black and dull. The only color from these still revenants was from their unblinking eyes and grinning mouths, where teeth like those of a dragonfish jutted out. Every pair of eyes on that street was fixed intently on the Mercedes, the sick rictus grins on their alien faces never faltering.
“Jesus Christ, I’m sorry,” I whispered, feeling weak. “I thought I was in a nightmare for a minute there.” Lovebug shrugged his massive shoulders.
“Yeah, I felt it too, though I came out of it a lot faster than you did,” he said, glancing over at the Satanic church as we passed. It had protective black spikes rising high into the air all around it. The broken body of a child who had been burnt at the stake stood in front of the gates like a death omen, his small, withered hand holding a black rose. Lovebug choked, retching. He nearly rolled down the window, until his eyes met the silvery ones of a nearby abomination.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, looking closer at the church. On top of the roof, I saw an enormous statue of a black raven, its wings spread as if it were flying. It had three gleaming, silvery eyes embedded into the dark rock.
“That boy just reminds me of my son,” Lovebug whispered glumly, inching along the streets.
“I didn’t know you had a son,” I said, surprised. Lovebug had never mentioned a family. He shrugged.
“I don’t. Not anymore. I killed him. I got drunk and high one night back when I was selling drugs. Fell asleep in the living room with a lit cigarette and burned down the whole house. I killed my wife and son, burned them. They sent me to prison, but what did that matter? The prison up here is far worse.” He tapped the side of his temple.
I was about to say something, but at that moment, many things happened at once.
***
Lovebug was staring at the corpse of the child when an inhumanly long arm reached up from the side of the car. It had fingers like spikes, as sharp as a knife and twice as long as normal human fingers. I gasped, a warning shout welling up in my throat, but the hand came smashing down into the driver’s side window and grabbed Lovebug’s neck.
The window exploded in a shower of safety glass, shattering like brittle bones. Lovebug’s scream was cut off as he was dragged, kicking and screaming, out of the car. I swung open my door, leaping out and bringing my rifle around.
The Cheshire Cat grin of the abomination never faltered as it held Lovebug in front of its body like a human shield, holding him by the neck above the ground. Lovebug’s legs kicked and squirmed, his face turning blue as he slowly suffocated. His eyes bulged from their sockets, panicked and rolling, uncomprehending in their total animal panic.
I flicked on the laser sight. It danced over the ground, flashing over the body of Lovebug and the abomination. But I couldn’t aim for its torso or face, as I would probably hit Lovebug in the process. It was far too close.
I aimed for the monster’s thin, skeletal feet, the black toes twisting over each other like the roots of a tree. The gunshots rang out as a deafening counterpoint to the thunder blasts.
The monster gave a hissing gurgle as two bullets caught it in the right ankle. The creature seemed bloodless, and only dust and ashes rolled out of the exploded insectile flesh. It tried to skitter away, but its destroyed ankle caused it to fall forward, throwing Lovebug.
His body rolled across the road, the soft leather that looked like it was made from tens of thousands of human skins. Gasping, his lips still showing a faint blue cast, he struggled to crawl away.
I saw furtive movement from all around us. The creatures in the houses and doorways were moving forwards, drawn by the bloodshed or noise. Hundreds of glowing, silvery eyes surrounded us. I sprinted forward, dragging Lovebug to his feet.
“The church,” I hissed. “It’s the only place.” Still pulling the weak, confused Lovebug behind me, we staggered towards the black gates. They opened with a shriek of rusted metal.
***
The creatures stopped at the gates to the blood-red church, simply staring at us like statues. They didn’t even seem to breathe, their lidless eyes never blinking, the silvery glow never fading.
“I think this is the place we’re meant to go,” I whispered as we made our way towards the massive pointed doors. “When God spoke to us, he said something about a stone, a bird and a rose, that we would find the Titan through that.” I pointed back at the burnt body of the boy. “He’s holding a rose. On top of the building, there’s a bird. And the church is all stone. Maybe this is the place where God wanted us to go all along.”
“Maybe,” Lovebug muttered through heaving gasps, still grabbing at his bruised neck. “God, this hurts. It feels like I got hanged.” Side by side, we pushed open the doors to the Satanic church and walked inside.
***
Row after row of pews stretched out in front of us. Thousands of black candles were set up all around the perimeter of the enormous chamber. They sputtered and flickered constantly, throwing dancing shadows in every direction.
A small pair of bright eyes glanced up at us from under one of the nearby pews. I nearly jumped out of my skin, pointing the rifle at them and yelling.
“Show yourself! Come out now, or I shoot!” Lovebug looked at me, confused. He hadn’t seen it. But a few heartbeats later, a little girl crawled out, her eyes big and blue, her body an emaciated wreck. She wore ripped strands of what looked like leathery human skin to cover herself, tied together with black string. In one small, grime-streaked hand, she held a half-eaten raw mouse.
“Please, don’t kill me,” she said in a small voice. “I’m Emma. My mommy and daddy got dragged away and I’m scared.” I felt sick and weak looking at this small victim. I reached down and helped her up.
“I wouldn’t hurt you,” I said, kneeling down to her level. “I thought you were one of the bad guys. This is Lovebug, and I’m Jack.”
“This isn’t part of the mission, man,” Lovebug said nervously. “What are we supposed to do with her?”
“Well, we can’t just fucking leave her here,” I whispered back. “We need…” But I never got to finish that thought. Because, at that moment, the church woke up.
***
A red glow started at the front of the chamber, the altar where the priest would have stood and given speeches or holy communion. Here, they had a podium that looked like it was carved from a single block of obsidian. Reflected in it, I saw the screaming faces of people burning in Hell, grinning demons ripping off strips of human flesh and spiraling waves of flames, all sculpted by an artist who was able to capture the most miniscule details of agony and torture.
I looked around, realizing Emma had gone. I hadn’t seen her scurry away and hide, but her absence gave me a feeling of crushing dread in my chest.
“Lovebug, something’s wrong,” I whispered, still staring up at the altar. I heard a floorboard creak behind me. I glanced back just in time to see a man wearing full SWAT gear. I caught the flash of a pistol coming down, the butt aimed at my forehead. I heard the cracking, felt the immense pressure and pain. For a few moments, I swam in the currents of consciousness, trying to stay awake, but then the blackness crept in and stole me away.
***
I awoke suddenly, my hands tied so tightly behind my back that I couldn’t feel my fingers. I felt sick and wanted to throw up. I quickly choked those feelings back down. I tried to shake my head, to clear it, but that just brought jolts of pain like electricity shooting through my skull. Nearby, I heard a gunshot, then another.
“Bring it, fuckers!” Lovebug screamed in an insane voice. The explosion of a grenade rocked the building, and I smelled choking black smoke. I opened my eyes, seeing three men in SWAT gear laying dead, their bodies scattered haphazardly around the chaotic scene. One wall of the church had blown outwards, the stone still sending out gray wisps of wavy smoke into the air. I looked at my partner, seeing he had a bullet hole in his left arm and another one in his stomach. He was bleeding heavily, but the adrenaline and insanity seemed to keep him afloat- for now, at least.
I saw something walking towards us from the stage. It looked like a small boy, but black shadows spiraled up around his chest and face, translucent and shimmering darkly. He looked about five or six, his skin pale and smooth. As Lovebug’s face grew slack and distant, the boy abruptly erupted into flames.
“Don’t kill me again, Dad,” the small boy whispered in a hoarse voice choked with pain. The flames rose from his head and skin, melting his flesh, blackening it. Drops of boiling fat dribbled off his nose and chin. “Don’t send me to the dark place again, Dad…” He continued creeping closer to Lovebug, moving like a lion stalking an antelope.
“I didn’t know!” Lovebug cried, his face going paler. Tears streamed from his eyes as the rifle trembled wildly in his shaking hands. For a long moment, he looked torn, the finger tightening on the trigger as sobs escaped his chattering lips.
“Kill it, Lovebug!” I screamed. “Don’t let it get to you!” But as he dropped the rifle and knelt before the small boy, I knew it was too late.
The shadows spun faster and faster around the burning, dying body of the boy. He gave a scream of soul-shattering agony, reaching out to a small hand towards Lovebug.
“Help me!” the boy cried. Lovebug hesitated before bringing an arm up to take the boy’s hand.
“I missed you, Robbie,” Lovebug said before his fingers brushed the boys. The boy lunged forward, grabbing Lovebug’s hand with an iron grip. I saw Lovebug’s eyes widen in shock and surprise. A moment later, I heard the bones in his hand grinding together before breaking with a sound like snapping tree branches. The boy’s eyes darkened into jet-black orbs, the melted lips splitting into a sadistic grin.
“I missed you, too,” the thing hissed as its right arm changed, melting and reforming into something black and blade-like. The insectile limb swung forward in a blur, coming straight at Lovebug’s heart. He gave a panicked squeal a moment before it hit, trying to pull away with all of his considerable strength, his face turning chalk-white as the shattered bones in his hands ground together.
I closed my eyes, rolling away, trying to undo the knots that held my hands in place. Lovebug must have been greatly outnumbered. He would never have let that man tie me up. I heard the sounds of tearing meat and crunching bone nearby. Lovebug’s final breaths gurgled through the air, but I still kept my eyes closed, not wanting to look.
I felt a small tickle on my wrists, then heard a little voice next to my ear.
“I’ll get you out of here,” Emma whispered. I waited a few moments, then I heard the ropes snap. I looked back, seeing her holding a piece of sharp, broken glass in one tiny hand. In her other, she had the car keys. I wondered how she had gotten them, the little pickpocket.
“Thank God,” I said, rubbing my wrists. I looked around for my rifle, seeing it was laying next to the body of one of the SWAT guys. I wondered who these men were. I crawled towards it slowly, not wanting to draw attention.
“Don’t move another step,” a voice growled behind me. I glanced back, seeing the small boy, his features morphing into those of a demon. Curving horns spiraled from his temples. His jet-black eyes stared down at me with hatred and coldness. “You’ll follow your friend who killed my servants. His soul will stay alive forever within my body, a sickly thing wrapped up in an eternal shriek.”
“Fuck you,” I cried, lunging for my rifle. Emma disappeared behind a pew, running on all fours without looking back. I spun as I hit the ground, turning the barrel towards the morphing face of the shape-shifter. Its jaw unhinged, a snake-like tongue flicking out as it flew through the air towards me. Hollow fangs dripping clear venom grew from its mouth in a heartbeat, elongating and sharpening before my very eyes.
I fired twice, the bullets entering through its mouth and coming out the back of its head. Its flesh disintegrated in an instant, the body turning into light, gray ashes that disappeared in the breeze. Breathing hard, I waited, wondering if it was all over.
I heard a rumbling far below me, as if an earthquake were starting. A moment later, the church floor exploded upwards, sharp rubble and splintered boards flying in every direction.
***
“It’s coming!” Emma screamed, running over and grabbing my hand. I lay there, shell-shocked and unmoving for a long moment. In hindsight, the girl was a natural born survivor with much sharper reflexes than me. It was likely the only reason she survived as long as she had.
“The Titan,” I whispered grimly, trying to pull myself up to my feet. But it was like trying to walk on a heaving, sinking ship. Parts of the floor collapsed down into a seemingly never-ending abyss beneath us.
Near the stage, I saw hundreds of long, pale arms pulling something bloated and monstrous out of the ground. It was a Titan, and no explanation can ever convey the true horror of that thing.
It looked like countless human corpses had been melted together, fused into a ball with sagging, boneless chests, deformed faces and millions of writhing maggots. It groaned and gurgled with many lungs, exhaling a rotting, sulfurous breeze that made me want to retch. A soft susurration of many pained, muttering voices continuously emanated from the Titan.
“Emma, run!” I screamed, but she was already sprinting back towards the front door of the church. I backpedaled, afraid to look away from the creeping monstrosity, the juggernaut of rotting flesh moving towards us.
I heard the Titan closing the distance as I sprinted through the front door. The abominations with the silver eyes still slunk around the gate, blocking the car. I raised the rifle, firing blindly at the creatures, careful not to hit the little girl.
“Go to the car!” I screamed at Emma, feeling around for the keys. As the abominations saw the Titan, those still alive scattered, moving in a blur back into the shadows and homes of this rotten place.
The Titan broke the front wall of the church, sending splinters of red stone flying in every direction like bullets. It groaned and gurgled faster, its sickly cries more insistent. I ran to the Mercedes, starting it up and pressing the accelerator to the floor. I pulled a U-turn, heading back to the border of the anomaly.
***
The engine roared, the car bucking like a wild stallion as it pressed me and Emma back into our seats. But the creeping Titan continued gaining speed behind us, and for a few seconds, I feared we would be crushed to death under its massive weight.
The anomaly shimmered ahead of us. I crashed through it at two hundred miles an hour, skidding wildly as the Mercedes hit the dirt road. I nearly flew into a tree. I managed to right it at the last second, pulling onto the paved street as the Titan broke through behind us.
It followed us out. It’s in the real world now.

“Before I met the Savior, I was a worthless piece of garbage, barely a human being,” Lovebug droned at the front of the enormous room. Lovebug was a monster of a man, two-hundred and fifty pounds of hard tattooed muscle. Like myself, he was a high-ranking member of the Church.
His flat gray eyes scanned the room with a fanatical gleam. I sat in the first row, watching and waiting. Followers of the Savior would tell their stories, how the Savior had reached down and lifted them out of sin and filth to bring them up to the divine. The bright fluorescent lights overhead droned on with a low hum. Thousands of men crammed together in seats or stood at the back of the room.
The Savior taught only two commandments: to murder is holy, and to die for the Savior is the highest bliss. An army of warriors followed the Savior, knights on a holy crusade, priests who wouldn’t hesitate to burn the foul bodies of any witches or demons we encountered. I thought of myself as a knight for the holy king, our Savior, the mouthpiece of the eternal.
“Now, it is like the hand of God has reached into my heart and loosened all the knots there, the knots of anxiety and fear and uncertainty.” He raised his black, military-style rifle into the air for emphasis. “I never realized the true nature of reality before- the fact that we are living in a simulation where the final battle of good versus evil is playing out before our very eyes. And I will be on the side of the good, until my dying breath. I will be on the side of the Savior and of God!”
The crowd roared and clapped. Men got to their feet, sweating heavily in the boiling hot conference room. I felt the surge of energy pass through me like a tidal wave, the pure confidence and iron will of truth. Lovebug lumbered down off the stage as the Savior came out from behind the red curtains, walking with the straight spine of a soldier. He wore a silky black robe that fluttered softly around him, the hood pulled back.
The Savior had horrific burns running the length of his body. His arms had melted folds of keloid scars visible all the way to the tips of his fingers. His scalp had also melted, and the Savior had no hair except for his eyelashes and eyebrows. But the fire that had nearly killed him had spared his face, an aristocratic visage with ferocious green eyes like those of a cat. That face seemed like it had been sculpted out of marble by DaVinci himself, the high cheekbones jutting out over a chin so sharp that it looked like it could have hammered nails into boards. He stared out at the crowd for a long moment, his gaze unblinking.
“The final battle has begun,” he said in a low voice, no more than a whisper. Yet, in the deathly silence of the hall, his words rang out loud and clear. “Those in charge of this illusory world know that we see them. We see them very well, how they hide behind the curtain. They control the world economy, the justice system. Every government, whether they call themselves communist, authoritarian or democratic, is no more than a puppet in their dancing fingers.
“When anyone tries to stand up and lead the masses of suffering people towards freedom from slavery, they are vilified by the mainstream media, brought up on false charges or killed, their bodies staged to look like a suicide. Look what they did to Jesus, and for what? For telling people to love God more than their rulers? And those who speak out today are also crucified, murdered in prisons or killed by their governments. Truth is the most precious commodity, after all. It is one that can only be purchased with blood.
“So what can we do? How can we fight against such evil?” There was a quiet muttering among the pale, frozen faces that stared up at the stage with adoration and love.
“We can fight it by using their own weapons against them!” the Savior said, his voice rising in speed and pitch. He raised his fisted hands to his chest, accentuating each syllable with a back and forth stab of his hands. “Fight fire with fire, and pay back blood with blood! The only thing these global terrorists understand is greater levels of force. We must show them death on a scale they have never before imagined.” I felt nervous as the Savior delivered his message. I saw other men shuffle anxiously in the crowded auditorium, most of them having high-caliber rifles slung around their shoulders.
I felt the rising violence and bloodlust in the air like electricity before a lightning storm. At that moment, I knew we would all have to fight before too long.
***
The Savior called me and Lovebug back to his office after the speech had ended, sending his squirrely assistant over to deliver the hand-written note in the Savior’s blocky, copperplate handwriting. For a long moment, I simply watched the crowd filtering out of the doors, heading back towards the complex where all the holy soldiers of the Savior lived. Feeling dissociated and light-headed, I followed behind the massive muscular form of Lovebug, the heavy weight of the M16 bouncing against my chest. We pushed through the blood-red velvet curtains, winding our way past stage equipment and down a hallway of pure marble.
Mystical paintings similar to those of Alex Grey covered both walls, showing the inside workings of the human body through art. It was as if the painter had X-ray vision and could see the heart chakra and the countless thin vessels that spiderwebbed up to the crown. But, unlike Alex Grey’s hopeful depictions of mysticism, these showed men and women being burned alive, crucified, decapitated or strangled. Dark colors composed the paintings: the dark blue of a suffocating face, the clotted red of an infected stab wound, the black of death. They captured the essence of struggle perfectly.
The Savior’s office had a thick mahogany door with silver engravings of leaves and vines running the length of it. At the top stood a single staring eye with twelve wavy tentacles emerging from the perimeter of it- the symbol of God, who the Savior had seen personally. God would sometimes speak through the mouth of the Savior, always during times of great tribulation or suffering. Lovebug knocked at the door. The Savior’s deep voice echoed out faintly.
“Come in.”
We entered slowly, the sprawling desk of the Savior filling half of the room. He sat in a comfortable chair behind it, reclining. On the walls behind him, he had pictures of Jesus, Saint Stephen, Gandhi, Hitler, Jim Jones, Shoko Asahara and others who he taught had fought against the world elites and been killed for it.
The Church of the Final Rapture was not a church in the conventional sense. The main teachings didn’t revolve around the divinity of Christ or the nature of original sin. What the Savior taught was far more profound- an illusory or simulated world where every single person could become their own Christ, could awaken to the truth and perform miracles, but only if they believed fully and followed the Savior.
“Sit down, please,” he said in his gravelly voice. “I have a mission I would like to discuss, and you two are the only ones competent and loyal enough to carry it out.”
***
“There is another anomaly spreading,” the Savior said, staring between me and Lovebug with his fanatical emerald eyes. “It is located in a rural part of the United States, in a town called-” he glanced down at the sheet of paper in front of him- “Frost Hollow. Supposedly, there are black-ops sites located nearby, secret alphabet agencies experimenting with magnetic distortion systems and creating rips in the fabric of spacetime with micro-wormholes.
“I don’t think it is much of a leap to say that the anomaly was likely started, either intentionally or unintentionally, by the government, as part of their research. The Cleaners would like to control that power, after all. They have been sending their men after it for years like sheep to the slaughter, expending billions of dollars researching it. If they and the US government end up being able to control the creation and spread of anomalies, they will use it to enslave the world. There is no question about it in my mind.” He leaned forwards towards us, his eyes growing cold.
“There is only one path forward I can see. We need to spread the anomaly, make it become unstable so the demons of Hell contained within it can spill out onto the real world. Perhaps it will awaken the downtrodden masses enough to begin the final revolution. We must fight terrorism with greater terrorism, and violence with greater levels of violence. For this mission, I am sending the two of you into Frost Hollow.
“Your job will be to find the Titan or Titans and lead them out to the border of the anomaly. These are horrendous beasts- indeed, the Church has seen them before. They are nearly impossible to kill. I want you two to go inside, bait it and have it follow you back to the edge, beyond the veil.”
“What’s a Titan?” Lovebug asked, his eyes flicking left and right nervously. The Savior stared at him stonily for a long moment. Then his eyes rolled back in his head, showing only the whites. All the blood seemed to drain from his face. His teeth chattered, his mouth opened, and through it, God spoke, the words pouring out like crashing stones. The voice did not sound anything like the Savior’s. It sounded much deeper, more mechanical, more alien somehow.
“I see you very well. I saw you when you were no more than a blood clot in your mother’s body. I see you even as corpses, rotted, putrefying, crawling with scavengers and insects. I see everything, every moment of time. But, in the anomaly, there are things I cannot see. For this, my holy ones must go forth.
“In the center of Hell, you will find a rose, a bird and a stone. These will be your salvation, if salvation can be found at all. Go with the blessing of Yaldabaoth.” The voice cut off abruptly, the silence deafening. I could hear my own heart pounding in my ears.
The Savior’s eyes came back down, looking confused and uncertain. His pupils were dilated and he was sweating heavily, even though it was cool and air-conditioned back here in his private office. We stared at each other across the table, a no-man’s land that protected me like a shield. For there seemed to be something dark in the Savior along with the light, and I didn’t know if any man could contain that power.
But there was no question of disobeying. Within the hour, Lovebug and I were on one of the Church’s private jets flying to the town of Frost Hollow.
***
The gently rolling hills of Frost Hollow loomed below us as the plane circled the small dirt airstrip in the middle of some cow farms. I looked up at Lovebug, trying to judge his stony expression. He had done many years in prison before joining the Church and finding salvation, even being the leader of one of the gangs. I knew he wasn’t afraid of violence. He had never told me what he did, what tortured him so much.
The Savior had told us much secret knowledge- how to find a Titan, a massive, bloated abomination that could come into being only within an anomaly, a combination of many rotted body pieces fused together in some sort of hellish black magic. The Savior had spies around Frost Hollow and the surrounding towns who had been monitoring the anomaly, watching the unstable gateways leading in and out and mapping them as best they could. We would be given a fast car, plenty of weapons and some body armor. I had no idea how nightmarish the journey would become, however.
“I’m driving,” Lovebug said as we descended the steps. A man in a black suit with the symbol of the eye and tentacles pinned on his black button-up shirt pulled up with a Mercedes AMG-One. It was a sleek, silver thing of immense luxury and power. The craftsmanship made it look like a work of art. I sighed, keeping my finger nervously on the trigger of my rifle as I glanced around the strange, empty town.
“If this thing won’t outrun a Titan, then nothing will,” I said, trying to break the tension. I looked at the speedometer, seeing it went up to 220 miles an hour.
“Damn fucking right,” Lovebug growled as we slid into the futuristic-looking leather seats. The engine turned on like a softly purring kitten. The GPS automatically turned on as well, the soft robotic voice leading us toward one of the more stable portals to the anomaly.
Lovebug sped down the empty forest roads of Frost Hollow, going twice the legal speed limit the entire way.
“The speed limit is only for the lowest common denominator,” Lovebug said pedantically, waggling a tattooed finger for emphasis. The GPS said we would reach the gateway to the anomaly in five minutes. Based on Lovebug’s speed, I thought it would be more like two. “Someone who actually knows how to drive and isn’t drunk or high can easily do 80 in a 40. Easily.” I glanced nervously at the speedometer, realizing he was going over 100 miles an hour now. The sports car hugged the tight corners of the winding forest roads with absolute precision.
“Turn right onto Snake Island Road Extension in five hundred feet,” the robotic female voice. Lovebug slammed on the brakes a few seconds later, the tires skidding and locking up. We looked around frantically, seeing no streets anywhere except the one we were on.
“What the hell?” Lovebug asked. The night was crawling in by now, the darkness covering the forests like a curtain. I squinted, looking at the thick grove of trees on our right, scanning it back and forth over and over. After a few seconds, I realized there was an overgrown dirt path there with no sign. It was nearly impossible to see at night, however, and calling it a road was somewhat of a joke.
“Oh, damn,” I said. “They should’ve given us an SUV.”
***
According to the GPS, our destination was only a thousand feet down Snake Island Road Extension. The low clearance of the Mercedes was a problem as Lovebug tried to navigate the flooded forest path. Deep tread marks flooded with black, stagnant water marked the entirety of Snake Island Road Extension. But ahead, the headlights illuminated something unusual.
Cutting straight across the trees and brush like a razorblade was a shimmering wall of translucent energy. It reminded me of a mirage, curving upwards in wavy spiral patterns. I could see through it easily, but it gave everything a dark, sinister covering. The forest seemed to be in constant motion as the grayish light distorted it.
“Look how huge it is!” I said in awe, staring up at the starry sky. The flat wall rose up seemingly forever, disappearing in the cold void of infinite space. Lovebug slowly ambled the car towards the anomaly, trying to keep the Mercedes from getting stuck with its low clearance.
“You ready for this, man?” Lovebug asked in a quavering voice as we inched towards the anomaly. It was only seconds away now. He grabbed my shoulder. “This is it. Remember the commandments.” I closed my eyes, concentrating my heart on the Savior’s words. Dying for the good is the highest bliss, he had told us.
“Let’s do this,” I said, my eyes flying open from my silent prayer as the hood passed through the anomaly. It disappeared in front of our eyes. We could see the forest on the other side, but the Mercedes looked like it was going through some sort of teleportation portal, being ripped apart layer by layer and sent somewhere else. Lovebug nervously grabbed my hand.
“For the Savior and for the Good,” he whispered as we passed through.
***
I heard screaming and wailing, full of agony and unimaginable horror, like the screams of those burning in Hell. My vision went white. A carpet of morphing dark colors covered everything as the shrieking intensified, until I thought my eardrums would explode.
“Stop!” I cried, feeling the pressure in my head like a splitting migraine. “Stop screaming!” I started kicking, punching, trying to get away.
“Calm the fuck down!” someone whispered, slapping me hard across the face. Stunned, I looked up, seeing Lovebug holding me down in the seat. He was covered in sweat, his face a blank mask of terror. “Don’t scream. There’s things outside that are looking this way.” I blinked fast, my senses coming back to me. I felt like a man waking up from surgery, confused and disoriented, my memories only returning in small trickles and drops.
We were sitting in the Mercedes on a road that looked like it had been made of human skin. The headlights showed the ragged patches of pale, leathery flesh sewn together with black thread. The road disappeared ahead of us in a straight line. The land here looked as flat as Kansas. Like a mirror world, it had houses and restaurants and churches lining both sides of the road, but they were all wrong.
The stone church looked like it was constructed of some kind of red volcanic rock. Baphomets and upside-down pentagrams covered the outer walls, engraved deeply into the glossy surface. Mutilated bodies covered the front lawn, impaled, crucified, skinned alive or burned at the stake. Hundreds of men, women and children lay dead in front of the Satanic temple.
Overhead, the sky bubbled and frothed with red clouds and constant explosions of blue lightning. Like missile flashes, the lightning illuminated the world around us, shining brightly before going dark. The incessant strobing gave the entire place a kind of circus freakshow vibe.
Many of the homes looked like they had been constructed from bones and covered in human skin, like some sort of hellish teepee. Arm and leg bones wrapped in razor-wire formed the pillars. Grinning skulls lined the top of the flat, rectangular roofs, thousands of bleached human heads staring down.
Staring out of the dark doorways, I saw gleaming, silvery eyes. They loomed eight or nine feet in the air on spidery bodies. Their limbs looked as thin as bones, jet-black and dull. The only color from these still revenants was from their unblinking eyes and grinning mouths, where teeth like those of a dragonfish jutted out. Every pair of eyes on that street was fixed intently on the Mercedes, the sick rictus grins on their alien faces never faltering.
“Jesus Christ, I’m sorry,” I whispered, feeling weak. “I thought I was in a nightmare for a minute there.” Lovebug shrugged his massive shoulders.
“Yeah, I felt it too, though I came out of it a lot faster than you did,” he said, glancing over at the Satanic church as we passed. It had protective black spikes rising high into the air all around it. The broken body of a child who had been burnt at the stake stood in front of the gates like a death omen, his small, withered hand holding a black rose. Lovebug choked, retching. He nearly rolled down the window, until his eyes met the silvery ones of a nearby abomination.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, looking closer at the church. On top of the roof, I saw an enormous statue of a black raven, its wings spread as if it were flying. It had three gleaming, silvery eyes embedded into the dark rock.
“That boy just reminds me of my son,” Lovebug whispered glumly, inching along the streets.
“I didn’t know you had a son,” I said, surprised. Lovebug had never mentioned a family. He shrugged.
“I don’t. Not anymore. I killed him. I got drunk and high one night back when I was selling drugs. Fell asleep in the living room with a lit cigarette and burned down the whole house. I killed my wife and son, burned them. They sent me to prison, but what did that matter? The prison up here is far worse.” He tapped the side of his temple.
I was about to say something, but at that moment, many things happened at once.
***
Lovebug was staring at the corpse of the child when an inhumanly long arm reached up from the side of the car. It had fingers like spikes, as sharp as a knife and twice as long as normal human fingers. I gasped, a warning shout welling up in my throat, but the hand came smashing down into the driver’s side window and grabbed Lovebug’s neck.
The window exploded in a shower of safety glass, shattering like brittle bones. Lovebug’s scream was cut off as he was dragged, kicking and screaming, out of the car. I swung open my door, leaping out and bringing my rifle around.
The Cheshire Cat grin of the abomination never faltered as it held Lovebug in front of its body like a human shield, holding him by the neck above the ground. Lovebug’s legs kicked and squirmed, his face turning blue as he slowly suffocated. His eyes bulged from their sockets, panicked and rolling, uncomprehending in their total animal panic.
I flicked on the laser sight. It danced over the ground, flashing over the body of Lovebug and the abomination. But I couldn’t aim for its torso or face, as I would probably hit Lovebug in the process. It was far too close.
I aimed for the monster’s thin, skeletal feet, the black toes twisting over each other like the roots of a tree. The gunshots rang out as a deafening counterpoint to the thunder blasts.
The monster gave a hissing gurgle as two bullets caught it in the right ankle. The creature seemed bloodless, and only dust and ashes rolled out of the exploded insectile flesh. It tried to skitter away, but its destroyed ankle caused it to fall forward, throwing Lovebug.
His body rolled across the road, the soft leather that looked like it was made from tens of thousands of human skins. Gasping, his lips still showing a faint blue cast, he struggled to crawl away.
I saw furtive movement from all around us. The creatures in the houses and doorways were moving forwards, drawn by the bloodshed or noise. Hundreds of glowing, silvery eyes surrounded us. I sprinted forward, dragging Lovebug to his feet.
“The church,” I hissed. “It’s the only place.” Still pulling the weak, confused Lovebug behind me, we staggered towards the black gates. They opened with a shriek of rusted metal.
***
The creatures stopped at the gates to the blood-red church, simply staring at us like statues. They didn’t even seem to breathe, their lidless eyes never blinking, the silvery glow never fading.
“I think this is the place we’re meant to go,” I whispered as we made our way towards the massive pointed doors. “When God spoke to us, he said something about a stone, a bird and a rose, that we would find the Titan through that.” I pointed back at the burnt body of the boy. “He’s holding a rose. On top of the building, there’s a bird. And the church is all stone. Maybe this is the place where God wanted us to go all along.”
“Maybe,” Lovebug muttered through heaving gasps, still grabbing at his bruised neck. “God, this hurts. It feels like I got hanged.” Side by side, we pushed open the doors to the Satanic church and walked inside.
***
Row after row of pews stretched out in front of us. Thousands of black candles were set up all around the perimeter of the enormous chamber. They sputtered and flickered constantly, throwing dancing shadows in every direction.
A small pair of bright eyes glanced up at us from under one of the nearby pews. I nearly jumped out of my skin, pointing the rifle at them and yelling.
“Show yourself! Come out now, or I shoot!” Lovebug looked at me, confused. He hadn’t seen it. But a few heartbeats later, a little girl crawled out, her eyes big and blue, her body an emaciated wreck. She wore ripped strands of what looked like leathery human skin to cover herself, tied together with black string. In one small, grime-streaked hand, she held a half-eaten raw mouse.
“Please, don’t kill me,” she said in a small voice. “I’m Emma. My mommy and daddy got dragged away and I’m scared.” I felt sick and weak looking at this small victim. I reached down and helped her up.
“I wouldn’t hurt you,” I said, kneeling down to her level. “I thought you were one of the bad guys. This is Lovebug, and I’m Jack.”
“This isn’t part of the mission, man,” Lovebug said nervously. “What are we supposed to do with her?”
“Well, we can’t just fucking leave her here,” I whispered back. “We need…” But I never got to finish that thought. Because, at that moment, the church woke up.
***
A red glow started at the front of the chamber, the altar where the priest would have stood and given speeches or holy communion. Here, they had a podium that looked like it was carved from a single block of obsidian. Reflected in it, I saw the screaming faces of people burning in Hell, grinning demons ripping off strips of human flesh and spiraling waves of flames, all sculpted by an artist who was able to capture the most miniscule details of agony and torture.
I looked around, realizing Emma had gone. I hadn’t seen her scurry away and hide, but her absence gave me a feeling of crushing dread in my chest.
“Lovebug, something’s wrong,” I whispered, still staring up at the altar. I heard a floorboard creak behind me. I glanced back just in time to see a man wearing full SWAT gear. I caught the flash of a pistol coming down, the butt aimed at my forehead. I heard the cracking, felt the immense pressure and pain. For a few moments, I swam in the currents of consciousness, trying to stay awake, but then the blackness crept in and stole me away.
***
I awoke suddenly, my hands tied so tightly behind my back that I couldn’t feel my fingers. I felt sick and wanted to throw up. I quickly choked those feelings back down. I tried to shake my head, to clear it, but that just brought jolts of pain like electricity shooting through my skull. Nearby, I heard a gunshot, then another.
“Bring it, fuckers!” Lovebug screamed in an insane voice. The explosion of a grenade rocked the building, and I smelled choking black smoke. I opened my eyes, seeing three men in SWAT gear laying dead, their bodies scattered haphazardly around the chaotic scene. One wall of the church had blown outwards, the stone still sending out gray wisps of wavy smoke into the air. I looked at my partner, seeing he had a bullet hole in his left arm and another one in his stomach. He was bleeding heavily, but the adrenaline and insanity seemed to keep him afloat- for now, at least.
I saw something walking towards us from the stage. It looked like a small boy, but black shadows spiraled up around his chest and face, translucent and shimmering darkly. He looked about five or six, his skin pale and smooth. As Lovebug’s face grew slack and distant, the boy abruptly erupted into flames.
“Don’t kill me again, Dad,” the small boy whispered in a hoarse voice choked with pain. The flames rose from his head and skin, melting his flesh, blackening it. Drops of boiling fat dribbled off his nose and chin. “Don’t send me to the dark place again, Dad…” He continued creeping closer to Lovebug, moving like a lion stalking an antelope.
“I didn’t know!” Lovebug cried, his face going paler. Tears streamed from his eyes as the rifle trembled wildly in his shaking hands. For a long moment, he looked torn, the finger tightening on the trigger as sobs escaped his chattering lips.
“Kill it, Lovebug!” I screamed. “Don’t let it get to you!” But as he dropped the rifle and knelt before the small boy, I knew it was too late.
The shadows spun faster and faster around the burning, dying body of the boy. He gave a scream of soul-shattering agony, reaching out to a small hand towards Lovebug.
“Help me!” the boy cried. Lovebug hesitated before bringing an arm up to take the boy’s hand.
“I missed you, Robbie,” Lovebug said before his fingers brushed the boys. The boy lunged forward, grabbing Lovebug’s hand with an iron grip. I saw Lovebug’s eyes widen in shock and surprise. A moment later, I heard the bones in his hand grinding together before breaking with a sound like snapping tree branches. The boy’s eyes darkened into jet-black orbs, the melted lips splitting into a sadistic grin.
“I missed you, too,” the thing hissed as its right arm changed, melting and reforming into something black and blade-like. The insectile limb swung forward in a blur, coming straight at Lovebug’s heart. He gave a panicked squeal a moment before it hit, trying to pull away with all of his considerable strength, his face turning chalk-white as the shattered bones in his hands ground together.
I closed my eyes, rolling away, trying to undo the knots that held my hands in place. Lovebug must have been greatly outnumbered. He would never have let that man tie me up. I heard the sounds of tearing meat and crunching bone nearby. Lovebug’s final breaths gurgled through the air, but I still kept my eyes closed, not wanting to look.
I felt a small tickle on my wrists, then heard a little voice next to my ear.
“I’ll get you out of here,” Emma whispered. I waited a few moments, then I heard the ropes snap. I looked back, seeing her holding a piece of sharp, broken glass in one tiny hand. In her other, she had the car keys. I wondered how she had gotten them, the little pickpocket.
“Thank God,” I said, rubbing my wrists. I looked around for my rifle, seeing it was laying next to the body of one of the SWAT guys. I wondered who these men were. I crawled towards it slowly, not wanting to draw attention.
“Don’t move another step,” a voice growled behind me. I glanced back, seeing the small boy, his features morphing into those of a demon. Curving horns spiraled from his temples. His jet-black eyes stared down at me with hatred and coldness. “You’ll follow your friend who killed my servants. His soul will stay alive forever within my body, a sickly thing wrapped up in an eternal shriek.”
“Fuck you,” I cried, lunging for my rifle. Emma disappeared behind a pew, running on all fours without looking back. I spun as I hit the ground, turning the barrel towards the morphing face of the shape-shifter. Its jaw unhinged, a snake-like tongue flicking out as it flew through the air towards me. Hollow fangs dripping clear venom grew from its mouth in a heartbeat, elongating and sharpening before my very eyes.
I fired twice, the bullets entering through its mouth and coming out the back of its head. Its flesh disintegrated in an instant, the body turning into light, gray ashes that disappeared in the breeze. Breathing hard, I waited, wondering if it was all over.
I heard a rumbling far below me, as if an earthquake were starting. A moment later, the church floor exploded upwards, sharp rubble and splintered boards flying in every direction.
***
“It’s coming!” Emma screamed, running over and grabbing my hand. I lay there, shell-shocked and unmoving for a long moment. In hindsight, the girl was a natural born survivor with much sharper reflexes than me. It was likely the only reason she survived as long as she had.
“The Titan,” I whispered grimly, trying to pull myself up to my feet. But it was like trying to walk on a heaving, sinking ship. Parts of the floor collapsed down into a seemingly never-ending abyss beneath us.
Near the stage, I saw hundreds of long, pale arms pulling something bloated and monstrous out of the ground. It was a Titan, and no explanation can ever convey the true horror of that thing.
It looked like countless human corpses had been melted together, fused into a ball with sagging, boneless chests, deformed faces and millions of writhing maggots. It groaned and gurgled with many lungs, exhaling a rotting, sulfurous breeze that made me want to retch. A soft susurration of many pained, muttering voices continuously emanated from the Titan.
“Emma, run!” I screamed, but she was already sprinting back towards the front door of the church. I backpedaled, afraid to look away from the creeping monstrosity, the juggernaut of rotting flesh moving towards us.
I heard the Titan closing the distance as I sprinted through the front door. The abominations with the silver eyes still slunk around the gate, blocking the car. I raised the rifle, firing blindly at the creatures, careful not to hit the little girl.
“Go to the car!” I screamed at Emma, feeling around for the keys. As the abominations saw the Titan, those still alive scattered, moving in a blur back into the shadows and homes of this rotten place.
The Titan broke the front wall of the church, sending splinters of red stone flying in every direction like bullets. It groaned and gurgled faster, its sickly cries more insistent. I ran to the Mercedes, starting it up and pressing the accelerator to the floor. I pulled a U-turn, heading back to the border of the anomaly.
***
The engine roared, the car bucking like a wild stallion as it pressed me and Emma back into our seats. But the creeping Titan continued gaining speed behind us, and for a few seconds, I feared we would be crushed to death under its massive weight.
The anomaly shimmered ahead of us. I crashed through it at two hundred miles an hour, skidding wildly as the Mercedes hit the dirt road. I nearly flew into a tree. I managed to right it at the last second, pulling onto the paved street as the Titan broke through behind us.
It followed us out. It’s in the real world now.

“Before I met the Savior, I was a worthless piece of garbage, barely a human being,” Lovebug droned at the front of the enormous room. Lovebug was a monster of a man, two-hundred and fifty pounds of hard tattooed muscle. Like myself, he was a high-ranking member of the Church.
His flat gray eyes scanned the room with a fanatical gleam. I sat in the first row, watching and waiting. Followers of the Savior would tell their stories, how the Savior had reached down and lifted them out of sin and filth to bring them up to the divine. The bright fluorescent lights overhead droned on with a low hum. Thousands of men crammed together in seats or stood at the back of the room.
The Savior taught only two commandments: to murder is holy, and to die for the Savior is the highest bliss. An army of warriors followed the Savior, knights on a holy crusade, priests who wouldn’t hesitate to burn the foul bodies of any witches or demons we encountered. I thought of myself as a knight for the holy king, our Savior, the mouthpiece of the eternal.
“Now, it is like the hand of God has reached into my heart and loosened all the knots there, the knots of anxiety and fear and uncertainty.” He raised his black, military-style rifle into the air for emphasis. “I never realized the true nature of reality before- the fact that we are living in a simulation where the final battle of good versus evil is playing out before our very eyes. And I will be on the side of the good, until my dying breath. I will be on the side of the Savior and of God!”
The crowd roared and clapped. Men got to their feet, sweating heavily in the boiling hot conference room. I felt the surge of energy pass through me like a tidal wave, the pure confidence and iron will of truth. Lovebug lumbered down off the stage as the Savior came out from behind the red curtains, walking with the straight spine of a soldier. He wore a silky black robe that fluttered softly around him, the hood pulled back.
The Savior had horrific burns running the length of his body. His arms had melted folds of keloid scars visible all the way to the tips of his fingers. His scalp had also melted, and the Savior had no hair except for his eyelashes and eyebrows. But the fire that had nearly killed him had spared his face, an aristocratic visage with ferocious green eyes like those of a cat. That face seemed like it had been sculpted out of marble by DaVinci himself, the high cheekbones jutting out over a chin so sharp that it looked like it could have hammered nails into boards. He stared out at the crowd for a long moment, his gaze unblinking.
“The final battle has begun,” he said in a low voice, no more than a whisper. Yet, in the deathly silence of the hall, his words rang out loud and clear. “Those in charge of this illusory world know that we see them. We see them very well, how they hide behind the curtain. They control the world economy, the justice system. Every government, whether they call themselves communist, authoritarian or democratic, is no more than a puppet in their dancing fingers.
“When anyone tries to stand up and lead the masses of suffering people towards freedom from slavery, they are vilified by the mainstream media, brought up on false charges or killed, their bodies staged to look like a suicide. Look what they did to Jesus, and for what? For telling people to love God more than their rulers? And those who speak out today are also crucified, murdered in prisons or killed by their governments. Truth is the most precious commodity, after all. It is one that can only be purchased with blood.
“So what can we do? How can we fight against such evil?” There was a quiet muttering among the pale, frozen faces that stared up at the stage with adoration and love.
“We can fight it by using their own weapons against them!” the Savior said, his voice rising in speed and pitch. He raised his fisted hands to his chest, accentuating each syllable with a back and forth stab of his hands. “Fight fire with fire, and pay back blood with blood! The only thing these global terrorists understand is greater levels of force. We must show them death on a scale they have never before imagined.” I felt nervous as the Savior delivered his message. I saw other men shuffle anxiously in the crowded auditorium, most of them having high-caliber rifles slung around their shoulders.
I felt the rising violence and bloodlust in the air like electricity before a lightning storm. At that moment, I knew we would all have to fight before too long.
***
The Savior called me and Lovebug back to his office after the speech had ended, sending his squirrely assistant over to deliver the hand-written note in the Savior’s blocky, copperplate handwriting. For a long moment, I simply watched the crowd filtering out of the doors, heading back towards the complex where all the holy soldiers of the Savior lived. Feeling dissociated and light-headed, I followed behind the massive muscular form of Lovebug, the heavy weight of the M16 bouncing against my chest. We pushed through the blood-red velvet curtains, winding our way past stage equipment and down a hallway of pure marble.
Mystical paintings similar to those of Alex Grey covered both walls, showing the inside workings of the human body through art. It was as if the painter had X-ray vision and could see the heart chakra and the countless thin vessels that spiderwebbed up to the crown. But, unlike Alex Grey’s hopeful depictions of mysticism, these showed men and women being burned alive, crucified, decapitated or strangled. Dark colors composed the paintings: the dark blue of a suffocating face, the clotted red of an infected stab wound, the black of death. They captured the essence of struggle perfectly.
The Savior’s office had a thick mahogany door with silver engravings of leaves and vines running the length of it. At the top stood a single staring eye with twelve wavy tentacles emerging from the perimeter of it- the symbol of God, who the Savior had seen personally. God would sometimes speak through the mouth of the Savior, always during times of great tribulation or suffering. Lovebug knocked at the door. The Savior’s deep voice echoed out faintly.
“Come in.”
We entered slowly, the sprawling desk of the Savior filling half of the room. He sat in a comfortable chair behind it, reclining. On the walls behind him, he had pictures of Jesus, Saint Stephen, Gandhi, Hitler, Jim Jones, Shoko Asahara and others who he taught had fought against the world elites and been killed for it.
The Church of the Final Rapture was not a church in the conventional sense. The main teachings didn’t revolve around the divinity of Christ or the nature of original sin. What the Savior taught was far more profound- an illusory or simulated world where every single person could become their own Christ, could awaken to the truth and perform miracles, but only if they believed fully and followed the Savior.
“Sit down, please,” he said in his gravelly voice. “I have a mission I would like to discuss, and you two are the only ones competent and loyal enough to carry it out.”
***
“There is another anomaly spreading,” the Savior said, staring between me and Lovebug with his fanatical emerald eyes. “It is located in a rural part of the United States, in a town called-” he glanced down at the sheet of paper in front of him- “Frost Hollow. Supposedly, there are black-ops sites located nearby, secret alphabet agencies experimenting with magnetic distortion systems and creating rips in the fabric of spacetime with micro-wormholes.
“I don’t think it is much of a leap to say that the anomaly was likely started, either intentionally or unintentionally, by the government, as part of their research. The Cleaners would like to control that power, after all. They have been sending their men after it for years like sheep to the slaughter, expending billions of dollars researching it. If they and the US government end up being able to control the creation and spread of anomalies, they will use it to enslave the world. There is no question about it in my mind.” He leaned forwards towards us, his eyes growing cold.
“There is only one path forward I can see. We need to spread the anomaly, make it become unstable so the demons of Hell contained within it can spill out onto the real world. Perhaps it will awaken the downtrodden masses enough to begin the final revolution. We must fight terrorism with greater terrorism, and violence with greater levels of violence. For this mission, I am sending the two of you into Frost Hollow.
“Your job will be to find the Titan or Titans and lead them out to the border of the anomaly. These are horrendous beasts- indeed, the Church has seen them before. They are nearly impossible to kill. I want you two to go inside, bait it and have it follow you back to the edge, beyond the veil.”
“What’s a Titan?” Lovebug asked, his eyes flicking left and right nervously. The Savior stared at him stonily for a long moment. Then his eyes rolled back in his head, showing only the whites. All the blood seemed to drain from his face. His teeth chattered, his mouth opened, and through it, God spoke, the words pouring out like crashing stones. The voice did not sound anything like the Savior’s. It sounded much deeper, more mechanical, more alien somehow.
“I see you very well. I saw you when you were no more than a blood clot in your mother’s body. I see you even as corpses, rotted, putrefying, crawling with scavengers and insects. I see everything, every moment of time. But, in the anomaly, there are things I cannot see. For this, my holy ones must go forth.
“In the center of Hell, you will find a rose, a bird and a stone. These will be your salvation, if salvation can be found at all. Go with the blessing of Yaldabaoth.” The voice cut off abruptly, the silence deafening. I could hear my own heart pounding in my ears.
The Savior’s eyes came back down, looking confused and uncertain. His pupils were dilated and he was sweating heavily, even though it was cool and air-conditioned back here in his private office. We stared at each other across the table, a no-man’s land that protected me like a shield. For there seemed to be something dark in the Savior along with the light, and I didn’t know if any man could contain that power.
But there was no question of disobeying. Within the hour, Lovebug and I were on one of the Church’s private jets flying to the town of Frost Hollow.
***
The gently rolling hills of Frost Hollow loomed below us as the plane circled the small dirt airstrip in the middle of some cow farms. I looked up at Lovebug, trying to judge his stony expression. He had done many years in prison before joining the Church and finding salvation, even being the leader of one of the gangs. I knew he wasn’t afraid of violence. He had never told me what he did, what tortured him so much.
The Savior had told us much secret knowledge- how to find a Titan, a massive, bloated abomination that could come into being only within an anomaly, a combination of many rotted body pieces fused together in some sort of hellish black magic. The Savior had spies around Frost Hollow and the surrounding towns who had been monitoring the anomaly, watching the unstable gateways leading in and out and mapping them as best they could. We would be given a fast car, plenty of weapons and some body armor. I had no idea how nightmarish the journey would become, however.
“I’m driving,” Lovebug said as we descended the steps. A man in a black suit with the symbol of the eye and tentacles pinned on his black button-up shirt pulled up with a Mercedes AMG-One. It was a sleek, silver thing of immense luxury and power. The craftsmanship made it look like a work of art. I sighed, keeping my finger nervously on the trigger of my rifle as I glanced around the strange, empty town.
“If this thing won’t outrun a Titan, then nothing will,” I said, trying to break the tension. I looked at the speedometer, seeing it went up to 220 miles an hour.
“Damn fucking right,” Lovebug growled as we slid into the futuristic-looking leather seats. The engine turned on like a softly purring kitten. The GPS automatically turned on as well, the soft robotic voice leading us toward one of the more stable portals to the anomaly.
Lovebug sped down the empty forest roads of Frost Hollow, going twice the legal speed limit the entire way.
“The speed limit is only for the lowest common denominator,” Lovebug said pedantically, waggling a tattooed finger for emphasis. The GPS said we would reach the gateway to the anomaly in five minutes. Based on Lovebug’s speed, I thought it would be more like two. “Someone who actually knows how to drive and isn’t drunk or high can easily do 80 in a 40. Easily.” I glanced nervously at the speedometer, realizing he was going over 100 miles an hour now. The sports car hugged the tight corners of the winding forest roads with absolute precision.
“Turn right onto Snake Island Road Extension in five hundred feet,” the robotic female voice. Lovebug slammed on the brakes a few seconds later, the tires skidding and locking up. We looked around frantically, seeing no streets anywhere except the one we were on.
“What the hell?” Lovebug asked. The night was crawling in by now, the darkness covering the forests like a curtain. I squinted, looking at the thick grove of trees on our right, scanning it back and forth over and over. After a few seconds, I realized there was an overgrown dirt path there with no sign. It was nearly impossible to see at night, however, and calling it a road was somewhat of a joke.
“Oh, damn,” I said. “They should’ve given us an SUV.”
***
According to the GPS, our destination was only a thousand feet down Snake Island Road Extension. The low clearance of the Mercedes was a problem as Lovebug tried to navigate the flooded forest path. Deep tread marks flooded with black, stagnant water marked the entirety of Snake Island Road Extension. But ahead, the headlights illuminated something unusual.
Cutting straight across the trees and brush like a razorblade was a shimmering wall of translucent energy. It reminded me of a mirage, curving upwards in wavy spiral patterns. I could see through it easily, but it gave everything a dark, sinister covering. The forest seemed to be in constant motion as the grayish light distorted it.
“Look how huge it is!” I said in awe, staring up at the starry sky. The flat wall rose up seemingly forever, disappearing in the cold void of infinite space. Lovebug slowly ambled the car towards the anomaly, trying to keep the Mercedes from getting stuck with its low clearance.
“You ready for this, man?” Lovebug asked in a quavering voice as we inched towards the anomaly. It was only seconds away now. He grabbed my shoulder. “This is it. Remember the commandments.” I closed my eyes, concentrating my heart on the Savior’s words. Dying for the good is the highest bliss, he had told us.
“Let’s do this,” I said, my eyes flying open from my silent prayer as the hood passed through the anomaly. It disappeared in front of our eyes. We could see the forest on the other side, but the Mercedes looked like it was going through some sort of teleportation portal, being ripped apart layer by layer and sent somewhere else. Lovebug nervously grabbed my hand.
“For the Savior and for the Good,” he whispered as we passed through.
***
I heard screaming and wailing, full of agony and unimaginable horror, like the screams of those burning in Hell. My vision went white. A carpet of morphing dark colors covered everything as the shrieking intensified, until I thought my eardrums would explode.
“Stop!” I cried, feeling the pressure in my head like a splitting migraine. “Stop screaming!” I started kicking, punching, trying to get away.
“Calm the fuck down!” someone whispered, slapping me hard across the face. Stunned, I looked up, seeing Lovebug holding me down in the seat. He was covered in sweat, his face a blank mask of terror. “Don’t scream. There’s things outside that are looking this way.” I blinked fast, my senses coming back to me. I felt like a man waking up from surgery, confused and disoriented, my memories only returning in small trickles and drops.
We were sitting in the Mercedes on a road that looked like it had been made of human skin. The headlights showed the ragged patches of pale, leathery flesh sewn together with black thread. The road disappeared ahead of us in a straight line. The land here looked as flat as Kansas. Like a mirror world, it had houses and restaurants and churches lining both sides of the road, but they were all wrong.
The stone church looked like it was constructed of some kind of red volcanic rock. Baphomets and upside-down pentagrams covered the outer walls, engraved deeply into the glossy surface. Mutilated bodies covered the front lawn, impaled, crucified, skinned alive or burned at the stake. Hundreds of men, women and children lay dead in front of the Satanic temple.
Overhead, the sky bubbled and frothed with red clouds and constant explosions of blue lightning. Like missile flashes, the lightning illuminated the world around us, shining brightly before going dark. The incessant strobing gave the entire place a kind of circus freakshow vibe.
Many of the homes looked like they had been constructed from bones and covered in human skin, like some sort of hellish teepee. Arm and leg bones wrapped in razor-wire formed the pillars. Grinning skulls lined the top of the flat, rectangular roofs, thousands of bleached human heads staring down.
Staring out of the dark doorways, I saw gleaming, silvery eyes. They loomed eight or nine feet in the air on spidery bodies. Their limbs looked as thin as bones, jet-black and dull. The only color from these still revenants was from their unblinking eyes and grinning mouths, where teeth like those of a dragonfish jutted out. Every pair of eyes on that street was fixed intently on the Mercedes, the sick rictus grins on their alien faces never faltering.
“Jesus Christ, I’m sorry,” I whispered, feeling weak. “I thought I was in a nightmare for a minute there.” Lovebug shrugged his massive shoulders.
“Yeah, I felt it too, though I came out of it a lot faster than you did,” he said, glancing over at the Satanic church as we passed. It had protective black spikes rising high into the air all around it. The broken body of a child who had been burnt at the stake stood in front of the gates like a death omen, his small, withered hand holding a black rose. Lovebug choked, retching. He nearly rolled down the window, until his eyes met the silvery ones of a nearby abomination.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, looking closer at the church. On top of the roof, I saw an enormous statue of a black raven, its wings spread as if it were flying. It had three gleaming, silvery eyes embedded into the dark rock.
“That boy just reminds me of my son,” Lovebug whispered glumly, inching along the streets.
“I didn’t know you had a son,” I said, surprised. Lovebug had never mentioned a family. He shrugged.
“I don’t. Not anymore. I killed him. I got drunk and high one night back when I was selling drugs. Fell asleep in the living room with a lit cigarette and burned down the whole house. I killed my wife and son, burned them. They sent me to prison, but what did that matter? The prison up here is far worse.” He tapped the side of his temple.
I was about to say something, but at that moment, many things happened at once.
***
Lovebug was staring at the corpse of the child when an inhumanly long arm reached up from the side of the car. It had fingers like spikes, as sharp as a knife and twice as long as normal human fingers. I gasped, a warning shout welling up in my throat, but the hand came smashing down into the driver’s side window and grabbed Lovebug’s neck.
The window exploded in a shower of safety glass, shattering like brittle bones. Lovebug’s scream was cut off as he was dragged, kicking and screaming, out of the car. I swung open my door, leaping out and bringing my rifle around.
The Cheshire Cat grin of the abomination never faltered as it held Lovebug in front of its body like a human shield, holding him by the neck above the ground. Lovebug’s legs kicked and squirmed, his face turning blue as he slowly suffocated. His eyes bulged from their sockets, panicked and rolling, uncomprehending in their total animal panic.
I flicked on the laser sight. It danced over the ground, flashing over the body of Lovebug and the abomination. But I couldn’t aim for its torso or face, as I would probably hit Lovebug in the process. It was far too close.
I aimed for the monster’s thin, skeletal feet, the black toes twisting over each other like the roots of a tree. The gunshots rang out as a deafening counterpoint to the thunder blasts.
The monster gave a hissing gurgle as two bullets caught it in the right ankle. The creature seemed bloodless, and only dust and ashes rolled out of the exploded insectile flesh. It tried to skitter away, but its destroyed ankle caused it to fall forward, throwing Lovebug.
His body rolled across the road, the soft leather that looked like it was made from tens of thousands of human skins. Gasping, his lips still showing a faint blue cast, he struggled to crawl away.
I saw furtive movement from all around us. The creatures in the houses and doorways were moving forwards, drawn by the bloodshed or noise. Hundreds of glowing, silvery eyes surrounded us. I sprinted forward, dragging Lovebug to his feet.
“The church,” I hissed. “It’s the only place.” Still pulling the weak, confused Lovebug behind me, we staggered towards the black gates. They opened with a shriek of rusted metal.
***
The creatures stopped at the gates to the blood-red church, simply staring at us like statues. They didn’t even seem to breathe, their lidless eyes never blinking, the silvery glow never fading.
“I think this is the place we’re meant to go,” I whispered as we made our way towards the massive pointed doors. “When God spoke to us, he said something about a stone, a bird and a rose, that we would find the Titan through that.” I pointed back at the burnt body of the boy. “He’s holding a rose. On top of the building, there’s a bird. And the church is all stone. Maybe this is the place where God wanted us to go all along.”
“Maybe,” Lovebug muttered through heaving gasps, still grabbing at his bruised neck. “God, this hurts. It feels like I got hanged.” Side by side, we pushed open the doors to the Satanic church and walked inside.
***
Row after row of pews stretched out in front of us. Thousands of black candles were set up all around the perimeter of the enormous chamber. They sputtered and flickered constantly, throwing dancing shadows in every direction.
A small pair of bright eyes glanced up at us from under one of the nearby pews. I nearly jumped out of my skin, pointing the rifle at them and yelling.
“Show yourself! Come out now, or I shoot!” Lovebug looked at me, confused. He hadn’t seen it. But a few heartbeats later, a little girl crawled out, her eyes big and blue, her body an emaciated wreck. She wore ripped strands of what looked like leathery human skin to cover herself, tied together with black string. In one small, grime-streaked hand, she held a half-eaten raw mouse.
“Please, don’t kill me,” she said in a small voice. “I’m Emma. My mommy and daddy got dragged away and I’m scared.” I felt sick and weak looking at this small victim. I reached down and helped her up.
“I wouldn’t hurt you,” I said, kneeling down to her level. “I thought you were one of the bad guys. This is Lovebug, and I’m Jack.”
“This isn’t part of the mission, man,” Lovebug said nervously. “What are we supposed to do with her?”
“Well, we can’t just fucking leave her here,” I whispered back. “We need…” But I never got to finish that thought. Because, at that moment, the church woke up.
***
A red glow started at the front of the chamber, the altar where the priest would have stood and given speeches or holy communion. Here, they had a podium that looked like it was carved from a single block of obsidian. Reflected in it, I saw the screaming faces of people burning in Hell, grinning demons ripping off strips of human flesh and spiraling waves of flames, all sculpted by an artist who was able to capture the most miniscule details of agony and torture.
I looked around, realizing Emma had gone. I hadn’t seen her scurry away and hide, but her absence gave me a feeling of crushing dread in my chest.
“Lovebug, something’s wrong,” I whispered, still staring up at the altar. I heard a floorboard creak behind me. I glanced back just in time to see a man wearing full SWAT gear. I caught the flash of a pistol coming down, the butt aimed at my forehead. I heard the cracking, felt the immense pressure and pain. For a few moments, I swam in the currents of consciousness, trying to stay awake, but then the blackness crept in and stole me away.
***
I awoke suddenly, my hands tied so tightly behind my back that I couldn’t feel my fingers. I felt sick and wanted to throw up. I quickly choked those feelings back down. I tried to shake my head, to clear it, but that just brought jolts of pain like electricity shooting through my skull. Nearby, I heard a gunshot, then another.
“Bring it, fuckers!” Lovebug screamed in an insane voice. The explosion of a grenade rocked the building, and I smelled choking black smoke. I opened my eyes, seeing three men in SWAT gear laying dead, their bodies scattered haphazardly around the chaotic scene. One wall of the church had blown outwards, the stone still sending out gray wisps of wavy smoke into the air. I looked at my partner, seeing he had a bullet hole in his left arm and another one in his stomach. He was bleeding heavily, but the adrenaline and insanity seemed to keep him afloat- for now, at least.
I saw something walking towards us from the stage. It looked like a small boy, but black shadows spiraled up around his chest and face, translucent and shimmering darkly. He looked about five or six, his skin pale and smooth. As Lovebug’s face grew slack and distant, the boy abruptly erupted into flames.
“Don’t kill me again, Dad,” the small boy whispered in a hoarse voice choked with pain. The flames rose from his head and skin, melting his flesh, blackening it. Drops of boiling fat dribbled off his nose and chin. “Don’t send me to the dark place again, Dad…” He continued creeping closer to Lovebug, moving like a lion stalking an antelope.
“I didn’t know!” Lovebug cried, his face going paler. Tears streamed from his eyes as the rifle trembled wildly in his shaking hands. For a long moment, he looked torn, the finger tightening on the trigger as sobs escaped his chattering lips.
“Kill it, Lovebug!” I screamed. “Don’t let it get to you!” But as he dropped the rifle and knelt before the small boy, I knew it was too late.
The shadows spun faster and faster around the burning, dying body of the boy. He gave a scream of soul-shattering agony, reaching out to a small hand towards Lovebug.
“Help me!” the boy cried. Lovebug hesitated before bringing an arm up to take the boy’s hand.
“I missed you, Robbie,” Lovebug said before his fingers brushed the boys. The boy lunged forward, grabbing Lovebug’s hand with an iron grip. I saw Lovebug’s eyes widen in shock and surprise. A moment later, I heard the bones in his hand grinding together before breaking with a sound like snapping tree branches. The boy’s eyes darkened into jet-black orbs, the melted lips splitting into a sadistic grin.
“I missed you, too,” the thing hissed as its right arm changed, melting and reforming into something black and blade-like. The insectile limb swung forward in a blur, coming straight at Lovebug’s heart. He gave a panicked squeal a moment before it hit, trying to pull away with all of his considerable strength, his face turning chalk-white as the shattered bones in his hands ground together.
I closed my eyes, rolling away, trying to undo the knots that held my hands in place. Lovebug must have been greatly outnumbered. He would never have let that man tie me up. I heard the sounds of tearing meat and crunching bone nearby. Lovebug’s final breaths gurgled through the air, but I still kept my eyes closed, not wanting to look.
I felt a small tickle on my wrists, then heard a little voice next to my ear.
“I’ll get you out of here,” Emma whispered. I waited a few moments, then I heard the ropes snap. I looked back, seeing her holding a piece of sharp, broken glass in one tiny hand. In her other, she had the car keys. I wondered how she had gotten them, the little pickpocket.
“Thank God,” I said, rubbing my wrists. I looked around for my rifle, seeing it was laying next to the body of one of the SWAT guys. I wondered who these men were. I crawled towards it slowly, not wanting to draw attention.
“Don’t move another step,” a voice growled behind me. I glanced back, seeing the small boy, his features morphing into those of a demon. Curving horns spiraled from his temples. His jet-black eyes stared down at me with hatred and coldness. “You’ll follow your friend who killed my servants. His soul will stay alive forever within my body, a sickly thing wrapped up in an eternal shriek.”
“Fuck you,” I cried, lunging for my rifle. Emma disappeared behind a pew, running on all fours without looking back. I spun as I hit the ground, turning the barrel towards the morphing face of the shape-shifter. Its jaw unhinged, a snake-like tongue flicking out as it flew through the air towards me. Hollow fangs dripping clear venom grew from its mouth in a heartbeat, elongating and sharpening before my very eyes.
I fired twice, the bullets entering through its mouth and coming out the back of its head. Its flesh disintegrated in an instant, the body turning into light, gray ashes that disappeared in the breeze. Breathing hard, I waited, wondering if it was all over.
I heard a rumbling far below me, as if an earthquake were starting. A moment later, the church floor exploded upwards, sharp rubble and splintered boards flying in every direction.
***
“It’s coming!” Emma screamed, running over and grabbing my hand. I lay there, shell-shocked and unmoving for a long moment. In hindsight, the girl was a natural born survivor with much sharper reflexes than me. It was likely the only reason she survived as long as she had.
“The Titan,” I whispered grimly, trying to pull myself up to my feet. But it was like trying to walk on a heaving, sinking ship. Parts of the floor collapsed down into a seemingly never-ending abyss beneath us.
Near the stage, I saw hundreds of long, pale arms pulling something bloated and monstrous out of the ground. It was a Titan, and no explanation can ever convey the true horror of that thing.
It looked like countless human corpses had been melted together, fused into a ball with sagging, boneless chests, deformed faces and millions of writhing maggots. It groaned and gurgled with many lungs, exhaling a rotting, sulfurous breeze that made me want to retch. A soft susurration of many pained, muttering voices continuously emanated from the Titan.
“Emma, run!” I screamed, but she was already sprinting back towards the front door of the church. I backpedaled, afraid to look away from the creeping monstrosity, the juggernaut of rotting flesh moving towards us.
I heard the Titan closing the distance as I sprinted through the front door. The abominations with the silver eyes still slunk around the gate, blocking the car. I raised the rifle, firing blindly at the creatures, careful not to hit the little girl.
“Go to the car!” I screamed at Emma, feeling around for the keys. As the abominations saw the Titan, those still alive scattered, moving in a blur back into the shadows and homes of this rotten place.
The Titan broke the front wall of the church, sending splinters of red stone flying in every direction like bullets. It groaned and gurgled faster, its sickly cries more insistent. I ran to the Mercedes, starting it up and pressing the accelerator to the floor. I pulled a U-turn, heading back to the border of the anomaly.
***
The engine roared, the car bucking like a wild stallion as it pressed me and Emma back into our seats. But the creeping Titan continued gaining speed behind us, and for a few seconds, I feared we would be crushed to death under its massive weight.
The anomaly shimmered ahead of us. I crashed through it at two hundred miles an hour, skidding wildly as the Mercedes hit the dirt road. I nearly flew into a tree. I managed to right it at the last second, pulling onto the paved street as the Titan broke through behind us.
It followed us out. It’s in the real world now.

“Before I met the Savior, I was a worthless piece of garbage, barely a human being,” Lovebug droned at the front of the enormous room. Lovebug was a monster of a man, two-hundred and fifty pounds of hard tattooed muscle. Like myself, he was a high-ranking member of the Church.
His flat gray eyes scanned the room with a fanatical gleam. I sat in the first row, watching and waiting. Followers of the Savior would tell their stories, how the Savior had reached down and lifted them out of sin and filth to bring them up to the divine. The bright fluorescent lights overhead droned on with a low hum. Thousands of men crammed together in seats or stood at the back of the room.
The Savior taught only two commandments: to murder is holy, and to die for the Savior is the highest bliss. An army of warriors followed the Savior, knights on a holy crusade, priests who wouldn’t hesitate to burn the foul bodies of any witches or demons we encountered. I thought of myself as a knight for the holy king, our Savior, the mouthpiece of the eternal.
“Now, it is like the hand of God has reached into my heart and loosened all the knots there, the knots of anxiety and fear and uncertainty.” He raised his black, military-style rifle into the air for emphasis. “I never realized the true nature of reality before- the fact that we are living in a simulation where the final battle of good versus evil is playing out before our very eyes. And I will be on the side of the good, until my dying breath. I will be on the side of the Savior and of God!”
The crowd roared and clapped. Men got to their feet, sweating heavily in the boiling hot conference room. I felt the surge of energy pass through me like a tidal wave, the pure confidence and iron will of truth. Lovebug lumbered down off the stage as the Savior came out from behind the red curtains, walking with the straight spine of a soldier. He wore a silky black robe that fluttered softly around him, the hood pulled back.
The Savior had horrific burns running the length of his body. His arms had melted folds of keloid scars visible all the way to the tips of his fingers. His scalp had also melted, and the Savior had no hair except for his eyelashes and eyebrows. But the fire that had nearly killed him had spared his face, an aristocratic visage with ferocious green eyes like those of a cat. That face seemed like it had been sculpted out of marble by DaVinci himself, the high cheekbones jutting out over a chin so sharp that it looked like it could have hammered nails into boards. He stared out at the crowd for a long moment, his gaze unblinking.
“The final battle has begun,” he said in a low voice, no more than a whisper. Yet, in the deathly silence of the hall, his words rang out loud and clear. “Those in charge of this illusory world know that we see them. We see them very well, how they hide behind the curtain. They control the world economy, the justice system. Every government, whether they call themselves communist, authoritarian or democratic, is no more than a puppet in their dancing fingers.
“When anyone tries to stand up and lead the masses of suffering people towards freedom from slavery, they are vilified by the mainstream media, brought up on false charges or killed, their bodies staged to look like a suicide. Look what they did to Jesus, and for what? For telling people to love God more than their rulers? And those who speak out today are also crucified, murdered in prisons or killed by their governments. Truth is the most precious commodity, after all. It is one that can only be purchased with blood.
“So what can we do? How can we fight against such evil?” There was a quiet muttering among the pale, frozen faces that stared up at the stage with adoration and love.
“We can fight it by using their own weapons against them!” the Savior said, his voice rising in speed and pitch. He raised his fisted hands to his chest, accentuating each syllable with a back and forth stab of his hands. “Fight fire with fire, and pay back blood with blood! The only thing these global terrorists understand is greater levels of force. We must show them death on a scale they have never before imagined.” I felt nervous as the Savior delivered his message. I saw other men shuffle anxiously in the crowded auditorium, most of them having high-caliber rifles slung around their shoulders.
I felt the rising violence and bloodlust in the air like electricity before a lightning storm. At that moment, I knew we would all have to fight before too long.
***
The Savior called me and Lovebug back to his office after the speech had ended, sending his squirrely assistant over to deliver the hand-written note in the Savior’s blocky, copperplate handwriting. For a long moment, I simply watched the crowd filtering out of the doors, heading back towards the complex where all the holy soldiers of the Savior lived. Feeling dissociated and light-headed, I followed behind the massive muscular form of Lovebug, the heavy weight of the M16 bouncing against my chest. We pushed through the blood-red velvet curtains, winding our way past stage equipment and down a hallway of pure marble.
Mystical paintings similar to those of Alex Grey covered both walls, showing the inside workings of the human body through art. It was as if the painter had X-ray vision and could see the heart chakra and the countless thin vessels that spiderwebbed up to the crown. But, unlike Alex Grey’s hopeful depictions of mysticism, these showed men and women being burned alive, crucified, decapitated or strangled. Dark colors composed the paintings: the dark blue of a suffocating face, the clotted red of an infected stab wound, the black of death. They captured the essence of struggle perfectly.
The Savior’s office had a thick mahogany door with silver engravings of leaves and vines running the length of it. At the top stood a single staring eye with twelve wavy tentacles emerging from the perimeter of it- the symbol of God, who the Savior had seen personally. God would sometimes speak through the mouth of the Savior, always during times of great tribulation or suffering. Lovebug knocked at the door. The Savior’s deep voice echoed out faintly.
“Come in.”
We entered slowly, the sprawling desk of the Savior filling half of the room. He sat in a comfortable chair behind it, reclining. On the walls behind him, he had pictures of Jesus, Saint Stephen, Gandhi, Hitler, Jim Jones, Shoko Asahara and others who he taught had fought against the world elites and been killed for it.
The Church of the Final Rapture was not a church in the conventional sense. The main teachings didn’t revolve around the divinity of Christ or the nature of original sin. What the Savior taught was far more profound- an illusory or simulated world where every single person could become their own Christ, could awaken to the truth and perform miracles, but only if they believed fully and followed the Savior.
“Sit down, please,” he said in his gravelly voice. “I have a mission I would like to discuss, and you two are the only ones competent and loyal enough to carry it out.”
***
“There is another anomaly spreading,” the Savior said, staring between me and Lovebug with his fanatical emerald eyes. “It is located in a rural part of the United States, in a town called-” he glanced down at the sheet of paper in front of him- “Frost Hollow. Supposedly, there are black-ops sites located nearby, secret alphabet agencies experimenting with magnetic distortion systems and creating rips in the fabric of spacetime with micro-wormholes.
“I don’t think it is much of a leap to say that the anomaly was likely started, either intentionally or unintentionally, by the government, as part of their research. The Cleaners would like to control that power, after all. They have been sending their men after it for years like sheep to the slaughter, expending billions of dollars researching it. If they and the US government end up being able to control the creation and spread of anomalies, they will use it to enslave the world. There is no question about it in my mind.” He leaned forwards towards us, his eyes growing cold.
“There is only one path forward I can see. We need to spread the anomaly, make it become unstable so the demons of Hell contained within it can spill out onto the real world. Perhaps it will awaken the downtrodden masses enough to begin the final revolution. We must fight terrorism with greater terrorism, and violence with greater levels of violence. For this mission, I am sending the two of you into Frost Hollow.
“Your job will be to find the Titan or Titans and lead them out to the border of the anomaly. These are horrendous beasts- indeed, the Church has seen them before. They are nearly impossible to kill. I want you two to go inside, bait it and have it follow you back to the edge, beyond the veil.”
“What’s a Titan?” Lovebug asked, his eyes flicking left and right nervously. The Savior stared at him stonily for a long moment. Then his eyes rolled back in his head, showing only the whites. All the blood seemed to drain from his face. His teeth chattered, his mouth opened, and through it, God spoke, the words pouring out like crashing stones. The voice did not sound anything like the Savior’s. It sounded much deeper, more mechanical, more alien somehow.
“I see you very well. I saw you when you were no more than a blood clot in your mother’s body. I see you even as corpses, rotted, putrefying, crawling with scavengers and insects. I see everything, every moment of time. But, in the anomaly, there are things I cannot see. For this, my holy ones must go forth.
“In the center of Hell, you will find a rose, a bird and a stone. These will be your salvation, if salvation can be found at all. Go with the blessing of Yaldabaoth.” The voice cut off abruptly, the silence deafening. I could hear my own heart pounding in my ears.
The Savior’s eyes came back down, looking confused and uncertain. His pupils were dilated and he was sweating heavily, even though it was cool and air-conditioned back here in his private office. We stared at each other across the table, a no-man’s land that protected me like a shield. For there seemed to be something dark in the Savior along with the light, and I didn’t know if any man could contain that power.
But there was no question of disobeying. Within the hour, Lovebug and I were on one of the Church’s private jets flying to the town of Frost Hollow.
***
The gently rolling hills of Frost Hollow loomed below us as the plane circled the small dirt airstrip in the middle of some cow farms. I looked up at Lovebug, trying to judge his stony expression. He had done many years in prison before joining the Church and finding salvation, even being the leader of one of the gangs. I knew he wasn’t afraid of violence. He had never told me what he did, what tortured him so much.
The Savior had told us much secret knowledge- how to find a Titan, a massive, bloated abomination that could come into being only within an anomaly, a combination of many rotted body pieces fused together in some sort of hellish black magic. The Savior had spies around Frost Hollow and the surrounding towns who had been monitoring the anomaly, watching the unstable gateways leading in and out and mapping them as best they could. We would be given a fast car, plenty of weapons and some body armor. I had no idea how nightmarish the journey would become, however.
“I’m driving,” Lovebug said as we descended the steps. A man in a black suit with the symbol of the eye and tentacles pinned on his black button-up shirt pulled up with a Mercedes AMG-One. It was a sleek, silver thing of immense luxury and power. The craftsmanship made it look like a work of art. I sighed, keeping my finger nervously on the trigger of my rifle as I glanced around the strange, empty town.
“If this thing won’t outrun a Titan, then nothing will,” I said, trying to break the tension. I looked at the speedometer, seeing it went up to 220 miles an hour.
“Damn fucking right,” Lovebug growled as we slid into the futuristic-looking leather seats. The engine turned on like a softly purring kitten. The GPS automatically turned on as well, the soft robotic voice leading us toward one of the more stable portals to the anomaly.
Lovebug sped down the empty forest roads of Frost Hollow, going twice the legal speed limit the entire way.
“The speed limit is only for the lowest common denominator,” Lovebug said pedantically, waggling a tattooed finger for emphasis. The GPS said we would reach the gateway to the anomaly in five minutes. Based on Lovebug’s speed, I thought it would be more like two. “Someone who actually knows how to drive and isn’t drunk or high can easily do 80 in a 40. Easily.” I glanced nervously at the speedometer, realizing he was going over 100 miles an hour now. The sports car hugged the tight corners of the winding forest roads with absolute precision.
“Turn right onto Snake Island Road Extension in five hundred feet,” the robotic female voice. Lovebug slammed on the brakes a few seconds later, the tires skidding and locking up. We looked around frantically, seeing no streets anywhere except the one we were on.
“What the hell?” Lovebug asked. The night was crawling in by now, the darkness covering the forests like a curtain. I squinted, looking at the thick grove of trees on our right, scanning it back and forth over and over. After a few seconds, I realized there was an overgrown dirt path there with no sign. It was nearly impossible to see at night, however, and calling it a road was somewhat of a joke.
“Oh, damn,” I said. “They should’ve given us an SUV.”
***
According to the GPS, our destination was only a thousand feet down Snake Island Road Extension. The low clearance of the Mercedes was a problem as Lovebug tried to navigate the flooded forest path. Deep tread marks flooded with black, stagnant water marked the entirety of Snake Island Road Extension. But ahead, the headlights illuminated something unusual.
Cutting straight across the trees and brush like a razorblade was a shimmering wall of translucent energy. It reminded me of a mirage, curving upwards in wavy spiral patterns. I could see through it easily, but it gave everything a dark, sinister covering. The forest seemed to be in constant motion as the grayish light distorted it.
“Look how huge it is!” I said in awe, staring up at the starry sky. The flat wall rose up seemingly forever, disappearing in the cold void of infinite space. Lovebug slowly ambled the car towards the anomaly, trying to keep the Mercedes from getting stuck with its low clearance.
“You ready for this, man?” Lovebug asked in a quavering voice as we inched towards the anomaly. It was only seconds away now. He grabbed my shoulder. “This is it. Remember the commandments.” I closed my eyes, concentrating my heart on the Savior’s words. Dying for the good is the highest bliss, he had told us.
“Let’s do this,” I said, my eyes flying open from my silent prayer as the hood passed through the anomaly. It disappeared in front of our eyes. We could see the forest on the other side, but the Mercedes looked like it was going through some sort of teleportation portal, being ripped apart layer by layer and sent somewhere else. Lovebug nervously grabbed my hand.
“For the Savior and for the Good,” he whispered as we passed through.
***
I heard screaming and wailing, full of agony and unimaginable horror, like the screams of those burning in Hell. My vision went white. A carpet of morphing dark colors covered everything as the shrieking intensified, until I thought my eardrums would explode.
“Stop!” I cried, feeling the pressure in my head like a splitting migraine. “Stop screaming!” I started kicking, punching, trying to get away.
“Calm the fuck down!” someone whispered, slapping me hard across the face. Stunned, I looked up, seeing Lovebug holding me down in the seat. He was covered in sweat, his face a blank mask of terror. “Don’t scream. There’s things outside that are looking this way.” I blinked fast, my senses coming back to me. I felt like a man waking up from surgery, confused and disoriented, my memories only returning in small trickles and drops.
We were sitting in the Mercedes on a road that looked like it had been made of human skin. The headlights showed the ragged patches of pale, leathery flesh sewn together with black thread. The road disappeared ahead of us in a straight line. The land here looked as flat as Kansas. Like a mirror world, it had houses and restaurants and churches lining both sides of the road, but they were all wrong.
The stone church looked like it was constructed of some kind of red volcanic rock. Baphomets and upside-down pentagrams covered the outer walls, engraved deeply into the glossy surface. Mutilated bodies covered the front lawn, impaled, crucified, skinned alive or burned at the stake. Hundreds of men, women and children lay dead in front of the Satanic temple.
Overhead, the sky bubbled and frothed with red clouds and constant explosions of blue lightning. Like missile flashes, the lightning illuminated the world around us, shining brightly before going dark. The incessant strobing gave the entire place a kind of circus freakshow vibe.
Many of the homes looked like they had been constructed from bones and covered in human skin, like some sort of hellish teepee. Arm and leg bones wrapped in razor-wire formed the pillars. Grinning skulls lined the top of the flat, rectangular roofs, thousands of bleached human heads staring down.
Staring out of the dark doorways, I saw gleaming, silvery eyes. They loomed eight or nine feet in the air on spidery bodies. Their limbs looked as thin as bones, jet-black and dull. The only color from these still revenants was from their unblinking eyes and grinning mouths, where teeth like those of a dragonfish jutted out. Every pair of eyes on that street was fixed intently on the Mercedes, the sick rictus grins on their alien faces never faltering.
“Jesus Christ, I’m sorry,” I whispered, feeling weak. “I thought I was in a nightmare for a minute there.” Lovebug shrugged his massive shoulders.
“Yeah, I felt it too, though I came out of it a lot faster than you did,” he said, glancing over at the Satanic church as we passed. It had protective black spikes rising high into the air all around it. The broken body of a child who had been burnt at the stake stood in front of the gates like a death omen, his small, withered hand holding a black rose. Lovebug choked, retching. He nearly rolled down the window, until his eyes met the silvery ones of a nearby abomination.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, looking closer at the church. On top of the roof, I saw an enormous statue of a black raven, its wings spread as if it were flying. It had three gleaming, silvery eyes embedded into the dark rock.
“That boy just reminds me of my son,” Lovebug whispered glumly, inching along the streets.
“I didn’t know you had a son,” I said, surprised. Lovebug had never mentioned a family. He shrugged.
“I don’t. Not anymore. I killed him. I got drunk and high one night back when I was selling drugs. Fell asleep in the living room with a lit cigarette and burned down the whole house. I killed my wife and son, burned them. They sent me to prison, but what did that matter? The prison up here is far worse.” He tapped the side of his temple.
I was about to say something, but at that moment, many things happened at once.
***
Lovebug was staring at the corpse of the child when an inhumanly long arm reached up from the side of the car. It had fingers like spikes, as sharp as a knife and twice as long as normal human fingers. I gasped, a warning shout welling up in my throat, but the hand came smashing down into the driver’s side window and grabbed Lovebug’s neck.
The window exploded in a shower of safety glass, shattering like brittle bones. Lovebug’s scream was cut off as he was dragged, kicking and screaming, out of the car. I swung open my door, leaping out and bringing my rifle around.
The Cheshire Cat grin of the abomination never faltered as it held Lovebug in front of its body like a human shield, holding him by the neck above the ground. Lovebug’s legs kicked and squirmed, his face turning blue as he slowly suffocated. His eyes bulged from their sockets, panicked and rolling, uncomprehending in their total animal panic.
I flicked on the laser sight. It danced over the ground, flashing over the body of Lovebug and the abomination. But I couldn’t aim for its torso or face, as I would probably hit Lovebug in the process. It was far too close.
I aimed for the monster’s thin, skeletal feet, the black toes twisting over each other like the roots of a tree. The gunshots rang out as a deafening counterpoint to the thunder blasts.
The monster gave a hissing gurgle as two bullets caught it in the right ankle. The creature seemed bloodless, and only dust and ashes rolled out of the exploded insectile flesh. It tried to skitter away, but its destroyed ankle caused it to fall forward, throwing Lovebug.
His body rolled across the road, the soft leather that looked like it was made from tens of thousands of human skins. Gasping, his lips still showing a faint blue cast, he struggled to crawl away.
I saw furtive movement from all around us. The creatures in the houses and doorways were moving forwards, drawn by the bloodshed or noise. Hundreds of glowing, silvery eyes surrounded us. I sprinted forward, dragging Lovebug to his feet.
“The church,” I hissed. “It’s the only place.” Still pulling the weak, confused Lovebug behind me, we staggered towards the black gates. They opened with a shriek of rusted metal.
***
The creatures stopped at the gates to the blood-red church, simply staring at us like statues. They didn’t even seem to breathe, their lidless eyes never blinking, the silvery glow never fading.
“I think this is the place we’re meant to go,” I whispered as we made our way towards the massive pointed doors. “When God spoke to us, he said something about a stone, a bird and a rose, that we would find the Titan through that.” I pointed back at the burnt body of the boy. “He’s holding a rose. On top of the building, there’s a bird. And the church is all stone. Maybe this is the place where God wanted us to go all along.”
“Maybe,” Lovebug muttered through heaving gasps, still grabbing at his bruised neck. “God, this hurts. It feels like I got hanged.” Side by side, we pushed open the doors to the Satanic church and walked inside.
***
Row after row of pews stretched out in front of us. Thousands of black candles were set up all around the perimeter of the enormous chamber. They sputtered and flickered constantly, throwing dancing shadows in every direction.
A small pair of bright eyes glanced up at us from under one of the nearby pews. I nearly jumped out of my skin, pointing the rifle at them and yelling.
“Show yourself! Come out now, or I shoot!” Lovebug looked at me, confused. He hadn’t seen it. But a few heartbeats later, a little girl crawled out, her eyes big and blue, her body an emaciated wreck. She wore ripped strands of what looked like leathery human skin to cover herself, tied together with black string. In one small, grime-streaked hand, she held a half-eaten raw mouse.
“Please, don’t kill me,” she said in a small voice. “I’m Emma. My mommy and daddy got dragged away and I’m scared.” I felt sick and weak looking at this small victim. I reached down and helped her up.
“I wouldn’t hurt you,” I said, kneeling down to her level. “I thought you were one of the bad guys. This is Lovebug, and I’m Jack.”
“This isn’t part of the mission, man,” Lovebug said nervously. “What are we supposed to do with her?”
“Well, we can’t just fucking leave her here,” I whispered back. “We need…” But I never got to finish that thought. Because, at that moment, the church woke up.
***
A red glow started at the front of the chamber, the altar where the priest would have stood and given speeches or holy communion. Here, they had a podium that looked like it was carved from a single block of obsidian. Reflected in it, I saw the screaming faces of people burning in Hell, grinning demons ripping off strips of human flesh and spiraling waves of flames, all sculpted by an artist who was able to capture the most miniscule details of agony and torture.
I looked around, realizing Emma had gone. I hadn’t seen her scurry away and hide, but her absence gave me a feeling of crushing dread in my chest.
“Lovebug, something’s wrong,” I whispered, still staring up at the altar. I heard a floorboard creak behind me. I glanced back just in time to see a man wearing full SWAT gear. I caught the flash of a pistol coming down, the butt aimed at my forehead. I heard the cracking, felt the immense pressure and pain. For a few moments, I swam in the currents of consciousness, trying to stay awake, but then the blackness crept in and stole me away.
***
I awoke suddenly, my hands tied so tightly behind my back that I couldn’t feel my fingers. I felt sick and wanted to throw up. I quickly choked those feelings back down. I tried to shake my head, to clear it, but that just brought jolts of pain like electricity shooting through my skull. Nearby, I heard a gunshot, then another.
“Bring it, fuckers!” Lovebug screamed in an insane voice. The explosion of a grenade rocked the building, and I smelled choking black smoke. I opened my eyes, seeing three men in SWAT gear laying dead, their bodies scattered haphazardly around the chaotic scene. One wall of the church had blown outwards, the stone still sending out gray wisps of wavy smoke into the air. I looked at my partner, seeing he had a bullet hole in his left arm and another one in his stomach. He was bleeding heavily, but the adrenaline and insanity seemed to keep him afloat- for now, at least.
I saw something walking towards us from the stage. It looked like a small boy, but black shadows spiraled up around his chest and face, translucent and shimmering darkly. He looked about five or six, his skin pale and smooth. As Lovebug’s face grew slack and distant, the boy abruptly erupted into flames.
“Don’t kill me again, Dad,” the small boy whispered in a hoarse voice choked with pain. The flames rose from his head and skin, melting his flesh, blackening it. Drops of boiling fat dribbled off his nose and chin. “Don’t send me to the dark place again, Dad…” He continued creeping closer to Lovebug, moving like a lion stalking an antelope.
“I didn’t know!” Lovebug cried, his face going paler. Tears streamed from his eyes as the rifle trembled wildly in his shaking hands. For a long moment, he looked torn, the finger tightening on the trigger as sobs escaped his chattering lips.
“Kill it, Lovebug!” I screamed. “Don’t let it get to you!” But as he dropped the rifle and knelt before the small boy, I knew it was too late.
The shadows spun faster and faster around the burning, dying body of the boy. He gave a scream of soul-shattering agony, reaching out to a small hand towards Lovebug.
“Help me!” the boy cried. Lovebug hesitated before bringing an arm up to take the boy’s hand.
“I missed you, Robbie,” Lovebug said before his fingers brushed the boys. The boy lunged forward, grabbing Lovebug’s hand with an iron grip. I saw Lovebug’s eyes widen in shock and surprise. A moment later, I heard the bones in his hand grinding together before breaking with a sound like snapping tree branches. The boy’s eyes darkened into jet-black orbs, the melted lips splitting into a sadistic grin.
“I missed you, too,” the thing hissed as its right arm changed, melting and reforming into something black and blade-like. The insectile limb swung forward in a blur, coming straight at Lovebug’s heart. He gave a panicked squeal a moment before it hit, trying to pull away with all of his considerable strength, his face turning chalk-white as the shattered bones in his hands ground together.
I closed my eyes, rolling away, trying to undo the knots that held my hands in place. Lovebug must have been greatly outnumbered. He would never have let that man tie me up. I heard the sounds of tearing meat and crunching bone nearby. Lovebug’s final breaths gurgled through the air, but I still kept my eyes closed, not wanting to look.
I felt a small tickle on my wrists, then heard a little voice next to my ear.
“I’ll get you out of here,” Emma whispered. I waited a few moments, then I heard the ropes snap. I looked back, seeing her holding a piece of sharp, broken glass in one tiny hand. In her other, she had the car keys. I wondered how she had gotten them, the little pickpocket.
“Thank God,” I said, rubbing my wrists. I looked around for my rifle, seeing it was laying next to the body of one of the SWAT guys. I wondered who these men were. I crawled towards it slowly, not wanting to draw attention.
“Don’t move another step,” a voice growled behind me. I glanced back, seeing the small boy, his features morphing into those of a demon. Curving horns spiraled from his temples. His jet-black eyes stared down at me with hatred and coldness. “You’ll follow your friend who killed my servants. His soul will stay alive forever within my body, a sickly thing wrapped up in an eternal shriek.”
“Fuck you,” I cried, lunging for my rifle. Emma disappeared behind a pew, running on all fours without looking back. I spun as I hit the ground, turning the barrel towards the morphing face of the shape-shifter. Its jaw unhinged, a snake-like tongue flicking out as it flew through the air towards me. Hollow fangs dripping clear venom grew from its mouth in a heartbeat, elongating and sharpening before my very eyes.
I fired twice, the bullets entering through its mouth and coming out the back of its head. Its flesh disintegrated in an instant, the body turning into light, gray ashes that disappeared in the breeze. Breathing hard, I waited, wondering if it was all over.
I heard a rumbling far below me, as if an earthquake were starting. A moment later, the church floor exploded upwards, sharp rubble and splintered boards flying in every direction.
***
“It’s coming!” Emma screamed, running over and grabbing my hand. I lay there, shell-shocked and unmoving for a long moment. In hindsight, the girl was a natural born survivor with much sharper reflexes than me. It was likely the only reason she survived as long as she had.
“The Titan,” I whispered grimly, trying to pull myself up to my feet. But it was like trying to walk on a heaving, sinking ship. Parts of the floor collapsed down into a seemingly never-ending abyss beneath us.
Near the stage, I saw hundreds of long, pale arms pulling something bloated and monstrous out of the ground. It was a Titan, and no explanation can ever convey the true horror of that thing.
It looked like countless human corpses had been melted together, fused into a ball with sagging, boneless chests, deformed faces and millions of writhing maggots. It groaned and gurgled with many lungs, exhaling a rotting, sulfurous breeze that made me want to retch. A soft susurration of many pained, muttering voices continuously emanated from the Titan.
“Emma, run!” I screamed, but she was already sprinting back towards the front door of the church. I backpedaled, afraid to look away from the creeping monstrosity, the juggernaut of rotting flesh moving towards us.
I heard the Titan closing the distance as I sprinted through the front door. The abominations with the silver eyes still slunk around the gate, blocking the car. I raised the rifle, firing blindly at the creatures, careful not to hit the little girl.
“Go to the car!” I screamed at Emma, feeling around for the keys. As the abominations saw the Titan, those still alive scattered, moving in a blur back into the shadows and homes of this rotten place.
The Titan broke the front wall of the church, sending splinters of red stone flying in every direction like bullets. It groaned and gurgled faster, its sickly cries more insistent. I ran to the Mercedes, starting it up and pressing the accelerator to the floor. I pulled a U-turn, heading back to the border of the anomaly.
***
The engine roared, the car bucking like a wild stallion as it pressed me and Emma back into our seats. But the creeping Titan continued gaining speed behind us, and for a few seconds, I feared we would be crushed to death under its massive weight.
The anomaly shimmered ahead of us. I crashed through it at two hundred miles an hour, skidding wildly as the Mercedes hit the dirt road. I nearly flew into a tree. I managed to right it at the last second, pulling onto the paved street as the Titan broke through behind us.
It followed us out. It’s in the real world now.

“Before I met the Savior, I was a worthless piece of garbage, barely a human being,” Lovebug droned at the front of the enormous room. Lovebug was a monster of a man, two-hundred and fifty pounds of hard tattooed muscle. Like myself, he was a high-ranking member of the Church.
His flat gray eyes scanned the room with a fanatical gleam. I sat in the first row, watching and waiting. Followers of the Savior would tell their stories, how the Savior had reached down and lifted them out of sin and filth to bring them up to the divine. The bright fluorescent lights overhead droned on with a low hum. Thousands of men crammed together in seats or stood at the back of the room.
The Savior taught only two commandments: to murder is holy, and to die for the Savior is the highest bliss. An army of warriors followed the Savior, knights on a holy crusade, priests who wouldn’t hesitate to burn the foul bodies of any witches or demons we encountered. I thought of myself as a knight for the holy king, our Savior, the mouthpiece of the eternal.
“Now, it is like the hand of God has reached into my heart and loosened all the knots there, the knots of anxiety and fear and uncertainty.” He raised his black, military-style rifle into the air for emphasis. “I never realized the true nature of reality before- the fact that we are living in a simulation where the final battle of good versus evil is playing out before our very eyes. And I will be on the side of the good, until my dying breath. I will be on the side of the Savior and of God!”
The crowd roared and clapped. Men got to their feet, sweating heavily in the boiling hot conference room. I felt the surge of energy pass through me like a tidal wave, the pure confidence and iron will of truth. Lovebug lumbered down off the stage as the Savior came out from behind the red curtains, walking with the straight spine of a soldier. He wore a silky black robe that fluttered softly around him, the hood pulled back.
The Savior had horrific burns running the length of his body. His arms had melted folds of keloid scars visible all the way to the tips of his fingers. His scalp had also melted, and the Savior had no hair except for his eyelashes and eyebrows. But the fire that had nearly killed him had spared his face, an aristocratic visage with ferocious green eyes like those of a cat. That face seemed like it had been sculpted out of marble by DaVinci himself, the high cheekbones jutting out over a chin so sharp that it looked like it could have hammered nails into boards. He stared out at the crowd for a long moment, his gaze unblinking.
“The final battle has begun,” he said in a low voice, no more than a whisper. Yet, in the deathly silence of the hall, his words rang out loud and clear. “Those in charge of this illusory world know that we see them. We see them very well, how they hide behind the curtain. They control the world economy, the justice system. Every government, whether they call themselves communist, authoritarian or democratic, is no more than a puppet in their dancing fingers.
“When anyone tries to stand up and lead the masses of suffering people towards freedom from slavery, they are vilified by the mainstream media, brought up on false charges or killed, their bodies staged to look like a suicide. Look what they did to Jesus, and for what? For telling people to love God more than their rulers? And those who speak out today are also crucified, murdered in prisons or killed by their governments. Truth is the most precious commodity, after all. It is one that can only be purchased with blood.
“So what can we do? How can we fight against such evil?” There was a quiet muttering among the pale, frozen faces that stared up at the stage with adoration and love.
“We can fight it by using their own weapons against them!” the Savior said, his voice rising in speed and pitch. He raised his fisted hands to his chest, accentuating each syllable with a back and forth stab of his hands. “Fight fire with fire, and pay back blood with blood! The only thing these global terrorists understand is greater levels of force. We must show them death on a scale they have never before imagined.” I felt nervous as the Savior delivered his message. I saw other men shuffle anxiously in the crowded auditorium, most of them having high-caliber rifles slung around their shoulders.
I felt the rising violence and bloodlust in the air like electricity before a lightning storm. At that moment, I knew we would all have to fight before too long.
***
The Savior called me and Lovebug back to his office after the speech had ended, sending his squirrely assistant over to deliver the hand-written note in the Savior’s blocky, copperplate handwriting. For a long moment, I simply watched the crowd filtering out of the doors, heading back towards the complex where all the holy soldiers of the Savior lived. Feeling dissociated and light-headed, I followed behind the massive muscular form of Lovebug, the heavy weight of the M16 bouncing against my chest. We pushed through the blood-red velvet curtains, winding our way past stage equipment and down a hallway of pure marble.
Mystical paintings similar to those of Alex Grey covered both walls, showing the inside workings of the human body through art. It was as if the painter had X-ray vision and could see the heart chakra and the countless thin vessels that spiderwebbed up to the crown. But, unlike Alex Grey’s hopeful depictions of mysticism, these showed men and women being burned alive, crucified, decapitated or strangled. Dark colors composed the paintings: the dark blue of a suffocating face, the clotted red of an infected stab wound, the black of death. They captured the essence of struggle perfectly.
The Savior’s office had a thick mahogany door with silver engravings of leaves and vines running the length of it. At the top stood a single staring eye with twelve wavy tentacles emerging from the perimeter of it- the symbol of God, who the Savior had seen personally. God would sometimes speak through the mouth of the Savior, always during times of great tribulation or suffering. Lovebug knocked at the door. The Savior’s deep voice echoed out faintly.
“Come in.”
We entered slowly, the sprawling desk of the Savior filling half of the room. He sat in a comfortable chair behind it, reclining. On the walls behind him, he had pictures of Jesus, Saint Stephen, Gandhi, Hitler, Jim Jones, Shoko Asahara and others who he taught had fought against the world elites and been killed for it.
The Church of the Final Rapture was not a church in the conventional sense. The main teachings didn’t revolve around the divinity of Christ or the nature of original sin. What the Savior taught was far more profound- an illusory or simulated world where every single person could become their own Christ, could awaken to the truth and perform miracles, but only if they believed fully and followed the Savior.
“Sit down, please,” he said in his gravelly voice. “I have a mission I would like to discuss, and you two are the only ones competent and loyal enough to carry it out.”
***
“There is another anomaly spreading,” the Savior said, staring between me and Lovebug with his fanatical emerald eyes. “It is located in a rural part of the United States, in a town called-” he glanced down at the sheet of paper in front of him- “Frost Hollow. Supposedly, there are black-ops sites located nearby, secret alphabet agencies experimenting with magnetic distortion systems and creating rips in the fabric of spacetime with micro-wormholes.
“I don’t think it is much of a leap to say that the anomaly was likely started, either intentionally or unintentionally, by the government, as part of their research. The Cleaners would like to control that power, after all. They have been sending their men after it for years like sheep to the slaughter, expending billions of dollars researching it. If they and the US government end up being able to control the creation and spread of anomalies, they will use it to enslave the world. There is no question about it in my mind.” He leaned forwards towards us, his eyes growing cold.
“There is only one path forward I can see. We need to spread the anomaly, make it become unstable so the demons of Hell contained within it can spill out onto the real world. Perhaps it will awaken the downtrodden masses enough to begin the final revolution. We must fight terrorism with greater terrorism, and violence with greater levels of violence. For this mission, I am sending the two of you into Frost Hollow.
“Your job will be to find the Titan or Titans and lead them out to the border of the anomaly. These are horrendous beasts- indeed, the Church has seen them before. They are nearly impossible to kill. I want you two to go inside, bait it and have it follow you back to the edge, beyond the veil.”
“What’s a Titan?” Lovebug asked, his eyes flicking left and right nervously. The Savior stared at him stonily for a long moment. Then his eyes rolled back in his head, showing only the whites. All the blood seemed to drain from his face. His teeth chattered, his mouth opened, and through it, God spoke, the words pouring out like crashing stones. The voice did not sound anything like the Savior’s. It sounded much deeper, more mechanical, more alien somehow.
“I see you very well. I saw you when you were no more than a blood clot in your mother’s body. I see you even as corpses, rotted, putrefying, crawling with scavengers and insects. I see everything, every moment of time. But, in the anomaly, there are things I cannot see. For this, my holy ones must go forth.
“In the center of Hell, you will find a rose, a bird and a stone. These will be your salvation, if salvation can be found at all. Go with the blessing of Yaldabaoth.” The voice cut off abruptly, the silence deafening. I could hear my own heart pounding in my ears.
The Savior’s eyes came back down, looking confused and uncertain. His pupils were dilated and he was sweating heavily, even though it was cool and air-conditioned back here in his private office. We stared at each other across the table, a no-man’s land that protected me like a shield. For there seemed to be something dark in the Savior along with the light, and I didn’t know if any man could contain that power.
But there was no question of disobeying. Within the hour, Lovebug and I were on one of the Church’s private jets flying to the town of Frost Hollow.
***
The gently rolling hills of Frost Hollow loomed below us as the plane circled the small dirt airstrip in the middle of some cow farms. I looked up at Lovebug, trying to judge his stony expression. He had done many years in prison before joining the Church and finding salvation, even being the leader of one of the gangs. I knew he wasn’t afraid of violence. He had never told me what he did, what tortured him so much.
The Savior had told us much secret knowledge- how to find a Titan, a massive, bloated abomination that could come into being only within an anomaly, a combination of many rotted body pieces fused together in some sort of hellish black magic. The Savior had spies around Frost Hollow and the surrounding towns who had been monitoring the anomaly, watching the unstable gateways leading in and out and mapping them as best they could. We would be given a fast car, plenty of weapons and some body armor. I had no idea how nightmarish the journey would become, however.
“I’m driving,” Lovebug said as we descended the steps. A man in a black suit with the symbol of the eye and tentacles pinned on his black button-up shirt pulled up with a Mercedes AMG-One. It was a sleek, silver thing of immense luxury and power. The craftsmanship made it look like a work of art. I sighed, keeping my finger nervously on the trigger of my rifle as I glanced around the strange, empty town.
“If this thing won’t outrun a Titan, then nothing will,” I said, trying to break the tension. I looked at the speedometer, seeing it went up to 220 miles an hour.
“Damn fucking right,” Lovebug growled as we slid into the futuristic-looking leather seats. The engine turned on like a softly purring kitten. The GPS automatically turned on as well, the soft robotic voice leading us toward one of the more stable portals to the anomaly.
Lovebug sped down the empty forest roads of Frost Hollow, going twice the legal speed limit the entire way.
“The speed limit is only for the lowest common denominator,” Lovebug said pedantically, waggling a tattooed finger for emphasis. The GPS said we would reach the gateway to the anomaly in five minutes. Based on Lovebug’s speed, I thought it would be more like two. “Someone who actually knows how to drive and isn’t drunk or high can easily do 80 in a 40. Easily.” I glanced nervously at the speedometer, realizing he was going over 100 miles an hour now. The sports car hugged the tight corners of the winding forest roads with absolute precision.
“Turn right onto Snake Island Road Extension in five hundred feet,” the robotic female voice. Lovebug slammed on the brakes a few seconds later, the tires skidding and locking up. We looked around frantically, seeing no streets anywhere except the one we were on.
“What the hell?” Lovebug asked. The night was crawling in by now, the darkness covering the forests like a curtain. I squinted, looking at the thick grove of trees on our right, scanning it back and forth over and over. After a few seconds, I realized there was an overgrown dirt path there with no sign. It was nearly impossible to see at night, however, and calling it a road was somewhat of a joke.
“Oh, damn,” I said. “They should’ve given us an SUV.”
***
According to the GPS, our destination was only a thousand feet down Snake Island Road Extension. The low clearance of the Mercedes was a problem as Lovebug tried to navigate the flooded forest path. Deep tread marks flooded with black, stagnant water marked the entirety of Snake Island Road Extension. But ahead, the headlights illuminated something unusual.
Cutting straight across the trees and brush like a razorblade was a shimmering wall of translucent energy. It reminded me of a mirage, curving upwards in wavy spiral patterns. I could see through it easily, but it gave everything a dark, sinister covering. The forest seemed to be in constant motion as the grayish light distorted it.
“Look how huge it is!” I said in awe, staring up at the starry sky. The flat wall rose up seemingly forever, disappearing in the cold void of infinite space. Lovebug slowly ambled the car towards the anomaly, trying to keep the Mercedes from getting stuck with its low clearance.
“You ready for this, man?” Lovebug asked in a quavering voice as we inched towards the anomaly. It was only seconds away now. He grabbed my shoulder. “This is it. Remember the commandments.” I closed my eyes, concentrating my heart on the Savior’s words. Dying for the good is the highest bliss, he had told us.
“Let’s do this,” I said, my eyes flying open from my silent prayer as the hood passed through the anomaly. It disappeared in front of our eyes. We could see the forest on the other side, but the Mercedes looked like it was going through some sort of teleportation portal, being ripped apart layer by layer and sent somewhere else. Lovebug nervously grabbed my hand.
“For the Savior and for the Good,” he whispered as we passed through.
***
I heard screaming and wailing, full of agony and unimaginable horror, like the screams of those burning in Hell. My vision went white. A carpet of morphing dark colors covered everything as the shrieking intensified, until I thought my eardrums would explode.
“Stop!” I cried, feeling the pressure in my head like a splitting migraine. “Stop screaming!” I started kicking, punching, trying to get away.
“Calm the fuck down!” someone whispered, slapping me hard across the face. Stunned, I looked up, seeing Lovebug holding me down in the seat. He was covered in sweat, his face a blank mask of terror. “Don’t scream. There’s things outside that are looking this way.” I blinked fast, my senses coming back to me. I felt like a man waking up from surgery, confused and disoriented, my memories only returning in small trickles and drops.
We were sitting in the Mercedes on a road that looked like it had been made of human skin. The headlights showed the ragged patches of pale, leathery flesh sewn together with black thread. The road disappeared ahead of us in a straight line. The land here looked as flat as Kansas. Like a mirror world, it had houses and restaurants and churches lining both sides of the road, but they were all wrong.
The stone church looked like it was constructed of some kind of red volcanic rock. Baphomets and upside-down pentagrams covered the outer walls, engraved deeply into the glossy surface. Mutilated bodies covered the front lawn, impaled, crucified, skinned alive or burned at the stake. Hundreds of men, women and children lay dead in front of the Satanic temple.
Overhead, the sky bubbled and frothed with red clouds and constant explosions of blue lightning. Like missile flashes, the lightning illuminated the world around us, shining brightly before going dark. The incessant strobing gave the entire place a kind of circus freakshow vibe.
Many of the homes looked like they had been constructed from bones and covered in human skin, like some sort of hellish teepee. Arm and leg bones wrapped in razor-wire formed the pillars. Grinning skulls lined the top of the flat, rectangular roofs, thousands of bleached human heads staring down.
Staring out of the dark doorways, I saw gleaming, silvery eyes. They loomed eight or nine feet in the air on spidery bodies. Their limbs looked as thin as bones, jet-black and dull. The only color from these still revenants was from their unblinking eyes and grinning mouths, where teeth like those of a dragonfish jutted out. Every pair of eyes on that street was fixed intently on the Mercedes, the sick rictus grins on their alien faces never faltering.
“Jesus Christ, I’m sorry,” I whispered, feeling weak. “I thought I was in a nightmare for a minute there.” Lovebug shrugged his massive shoulders.
“Yeah, I felt it too, though I came out of it a lot faster than you did,” he said, glancing over at the Satanic church as we passed. It had protective black spikes rising high into the air all around it. The broken body of a child who had been burnt at the stake stood in front of the gates like a death omen, his small, withered hand holding a black rose. Lovebug choked, retching. He nearly rolled down the window, until his eyes met the silvery ones of a nearby abomination.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, looking closer at the church. On top of the roof, I saw an enormous statue of a black raven, its wings spread as if it were flying. It had three gleaming, silvery eyes embedded into the dark rock.
“That boy just reminds me of my son,” Lovebug whispered glumly, inching along the streets.
“I didn’t know you had a son,” I said, surprised. Lovebug had never mentioned a family. He shrugged.
“I don’t. Not anymore. I killed him. I got drunk and high one night back when I was selling drugs. Fell asleep in the living room with a lit cigarette and burned down the whole house. I killed my wife and son, burned them. They sent me to prison, but what did that matter? The prison up here is far worse.” He tapped the side of his temple.
I was about to say something, but at that moment, many things happened at once.
***
Lovebug was staring at the corpse of the child when an inhumanly long arm reached up from the side of the car. It had fingers like spikes, as sharp as a knife and twice as long as normal human fingers. I gasped, a warning shout welling up in my throat, but the hand came smashing down into the driver’s side window and grabbed Lovebug’s neck.
The window exploded in a shower of safety glass, shattering like brittle bones. Lovebug’s scream was cut off as he was dragged, kicking and screaming, out of the car. I swung open my door, leaping out and bringing my rifle around.
The Cheshire Cat grin of the abomination never faltered as it held Lovebug in front of its body like a human shield, holding him by the neck above the ground. Lovebug’s legs kicked and squirmed, his face turning blue as he slowly suffocated. His eyes bulged from their sockets, panicked and rolling, uncomprehending in their total animal panic.
I flicked on the laser sight. It danced over the ground, flashing over the body of Lovebug and the abomination. But I couldn’t aim for its torso or face, as I would probably hit Lovebug in the process. It was far too close.
I aimed for the monster’s thin, skeletal feet, the black toes twisting over each other like the roots of a tree. The gunshots rang out as a deafening counterpoint to the thunder blasts.
The monster gave a hissing gurgle as two bullets caught it in the right ankle. The creature seemed bloodless, and only dust and ashes rolled out of the exploded insectile flesh. It tried to skitter away, but its destroyed ankle caused it to fall forward, throwing Lovebug.
His body rolled across the road, the soft leather that looked like it was made from tens of thousands of human skins. Gasping, his lips still showing a faint blue cast, he struggled to crawl away.
I saw furtive movement from all around us. The creatures in the houses and doorways were moving forwards, drawn by the bloodshed or noise. Hundreds of glowing, silvery eyes surrounded us. I sprinted forward, dragging Lovebug to his feet.
“The church,” I hissed. “It’s the only place.” Still pulling the weak, confused Lovebug behind me, we staggered towards the black gates. They opened with a shriek of rusted metal.
***
The creatures stopped at the gates to the blood-red church, simply staring at us like statues. They didn’t even seem to breathe, their lidless eyes never blinking, the silvery glow never fading.
“I think this is the place we’re meant to go,” I whispered as we made our way towards the massive pointed doors. “When God spoke to us, he said something about a stone, a bird and a rose, that we would find the Titan through that.” I pointed back at the burnt body of the boy. “He’s holding a rose. On top of the building, there’s a bird. And the church is all stone. Maybe this is the place where God wanted us to go all along.”
“Maybe,” Lovebug muttered through heaving gasps, still grabbing at his bruised neck. “God, this hurts. It feels like I got hanged.” Side by side, we pushed open the doors to the Satanic church and walked inside.
***
Row after row of pews stretched out in front of us. Thousands of black candles were set up all around the perimeter of the enormous chamber. They sputtered and flickered constantly, throwing dancing shadows in every direction.
A small pair of bright eyes glanced up at us from under one of the nearby pews. I nearly jumped out of my skin, pointing the rifle at them and yelling.
“Show yourself! Come out now, or I shoot!” Lovebug looked at me, confused. He hadn’t seen it. But a few heartbeats later, a little girl crawled out, her eyes big and blue, her body an emaciated wreck. She wore ripped strands of what looked like leathery human skin to cover herself, tied together with black string. In one small, grime-streaked hand, she held a half-eaten raw mouse.
“Please, don’t kill me,” she said in a small voice. “I’m Emma. My mommy and daddy got dragged away and I’m scared.” I felt sick and weak looking at this small victim. I reached down and helped her up.
“I wouldn’t hurt you,” I said, kneeling down to her level. “I thought you were one of the bad guys. This is Lovebug, and I’m Jack.”
“This isn’t part of the mission, man,” Lovebug said nervously. “What are we supposed to do with her?”
“Well, we can’t just fucking leave her here,” I whispered back. “We need…” But I never got to finish that thought. Because, at that moment, the church woke up.
***
A red glow started at the front of the chamber, the altar where the priest would have stood and given speeches or holy communion. Here, they had a podium that looked like it was carved from a single block of obsidian. Reflected in it, I saw the screaming faces of people burning in Hell, grinning demons ripping off strips of human flesh and spiraling waves of flames, all sculpted by an artist who was able to capture the most miniscule details of agony and torture.
I looked around, realizing Emma had gone. I hadn’t seen her scurry away and hide, but her absence gave me a feeling of crushing dread in my chest.
“Lovebug, something’s wrong,” I whispered, still staring up at the altar. I heard a floorboard creak behind me. I glanced back just in time to see a man wearing full SWAT gear. I caught the flash of a pistol coming down, the butt aimed at my forehead. I heard the cracking, felt the immense pressure and pain. For a few moments, I swam in the currents of consciousness, trying to stay awake, but then the blackness crept in and stole me away.
***
I awoke suddenly, my hands tied so tightly behind my back that I couldn’t feel my fingers. I felt sick and wanted to throw up. I quickly choked those feelings back down. I tried to shake my head, to clear it, but that just brought jolts of pain like electricity shooting through my skull. Nearby, I heard a gunshot, then another.
“Bring it, fuckers!” Lovebug screamed in an insane voice. The explosion of a grenade rocked the building, and I smelled choking black smoke. I opened my eyes, seeing three men in SWAT gear laying dead, their bodies scattered haphazardly around the chaotic scene. One wall of the church had blown outwards, the stone still sending out gray wisps of wavy smoke into the air. I looked at my partner, seeing he had a bullet hole in his left arm and another one in his stomach. He was bleeding heavily, but the adrenaline and insanity seemed to keep him afloat- for now, at least.
I saw something walking towards us from the stage. It looked like a small boy, but black shadows spiraled up around his chest and face, translucent and shimmering darkly. He looked about five or six, his skin pale and smooth. As Lovebug’s face grew slack and distant, the boy abruptly erupted into flames.
“Don’t kill me again, Dad,” the small boy whispered in a hoarse voice choked with pain. The flames rose from his head and skin, melting his flesh, blackening it. Drops of boiling fat dribbled off his nose and chin. “Don’t send me to the dark place again, Dad…” He continued creeping closer to Lovebug, moving like a lion stalking an antelope.
“I didn’t know!” Lovebug cried, his face going paler. Tears streamed from his eyes as the rifle trembled wildly in his shaking hands. For a long moment, he looked torn, the finger tightening on the trigger as sobs escaped his chattering lips.
“Kill it, Lovebug!” I screamed. “Don’t let it get to you!” But as he dropped the rifle and knelt before the small boy, I knew it was too late.
The shadows spun faster and faster around the burning, dying body of the boy. He gave a scream of soul-shattering agony, reaching out to a small hand towards Lovebug.
“Help me!” the boy cried. Lovebug hesitated before bringing an arm up to take the boy’s hand.
“I missed you, Robbie,” Lovebug said before his fingers brushed the boys. The boy lunged forward, grabbing Lovebug’s hand with an iron grip. I saw Lovebug’s eyes widen in shock and surprise. A moment later, I heard the bones in his hand grinding together before breaking with a sound like snapping tree branches. The boy’s eyes darkened into jet-black orbs, the melted lips splitting into a sadistic grin.
“I missed you, too,” the thing hissed as its right arm changed, melting and reforming into something black and blade-like. The insectile limb swung forward in a blur, coming straight at Lovebug’s heart. He gave a panicked squeal a moment before it hit, trying to pull away with all of his considerable strength, his face turning chalk-white as the shattered bones in his hands ground together.
I closed my eyes, rolling away, trying to undo the knots that held my hands in place. Lovebug must have been greatly outnumbered. He would never have let that man tie me up. I heard the sounds of tearing meat and crunching bone nearby. Lovebug’s final breaths gurgled through the air, but I still kept my eyes closed, not wanting to look.
I felt a small tickle on my wrists, then heard a little voice next to my ear.
“I’ll get you out of here,” Emma whispered. I waited a few moments, then I heard the ropes snap. I looked back, seeing her holding a piece of sharp, broken glass in one tiny hand. In her other, she had the car keys. I wondered how she had gotten them, the little pickpocket.
“Thank God,” I said, rubbing my wrists. I looked around for my rifle, seeing it was laying next to the body of one of the SWAT guys. I wondered who these men were. I crawled towards it slowly, not wanting to draw attention.
“Don’t move another step,” a voice growled behind me. I glanced back, seeing the small boy, his features morphing into those of a demon. Curving horns spiraled from his temples. His jet-black eyes stared down at me with hatred and coldness. “You’ll follow your friend who killed my servants. His soul will stay alive forever within my body, a sickly thing wrapped up in an eternal shriek.”
“Fuck you,” I cried, lunging for my rifle. Emma disappeared behind a pew, running on all fours without looking back. I spun as I hit the ground, turning the barrel towards the morphing face of the shape-shifter. Its jaw unhinged, a snake-like tongue flicking out as it flew through the air towards me. Hollow fangs dripping clear venom grew from its mouth in a heartbeat, elongating and sharpening before my very eyes.
I fired twice, the bullets entering through its mouth and coming out the back of its head. Its flesh disintegrated in an instant, the body turning into light, gray ashes that disappeared in the breeze. Breathing hard, I waited, wondering if it was all over.
I heard a rumbling far below me, as if an earthquake were starting. A moment later, the church floor exploded upwards, sharp rubble and splintered boards flying in every direction.
***
“It’s coming!” Emma screamed, running over and grabbing my hand. I lay there, shell-shocked and unmoving for a long moment. In hindsight, the girl was a natural born survivor with much sharper reflexes than me. It was likely the only reason she survived as long as she had.
“The Titan,” I whispered grimly, trying to pull myself up to my feet. But it was like trying to walk on a heaving, sinking ship. Parts of the floor collapsed down into a seemingly never-ending abyss beneath us.
Near the stage, I saw hundreds of long, pale arms pulling something bloated and monstrous out of the ground. It was a Titan, and no explanation can ever convey the true horror of that thing.
It looked like countless human corpses had been melted together, fused into a ball with sagging, boneless chests, deformed faces and millions of writhing maggots. It groaned and gurgled with many lungs, exhaling a rotting, sulfurous breeze that made me want to retch. A soft susurration of many pained, muttering voices continuously emanated from the Titan.
“Emma, run!” I screamed, but she was already sprinting back towards the front door of the church. I backpedaled, afraid to look away from the creeping monstrosity, the juggernaut of rotting flesh moving towards us.
I heard the Titan closing the distance as I sprinted through the front door. The abominations with the silver eyes still slunk around the gate, blocking the car. I raised the rifle, firing blindly at the creatures, careful not to hit the little girl.
“Go to the car!” I screamed at Emma, feeling around for the keys. As the abominations saw the Titan, those still alive scattered, moving in a blur back into the shadows and homes of this rotten place.
The Titan broke the front wall of the church, sending splinters of red stone flying in every direction like bullets. It groaned and gurgled faster, its sickly cries more insistent. I ran to the Mercedes, starting it up and pressing the accelerator to the floor. I pulled a U-turn, heading back to the border of the anomaly.
***
The engine roared, the car bucking like a wild stallion as it pressed me and Emma back into our seats. But the creeping Titan continued gaining speed behind us, and for a few seconds, I feared we would be crushed to death under its massive weight.
The anomaly shimmered ahead of us. I crashed through it at two hundred miles an hour, skidding wildly as the Mercedes hit the dirt road. I nearly flew into a tree. I managed to right it at the last second, pulling onto the paved street as the Titan broke through behind us.
It followed us out. It’s in the real world now.

Okay, to add fuel to the fire, this is going down in a Latino Wal-Mart, the boomer's a white MAGA and nary a word of English is being spoken. I'm on the same aisle shopping for my own drawers. The boomer is anchored on this one particular aisle convinced that there is no more underwear in the store despite all types shapes and sizes being scattered about on end caps and other aisles. Well, he's after the Walter White fighting whitey type XXL since he's a big ole boy but all he sees is boxer briefs and bikini and all of them in different colors. "Whar's the big white men's underwear? The Latina sales associate tells him six which bozo misunderstands as sex. "Sex? Yes, ahm a man, understand? Nothing weird going on with me har! har! Now uh whar's the big white men's underwear? "Six" FOR MAN! FOR MAN! I TOLD YOU I'M A MAN!! I WANT SOME BIG WHITE MEN'S UNDERWEAR!!! "Six" She says again and quickly exists around the aisle leaving him in his dust. He's boiling at this point face beet red and just for kicks before leaving, I told him he should try the mesh bikini ones since they're comfortable and come in some rainbow colors.

It’s important for us to recognize that sacrifice is a deeply important component in the human psyche. It’s been practiced throughout all of human history. Most current and ancient human cultures have made sacrifices.
Sometimes, the sacrifice is a goat. Other times, it’s something more extreme i.e the Aztecs sacrificed young, virgin women. Other times the, sacrifice is something symbolic.
When we look back at this behavior, we regard it as irrational and illogical. “We would never do anything like that”, we implicitly believe while failing to recognize we are not much different than the people who did those things.
Fortunately for us, Rene Girard identified why humans feel the irrational and mostly unconscious need to go through with these sacrifices. He called this the “scapegoat mechanism” which is essentially a 4 step process.

1. The first step that occurs is a society/community descends into chaos via mimetic contagion. Human desire is deeply mimetic. We want things simply because other people want them too. This means not everyone can have what they want leading to anger and resentment.
2. Once the collective anger and resentment reaches a boiling point, a scapegoat is chosen. People’s anger becomes directed at a single target that takes the blame. That target is often killed violently.
3. The third step is deification. The victim is deified into a God. This is paradoxical so I’m not sure why it happens. Guilt maybe?
4. The fourth step is institutionalization. Myths and institutions are formed around the victim making them the backbone of the now pagan society.

Knowing this, we can map on the steps of the scapegoat mechanism onto the trans movement. We’re currently experiencing a fertility crisis. Relationships between men and women have been deteriorating. Almost 50% of women are expected to be single and childless by 2030.
This causes a lot of grief and resentment which has been exceedingly obvious to anyone who actively uses the internet. So what’s the scapegoat for all these negative emotion? Well that’s going to depend on who you are, but for a lot of women, that scapegoat is men. Or maybe masculinity itself or “the patriarchy”. Or maybe even the masculine libido. This means the sacrifice becomes the essence of that masculinity. Towards the extreme end, the sacrifice would be of the phallus (and the balls).
Why else to would these type of women so heavily advocate for the feminization and castration of men? They tell themselves it’s because it’s the right and ethical thing to do but it’s really their shadow unconsciously pulling the strings. Rene Girard refers to this as a manifestation of the Anti-Christ i.e evil thru the guise of compassion. These trans women are then deified and elevated into priest-like positions.
A similar phenomenon occurred in Ancient Rome with the cult of Cybele (hermaphrodite Goddess). They also had castrated priests called Galli. The cult had been around since Ancient Greece but “ just happened” to gain popularity around the time elevated lead levels in Rome began to cause widespread fertility issues. It wasn’t until it was heavily restricted by Roman authorities that the cult began to decline. The same thing is happening now.
Dylan Mulvaney is an example of a “trans woman” whose status has been elevated as a consequence of enacting the sacrifice. You can find examples of women who are highly resentful of men everywhere you look. This can even be seen in some famous celebrities. Someone like Meagan Fox is raising her three sons to be as feminine as possible. We haven’t reached the institutionalization phase but looks like we’re working our way there.
TLDR: Resentment surrounding failed relationships leads to scapegoating masculinity and fuels a certain percentage of trans supporters.

It’s important for us to recognize that sacrifice is a deeply important component in the human psyche. It’s been practiced throughout all of human history. Most current and ancient human cultures have made sacrifices.
Sometimes, the sacrifice is a goat. Other times, it’s something more extreme i.e the Aztecs sacrificed young, virgin women. Other times the, sacrifice is something symbolic.
When we look back at this behavior, we regard it as irrational and illogical. “We would never do anything like that”, we implicitly believe while failing to recognize we are not much different than the people who did those things.
Fortunately for us, Rene Girard identified why humans feel the irrational and mostly unconscious need to go through with these sacrifices. He called this the “scapegoat mechanism” which is essentially a 4 step process.

1. The first step that occurs is a society/community descends into chaos via mimetic contagion. Human desire is deeply mimetic. We want things simply because other people want them too. This means not everyone can have what they want leading to anger and resentment.
2. Once the collective anger and resentment reaches a boiling point, a scapegoat is chosen. People’s anger becomes directed at a single target that takes the blame. That target is often killed violently.
3. The third step is deification. The victim is deified into a God. This is paradoxical so I’m not sure why it happens. Guilt maybe?
4. The fourth step is institutionalization. Myths and institutions are formed around the victim making them the backbone of the now pagan society.

Knowing this, we can map on the steps of the scapegoat mechanism onto the trans movement. We’re currently experiencing a fertility crisis. Relationships between men and women have been deteriorating. Almost 50% of women are expected to be single and childless by 2030.
This causes a lot of grief and resentment which has been exceedingly obvious to anyone who actively uses the internet. So what’s the scapegoat for all these negative emotion? Well that’s going to depend on who you are, but for a lot of women, that scapegoat is men. Or maybe masculinity itself or “the patriarchy”. Or maybe even the masculine libido. This means the sacrifice becomes the essence of that masculinity. Towards the extreme end, the sacrifice would be of the phallus (and the balls).
Why else to would these type of women so heavily advocate for the feminization and castration of men? They tell themselves it’s because it’s the right and ethical thing to do but it’s really their shadow unconsciously pulling the strings. Rene Girard refers to this as a manifestation of the Anti-Christ i.e evil thru the guise of compassion. These trans women are then deified and elevated into priest-like positions.
A similar phenomenon occurred in Ancient Rome with the cult of Cybele (hermaphrodite Goddess). They also had castrated priests called Galli. The cult had been around since Ancient Greece but “ just happened” to gain popularity around the time elevated lead levels in Rome began to cause widespread fertility issues. It wasn’t until it was heavily restricted by Roman authorities that the cult began to decline. The same thing is happening now.
Dylan Mulvaney is an example of a “trans woman” whose status has been elevated as a consequence of enacting the sacrifice. You can find examples of women who are highly resentful of men everywhere you look. This can even be seen in some famous celebrities. Someone like Meagan Fox is raising her three sons to be as feminine as possible. We haven’t reached the institutionalization phase but looks like we’re working our way there.
TLDR: Resentment surrounding failed relationships leads to scapegoating masculinity and fuels a certain percentage of trans supporters.

It started off like the most romantic movie you've ever seen. I (m, 50s, American) was on a solo trip through Europe in April 2023 when I met her (f, 40s, French) at a super cool neighborhood party I got randomly invited to during my 1-day visit to Austria. We exchanged glances, and got to talking. She was very cute and French. It was so random, seemed like kismet. We connected instantly and we spent the whole night together (very PG and very sweet at first). Have you seen Before Sunrise? Kinda like that.
I left the next day to continue my journey in Europe. But we started texting constantly. Then she wanted to come with me to Istanbul for a few days. It seemed impulsive, but I readily agreed. It was pure bliss.
She was stylish, cute, demur, fun, smart, and she adored me completely. She would do this "flashbulb eyes" thing that would knock me out. Even some random person came up to us in Istanbul and said, "you are such a cute couple" and took our picture. I had been divorced for a few years and the dating scene where I live in California is not so great.
I go back to California and she goes back to Austria where she lives. She told me she had to call her mom 6 times to tell her about how in love she was, but had to hang up because she was crying so much and couldn't talk.
Constant texting, pictures, love messages, calls. It was so nice. She even wrote poems and made songs (they were a bit frantic and weird, but anyway). I told all my friends. They were so happy for me. I was very in love with her.
Then about a month later, I made a casual comment that I admitted to be "demanding", ie., I don't put up with a lot of crap. I could feel the change.
Her nephew came into town to spend a few weeks with her. She started to ignore me. The texts and songs and pictures trickled down. She said she had no time. But she was going to concerts, etc. It was bullshit. When I raised my concerns, she said I was shouting (I was just angry, but did not shout).
Curiously, it felt like a previous relationship that I had. It felt like love bombing and discarding. Finally, when she did get around to calling me, I told her that she can't treat people that way and that this seems like a personality disorder. (This time I really was shouting). So I ended it and blocked her. I was really sad, but I moved on. I went on lonely solo trips and even got back into dating (I actually had some promising dates!)
In October of last year, she slipped past the blockade, reached out, and I responded. I asked why she ditched me. I got no real answer but I wanted to believe. My friends told me don't do it. I knew the risks. I just desperately wanted that love again. I desperately wanted to have my L. She adored me. She was everything I wanted.
We meet up in DC for the most romantic Christmas I ever had. I was finally with someone I really loved. It was lovely. I was still hurt though. I wanted her to "kiss my heart" and tell me that she was sorry. She told me to "let it go". I just sucked it up.
On this trip, she told me about her late husband. She said they were very in love and never fought. He was Mexican and they met in Vienna years earlier. On a trip to visit his family in Mexico, they all were kidnapped, the men were separated from the women, the women were let go a few days later, but all the men disappeared. She told me she looked for him for 3 years before giving up.
So I gave her lots of slack. We also had a language barrier. We spoke English together, but her native language is French. I attributed any miscommunication to that as well.
We agreed to meet up again in Austin. And this is where the cracks really started to show. It was the first episode of her losing it. Right before the trip, she blew up after some text exchange. I don't remember what happened as per usual ("bewildered" is how I felt with these episodes). She said she was devastated and that we shouldn't meet anymore in Austin.
So I stayed up all night talking her off the ledge. We made up and I was happy again. I totally ignored this and following episodes.
We had a nice time in Texas. So much that we decided that we wanted to be together. When we got back to our respective countries, she told me she was moving to California (no discussion with me, just a decision on her part). Shortly thereafter, she told me she was going to start studying to get her master's. Then she was going to apply for another job in Vienna (???) Then she realized that wouldn't be a good idea. Anyway...
I wanted her to be here in California with me but it's really tough to move to the US without being married. She didn't really think anything through, she just thought some company would give her a work visa. It don't work like that, honey. I was ready to marry her (but she still was technically married because she didn't have the death certificate of her late husband who disappeared).
Meanwhile, I had a ticket to meet her in Austria and spend 2 1/2 weeks together. I just wanted to experience "normal boring life" together. We got along so great when we did. She liked all the music I liked, even stuff that she really shouldn't have heard (obscure stuff from the 80s). (Looking back, maybe this was mirroring.)
Right before my trip, I got to worrying that she was coming to live here in August sight unseen. I was afraid I was building up an image of some idyllic life, when in reality California has tons of problems. So I made a video to show her the nice things, but also the bad things of my neighborhood. When I mentioned this, she lost it. "You don't want me to come. I hate you. You're awful. Don't come to Austria." She later called and we made up. Again. This was 12 hours before I got on the plane.
I went to Austria. The first 1.5 days were great. Then her aunt and uncle came to stay with us from France. They are all very close. But her 1 bedroom apartment made for close quarters, especially since I had never met them. Spanish was the common language (I'm fluent, so no problem). I liked them. They were a cute couple and they cared about her a lot. The uncle told me "you know what happened to her. She loves you very much, so please take care of her". I said I would of course. I really loved her.
But the next day her mood changed. She was happy and chipper with them (and her shitshow best friend) but cold to me. I wasn't included in the conversations really. She didn't try to bring me into the fold. Not everyone is a good conversationalist, I reasoned.
The following day, we were all supposed to go to Prague. Romantic Prague. But in the morning, she told me "you were sulking all day yesterday" and "you obviously don't like my aunt and uncle so why don't you just go your own way."
This is on my vacation, mind you.
I felt trapped. But we made up 15 minutes later and all went to Prague. She was still grumpy with me.
That night, on the river in romantic Prague, she called me a robot and said she didn't know who I was. She said I should leave.
So that night, I had to figure out a plan. I still had a bunch of my stuff at her apartment in Vienna. I also had her spare key. I felt the heebie jeebies, worried about my physical safety. I couldn't sleep.
My plan was to take the train to her place in Vienna, grab my stuff, leave her key, and peace out.
But the next morning, she realized I had the extra key, and threatened to call her uncle and the police if I didn't give it to her.
So I found myself walking around romantic Prague at 7am with just some of my crap, no plan, and no sleep. I felt like some refugee. Then she called. "Do you want to talk over coffee?" I had no other plan.
We make up of course. The next day we are hot and heavy in a church tower in a little Czech town. We were back, making out, holding hands, acting like teenagers. It was so nice.
Don't ask me how I could forget what had happened just a few hours prior.
We went back to Austria and had another nice day, making plans to go on adventures. Yes, we were now talking about me moving to Austria.
But the next night, right before the aunt and uncle were to go back to France and we were supposed to go to Budapest, she blew it up again.
She had a knack for blowing things up right before really important events.
I had left the bathroom fan on and she just lost it.
(By the way, all of these blowups where in whispers so that aunt and uncle could not hear. She's very sweet to her family and I guess she can do no wrong.)
We were in bed and now it was my turn to lose it. In a whisper, I said, "you're stupid and you have this ugly evil face".
Then she kicked me while in bed. She was LIVID.
Still in a raging whisper, she told me to get out (in my underwear I guess) and if not, she was going to "make a scene".
I was so scared.
Then she just got into bed. And I followed.
We talked it over. She said I deserved to be kicked. I told her no words should lead to violence.
Back to normal. We went to Budapest for a few days and then back to Vienna. Now we're alone together, at last. And guess what? We had a great time. We rode her bike in the park with her sitting on the back rack, like kids. We went shopping. I treated her to restaurants (I paid for everything on the whole trip, about $2k). We played guitar and sang together. We went to the Prater and rode rollercoasters. We made love.
On the last day, she took me to the airport. We had breakfast and we both were sad. But we had plans for the future.
She walked me to security and we said our goodbyes.
When I got to the gate, I get a text. "You didn't look back when you went through security. I'm so sad. Have a nice flight!" I had to talk her off the ledge again: "I thought you were leaving, I'm so sorry my love. I didn't mean to. I love you so much."
When I got back, I was so exhausted. I thought it was the jetlag, but I was on edge. I was angry and didn't know why. Snipping at my coworkers. My body hurt I was so tired.
But I was looking for jobs in Austria. I still hadn't realized anything.
I had an opportunity to go camping in Yosemite a few days later on Friday. Even though I was so tired, I knew I should take the opportunity (campsites there are hard to get). I called her Friday am, asked her how her day was. She knew I still hadn't packed and had a very important presentation to give too. I realized I need to get ready for that presentation that was starting in just a few minutes. "Sorry my love, I need to go. Got to get ready. I will send you a message when I get to Yosemite."
Then right when my presentation was about to start, I get a message. "You are so cold. You knew I was hurting but you ended the call so abruptly."
That was it. The last straw.
When driving up to Yosemite, I told my friend the whole story. I hadn't told anyone about all the explosions and breakups. I couldn't believe my own ears. Was I actually saying these things?
Then it hit me. I had to end it.
Later that week, I sent her an email to end it. I knew a phone conversation would end badly. Email is not the classiest, but I did what I could.
I got hateful texts, then texts trying to get me back, showing pictures of the stuffed animals I got her. Then her final one.
Then it hit me. This was abuse. The realization has been coming in waves. And this wasn't the first experience I had either. I dated M a few years earlier who actually ENJOYED abusing me. I could even see a little smile when she would throw insults or say things to shock me.
I don't think L is a narcissist. She couldn't help it. She even told me once that I could help her "heal".
EPILOGUE
Looking back, L told me on several occasions that I wouldn't like her once I got to know her. She was right about that one. She said she wasn't smart and that I wouldn't like her (but she spoke 4 languages and has a couple of university degrees and a good job). She said if we lived in Paris, I would leave her for a Parisian girl.
I see all these other things that I ignored. Like how she called herself a "party girl" and would go dancing with her girlfriends, but no guys would ever talk to her. Right.
No guys from the beach volleyball meetup group she organized would ever try to get with her. Right.
The guy who gave her a book of Sufi poetry (very romantic) wasn't hitting on her. Right.
The old guy who she met at the airport and wrote to her and signed off as "ton Ron" ("your Ron") was just some nice old guy. Right.
So right when I met her, she had just moved out of her old place with her ex, even though they had only dated for a couple of weeks and stayed as "roommates" for the remaining 5 years. Then two weeks later you get with me? Right.
I got her and her family a bunch of little gifts and she gave me whatever was in her cupboard and cheap socks with bears with 3 eyes. Meanwhile, she went to great lengths to get gifts for her people.
Maybe she saw me as a ticket to live and study for free in America.
I was a total fool. Maybe she never even loved me. Or am I just telling myself this to make it easier for me?
I wrote a second email telling her a lot of these thoughts, but in a polite tone. I asked her to get help.
I blocked her everywhere of course. But even though I set up a filter to delete any incoming email, I still check my trash box 5 times a day to see if she wrote.
How I wish that she actually got help and that she could actually be in a real relationship with me. I know, I know.
Why did you hurt me, L? I would have done anything for you. I was your bear, your prince, remember? I was perfect for you, remember?
I'm crying as I write this.
I hate this. I don't want to be alone again. You were the one for me.
I miss you.

I just wanted to make clear that this is not a discussion about women who are struggling to escape or survive abuse. This is about adult women with the ability and agency to choose, and their choice is the dude playing limbo under the already low bar set for men.
People should be embarrassed that they're fucking a man who has shit-stained underwear. Women should value themselves and each other enough that fucking, dating, or marrying an adult man who refuses to brush his teeth or wipe a kitchen counter is not on the table. And this is going to be probably the most controversial thing I say, but I find it reprehensible when women willingly and repeatedly choose to have children with these men.

This is the follow-up to my complete Krakoan single-issue reading order post, https://www.reddit.com/xmen/comments/1d8sg25/the_complete_singleissue_reading_order_for_the/ . This one is about how to read the extraordinary "Krakoa" story, which occupied all the X-Men comics from mid-2019 to mid-2024, in trade paperback form. (Marvel seems to have stopped publishing oversized hardcovers that aren't Omnibuses, so... be aware that there are some OHCs out there that duplicate some of this content, but this breaks things down in terms of TPBs.)
To head off the inevitable kvetches: you do not need to read all of this. There are a few crucial volumes (House of X/Powers of X, X of Swords, the three Hellfire Galas, etc.); beyond those, the idea is that you can read the series you like and skip the ones you don't.
I have omitted non-X-Men TPBs in which mutant characters appear, with a couple of exceptions (notably The Last Annihilation, because it's enormously fun, and Marvel's Voices: Pride, because that's where the first Escapade story lives). There are lots of guest shots, anthology stories, etc. set during the Krakoan era, but if you're reading in trade, I'm assuming you're really just interested in the X-Men-specific stuff.
The sequence within each section is only a vague order, except as noted; you'll be fine no matter what order you read in. (There's a thing that happens in X-Force vol. 1 that has effects in a few other volumes, for instance, but it's no big deal at what point you encounter it.)
I. HOUSE OF X/POWERS OF X
Collected as a single volume; essential to everything that follows.
II. DAWN OF X
This period can be read "horizontally" (as Dawn of X volume 1-16, a set of paperbacks collecting all the X-related comics in approximate publication order) or "vertically" (just the individual titles that interest you from the following trade paperback collections):

• X-Men by Hickman vol. 1-2
• Giant-Size X-Men by Hickman
  • NOTE that those three volumes, as well as X-Men by Hickman vol. 3, will soon be replaced by two bigger paperbacks: X-Men: Reign of X by Jonathan Hickman vol. 1 (which comes out July 23) and vol. 2 (which comes out Jan. 28, 2025). Yeah, only a little of that story takes place during the Reign of X period. Titles, whatcha gonna do.)
• Marauders by Duggan vol. 1-2
• Excalibur by Howard vol. 1-2
• New Mutants by Hickman
• New Mutants by Brisson
• X-Force by Percy vol. 1-2
• Fallen Angels by Hill
• Wolverine by Percy vol. 1
• Hellions by Wells vol. 1
• Cable by Duggan vol. 1
• Empyre: X-Men
• X-Men/Fantastic Four

III. X OF SWORDS
A crossover between all the X-titles, collected as a single volume; it sets up all the Arakko stuff that follows.
IV. REIGN OF X
This sequence is a whole lot of things that take place very quickly--it all happens during a two-week span. Again, you can follow it "horizontally" (Reign of X vol. 1-11) or "vertically" (any combination of the following trade paperback collections):

• X-Men by Hickman vol. 3
• X-Force by Percy vol. 3
• Marauders by Duggan vol. 3
• Hellions by Wells vol. 2
• X-Factor by Williams vol. 1-2
• Wolverine by Percy vol. 2
• Cable by Duggan vol. 2
• Excalibur by Howard vol. 3
• New Mutants by Ayala vol. 1
• S.W.O.R.D. by Ewing vol. 1
• Children of the Atom by Ayala vol. 1

V. THE HELLFIRE GALA (2021)
A big change happens here. The core of the 2021 Hellfire Gala has appeared as a paperback, just called X-Men: Hellfire Gala, that collects the Gala's four central issues (Marauders #21, X-Men #21, Planet-Size X-Men #1 and S.W.O.R.D #6); the Hellfire Gala - The Red Carpet Collection hardcover is those plus all the other issues that take place at the Gala, which are also spread out across Reign of X vol. 12-14. Note that Hellfire Gala - Immortal and Hellfire Gala - Fall of X are respectively the 2022 and 2023 events, not this one!
VI. TRIALS OF X
The period after the 2021 Hellfire Gala and before Destiny of X is the last time you've got a "horizontal" vs. "vertical" option. There are twelve volumes of Trials of X that cover almost all of this period (other than Inferno and X Lives/X Deaths, see below), but cut off midway through Sabretooth; if you're reading those and want to keep going with that story, just read the last two volumes in this section. As collected editions, it's any combination of:

• X-Men: The Trial of Magneto
• The Last Annihilation
• Way of X by Spurrier
• S.W.O.R.D. by Ewing vol. 2
• X-Men by Duggan vol. 1
• Hellions by Wells vol. 3
• X-Corp by Howard
• New Mutants by Ayala vol. 2
• Marauders by Duggan vol. 4
• X-Force by Percy vol. 4
• Wolverine by Percy vol. 3
• Excalibur by Howard vol. 4
• Devil's Reign: X-Men
• Sabretooth: The Adversary (starts much earlier, but best read in this period)
• Sabretooth & the Exiles

VII. INFERNO
Jonathan Hickman's farewell to the X-Men, collected as a single volume. Essential to what follows from Destiny of X onward, If you're reading "Trials of X," it fits neatly between volumes 6 and 7.
VIII. X LiVES & X DEATHS OF WOLVERINE
Another single volume: half a tour of Wolverine's history, half grindhouse sequel to Inferno. Yes, both Inferno and X Lives/X Deaths officially take place during the Trials of X period, but if you're reading in trades nothing will spoil anything before Destiny of X.
IX. DESTINY OF X/JUDGMENT DAY/SINS OF SINISTER
This is the one place where the way these are collected is genuinely frustrating. The actual structure of this period begins with X-Men by Duggan vol. 2 and the first halves of the respective first volumes of Immortal X-Men, X-Men Red, and Marauders by Orlando, plus almost all of Legion of X vol. 1. Then there's the 2022 Hellfire Gala; then there's a great big event, A.X.E.: Judgement Day, with which all of those series as well as Wolverine and X-Force connect; then every series gets to do its own thing for a little while until "Sins of Sinister" brings together strands from Immortal, Red and Legion. But the Judgment Day tie-ins aren't broken out into their own volumes, and in fact they're split across two volumes apiece of Immortal and Red... and Immortal vol. 2 leads directly into Sins of Sinister. Plus, there's a little string of revelations that make the most sense if you hit them in the following order: X-Men by Duggan v2, Immortal v2, and then (in either order) X-Men Red v2 and Legion of X v2, then Sins of Sinister. On top of that, Legion of X v 2 begins during Judgment Day and ends AFTER Sins of Sinister. Oof.
There is also a Judgment Day omnibus, which simplifies matters a bit, in its way.
I'd say the way to go, assuming you're reading a full TPB at a time, is that you probably want to read all of the following, in this order:

• X-Men by Duggan vol. 2
• Legion of X by Spurrier vol. 1
• X-Men: The Hellfire Gala - Immortal
• A.X.E.: Judgment Day
• Immortal X-Men by Gillen vol. 1 (this sets up a great deal of what follows)
• X-Men Red by Ewing vol. 1-2
• Immortal X-Men by Gillen vol. 2 (and make a mental note that you're going to return to what's happening at the end of that volume later on)

Then any combination you like of:

• A.X.E.: Judgment Day Companion
• X-Men by Duggan vol. 3
• X-Force by Percy vol. 5
• Wolverine by Percy vol. 4
• Marauders by Orlando vol. 1-2 (note: the first four of these and Marauders vol. 1 include Judgment Day stuff)
• Knights of X
• X-Terminators
• New Mutants by Ayala vol. 3
• Marvel's Voices: Pride (mostly for the Escapade story)
• New Mutants vol. 4

Then, definitely:

• Sins of Sinister (a single volume, quite important)
• Legion of X by Spurrier vol. 2 (includes a Judgment Day tie-in...!)
• Immortal X-Men by Gillen vol. 3
• X-Men Red by Ewing vol. 3

Then any combination you like of:

• X-Men by Duggan vol. 4 (see also Captain Marvel vol. 9-10)
• New Mutants: Lethal Legion
• Dark Web
• Knights of X
• Bishop: War College
• X-Force by Percy vol. 6-7
• Wolverine by Percy vol. 5-6
• Rogue & Gambit: Power Play
• Captain Britain: Betsy Braddock

X. FALL OF X
A couple of volumes that are crucial to what's after this:

• X-Men: Hellfire Gala - Fall of X
• Immortal X-Men by Gillen vol. 4

Then any combination of:

• X-Men by Duggan vol. 5
• X-Force by Percy vol. 8
• X-Men Red by Ewing vol. 4
• Invincible Iron Man by Duggan vol. 2
• Ghost Ride Wolverine: Weapons of Vengeance
• Wolverine by Percy vol. 7
• Astonishing Iceman: Out Cold
• Alpha Flight: Divided We Stand
• Jean Grey: Flames of Fear
• Ms. Marvel: The New Mutant vol. 1-2
• Uncanny Avengers: The Resistance
• Dark X-Men: The Mercy Crown
• Children of the Vault
• Realm of X

...and a few volumes that aren't out yet:

• Uncanny Spider-Man: Fall of X (out June 18)
• X-Force by Percy vol. 9 (out Sep. 24)
• Wolverine by Percy vol. 8: Sabretooth War pt. 1 (out June 11)
• Wolverine by Percy vol. 9: Sabretooth War pt. 2 (out Aug. 27)

And then, definitely:

• Resurrection of Magneto (out Aug. 13; note that this is kinda-sorta a sequel to Defenders: There Are No Rules and Defenders Beyond, which are excellent but also you'll be fine if you haven't read them)

XI. FALL AND RISE
None of this is out in trade yet, though all of it's out as single issues. The central part of the conclusion to the big Krakoa story is Fall of the House of X/Rise of the Powers of X, which comes out Aug. 27.
Beyond that, there are a few other forthcoming volumes that flesh out what's happening during Fall/Rise:

• Immortal X-Men vol. 5: X-Men Forever (out Dec. 17)
• Dead X-Men (out Sep. 24)
• X-Men by Duggan vol. 6 (out Sep. 3)
• Invincible Iron Man by Duggan vol. 3: Iron & Diamonds (out Oct. 1)

And that should do it!
Also potentially of interest: X-Men '92: House of XCII, which is loosely based on roughly the first half of the Krakoa story, but in the mode of the 1992 animated series!

Book One: Edge of Madness - Chapter One Previous Next
I could pretend to be a whore. That's what Masutap thought as she stood before the gate leading to the fortress of the Highlord of the Eastlocal. Pretense was a thing she indulged in back when she'd been an ordinary woman, with ordinary ambitions. But as of now, things had changed. Things had changed drastically, for she was now a champion of the Goddess of Order. A champion who would do anything in her power to mock the very being that fed her power.
Power, yes. It was what she felt. Every time her eyes turned upon the world, she saw Order. Like bees in a hive, working towards a similar objective. Survival. Yes, they all wanted to survive. And that's where the power lay, in her ability to deny a thing's chance at survival, for when her eyes flashed red, things died.
"Pardon me sir." A man dragging a cart of coal said. She was standing in his way, she knew this of course, she'd known it since the time he'd decided to deliver the coal. She saw the strings of prophesy in the smallest of things, and oh what power lied in discernment, to see the past and the future in absolute clarity, the secret lay in following strands of Order. The Highlord of the Eastlocal always received a cart of coal at around this time every fifth day. He would serve as her witness. Coal. She smiled, remembering how Orgeeg had managed to penetrate into the Palace of Binoria, on a stack of coal. She recalled how Orgeeg thwarted her plans, then she remembered how small her plans had been.
"Pardon me... Uh lady?" She removed her cowl as the Coal merchant spoke. Her hair was longer now, she'd let it grow, it dangled askew of her ears. Dark and rich as her mother's once was. Masutap smiled at the man whose face was caked in coal dust.
"Today Shama dies! Tonight the Highlord of the EastLocal is no more!" Masutap said.
Twin daggers she had strapped to her waist were suddenly in her hands. The coal merchant stumbled back several steps, dragging the cart with him. The sun was dipping into the horizon, becoming a smeared red smudge upon the canvas of her perception. Her eyes flashed red, and the smeared smudge's light brightened, blanketing everything, making her see.
She spun and threw the dagger in her left hand. The knife whirled in the air and met the throat of a guard who was just cresting the upper walkway of the gate, he wore red leather that marked him as one of the royal guards of the Highlord. A shout sounded. The guards at the gate turned their attention to her. They were six of them, each of them dazed with the slow reception of understanding. The bubble they lived in, understanding it enabled her to see how blind humanity is. Like sheep, no wonder the Vigons ruled them so easily.
She was in their midst before they drew their swords from their scabbards. She drove the dagger into the throat of the first one, danced in a pirouette, thrust free the dagger and hurled it into the throat of another guard. Her hands were free, she curled her fingers into fists.
The Goddess Meena, Goddess of Order, spoke to her. **What is the purpose of this?*
"Oh, you'll see." Masutap said and drove a fist into the chest of one guard, her hand caved through the chest cavity, snapping the spine in half and emerging free of the Guards back. She paused for effect, the three remaining guards gawked at her. She pried her arm free of the corpse and met their panicked gazes. "Sound the alarm, you're too few to make me sweat. I need all of you. Gods! Come on you fucking cowards!"
Two of the three guards charged her, one took a swing at her head with a flat blade, the sharp edge missed her by a hair's breadth as she ducked. She brought up her knee and connected with the man's groin, raising him off the ground, legs held apart, face contorted in pain. He collapsed on the ground with a squeal akin to that of a dying rabbit. The other guard put on a stance of Grind, legs parted, right foot before the left. Knees bent. He brandished his sword before him, and the guard behind him ran off to sound the alarm. Masutap smiled.
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He slept on a bed filled with whores. Talisi women with their dark skin and white hair, Remu women with their sandy peppered hair and copper skin, Binorian women with their blonde hair and pale milky skin. He was their God and they flocked to him in worship. He owned all of them, from the frailest to the most able bodied. From the smartest to the daftest. They were all his.
The Highlord of the Eastlocal observed the head of the Talisi woman resting on his thigh, her breathing was deep, her dark naked breasts rising and falling with every inhale and exhale. Five other women slept around him, each as beautiful as the last.
Of all the men in the realm, I alone am the honored one. Shama thought. He caressed his bulging belly with his pudgy fingers the size of sausages. His appearance did pass as grotesque. Bloated, balding with a cleanly shaven head, wide of girth and bow legged. Yet, no man has conquered the bodies of women as he had done. Women who lusted after tall handsome men. Women who sought capable men with astounding intelligence. They all gave in to him, none could deny him and when they did, well, there were ways to make them yield.
An orgy at noon. That was the gist of it, and another orgy before the midnight bell. Life was good, life was beautiful. Shama had thought that after the death of King Vayin Vigon in the hands of the infamous Kolotian, Ishar, that his wealth will dwindle, that his status will come down a step. That the might of Binoria will be a fickle thing after their first loss at war. But of course, this wasn't to be. The Queen, Dahli Vigon, had received the blessing of Meena, passed down from her father. As long as one with the Jojoh Meena, the blessing of Meena, still ruled, then things will stay as they've always been. Dahli had taken over, ensuring that Binoria didn't fall into anarchy, ensuring the Vigon name remained revered. The beautiful blonde haired girl was now the most potent soul upon the realm. How he longed to have her in his bed, parting those pale thighs sinuated with muscle. She'd become quite the fair lady. And her presence oozed power.
Shama wanted her but a thought kept his desires at bay. She'd frowned at him at the recent Highlords meeting with the throne. Apparently, his tastes and businesses didn't bode well with her. The selling of flesh, that is what he partook in with the zeal of a drowning man reaching for a floating oar. Importing women from all over the realm, some came willingly, others reluctantly. But in the end they all came. Their dignity thrown away for the promise of gold vigons. They filled the whore houses and men flocked to them in throngs, lining his pocket with gold vigons
It was his inventiveness that brought him to the top, the Highlord of the Eastlocal was once a position few envied. But his eye, trained in the art of commerce, enabled him to transform the east of Binoria. Creating a network that not only benefited him, but also the crown. And in so doing, despite her frowns and her reluctance to treat with him, she still couldn't voice her displeasure. Dahli needed him, she needed him for the coin necessary to maintain her position upon the crown. To line the pockets of her Legions. She needed him, and one day he will have her. No woman can deny him, and if they did, there were ways to make them give in.
Suddenly, the twin oak doors leading to his bed chambers flew open. The Captain of the Red Guard, in charge of his safety, Shang, walked in. "Highlord." He said with a bow, the women around him stirred. Outside, a bell started ringing, slowly at first then with extreme vigor. Something is wrong. Shang's obvious panic was clear to see. The opened door allowed him to see several Red guards crowded at the door.
"What is the meaning of this?" Shama asked, his beady eyes on Shang. An inhuman scream sounded somewhere within the fortress. Shama's blood chilled in his veins.
"There's an intruder." Shang said while ravaging through the clothes on the floor. He lifted a red jerkin, two sizes too large, the right size for the Highlord. He threw it at Shama and the Highlord hastened to put it on. He ignored the bewildered looks of the naked whores.
"Intruders or intruder?" Shama asked as Shang led him out of his bed chambers. Another scream sounded, closer. The guards at the door, seven of them, crested around him as Shang led the way.
"A woman, she's alone." Shang said.
Shama gripped Shang's arm, halting him. "What do you mean by this? A singular woman causing... causing... this?"
"She's..." Shang hesitated.
"Speak! You fool!"
"She seems to be inhumanly strong and fast. I only saw her fight through a blockade of my brothers, without a sword. She tore my brothers— the Red Guards, to pieces." Shang's eyes became glazed, as if his mind was replaying the mayhem he'd bore witness to. Shama let go of his arm. The trembling was taking him again, starting at the soles of his feet, up his spine around his neck to his hands. It had been so long since he felt this, the animalistic fear confounded on the existence of an unknown, an unknown that sought to see him dead.
"Captain, what is your course of action?" Shama asked.
Shang seemed to shake himself free of his trance. "We're going to take you to the stables, get you on the fastest steed and—" A scream echoed through the halls of the fortress of the Highlord of the Eastlocal. Checking everyone in place.
"What of provisions?"
"There's no time." Shang said. He drew a flat blade from the scabbard at his side. The Guards all around mimicked him, the rustling of steel could be heard, and there, at the Western end of the fortress, screams sounded.
Shang started a brisk walk towards the East end of the Fortress. His boots, soles lined with metal, clancked upon the ground. Shama shuffled close behind Shang, panting like a mare in heat. The Red Guards around him stole glances to their rear, sweat woven with fear formed a sleek mask upon their startled faces. And in those eyes Shama was able to weigh how dire matters were.
A shout sounded from ahead, bringing Shang to an abrupt stop. "How—" His words caught in his throat as a woman caked in blood and gore emerged from the bend linking the hallway they were in to another hallway that led to the stables.
She stood before them and spread out her bloody fingers at Shama. "Highlord, nice to meet you." She waved. "Say, I hear you can show a woman a good time and I'm in quite the mood for a good time tonight."
Shama trembled, the woman seemed vaguely familiar. The angles of her cheekbones , that nose, those eyes. She resembled Dahli.
"Moran and Jesul to me!" Shang commanded. Two of the guards behind Shama moved forward to flank Shang on either side. "Employ any forms, ensure I get close to her so I may employ the form of Awe."
Awe— the grappling technique that ensured the limbs were pinned. Shama saw Shang's ploy. He needed to contain the woman so Shama could move past them and head for the stables. Shama cursed himself for the design of his fortress that allowed for only one route to the stables.
Shang, Moran and Jesul raised their broad swords. One raising it above the head in a form of Rage, the other bringing the blade level with his face in the form of Pride. Shang lowered his blade and the guards flanking him charged, he followed close behind. The woman let out a cry that could only be translated as one of glee. She charged them.
Moran brought his sword down on the woman but she slid on her knees, allowing momentum to push her beyond the reach of his blade. Jesul thrust at her, raising his right leg and angling the sword downwards at her face. But the woman dodged, spun upon the ground on the small of her back and kicked Jesul's leg from under him. Jesul fell and as he raised his head he met with the woman's fist, there was a loud crunch as his face caved in. His hand let go of the sword as his body became limp.
Shang saw the opening and dived at the woman before she could stand. The woman spread her arms wide, welcoming. Shang pounced but instead landed on the woman's upraised knees, she grabbed his leather armor by the collar and flung him behind her and onto Moran. Both of them collapsed on the ground.
She stood up and smiled at Shama.
"Who are you?" Shama asked.
"I'm Masutap, the sister of Queen Dahli." The woman answered.
"Men! Turtle formation! Swords out, save the Highlord! Move you fools!" Shang said as he picked himself up from the ground behind Masutap.
The men around Shama compacted closer. Their swords pointing at Masutap who regarded them with a smirk upon her face. They inched forward, hesitantly at first, then with confidence as they saw their Captain pick up his sword. They all came to a stand still when the eyes of the woman glowed a fierce red, as if she held the Jojoh Meena. And Shama, the Highlord of the Eastlocal, trembled before her gaze.
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Intuition, the immediate cognition without the use of conscious rational processes. It was simple for her, she dodged the sword thrusts and swipes easily. She turned either way, always beyond reach of the blades, always within striking distance. Her strength was a thing of beauty, somehow her frail wrists held the power necessary to crush a throat and crush a throat she did. She didn't tire, she didn't require forms of combat. The power of the Goddess of Order coursed through her veins and with it came rejuvenation.
The Red Guards pounced on her, seeking to put in place the form of Awe. But their efforts were in vain, she side stepped them easily, always on her feet. She saw an opening and like a river emptying into the Rankf sea she took it, delivering a punch to the side of a Guard's chest, feeling as ribs broke and punctured the lung.
**What is the purpose of this?* The Goddess Meena spoke within her mind. An ever present being whose words sought to throw her off, to calm the tempest raging within her. Masutap didn't want calm, she wanted fire and brimstone, she wanted Binoria to burn so their precious Queen will rule nothing but ash. She decreed this with a war cry, plunging into the midst of the Red Guards. She kicked two, flinging them across the hallway. One thrust with his blade but she caught it between her arm and side, she twisted the blade free of his grasp, gripped the hilt and decapitated the man in one swift motion.
She parried a strike to her left, danced free of two thrust then brought the blade down onto a Guard's head. She felt as the blade bit bone and she wasted no time in pulling it free. **What is the purpose of this?* Meena asked once more.
Masutap took three steps back to widen her periphery. "An inferno." She said as she flexed her sword hand. Suddenly, the Guard who was definitely their Captain, reached into the mass of clustered Guards pressed to the wall, away from her. And pulled the Highlord free of the men surrounding him.
"Form a blockade!" He screamed as he tagged and pulled at the distraught Highlord, leading him towards the end of the hallway. The remaining Guards blocked her vision of them. Like a fool she'd been too enthralled by the battle, allowing the Highlord to slowly slip past her, cocooned in the safety of the Guards in their turtle formation. He was making clear his escape and somehow, this aroused her, blowing upon an ember lodged deep within her until it sparked.
**What is the purpose of this?* Like a parrot, the Goddess repeated her question.
"An inferno." Masutap answered and lunged.
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He was sweating profusely, his breath caught in his throat, causing him to choke on air. He followed Shang, feeling the Captain of the Red Guard's displeasure at his inability to keep up. They descended a flight of stairs, taking three at a time. He almost collapsed but the Captain steadied him.
"Not far now my Lord. Just at that bend before us." Shang said. They took the bend and ran clear of the fortress. The horses were just ahead, they rushed to them. Shama took delight in the open air. The stables were void of people, Shama wondered where the stable hands were. They entered the stable and Shang dragged him to the first cubicle on the right where a saddled horse stood.
Shama hastily climbed onto the saddle with the aid of the Captain. Shang placed his Highlord's feet in the stirrups and moved to flank the horse. "Lord." He said, fighting for solid ground that will enable his words to come forth easily. "It has been an honor to serve under you." Shama smiled but his smile proved too little a gesture to carry the weight or their current predicament. "Ride hard for the Capital, ensure the Queen knows of all that's gone down here. I will stay back and hold her for as long as I can." Shang concluded with a crisp salute. The Highlord nodded and with the guidance of his captain upon the horse's reins, they exited the stable "She is a good steed, see the mark of her coat? She can take you far." Shang said once free of the stables. A scream sounded from within the fortress, horrid in its guttural screech. "Go now my Lor—" Shang's words died in his mouth as an explosion erupted at the first floor of the fortress, stone parted, breaking as easily as a clay vase, the window panels and the glass set in place erupted outwards with the stone. Three figures tumbled free of the eruption, tangled in the air, twisting with the fall. They landed, the woman on her feet, knees bent and a fist pressed to the ground, the other two guards lay insensate upon the ground, their bodies a mangled mess. Shang slapped the horse's hide and Shama took of in a gallop.
The Highlord turned back, watched as the woman rose free of the debri and charged Shang. The captain employed a form of Grind but the Highlord's view was hindered by a sharp turn around the cobblestones towards the gate of his fortress. The blood and bodies upon the ground unsettled the horse, forcing its pace to be more hurried and Shama was all the more grateful for it.
She has the Jojoh Meena! Shama thought with awe as the horse broke free of the fortress in a quick gallop that had him bouncing upon the saddle. His thighs felt the brunt force of his escape but he could do nothing but hold on for dear life. This is what I'm reduced to, at the end of the line dependency thrives, in old age your children are those you depend on. I never thought I'd come to rely on anyone throughout my life. Yet here I am, depending on a horse to save my skin. He turned his head back and heaved a sigh of relief. The fortress was dwindling within his periphery, he had made quick his escape. Shama will live to see another day. And when the sun rises and sets, I will bring judgment upon the woman whose very existence rivals my own. Masutap. I will hunt her, she will know no safety within the realm, she will never know peace or a good night's slee— Something unnerved him. There, at the entrance to the fortress, a figure appeared. Following the path charted by his horse. She hopes to outrun my horse? He tilted his head back and laughed. There is faith and delusion and she seems to be enamored by both. To think her capable of outrunning a horse. What a fool what a— His thoughts halted when he turned back, his mouth dropped, his jaw hanging loose. Masutap was catching up, he did not know how but she was gaining on him. She'd been a speck in the distance, barely visible against the backdrop of the fortress. But now her features were getting more defined and her limbs, they were a blur as she pushed forward with inhuman speed.
Panic drove Shama into action, he kicked his heels at the horse's flanks. Willing it to go faster. "Run you fool! Run!" He was frothing at the mouth as the horse went downhill, cutting his view of the one in pursuit. He gripped harder at the reins and screamed, slapping the horse's neck. He looked back to see Masutap emerge upon the hill and start a quick descent after him. He thought about guiding the horse into the wilderness and thought against it seeing that a gallop won't be possible with trees in the way. His only hope was in outpacing her for surely, even one with the Jojoh Meena must tire. He hoped Masutap would relent, he hoped her bloodlust would have proved sated by the guards who'd met their end by her. He hoped that he would live to see the sun climb into the sky one more time. Darkness was setting in and suddenly thoughts of the sun and it's warmth sprouted a yearning within him that made him weep. He turned his head back, she was a hundred paces away. The horse was tiring, it's gallop lazed in vigor. This is the end then, all those afternoons spent indoors hosting orgies. I should have spent them beneath the sun, I should have spent them in the sun He looked back once more, his horse barely keeping pace. The horse threw a shoe and Shama was flung off it. He tumbled onto the ground, his weight rested upon his twisted knee, the sharp pop of the joint led him into an anguished wail. The horse screamed, its fore limbs oddly twisted. The horse thrashed upon the ground and Shama rolled away. He felt weak, he felt defeated and most of all, he felt hopeless.
He lay there, watching the sky, the moon was up, barely half of it adorned the night. He wished it had been full, all those nights when he'd regarded the sky as one would a thing of no consequence. Now he found himself wishing he'd appreciated it more. In the end regrets rule the mind, for in its dying wails no sound of gratitude can be heard.
She came and stood above him, her face blocking the view of the sky. She breathed loudly and for a moment the only sounds around them were from the injured horse and her.
"Dahli will come for you." He opined despite the throbbing pain within his twisted leg.
"Shama, darling," Masutap said as she lowered herself to lie beside him. She chuckled. "Darling, that word. The Goddess Meena loves that word. She uses it a lot. I find it distasteful yet here I am. Calling you darling."
"I have not time for pleasantries." Shama interjected. "Cut my throat and be done with it."
Masutap sighed. "That's not a creative way to kill someone you know. No, how many women have suffered pain beneath you? I have to give answer to that and that means a show. I will drag you to your fortress, there I will strip you naked and castrate you. I will feed you your cock as the women whom you took advantage of watch. Then we'll douse you in Rankf Oil and set you alight."
Shama started weeping. And a new voice joined the fray, he wept, she heaved and the horse screamed.
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“Before I met the Savior, I was a worthless piece of garbage, barely a human being,” Lovebug droned at the front of the enormous room. Lovebug was a monster of a man, two-hundred and fifty pounds of hard tattooed muscle. Like myself, he was a high-ranking member of the Church.
His flat gray eyes scanned the room with a fanatical gleam. I sat in the first row, watching and waiting. Followers of the Savior would tell their stories, how the Savior had reached down and lifted them out of sin and filth to bring them up to the divine. The bright fluorescent lights overhead droned on with a low hum. Thousands of men crammed together in seats or stood at the back of the room.
The Savior taught only two commandments: to murder is holy, and to die for the Savior is the highest bliss. An army of warriors followed the Savior, knights on a holy crusade, priests who wouldn’t hesitate to burn the foul bodies of any witches or demons we encountered. I thought of myself as a knight for the holy king, our Savior, the mouthpiece of the eternal.
“Now, it is like the hand of God has reached into my heart and loosened all the knots there, the knots of anxiety and fear and uncertainty.” He raised his black, military-style rifle into the air for emphasis. “I never realized the true nature of reality before- the fact that we are living in a simulation where the final battle of good versus evil is playing out before our very eyes. And I will be on the side of the good, until my dying breath. I will be on the side of the Savior and of God!”
The crowd roared and clapped. Men got to their feet, sweating heavily in the boiling hot conference room. I felt the surge of energy pass through me like a tidal wave, the pure confidence and iron will of truth. Lovebug lumbered down off the stage as the Savior came out from behind the red curtains, walking with the straight spine of a soldier. He wore a silky black robe that fluttered softly around him, the hood pulled back.
The Savior had horrific burns running the length of his body. His arms had melted folds of keloid scars visible all the way to the tips of his fingers. His scalp had also melted, and the Savior had no hair except for his eyelashes and eyebrows. But the fire that had nearly killed him had spared his face, an aristocratic visage with ferocious green eyes like those of a cat. That face seemed like it had been sculpted out of marble by DaVinci himself, the high cheekbones jutting out over a chin so sharp that it looked like it could have hammered nails into boards. He stared out at the crowd for a long moment, his gaze unblinking.
“The final battle has begun,” he said in a low voice, no more than a whisper. Yet, in the deathly silence of the hall, his words rang out loud and clear. “Those in charge of this illusory world know that we see them. We see them very well, how they hide behind the curtain. They control the world economy, the justice system. Every government, whether they call themselves communist, authoritarian or democratic, is no more than a puppet in their dancing fingers.
“When anyone tries to stand up and lead the masses of suffering people towards freedom from slavery, they are vilified by the mainstream media, brought up on false charges or killed, their bodies staged to look like a suicide. Look what they did to Jesus, and for what? For telling people to love God more than their rulers? And those who speak out today are also crucified, murdered in prisons or killed by their governments. Truth is the most precious commodity, after all. It is one that can only be purchased with blood.
“So what can we do? How can we fight against such evil?” There was a quiet muttering among the pale, frozen faces that stared up at the stage with adoration and love.
“We can fight it by using their own weapons against them!” the Savior said, his voice rising in speed and pitch. He raised his fisted hands to his chest, accentuating each syllable with a back and forth stab of his hands. “Fight fire with fire, and pay back blood with blood! The only thing these global terrorists understand is greater levels of force. We must show them death on a scale they have never before imagined.” I felt nervous as the Savior delivered his message. I saw other men shuffle anxiously in the crowded auditorium, most of them having high-caliber rifles slung around their shoulders.
I felt the rising violence and bloodlust in the air like electricity before a lightning storm. At that moment, I knew we would all have to fight before too long.
***
The Savior called me and Lovebug back to his office after the speech had ended, sending his squirrely assistant over to deliver the hand-written note in the Savior’s blocky, copperplate handwriting. For a long moment, I simply watched the crowd filtering out of the doors, heading back towards the complex where all the holy soldiers of the Savior lived. Feeling dissociated and light-headed, I followed behind the massive muscular form of Lovebug, the heavy weight of the M16 bouncing against my chest. We pushed through the blood-red velvet curtains, winding our way past stage equipment and down a hallway of pure marble.
Mystical paintings similar to those of Alex Grey covered both walls, showing the inside workings of the human body through art. It was as if the painter had X-ray vision and could see the heart chakra and the countless thin vessels that spiderwebbed up to the crown. But, unlike Alex Grey’s hopeful depictions of mysticism, these showed men and women being burned alive, crucified, decapitated or strangled. Dark colors composed the paintings: the dark blue of a suffocating face, the clotted red of an infected stab wound, the black of death. They captured the essence of struggle perfectly.
The Savior’s office had a thick mahogany door with silver engravings of leaves and vines running the length of it. At the top stood a single staring eye with twelve wavy tentacles emerging from the perimeter of it- the symbol of God, who the Savior had seen personally. God would sometimes speak through the mouth of the Savior, always during times of great tribulation or suffering. Lovebug knocked at the door. The Savior’s deep voice echoed out faintly.
“Come in.”
We entered slowly, the sprawling desk of the Savior filling half of the room. He sat in a comfortable chair behind it, reclining. On the walls behind him, he had pictures of Jesus, Saint Stephen, Gandhi, Hitler, Jim Jones, Shoko Asahara and others who he taught had fought against the world elites and been killed for it.
The Church of the Final Rapture was not a church in the conventional sense. The main teachings didn’t revolve around the divinity of Christ or the nature of original sin. What the Savior taught was far more profound- an illusory or simulated world where every single person could become their own Christ, could awaken to the truth and perform miracles, but only if they believed fully and followed the Savior.
“Sit down, please,” he said in his gravelly voice. “I have a mission I would like to discuss, and you two are the only ones competent and loyal enough to carry it out.”
***
“There is another anomaly spreading,” the Savior said, staring between me and Lovebug with his fanatical emerald eyes. “It is located in a rural part of the United States, in a town called-” he glanced down at the sheet of paper in front of him- “Frost Hollow. Supposedly, there are black-ops sites located nearby, secret alphabet agencies experimenting with magnetic distortion systems and creating rips in the fabric of spacetime with micro-wormholes.
“I don’t think it is much of a leap to say that the anomaly was likely started, either intentionally or unintentionally, by the government, as part of their research. The Cleaners would like to control that power, after all. They have been sending their men after it for years like sheep to the slaughter, expending billions of dollars researching it. If they and the US government end up being able to control the creation and spread of anomalies, they will use it to enslave the world. There is no question about it in my mind.” He leaned forwards towards us, his eyes growing cold.
“There is only one path forward I can see. We need to spread the anomaly, make it become unstable so the demons of Hell contained within it can spill out onto the real world. Perhaps it will awaken the downtrodden masses enough to begin the final revolution. We must fight terrorism with greater terrorism, and violence with greater levels of violence. For this mission, I am sending the two of you into Frost Hollow.
“Your job will be to find the Titan or Titans and lead them out to the border of the anomaly. These are horrendous beasts- indeed, the Church has seen them before. They are nearly impossible to kill. I want you two to go inside, bait it and have it follow you back to the edge, beyond the veil.”
“What’s a Titan?” Lovebug asked, his eyes flicking left and right nervously. The Savior stared at him stonily for a long moment. Then his eyes rolled back in his head, showing only the whites. All the blood seemed to drain from his face. His teeth chattered, his mouth opened, and through it, God spoke, the words pouring out like crashing stones. The voice did not sound anything like the Savior’s. It sounded much deeper, more mechanical, more alien somehow.
“I see you very well. I saw you when you were no more than a blood clot in your mother’s body. I see you even as corpses, rotted, putrefying, crawling with scavengers and insects. I see everything, every moment of time. But, in the anomaly, there are things I cannot see. For this, my holy ones must go forth.
“In the center of Hell, you will find a rose, a bird and a stone. These will be your salvation, if salvation can be found at all. Go with the blessing of Yaldabaoth.” The voice cut off abruptly, the silence deafening. I could hear my own heart pounding in my ears.
The Savior’s eyes came back down, looking confused and uncertain. His pupils were dilated and he was sweating heavily, even though it was cool and air-conditioned back here in his private office. We stared at each other across the table, a no-man’s land that protected me like a shield. For there seemed to be something dark in the Savior along with the light, and I didn’t know if any man could contain that power.
But there was no question of disobeying. Within the hour, Lovebug and I were on one of the Church’s private jets flying to the town of Frost Hollow.
***
The gently rolling hills of Frost Hollow loomed below us as the plane circled the small dirt airstrip in the middle of some cow farms. I looked up at Lovebug, trying to judge his stony expression. He had done many years in prison before joining the Church and finding salvation, even being the leader of one of the gangs. I knew he wasn’t afraid of violence. He had never told me what he did, what tortured him so much.
The Savior had told us much secret knowledge- how to find a Titan, a massive, bloated abomination that could come into being only within an anomaly, a combination of many rotted body pieces fused together in some sort of hellish black magic. The Savior had spies around Frost Hollow and the surrounding towns who had been monitoring the anomaly, watching the unstable gateways leading in and out and mapping them as best they could. We would be given a fast car, plenty of weapons and some body armor. I had no idea how nightmarish the journey would become, however.
“I’m driving,” Lovebug said as we descended the steps. A man in a black suit with the symbol of the eye and tentacles pinned on his black button-up shirt pulled up with a Mercedes AMG-One. It was a sleek, silver thing of immense luxury and power. The craftsmanship made it look like a work of art. I sighed, keeping my finger nervously on the trigger of my rifle as I glanced around the strange, empty town.
“If this thing won’t outrun a Titan, then nothing will,” I said, trying to break the tension. I looked at the speedometer, seeing it went up to 220 miles an hour.
“Damn fucking right,” Lovebug growled as we slid into the futuristic-looking leather seats. The engine turned on like a softly purring kitten. The GPS automatically turned on as well, the soft robotic voice leading us toward one of the more stable portals to the anomaly.
Lovebug sped down the empty forest roads of Frost Hollow, going twice the legal speed limit the entire way.
“The speed limit is only for the lowest common denominator,” Lovebug said pedantically, waggling a tattooed finger for emphasis. The GPS said we would reach the gateway to the anomaly in five minutes. Based on Lovebug’s speed, I thought it would be more like two. “Someone who actually knows how to drive and isn’t drunk or high can easily do 80 in a 40. Easily.” I glanced nervously at the speedometer, realizing he was going over 100 miles an hour now. The sports car hugged the tight corners of the winding forest roads with absolute precision.
“Turn right onto Snake Island Road Extension in five hundred feet,” the robotic female voice. Lovebug slammed on the brakes a few seconds later, the tires skidding and locking up. We looked around frantically, seeing no streets anywhere except the one we were on.
“What the hell?” Lovebug asked. The night was crawling in by now, the darkness covering the forests like a curtain. I squinted, looking at the thick grove of trees on our right, scanning it back and forth over and over. After a few seconds, I realized there was an overgrown dirt path there with no sign. It was nearly impossible to see at night, however, and calling it a road was somewhat of a joke.
“Oh, damn,” I said. “They should’ve given us an SUV.”
***
According to the GPS, our destination was only a thousand feet down Snake Island Road Extension. The low clearance of the Mercedes was a problem as Lovebug tried to navigate the flooded forest path. Deep tread marks flooded with black, stagnant water marked the entirety of Snake Island Road Extension. But ahead, the headlights illuminated something unusual.
Cutting straight across the trees and brush like a razorblade was a shimmering wall of translucent energy. It reminded me of a mirage, curving upwards in wavy spiral patterns. I could see through it easily, but it gave everything a dark, sinister covering. The forest seemed to be in constant motion as the grayish light distorted it.
“Look how huge it is!” I said in awe, staring up at the starry sky. The flat wall rose up seemingly forever, disappearing in the cold void of infinite space. Lovebug slowly ambled the car towards the anomaly, trying to keep the Mercedes from getting stuck with its low clearance.
“You ready for this, man?” Lovebug asked in a quavering voice as we inched towards the anomaly. It was only seconds away now. He grabbed my shoulder. “This is it. Remember the commandments.” I closed my eyes, concentrating my heart on the Savior’s words. Dying for the good is the highest bliss, he had told us.
“Let’s do this,” I said, my eyes flying open from my silent prayer as the hood passed through the anomaly. It disappeared in front of our eyes. We could see the forest on the other side, but the Mercedes looked like it was going through some sort of teleportation portal, being ripped apart layer by layer and sent somewhere else. Lovebug nervously grabbed my hand.
“For the Savior and for the Good,” he whispered as we passed through.
***
I heard screaming and wailing, full of agony and unimaginable horror, like the screams of those burning in Hell. My vision went white. A carpet of morphing dark colors covered everything as the shrieking intensified, until I thought my eardrums would explode.
“Stop!” I cried, feeling the pressure in my head like a splitting migraine. “Stop screaming!” I started kicking, punching, trying to get away.
“Calm the fuck down!” someone whispered, slapping me hard across the face. Stunned, I looked up, seeing Lovebug holding me down in the seat. He was covered in sweat, his face a blank mask of terror. “Don’t scream. There’s things outside that are looking this way.” I blinked fast, my senses coming back to me. I felt like a man waking up from surgery, confused and disoriented, my memories only returning in small trickles and drops.
We were sitting in the Mercedes on a road that looked like it had been made of human skin. The headlights showed the ragged patches of pale, leathery flesh sewn together with black thread. The road disappeared ahead of us in a straight line. The land here looked as flat as an ocean. Like a mirror world, it had houses and restaurants and churches lining both sides of the road, but they were all wrong.
The stone church looked like it was constructed of some kind of red volcanic rock. Baphomets and upside-down pentagrams covered the outer walls, engraved deeply into the glossy surface. Mutilated bodies covered the front lawn, impaled, crucified, skinned alive or burned at the stake. Hundreds of men, women and children lay dead in front of the Satanic temple.
Overhead, the sky bubbled and frothed with red clouds and constant explosions of blue lightning. Like missile flashes, the lightning illuminated the world around us, shining brightly before going dark. The incessant strobing gave the entire place a kind of circus freakshow vibe.
Many of the homes looked like they had been constructed from bones and covered in human skin, like some sort of hellish teepee. Arm and leg bones wrapped in razor-wire formed the pillars. Grinning skulls lined the top of the flat, rectangular roofs, thousands of bleached human heads staring down.
Staring out of the dark doorways, I saw gleaming, silvery eyes. They loomed eight or nine feet in the air on spidery bodies. Their limbs looked as thin as bones, jet-black and dull. The only color from these still revenants was from their unblinking eyes and grinning mouths, where teeth like those of a dragonfish jutted out. Every pair of eyes on that street was fixed intently on the Mercedes, the sick rictus grins on their alien faces never faltering.
“Jesus Christ, I’m sorry,” I whispered, feeling weak. “I thought I was in a nightmare for a minute there.” Lovebug shrugged his massive shoulders.
“Yeah, I felt it too, though I came out of it a lot faster than you did,” he said, glancing over at the Satanic church as we passed. It had protective black spikes rising high into the air all around it. The broken body of a child who had been burnt at the stake stood in front of the gates like a death omen, his small, withered hand holding a black rose. Lovebug choked, retching. He nearly rolled down the window, until his eyes met the silvery ones of a nearby abomination.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, looking closer at the church. On top of the roof, I saw an enormous statue of a black raven, its wings spread as if it were flying. It had three gleaming, silvery eyes embedded into the dark rock.
“That boy just reminds me of my son,” Lovebug whispered glumly, inching along the streets.
“I didn’t know you had a son,” I said, surprised. Lovebug had never mentioned a family. He shrugged.
“I don’t. Not anymore. I killed him. I got drunk and high one night back when I was selling drugs. Fell asleep in the living room with a lit cigarette and burned down the whole house. I killed my wife and son, burned them. They sent me to prison, but what did that matter? The prison up here is far worse.” He tapped the side of his temple.
I was about to say something, but at that moment, many things happened at once.
***
Lovebug was staring at the corpse of the child when an inhumanly long arm reached up from the side of the car. It had fingers like spikes, as sharp as a knife and twice as long as normal human fingers. I gasped, a warning shout welling up in my throat, but the hand came smashing down into the driver’s side window and grabbed Lovebug’s neck.
The window exploded in a shower of safety glass, shattering like brittle bones. Lovebug’s scream was cut off as he was dragged, kicking and screaming, out of the car. I swung open my door, leaping out and bringing my rifle around.
The Cheshire Cat grin of the abomination never faltered as it held Lovebug in front of its body like a human shield, holding him by the neck above the ground. Lovebug’s legs kicked and squirmed, his face turning blue as he slowly suffocated. His eyes bulged from their sockets, panicked and rolling, uncomprehending in their total animal panic.
I flicked on the laser sight. It danced over the ground, flashing over the body of Lovebug and the abomination. But I couldn’t aim for its torso or face, as I would probably hit Lovebug in the process. It was far too close.
I aimed for the monster’s thin, skeletal feet, the black toes twisting over each other like the roots of a tree. The gunshots rang out as a deafening counterpoint to the thunder blasts.
The monster gave a hissing gurgle as two bullets caught it in the right ankle. The creature seemed bloodless, and only dust and ashes rolled out of the exploded insectile flesh. It tried to skitter away, but its destroyed ankle caused it to fall forward, throwing Lovebug.
His body rolled across the road, the soft leather that looked like it was made from tens of thousands of human skins. Gasping, his lips still showing a faint blue cast, he struggled to crawl away.
I saw furtive movement from all around us. The creatures in the houses and doorways were moving forwards, drawn by the bloodshed or noise. Hundreds of glowing, silvery eyes surrounded us. I sprinted forward, dragging Lovebug to his feet.
“The church,” I hissed. “It’s the only place.” Still pulling the weak, confused Lovebug behind me, we staggered towards the black gates. They opened with a shriek of rusted metal.
***
The creatures stopped at the gates to the blood-red church, simply staring at us like statues. They didn’t even seem to breathe, their lidless eyes never blinking, the silvery glow never fading.
“I think this is the place we’re meant to go,” I whispered as we made our way towards the massive pointed doors. “When God spoke to us, he said something about a stone, a bird and a rose, that we would find the Titan through that.” I pointed back at the burnt body of the boy. “He’s holding a rose. On top of the building, there’s a bird. And the church is all stone. Maybe this is the place where God wanted us to go all along.”
“Maybe,” Lovebug muttered through heaving gasps, still grabbing at his bruised neck. “God, this hurts. It feels like I got hanged.” Side by side, we pushed open the doors to the Satanic church and walked inside.
***
Row after row of pews stretched out in front of us. Thousands of black candles were set up all around the perimeter of the enormous chamber. They sputtered and flickered constantly, throwing dancing shadows in every direction.
A small pair of bright eyes glanced up at us from under one of the nearby pews. I nearly jumped out of my skin, pointing the rifle at them and yelling.
“Show yourself! Come out now, or I shoot!” Lovebug looked at me, confused. He hadn’t seen it. But a few heartbeats later, a little girl crawled out, her eyes big and blue, her body an emaciated wreck. She wore ripped strands of what looked like leathery human skin to cover herself, tied together with black string. In one small, grime-streaked hand, she held a half-eaten raw mouse.
“Please, don’t kill me,” she said in a small voice. “I’m Emma. My mommy and daddy got dragged away and I’m scared.” I felt sick and weak looking at this small victim. I reached down and helped her up.
“I wouldn’t hurt you,” I said, kneeling down to her level. “I thought you were one of the bad guys. This is Lovebug, and I’m Jack.”
“This isn’t part of the mission, man,” Lovebug said nervously. “What are we supposed to do with her?”
“Well, we can’t just fucking leave her here,” I whispered back. “We need…” But I never got to finish that thought. Because, at that moment, the church woke up.
***
A red glow started at the front of the chamber, the altar where the priest would have stood and given speeches or holy communion. Here, they had a podium that looked like it was carved from a single block of obsidian. Reflected in it, I saw the screaming faces of people burning in Hell, grinning demons ripping off strips of human flesh and spiraling waves of flames, all sculpted by an artist who was able to capture the most miniscule details of agony and torture.
I looked around, realizing Emma had gone. I hadn’t seen her scurry away and hide, but her absence gave me a feeling of crushing dread in my chest.
“Lovebug, something’s wrong,” I whispered, still staring up at the altar. I heard a floorboard creak behind me. I glanced back just in time to see a man wearing full SWAT gear. I caught the flash of a pistol coming down, the butt aimed at my forehead. I heard the cracking, felt the immense pressure and pain. For a few moments, I swam in the currents of consciousness, trying to stay awake, but then the blackness crept in and stole me away.
***
I awoke suddenly, my hands tied so tightly behind my back that I couldn’t feel my fingers. I felt sick and wanted to throw up. I quickly choked those feelings back down. I tried to shake my head, to clear it, but that just brought jolts of pain like electricity shooting through my skull. Nearby, I heard a gunshot, then another.
“Bring it, fuckers!” Lovebug screamed in an insane voice. The explosion of a grenade rocked the building, and I smelled choking black smoke. I opened my eyes, seeing three men in SWAT gear laying dead, their bodies scattered haphazardly around the chaotic scene. One wall of the church had blown outwards, the stone still sending out gray wisps of wavy smoke into the air. I looked at my partner, seeing he had a bullet hole in his left arm and another one in his stomach. He was bleeding heavily, but the adrenaline and insanity seemed to keep him afloat- for now, at least.
I saw something walking towards us from the stage. It looked like a small boy, but black shadows spiraled up around his chest and face, translucent and shimmering darkly. He looked about five or six, his skin pale and smooth. As Lovebug’s face grew slack and distant, the boy abruptly erupted into flames.
“Don’t kill me again, Dad,” the small boy whispered in a hoarse voice choked with pain. The flames rose from his head and skin, melting his flesh, blackening it. Drops of boiling fat dribbled off his nose and chin. “Don’t send me to the dark place again, Dad…” He continued creeping closer to Lovebug, moving like a lion stalking an antelope.
“I didn’t know!” Lovebug cried, his face going paler. Tears streamed from his eyes as the rifle trembled wildly in his shaking hands. For a long moment, he looked torn, the finger tightening on the trigger as sobs escaped his chattering lips.
“Kill it, Lovebug!” I screamed. “Don’t let it get to you!” But as he dropped the rifle and knelt before the small boy, I knew it was too late.
The shadows spun faster and faster around the burning, dying body of the boy. He gave a scream of soul-shattering agony, reaching out to a small hand towards Lovebug.
“Help me!” the boy cried. Lovebug hesitated before bringing an arm up to take the boy’s hand.
“I missed you, Robbie,” Lovebug said before his fingers brushed the boys. The boy lunged forward, grabbing Lovebug’s hand with an iron grip. I saw Lovebug’s eyes widen in shock and surprise. A moment later, I heard the bones in his hand grinding together before breaking with a sound like snapping tree branches. The boy’s eyes darkened into jet-black orbs, the melted lips splitting into a sadistic grin.
“I missed you, too,” the thing hissed as its right arm changed, melting and reforming into something black and blade-like. The insectile limb swung forward in a blur, coming straight at Lovebug’s heart. He gave a panicked squeal a moment before it hit, trying to pull away with all of his considerable strength, his face turning chalk-white as the shattered bones in his hands ground together.
I closed my eyes, rolling away, trying to undo the knots that held my hands in place. Lovebug must have been greatly outnumbered. He would never have let that man tie me up. I heard the sounds of tearing meat and crunching bone nearby. Lovebug’s final breaths gurgled through the air, but I still kept my eyes closed, not wanting to look.
I felt a small tickle on my wrists, then heard a little voice next to my ear.
“I’ll get you out of here,” Emma whispered. I waited a few moments, then I heard the ropes snap. I looked back, seeing her holding a piece of sharp, broken glass in one tiny hand. In her other, she had the car keys. I wondered how she had gotten them, the little pickpocket.
“Thank God,” I said, rubbing my wrists. I looked around for my rifle, seeing it was laying next to the body of one of the SWAT guys. I wondered who these men were. I crawled towards it slowly, not wanting to draw attention.
“Don’t move another step,” a voice growled behind me. I glanced back, seeing the small boy, his features morphing into those of a demon. Curving horns spiraled from his temples. His jet-black eyes stared down at me with hatred and coldness. “You’ll follow your friend who killed my servants. His soul will stay alive forever within my body, a sickly thing wrapped up in an eternal shriek.”
“Fuck you,” I cried, lunging for my rifle. Emma disappeared behind a pew, running on all fours without looking back. I spun as I hit the ground, turning the barrel towards the morphing face of the shape-shifter. Its jaw unhinged, a snake-like tongue flicking out as it flew through the air towards me. Hollow fangs dripping clear venom grew from its mouth in a heartbeat, elongating and sharpening before my very eyes.
I fired twice, the bullets entering through its mouth and coming out the back of its head. Its flesh disintegrated in an instant, the body turning into light, gray ashes that disappeared in the breeze. Breathing hard, I waited, wondering if it was all over.
I heard a rumbling far below me, as if an earthquake were starting. A moment later, the church floor exploded upwards, sharp rubble and splintered boards flying in every direction.
***
“It’s coming!” Emma screamed, running over and grabbing my hand. I lay there, shell-shocked and unmoving for a long moment. In hindsight, the girl was a natural born survivor with much sharper reflexes than me. It was likely the only reason she survived as long as she had.
“The Titan,” I whispered grimly, trying to pull myself up to my feet. But it was like trying to walk on a heaving, sinking ship. Parts of the floor collapsed down into a seemingly never-ending abyss beneath us.
Near the stage, I saw hundreds of long, pale arms pulling something bloated and monstrous out of the ground. It was a Titan, and no explanation can ever convey the true horror of that thing.
It looked like countless human corpses had been melted together, fused into a ball with sagging, boneless chests, deformed faces and millions of writhing maggots. It groaned and gurgled with many lungs, exhaling a rotting, sulfurous breeze that made me want to retch. A soft susurration of many pained, muttering voices continuously emanated from the Titan.
“Emma, run!” I screamed, but she was already sprinting back towards the front door of the church. I backpedaled, afraid to look away from the creeping monstrosity, the juggernaut of rotting flesh moving towards us.
I heard the Titan closing the distance as I sprinted through the front door. The abominations with the silver eyes still slunk around the gate, blocking the car. I raised the rifle, firing blindly at the creatures, careful not to hit the little girl.
“Go to the car!” I screamed at Emma, feeling around for the keys. As the abominations saw the Titan, those still alive scattered, moving in a blur back into the shadows and homes of this rotten place.
The Titan broke the front wall of the church, sending splinters of red stone flying in every direction like bullets. It groaned and gurgled faster, its sickly cries more insistent. I ran to the Mercedes, starting it up and pressing the accelerator to the floor. I pulled a U-turn, heading back to the border of the anomaly.
***
The engine roared, the car bucking like a wild stallion as it pressed me and Emma back into our seats. But the creeping Titan continued gaining speed behind us, and for a few seconds, I feared we would be crushed to death under its massive weight.
The anomaly shimmered ahead of us. I crashed through it at two hundred miles an hour, skidding wildly as the Mercedes hit the dirt road. I nearly flew into a tree. I managed to right it at the last second, pulling onto the paved street as the Titan broke through behind us.
It followed us out. It’s in the real world now.

“Before I met the Savior, I was a worthless piece of garbage, barely a human being,” Lovebug droned at the front of the enormous room. Lovebug was a monster of a man, two-hundred and fifty pounds of hard tattooed muscle. Like myself, he was a high-ranking member of the Church.
His flat gray eyes scanned the room with a fanatical gleam. I sat in the first row, watching and waiting. Followers of the Savior would tell their stories, how the Savior had reached down and lifted them out of sin and filth to bring them up to the divine. The bright fluorescent lights overhead droned on with a low hum. Thousands of men crammed together in seats or stood at the back of the room.
The Savior taught only two commandments: to murder is holy, and to die for the Savior is the highest bliss. An army of warriors followed the Savior, knights on a holy crusade, priests who wouldn’t hesitate to burn the foul bodies of any witches or demons we encountered. I thought of myself as a knight for the holy king, our Savior, the mouthpiece of the eternal.
“Now, it is like the hand of God has reached into my heart and loosened all the knots there, the knots of anxiety and fear and uncertainty.” He raised his black, military-style rifle into the air for emphasis. “I never realized the true nature of reality before- the fact that we are living in a simulation where the final battle of good versus evil is playing out before our very eyes. And I will be on the side of the good, until my dying breath. I will be on the side of the Savior and of God!”
The crowd roared and clapped. Men got to their feet, sweating heavily in the boiling hot conference room. I felt the surge of energy pass through me like a tidal wave, the pure confidence and iron will of truth. Lovebug lumbered down off the stage as the Savior came out from behind the red curtains, walking with the straight spine of a soldier. He wore a silky black robe that fluttered softly around him, the hood pulled back.
The Savior had horrific burns running the length of his body. His arms had melted folds of keloid scars visible all the way to the tips of his fingers. His scalp had also melted, and the Savior had no hair except for his eyelashes and eyebrows. But the fire that had nearly killed him had spared his face, an aristocratic visage with ferocious green eyes like those of a cat. That face seemed like it had been sculpted out of marble by DaVinci himself, the high cheekbones jutting out over a chin so sharp that it looked like it could have hammered nails into boards. He stared out at the crowd for a long moment, his gaze unblinking.
“The final battle has begun,” he said in a low voice, no more than a whisper. Yet, in the deathly silence of the hall, his words rang out loud and clear. “Those in charge of this illusory world know that we see them. We see them very well, how they hide behind the curtain. They control the world economy, the justice system. Every government, whether they call themselves communist, authoritarian or democratic, is no more than a puppet in their dancing fingers.
“When anyone tries to stand up and lead the masses of suffering people towards freedom from slavery, they are vilified by the mainstream media, brought up on false charges or killed, their bodies staged to look like a suicide. Look what they did to Jesus, and for what? For telling people to love God more than their rulers? And those who speak out today are also crucified, murdered in prisons or killed by their governments. Truth is the most precious commodity, after all. It is one that can only be purchased with blood.
“So what can we do? How can we fight against such evil?” There was a quiet muttering among the pale, frozen faces that stared up at the stage with adoration and love.
“We can fight it by using their own weapons against them!” the Savior said, his voice rising in speed and pitch. He raised his fisted hands to his chest, accentuating each syllable with a back and forth stab of his hands. “Fight fire with fire, and pay back blood with blood! The only thing these global terrorists understand is greater levels of force. We must show them death on a scale they have never before imagined.” I felt nervous as the Savior delivered his message. I saw other men shuffle anxiously in the crowded auditorium, most of them having high-caliber rifles slung around their shoulders.
I felt the rising violence and bloodlust in the air like electricity before a lightning storm. At that moment, I knew we would all have to fight before too long.
***
The Savior called me and Lovebug back to his office after the speech had ended, sending his squirrely assistant over to deliver the hand-written note in the Savior’s blocky, copperplate handwriting. For a long moment, I simply watched the crowd filtering out of the doors, heading back towards the complex where all the holy soldiers of the Savior lived. Feeling dissociated and light-headed, I followed behind the massive muscular form of Lovebug, the heavy weight of the M16 bouncing against my chest. We pushed through the blood-red velvet curtains, winding our way past stage equipment and down a hallway of pure marble.
Mystical paintings similar to those of Alex Grey covered both walls, showing the inside workings of the human body through art. It was as if the painter had X-ray vision and could see the heart chakra and the countless thin vessels that spiderwebbed up to the crown. But, unlike Alex Grey’s hopeful depictions of mysticism, these showed men and women being burned alive, crucified, decapitated or strangled. Dark colors composed the paintings: the dark blue of a suffocating face, the clotted red of an infected stab wound, the black of death. They captured the essence of struggle perfectly.
The Savior’s office had a thick mahogany door with silver engravings of leaves and vines running the length of it. At the top stood a single staring eye with twelve wavy tentacles emerging from the perimeter of it- the symbol of God, who the Savior had seen personally. God would sometimes speak through the mouth of the Savior, always during times of great tribulation or suffering. Lovebug knocked at the door. The Savior’s deep voice echoed out faintly.
“Come in.”
We entered slowly, the sprawling desk of the Savior filling half of the room. He sat in a comfortable chair behind it, reclining. On the walls behind him, he had pictures of Jesus, Saint Stephen, Gandhi, Hitler, Jim Jones, Shoko Asahara and others who he taught had fought against the world elites and been killed for it.
The Church of the Final Rapture was not a church in the conventional sense. The main teachings didn’t revolve around the divinity of Christ or the nature of original sin. What the Savior taught was far more profound- an illusory or simulated world where every single person could become their own Christ, could awaken to the truth and perform miracles, but only if they believed fully and followed the Savior.
“Sit down, please,” he said in his gravelly voice. “I have a mission I would like to discuss, and you two are the only ones competent and loyal enough to carry it out.”
***
“There is another anomaly spreading,” the Savior said, staring between me and Lovebug with his fanatical emerald eyes. “It is located in a rural part of the United States, in a town called-” he glanced down at the sheet of paper in front of him- “Frost Hollow. Supposedly, there are black-ops sites located nearby, secret alphabet agencies experimenting with magnetic distortion systems and creating rips in the fabric of spacetime with micro-wormholes.
“I don’t think it is much of a leap to say that the anomaly was likely started, either intentionally or unintentionally, by the government, as part of their research. The Cleaners would like to control that power, after all. They have been sending their men after it for years like sheep to the slaughter, expending billions of dollars researching it. If they and the US government end up being able to control the creation and spread of anomalies, they will use it to enslave the world. There is no question about it in my mind.” He leaned forwards towards us, his eyes growing cold.
“There is only one path forward I can see. We need to spread the anomaly, make it become unstable so the demons of Hell contained within it can spill out onto the real world. Perhaps it will awaken the downtrodden masses enough to begin the final revolution. We must fight terrorism with greater terrorism, and violence with greater levels of violence. For this mission, I am sending the two of you into Frost Hollow.
“Your job will be to find the Titan or Titans and lead them out to the border of the anomaly. These are horrendous beasts- indeed, the Church has seen them before. They are nearly impossible to kill. I want you two to go inside, bait it and have it follow you back to the edge, beyond the veil.”
“What’s a Titan?” Lovebug asked, his eyes flicking left and right nervously. The Savior stared at him stonily for a long moment. Then his eyes rolled back in his head, showing only the whites. All the blood seemed to drain from his face. His teeth chattered, his mouth opened, and through it, God spoke, the words pouring out like crashing stones. The voice did not sound anything like the Savior’s. It sounded much deeper, more mechanical, more alien somehow.
“I see you very well. I saw you when you were no more than a blood clot in your mother’s body. I see you even as corpses, rotted, putrefying, crawling with scavengers and insects. I see everything, every moment of time. But, in the anomaly, there are things I cannot see. For this, my holy ones must go forth.
“In the center of Hell, you will find a rose, a bird and a stone. These will be your salvation, if salvation can be found at all. Go with the blessing of Yaldabaoth.” The voice cut off abruptly, the silence deafening. I could hear my own heart pounding in my ears.
The Savior’s eyes came back down, looking confused and uncertain. His pupils were dilated and he was sweating heavily, even though it was cool and air-conditioned back here in his private office. We stared at each other across the table, a no-man’s land that protected me like a shield. For there seemed to be something dark in the Savior along with the light, and I didn’t know if any man could contain that power.
But there was no question of disobeying. Within the hour, Lovebug and I were on one of the Church’s private jets flying to the town of Frost Hollow.
***
The gently rolling hills of Frost Hollow loomed below us as the plane circled the small dirt airstrip in the middle of some cow farms. I looked up at Lovebug, trying to judge his stony expression. He had done many years in prison before joining the Church and finding salvation, even being the leader of one of the gangs. I knew he wasn’t afraid of violence. He had never told me what he did, what tortured him so much.
The Savior had told us much secret knowledge- how to find a Titan, a massive, bloated abomination that could come into being only within an anomaly, a combination of many rotted body pieces fused together in some sort of hellish black magic. The Savior had spies around Frost Hollow and the surrounding towns who had been monitoring the anomaly, watching the unstable gateways leading in and out and mapping them as best they could. We would be given a fast car, plenty of weapons and some body armor. I had no idea how nightmarish the journey would become, however.
“I’m driving,” Lovebug said as we descended the steps. A man in a black suit with the symbol of the eye and tentacles pinned on his black button-up shirt pulled up with a Mercedes AMG-One. It was a sleek, silver thing of immense luxury and power. The craftsmanship made it look like a work of art. I sighed, keeping my finger nervously on the trigger of my rifle as I glanced around the strange, empty town.
“If this thing won’t outrun a Titan, then nothing will,” I said, trying to break the tension. I looked at the speedometer, seeing it went up to 220 miles an hour.
“Damn fucking right,” Lovebug growled as we slid into the futuristic-looking leather seats. The engine turned on like a softly purring kitten. The GPS automatically turned on as well, the soft robotic voice leading us toward one of the more stable portals to the anomaly.
Lovebug sped down the empty forest roads of Frost Hollow, going twice the legal speed limit the entire way.
“The speed limit is only for the lowest common denominator,” Lovebug said pedantically, waggling a tattooed finger for emphasis. The GPS said we would reach the gateway to the anomaly in five minutes. Based on Lovebug’s speed, I thought it would be more like two. “Someone who actually knows how to drive and isn’t drunk or high can easily do 80 in a 40. Easily.” I glanced nervously at the speedometer, realizing he was going over 100 miles an hour now. The sports car hugged the tight corners of the winding forest roads with absolute precision.
“Turn right onto Snake Island Road Extension in five hundred feet,” the robotic female voice. Lovebug slammed on the brakes a few seconds later, the tires skidding and locking up. We looked around frantically, seeing no streets anywhere except the one we were on.
“What the hell?” Lovebug asked. The night was crawling in by now, the darkness covering the forests like a curtain. I squinted, looking at the thick grove of trees on our right, scanning it back and forth over and over. After a few seconds, I realized there was an overgrown dirt path there with no sign. It was nearly impossible to see at night, however, and calling it a road was somewhat of a joke.
“Oh, damn,” I said. “They should’ve given us an SUV.”
***
According to the GPS, our destination was only a thousand feet down Snake Island Road Extension. The low clearance of the Mercedes was a problem as Lovebug tried to navigate the flooded forest path. Deep tread marks flooded with black, stagnant water marked the entirety of Snake Island Road Extension. But ahead, the headlights illuminated something unusual.
Cutting straight across the trees and brush like a razorblade was a shimmering wall of translucent energy. It reminded me of a mirage, curving upwards in wavy spiral patterns. I could see through it easily, but it gave everything a dark, sinister covering. The forest seemed to be in constant motion as the grayish light distorted it.
“Look how huge it is!” I said in awe, staring up at the starry sky. The flat wall rose up seemingly forever, disappearing in the cold void of infinite space. Lovebug slowly ambled the car towards the anomaly, trying to keep the Mercedes from getting stuck with its low clearance.
“You ready for this, man?” Lovebug asked in a quavering voice as we inched towards the anomaly. It was only seconds away now. He grabbed my shoulder. “This is it. Remember the commandments.” I closed my eyes, concentrating my heart on the Savior’s words. Dying for the good is the highest bliss, he had told us.
“Let’s do this,” I said, my eyes flying open from my silent prayer as the hood passed through the anomaly. It disappeared in front of our eyes. We could see the forest on the other side, but the Mercedes looked like it was going through some sort of teleportation portal, being ripped apart layer by layer and sent somewhere else. Lovebug nervously grabbed my hand.
“For the Savior and for the Good,” he whispered as we passed through.
***
I heard screaming and wailing, full of agony and unimaginable horror, like the screams of those burning in Hell. My vision went white. A carpet of morphing dark colors covered everything as the shrieking intensified, until I thought my eardrums would explode.
“Stop!” I cried, feeling the pressure in my head like a splitting migraine. “Stop screaming!” I started kicking, punching, trying to get away.
“Calm the fuck down!” someone whispered, slapping me hard across the face. Stunned, I looked up, seeing Lovebug holding me down in the seat. He was covered in sweat, his face a blank mask of terror. “Don’t scream. There’s things outside that are looking this way.” I blinked fast, my senses coming back to me. I felt like a man waking up from surgery, confused and disoriented, my memories only returning in small trickles and drops.
We were sitting in the Mercedes on a road that looked like it had been made of human skin. The headlights showed the ragged patches of pale, leathery flesh sewn together with black thread. The road disappeared ahead of us in a straight line. The land here looked as flat as Kansas. Like a mirror world, it had houses and restaurants and churches lining both sides of the road, but they were all wrong.
The stone church looked like it was constructed of some kind of red volcanic rock. Baphomets and upside-down pentagrams covered the outer walls, engraved deeply into the glossy surface. Mutilated bodies covered the front lawn, impaled, crucified, skinned alive or burned at the stake. Hundreds of men, women and children lay dead in front of the Satanic temple.
Overhead, the sky bubbled and frothed with red clouds and constant explosions of blue lightning. Like missile flashes, the lightning illuminated the world around us, shining brightly before going dark. The incessant strobing gave the entire place a kind of circus freakshow vibe.
Many of the homes looked like they had been constructed from bones and covered in human skin, like some sort of hellish teepee. Arm and leg bones wrapped in razor-wire formed the pillars. Grinning skulls lined the top of the flat, rectangular roofs, thousands of bleached human heads staring down.
Staring out of the dark doorways, I saw gleaming, silvery eyes. They loomed eight or nine feet in the air on spidery bodies. Their limbs looked as thin as bones, jet-black and dull. The only color from these still revenants was from their unblinking eyes and grinning mouths, where teeth like those of a dragonfish jutted out. Every pair of eyes on that street was fixed intently on the Mercedes, the sick rictus grins on their alien faces never faltering.
“Jesus Christ, I’m sorry,” I whispered, feeling weak. “I thought I was in a nightmare for a minute there.” Lovebug shrugged his massive shoulders.
“Yeah, I felt it too, though I came out of it a lot faster than you did,” he said, glancing over at the Satanic church as we passed. It had protective black spikes rising high into the air all around it. The broken body of a child who had been burnt at the stake stood in front of the gates like a death omen, his small, withered hand holding a black rose. Lovebug choked, retching. He nearly rolled down the window, until his eyes met the silvery ones of a nearby abomination.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, looking closer at the church. On top of the roof, I saw an enormous statue of a black raven, its wings spread as if it were flying. It had three gleaming, silvery eyes embedded into the dark rock.
“That boy just reminds me of my son,” Lovebug whispered glumly, inching along the streets.
“I didn’t know you had a son,” I said, surprised. Lovebug had never mentioned a family. He shrugged.
“I don’t. Not anymore. I killed him. I got drunk and high one night back when I was selling drugs. Fell asleep in the living room with a lit cigarette and burned down the whole house. I killed my wife and son, burned them. They sent me to prison, but what did that matter? The prison up here is far worse.” He tapped the side of his temple.
I was about to say something, but at that moment, many things happened at once.
***
Lovebug was staring at the corpse of the child when an inhumanly long arm reached up from the side of the car. It had fingers like spikes, as sharp as a knife and twice as long as normal human fingers. I gasped, a warning shout welling up in my throat, but the hand came smashing down into the driver’s side window and grabbed Lovebug’s neck.
The window exploded in a shower of safety glass, shattering like brittle bones. Lovebug’s scream was cut off as he was dragged, kicking and screaming, out of the car. I swung open my door, leaping out and bringing my rifle around.
The Cheshire Cat grin of the abomination never faltered as it held Lovebug in front of its body like a human shield, holding him by the neck above the ground. Lovebug’s legs kicked and squirmed, his face turning blue as he slowly suffocated. His eyes bulged from their sockets, panicked and rolling, uncomprehending in their total animal panic.
I flicked on the laser sight. It danced over the ground, flashing over the body of Lovebug and the abomination. But I couldn’t aim for its torso or face, as I would probably hit Lovebug in the process. It was far too close.
I aimed for the monster’s thin, skeletal feet, the black toes twisting over each other like the roots of a tree. The gunshots rang out as a deafening counterpoint to the thunder blasts.
The monster gave a hissing gurgle as two bullets caught it in the right ankle. The creature seemed bloodless, and only dust and ashes rolled out of the exploded insectile flesh. It tried to skitter away, but its destroyed ankle caused it to fall forward, throwing Lovebug.
His body rolled across the road, the soft leather that looked like it was made from tens of thousands of human skins. Gasping, his lips still showing a faint blue cast, he struggled to crawl away.
I saw furtive movement from all around us. The creatures in the houses and doorways were moving forwards, drawn by the bloodshed or noise. Hundreds of glowing, silvery eyes surrounded us. I sprinted forward, dragging Lovebug to his feet.
“The church,” I hissed. “It’s the only place.” Still pulling the weak, confused Lovebug behind me, we staggered towards the black gates. They opened with a shriek of rusted metal.
***
The creatures stopped at the gates to the blood-red church, simply staring at us like statues. They didn’t even seem to breathe, their lidless eyes never blinking, the silvery glow never fading.
“I think this is the place we’re meant to go,” I whispered as we made our way towards the massive pointed doors. “When God spoke to us, he said something about a stone, a bird and a rose, that we would find the Titan through that.” I pointed back at the burnt body of the boy. “He’s holding a rose. On top of the building, there’s a bird. And the church is all stone. Maybe this is the place where God wanted us to go all along.”
“Maybe,” Lovebug muttered through heaving gasps, still grabbing at his bruised neck. “God, this hurts. It feels like I got hanged.” Side by side, we pushed open the doors to the Satanic church and walked inside.
***
Row after row of pews stretched out in front of us. Thousands of black candles were set up all around the perimeter of the enormous chamber. They sputtered and flickered constantly, throwing dancing shadows in every direction.
A small pair of bright eyes glanced up at us from under one of the nearby pews. I nearly jumped out of my skin, pointing the rifle at them and yelling.
“Show yourself! Come out now, or I shoot!” Lovebug looked at me, confused. He hadn’t seen it. But a few heartbeats later, a little girl crawled out, her eyes big and blue, her body an emaciated wreck. She wore ripped strands of what looked like leathery human skin to cover herself, tied together with black string. In one small, grime-streaked hand, she held a half-eaten raw mouse.
“Please, don’t kill me,” she said in a small voice. “I’m Emma. My mommy and daddy got dragged away and I’m scared.” I felt sick and weak looking at this small victim. I reached down and helped her up.
“I wouldn’t hurt you,” I said, kneeling down to her level. “I thought you were one of the bad guys. This is Lovebug, and I’m Jack.”
“This isn’t part of the mission, man,” Lovebug said nervously. “What are we supposed to do with her?”
“Well, we can’t just fucking leave her here,” I whispered back. “We need…” But I never got to finish that thought. Because, at that moment, the church woke up.
***
A red glow started at the front of the chamber, the altar where the priest would have stood and given speeches or holy communion. Here, they had a podium that looked like it was carved from a single block of obsidian. Reflected in it, I saw the screaming faces of people burning in Hell, grinning demons ripping off strips of human flesh and spiraling waves of flames, all sculpted by an artist who was able to capture the most miniscule details of agony and torture.
I looked around, realizing Emma had gone. I hadn’t seen her scurry away and hide, but her absence gave me a feeling of crushing dread in my chest.
“Lovebug, something’s wrong,” I whispered, still staring up at the altar. I heard a floorboard creak behind me. I glanced back just in time to see a man wearing full SWAT gear. I caught the flash of a pistol coming down, the butt aimed at my forehead. I heard the cracking, felt the immense pressure and pain. For a few moments, I swam in the currents of consciousness, trying to stay awake, but then the blackness crept in and stole me away.
***
I awoke suddenly, my hands tied so tightly behind my back that I couldn’t feel my fingers. I felt sick and wanted to throw up. I quickly choked those feelings back down. I tried to shake my head, to clear it, but that just brought jolts of pain like electricity shooting through my skull. Nearby, I heard a gunshot, then another.
“Bring it, fuckers!” Lovebug screamed in an insane voice. The explosion of a grenade rocked the building, and I smelled choking black smoke. I opened my eyes, seeing three men in SWAT gear laying dead, their bodies scattered haphazardly around the chaotic scene. One wall of the church had blown outwards, the stone still sending out gray wisps of wavy smoke into the air. I looked at my partner, seeing he had a bullet hole in his left arm and another one in his stomach. He was bleeding heavily, but the adrenaline and insanity seemed to keep him afloat- for now, at least.
I saw something walking towards us from the stage. It looked like a small boy, but black shadows spiraled up around his chest and face, translucent and shimmering darkly. He looked about five or six, his skin pale and smooth. As Lovebug’s face grew slack and distant, the boy abruptly erupted into flames.
“Don’t kill me again, Dad,” the small boy whispered in a hoarse voice choked with pain. The flames rose from his head and skin, melting his flesh, blackening it. Drops of boiling fat dribbled off his nose and chin. “Don’t send me to the dark place again, Dad…” He continued creeping closer to Lovebug, moving like a lion stalking an antelope.
“I didn’t know!” Lovebug cried, his face going paler. Tears streamed from his eyes as the rifle trembled wildly in his shaking hands. For a long moment, he looked torn, the finger tightening on the trigger as sobs escaped his chattering lips.
“Kill it, Lovebug!” I screamed. “Don’t let it get to you!” But as he dropped the rifle and knelt before the small boy, I knew it was too late.
The shadows spun faster and faster around the burning, dying body of the boy. He gave a scream of soul-shattering agony, reaching out to a small hand towards Lovebug.
“Help me!” the boy cried. Lovebug hesitated before bringing an arm up to take the boy’s hand.
“I missed you, Robbie,” Lovebug said before his fingers brushed the boys. The boy lunged forward, grabbing Lovebug’s hand with an iron grip. I saw Lovebug’s eyes widen in shock and surprise. A moment later, I heard the bones in his hand grinding together before breaking with a sound like snapping tree branches. The boy’s eyes darkened into jet-black orbs, the melted lips splitting into a sadistic grin.
“I missed you, too,” the thing hissed as its right arm changed, melting and reforming into something black and blade-like. The insectile limb swung forward in a blur, coming straight at Lovebug’s heart. He gave a panicked squeal a moment before it hit, trying to pull away with all of his considerable strength, his face turning chalk-white as the shattered bones in his hands ground together.
I closed my eyes, rolling away, trying to undo the knots that held my hands in place. Lovebug must have been greatly outnumbered. He would never have let that man tie me up. I heard the sounds of tearing meat and crunching bone nearby. Lovebug’s final breaths gurgled through the air, but I still kept my eyes closed, not wanting to look.
I felt a small tickle on my wrists, then heard a little voice next to my ear.
“I’ll get you out of here,” Emma whispered. I waited a few moments, then I heard the ropes snap. I looked back, seeing her holding a piece of sharp, broken glass in one tiny hand. In her other, she had the car keys. I wondered how she had gotten them, the little pickpocket.
“Thank God,” I said, rubbing my wrists. I looked around for my rifle, seeing it was laying next to the body of one of the SWAT guys. I wondered who these men were. I crawled towards it slowly, not wanting to draw attention.
“Don’t move another step,” a voice growled behind me. I glanced back, seeing the small boy, his features morphing into those of a demon. Curving horns spiraled from his temples. His jet-black eyes stared down at me with hatred and coldness. “You’ll follow your friend who killed my servants. His soul will stay alive forever within my body, a sickly thing wrapped up in an eternal shriek.”
“Fuck you,” I cried, lunging for my rifle. Emma disappeared behind a pew, running on all fours without looking back. I spun as I hit the ground, turning the barrel towards the morphing face of the shape-shifter. Its jaw unhinged, a snake-like tongue flicking out as it flew through the air towards me. Hollow fangs dripping clear venom grew from its mouth in a heartbeat, elongating and sharpening before my very eyes.
I fired twice, the bullets entering through its mouth and coming out the back of its head. Its flesh disintegrated in an instant, the body turning into light, gray ashes that disappeared in the breeze. Breathing hard, I waited, wondering if it was all over.
I heard a rumbling far below me, as if an earthquake were starting. A moment later, the church floor exploded upwards, sharp rubble and splintered boards flying in every direction.
***
“It’s coming!” Emma screamed, running over and grabbing my hand. I lay there, shell-shocked and unmoving for a long moment. In hindsight, the girl was a natural born survivor with much sharper reflexes than me. It was likely the only reason she survived as long as she had.
“The Titan,” I whispered grimly, trying to pull myself up to my feet. But it was like trying to walk on a heaving, sinking ship. Parts of the floor collapsed down into a seemingly never-ending abyss beneath us.
Near the stage, I saw hundreds of long, pale arms pulling something bloated and monstrous out of the ground. It was a Titan, and no explanation can ever convey the true horror of that thing.
It looked like countless human corpses had been melted together, fused into a ball with sagging, boneless chests, deformed faces and millions of writhing maggots. It groaned and gurgled with many lungs, exhaling a rotting, sulfurous breeze that made me want to retch. A soft susurration of many pained, muttering voices continuously emanated from the Titan.
“Emma, run!” I screamed, but she was already sprinting back towards the front door of the church. I backpedaled, afraid to look away from the creeping monstrosity, the juggernaut of rotting flesh moving towards us.
I heard the Titan closing the distance as I sprinted through the front door. The abominations with the silver eyes still slunk around the gate, blocking the car. I raised the rifle, firing blindly at the creatures, careful not to hit the little girl.
“Go to the car!” I screamed at Emma, feeling around for the keys. As the abominations saw the Titan, those still alive scattered, moving in a blur back into the shadows and homes of this rotten place.
The Titan broke the front wall of the church, sending splinters of red stone flying in every direction like bullets. It groaned and gurgled faster, its sickly cries more insistent. I ran to the Mercedes, starting it up and pressing the accelerator to the floor. I pulled a U-turn, heading back to the border of the anomaly.
***
The engine roared, the car bucking like a wild stallion as it pressed me and Emma back into our seats. But the creeping Titan continued gaining speed behind us, and for a few seconds, I feared we would be crushed to death under its massive weight.
The anomaly shimmered ahead of us. I crashed through it at two hundred miles an hour, skidding wildly as the Mercedes hit the dirt road. I nearly flew into a tree. I managed to right it at the last second, pulling onto the paved street as the Titan broke through behind us.
It followed us out. It’s in the real world now.

“Before I met the Savior, I was a worthless piece of garbage, barely a human being,” Lovebug droned at the front of the enormous room. Lovebug was a monster of a man, two-hundred and fifty pounds of hard tattooed muscle. Like myself, he was a high-ranking member of the Church.
His flat gray eyes scanned the room with a fanatical gleam. I sat in the first row, watching and waiting. Followers of the Savior would tell their stories, how the Savior had reached down and lifted them out of sin and filth to bring them up to the divine. The bright fluorescent lights overhead droned on with a low hum. Thousands of men crammed together in seats or stood at the back of the room.
The Savior taught only two commandments: to murder is holy, and to die for the Savior is the highest bliss. An army of warriors followed the Savior, knights on a holy crusade, priests who wouldn’t hesitate to burn the foul bodies of any witches or demons we encountered. I thought of myself as a knight for the holy king, our Savior, the mouthpiece of the eternal.
“Now, it is like the hand of God has reached into my heart and loosened all the knots there, the knots of anxiety and fear and uncertainty.” He raised his black, military-style rifle into the air for emphasis. “I never realized the true nature of reality before- the fact that we are living in a simulation where the final battle of good versus evil is playing out before our very eyes. And I will be on the side of the good, until my dying breath. I will be on the side of the Savior and of God!”
The crowd roared and clapped. Men got to their feet, sweating heavily in the boiling hot conference room. I felt the surge of energy pass through me like a tidal wave, the pure confidence and iron will of truth. Lovebug lumbered down off the stage as the Savior came out from behind the red curtains, walking with the straight spine of a soldier. He wore a silky black robe that fluttered softly around him, the hood pulled back.
The Savior had horrific burns running the length of his body. His arms had melted folds of keloid scars visible all the way to the tips of his fingers. His scalp had also melted, and the Savior had no hair except for his eyelashes and eyebrows. But the fire that had nearly killed him had spared his face, an aristocratic visage with ferocious green eyes like those of a cat. That face seemed like it had been sculpted out of marble by DaVinci himself, the high cheekbones jutting out over a chin so sharp that it looked like it could have hammered nails into boards. He stared out at the crowd for a long moment, his gaze unblinking.
“The final battle has begun,” he said in a low voice, no more than a whisper. Yet, in the deathly silence of the hall, his words rang out loud and clear. “Those in charge of this illusory world know that we see them. We see them very well, how they hide behind the curtain. They control the world economy, the justice system. Every government, whether they call themselves communist, authoritarian or democratic, is no more than a puppet in their dancing fingers.
“When anyone tries to stand up and lead the masses of suffering people towards freedom from slavery, they are vilified by the mainstream media, brought up on false charges or killed, their bodies staged to look like a suicide. Look what they did to Jesus, and for what? For telling people to love God more than their rulers? And those who speak out today are also crucified, murdered in prisons or killed by their governments. Truth is the most precious commodity, after all. It is one that can only be purchased with blood.
“So what can we do? How can we fight against such evil?” There was a quiet muttering among the pale, frozen faces that stared up at the stage with adoration and love.
“We can fight it by using their own weapons against them!” the Savior said, his voice rising in speed and pitch. He raised his fisted hands to his chest, accentuating each syllable with a back and forth stab of his hands. “Fight fire with fire, and pay back blood with blood! The only thing these global terrorists understand is greater levels of force. We must show them death on a scale they have never before imagined.” I felt nervous as the Savior delivered his message. I saw other men shuffle anxiously in the crowded auditorium, most of them having high-caliber rifles slung around their shoulders.
I felt the rising violence and bloodlust in the air like electricity before a lightning storm. At that moment, I knew we would all have to fight before too long.
***
The Savior called me and Lovebug back to his office after the speech had ended, sending his squirrely assistant over to deliver the hand-written note in the Savior’s blocky, copperplate handwriting. For a long moment, I simply watched the crowd filtering out of the doors, heading back towards the complex where all the holy soldiers of the Savior lived. Feeling dissociated and light-headed, I followed behind the massive muscular form of Lovebug, the heavy weight of the M16 bouncing against my chest. We pushed through the blood-red velvet curtains, winding our way past stage equipment and down a hallway of pure marble.
Mystical paintings similar to those of Alex Grey covered both walls, showing the inside workings of the human body through art. It was as if the painter had X-ray vision and could see the heart chakra and the countless thin vessels that spiderwebbed up to the crown. But, unlike Alex Grey’s hopeful depictions of mysticism, these showed men and women being burned alive, crucified, decapitated or strangled. Dark colors composed the paintings: the dark blue of a suffocating face, the clotted red of an infected stab wound, the black of death. They captured the essence of struggle perfectly.
The Savior’s office had a thick mahogany door with silver engravings of leaves and vines running the length of it. At the top stood a single staring eye with twelve wavy tentacles emerging from the perimeter of it- the symbol of God, who the Savior had seen personally. God would sometimes speak through the mouth of the Savior, always during times of great tribulation or suffering. Lovebug knocked at the door. The Savior’s deep voice echoed out faintly.
“Come in.”
We entered slowly, the sprawling desk of the Savior filling half of the room. He sat in a comfortable chair behind it, reclining. On the walls behind him, he had pictures of Jesus, Saint Stephen, Gandhi, Hitler, Jim Jones, Shoko Asahara and others who he taught had fought against the world elites and been killed for it.
The Church of the Final Rapture was not a church in the conventional sense. The main teachings didn’t revolve around the divinity of Christ or the nature of original sin. What the Savior taught was far more profound- an illusory or simulated world where every single person could become their own Christ, could awaken to the truth and perform miracles, but only if they believed fully and followed the Savior.
“Sit down, please,” he said in his gravelly voice. “I have a mission I would like to discuss, and you two are the only ones competent and loyal enough to carry it out.”
***
“There is another anomaly spreading,” the Savior said, staring between me and Lovebug with his fanatical emerald eyes. “It is located in a rural part of the United States, in a town called-” he glanced down at the sheet of paper in front of him- “Frost Hollow. Supposedly, there are black-ops sites located nearby, secret alphabet agencies experimenting with magnetic distortion systems and creating rips in the fabric of spacetime with micro-wormholes.
“I don’t think it is much of a leap to say that the anomaly was likely started, either intentionally or unintentionally, by the government, as part of their research. The Cleaners would like to control that power, after all. They have been sending their men after it for years like sheep to the slaughter, expending billions of dollars researching it. If they and the US government end up being able to control the creation and spread of anomalies, they will use it to enslave the world. There is no question about it in my mind.” He leaned forwards towards us, his eyes growing cold.
“There is only one path forward I can see. We need to spread the anomaly, make it become unstable so the demons of Hell contained within it can spill out onto the real world. Perhaps it will awaken the downtrodden masses enough to begin the final revolution. We must fight terrorism with greater terrorism, and violence with greater levels of violence. For this mission, I am sending the two of you into Frost Hollow.
“Your job will be to find the Titan or Titans and lead them out to the border of the anomaly. These are horrendous beasts- indeed, the Church has seen them before. They are nearly impossible to kill. I want you two to go inside, bait it and have it follow you back to the edge, beyond the veil.”
“What’s a Titan?” Lovebug asked, his eyes flicking left and right nervously. The Savior stared at him stonily for a long moment. Then his eyes rolled back in his head, showing only the whites. All the blood seemed to drain from his face. His teeth chattered, his mouth opened, and through it, God spoke, the words pouring out like crashing stones. The voice did not sound anything like the Savior’s. It sounded much deeper, more mechanical, more alien somehow.
“I see you very well. I saw you when you were no more than a blood clot in your mother’s body. I see you even as corpses, rotted, putrefying, crawling with scavengers and insects. I see everything, every moment of time. But, in the anomaly, there are things I cannot see. For this, my holy ones must go forth.
“In the center of Hell, you will find a rose, a bird and a stone. These will be your salvation, if salvation can be found at all. Go with the blessing of Yaldabaoth.” The voice cut off abruptly, the silence deafening. I could hear my own heart pounding in my ears.
The Savior’s eyes came back down, looking confused and uncertain. His pupils were dilated and he was sweating heavily, even though it was cool and air-conditioned back here in his private office. We stared at each other across the table, a no-man’s land that protected me like a shield. For there seemed to be something dark in the Savior along with the light, and I didn’t know if any man could contain that power.
But there was no question of disobeying. Within the hour, Lovebug and I were on one of the Church’s private jets flying to the town of Frost Hollow.
***
The gently rolling hills of Frost Hollow loomed below us as the plane circled the small dirt airstrip in the middle of some cow farms. I looked up at Lovebug, trying to judge his stony expression. He had done many years in prison before joining the Church and finding salvation, even being the leader of one of the gangs. I knew he wasn’t afraid of violence. He had never told me what he did, what tortured him so much.
The Savior had told us much secret knowledge- how to find a Titan, a massive, bloated abomination that could come into being only within an anomaly, a combination of many rotted body pieces fused together in some sort of hellish black magic. The Savior had spies around Frost Hollow and the surrounding towns who had been monitoring the anomaly, watching the unstable gateways leading in and out and mapping them as best they could. We would be given a fast car, plenty of weapons and some body armor. I had no idea how nightmarish the journey would become, however.
“I’m driving,” Lovebug said as we descended the steps. A man in a black suit with the symbol of the eye and tentacles pinned on his black button-up shirt pulled up with a Mercedes AMG-One. It was a sleek, silver thing of immense luxury and power. The craftsmanship made it look like a work of art. I sighed, keeping my finger nervously on the trigger of my rifle as I glanced around the strange, empty town.
“If this thing won’t outrun a Titan, then nothing will,” I said, trying to break the tension. I looked at the speedometer, seeing it went up to 220 miles an hour.
“Damn fucking right,” Lovebug growled as we slid into the futuristic-looking leather seats. The engine turned on like a softly purring kitten. The GPS automatically turned on as well, the soft robotic voice leading us toward one of the more stable portals to the anomaly.
Lovebug sped down the empty forest roads of Frost Hollow, going twice the legal speed limit the entire way.
“The speed limit is only for the lowest common denominator,” Lovebug said pedantically, waggling a tattooed finger for emphasis. The GPS said we would reach the gateway to the anomaly in five minutes. Based on Lovebug’s speed, I thought it would be more like two. “Someone who actually knows how to drive and isn’t drunk or high can easily do 80 in a 40. Easily.” I glanced nervously at the speedometer, realizing he was going over 100 miles an hour now. The sports car hugged the tight corners of the winding forest roads with absolute precision.
“Turn right onto Snake Island Road Extension in five hundred feet,” the robotic female voice. Lovebug slammed on the brakes a few seconds later, the tires skidding and locking up. We looked around frantically, seeing no streets anywhere except the one we were on.
“What the hell?” Lovebug asked. The night was crawling in by now, the darkness covering the forests like a curtain. I squinted, looking at the thick grove of trees on our right, scanning it back and forth over and over. After a few seconds, I realized there was an overgrown dirt path there with no sign. It was nearly impossible to see at night, however, and calling it a road was somewhat of a joke.
“Oh, damn,” I said. “They should’ve given us an SUV.”
***
According to the GPS, our destination was only a thousand feet down Snake Island Road Extension. The low clearance of the Mercedes was a problem as Lovebug tried to navigate the flooded forest path. Deep tread marks flooded with black, stagnant water marked the entirety of Snake Island Road Extension. But ahead, the headlights illuminated something unusual.
Cutting straight across the trees and brush like a razorblade was a shimmering wall of translucent energy. It reminded me of a mirage, curving upwards in wavy spiral patterns. I could see through it easily, but it gave everything a dark, sinister covering. The forest seemed to be in constant motion as the grayish light distorted it.
“Look how huge it is!” I said in awe, staring up at the starry sky. The flat wall rose up seemingly forever, disappearing in the cold void of infinite space. Lovebug slowly ambled the car towards the anomaly, trying to keep the Mercedes from getting stuck with its low clearance.
“You ready for this, man?” Lovebug asked in a quavering voice as we inched towards the anomaly. It was only seconds away now. He grabbed my shoulder. “This is it. Remember the commandments.” I closed my eyes, concentrating my heart on the Savior’s words. Dying for the good is the highest bliss, he had told us.
“Let’s do this,” I said, my eyes flying open from my silent prayer as the hood passed through the anomaly. It disappeared in front of our eyes. We could see the forest on the other side, but the Mercedes looked like it was going through some sort of teleportation portal, being ripped apart layer by layer and sent somewhere else. Lovebug nervously grabbed my hand.
“For the Savior and for the Good,” he whispered as we passed through.
***
I heard screaming and wailing, full of agony and unimaginable horror, like the screams of those burning in Hell. My vision went white. A carpet of morphing dark colors covered everything as the shrieking intensified, until I thought my eardrums would explode.
“Stop!” I cried, feeling the pressure in my head like a splitting migraine. “Stop screaming!” I started kicking, punching, trying to get away.
“Calm the fuck down!” someone whispered, slapping me hard across the face. Stunned, I looked up, seeing Lovebug holding me down in the seat. He was covered in sweat, his face a blank mask of terror. “Don’t scream. There’s things outside that are looking this way.” I blinked fast, my senses coming back to me. I felt like a man waking up from surgery, confused and disoriented, my memories only returning in small trickles and drops.
We were sitting in the Mercedes on a road that looked like it had been made of human skin. The headlights showed the ragged patches of pale, leathery flesh sewn together with black thread. The road disappeared ahead of us in a straight line. The land here looked as flat as Kansas. Like a mirror world, it had houses and restaurants and churches lining both sides of the road, but they were all wrong.
The stone church looked like it was constructed of some kind of red volcanic rock. Baphomets and upside-down pentagrams covered the outer walls, engraved deeply into the glossy surface. Mutilated bodies covered the front lawn, impaled, crucified, skinned alive or burned at the stake. Hundreds of men, women and children lay dead in front of the Satanic temple.
Overhead, the sky bubbled and frothed with red clouds and constant explosions of blue lightning. Like missile flashes, the lightning illuminated the world around us, shining brightly before going dark. The incessant strobing gave the entire place a kind of circus freakshow vibe.
Many of the homes looked like they had been constructed from bones and covered in human skin, like some sort of hellish teepee. Arm and leg bones wrapped in razor-wire formed the pillars. Grinning skulls lined the top of the flat, rectangular roofs, thousands of bleached human heads staring down.
Staring out of the dark doorways, I saw gleaming, silvery eyes. They loomed eight or nine feet in the air on spidery bodies. Their limbs looked as thin as bones, jet-black and dull. The only color from these still revenants was from their unblinking eyes and grinning mouths, where teeth like those of a dragonfish jutted out. Every pair of eyes on that street was fixed intently on the Mercedes, the sick rictus grins on their alien faces never faltering.
“Jesus Christ, I’m sorry,” I whispered, feeling weak. “I thought I was in a nightmare for a minute there.” Lovebug shrugged his massive shoulders.
“Yeah, I felt it too, though I came out of it a lot faster than you did,” he said, glancing over at the Satanic church as we passed. It had protective black spikes rising high into the air all around it. The broken body of a child who had been burnt at the stake stood in front of the gates like a death omen, his small, withered hand holding a black rose. Lovebug choked, retching. He nearly rolled down the window, until his eyes met the silvery ones of a nearby abomination.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, looking closer at the church. On top of the roof, I saw an enormous statue of a black raven, its wings spread as if it were flying. It had three gleaming, silvery eyes embedded into the dark rock.
“That boy just reminds me of my son,” Lovebug whispered glumly, inching along the streets.
“I didn’t know you had a son,” I said, surprised. Lovebug had never mentioned a family. He shrugged.
“I don’t. Not anymore. I killed him. I got drunk and high one night back when I was selling drugs. Fell asleep in the living room with a lit cigarette and burned down the whole house. I killed my wife and son, burned them. They sent me to prison, but what did that matter? The prison up here is far worse.” He tapped the side of his temple.
I was about to say something, but at that moment, many things happened at once.
***
Lovebug was staring at the corpse of the child when an inhumanly long arm reached up from the side of the car. It had fingers like spikes, as sharp as a knife and twice as long as normal human fingers. I gasped, a warning shout welling up in my throat, but the hand came smashing down into the driver’s side window and grabbed Lovebug’s neck.
The window exploded in a shower of safety glass, shattering like brittle bones. Lovebug’s scream was cut off as he was dragged, kicking and screaming, out of the car. I swung open my door, leaping out and bringing my rifle around.
The Cheshire Cat grin of the abomination never faltered as it held Lovebug in front of its body like a human shield, holding him by the neck above the ground. Lovebug’s legs kicked and squirmed, his face turning blue as he slowly suffocated. His eyes bulged from their sockets, panicked and rolling, uncomprehending in their total animal panic.
I flicked on the laser sight. It danced over the ground, flashing over the body of Lovebug and the abomination. But I couldn’t aim for its torso or face, as I would probably hit Lovebug in the process. It was far too close.
I aimed for the monster’s thin, skeletal feet, the black toes twisting over each other like the roots of a tree. The gunshots rang out as a deafening counterpoint to the thunder blasts.
The monster gave a hissing gurgle as two bullets caught it in the right ankle. The creature seemed bloodless, and only dust and ashes rolled out of the exploded insectile flesh. It tried to skitter away, but its destroyed ankle caused it to fall forward, throwing Lovebug.
His body rolled across the road, the soft leather that looked like it was made from tens of thousands of human skins. Gasping, his lips still showing a faint blue cast, he struggled to crawl away.
I saw furtive movement from all around us. The creatures in the houses and doorways were moving forwards, drawn by the bloodshed or noise. Hundreds of glowing, silvery eyes surrounded us. I sprinted forward, dragging Lovebug to his feet.
“The church,” I hissed. “It’s the only place.” Still pulling the weak, confused Lovebug behind me, we staggered towards the black gates. They opened with a shriek of rusted metal.
***
The creatures stopped at the gates to the blood-red church, simply staring at us like statues. They didn’t even seem to breathe, their lidless eyes never blinking, the silvery glow never fading.
“I think this is the place we’re meant to go,” I whispered as we made our way towards the massive pointed doors. “When God spoke to us, he said something about a stone, a bird and a rose, that we would find the Titan through that.” I pointed back at the burnt body of the boy. “He’s holding a rose. On top of the building, there’s a bird. And the church is all stone. Maybe this is the place where God wanted us to go all along.”
“Maybe,” Lovebug muttered through heaving gasps, still grabbing at his bruised neck. “God, this hurts. It feels like I got hanged.” Side by side, we pushed open the doors to the Satanic church and walked inside.
***
Row after row of pews stretched out in front of us. Thousands of black candles were set up all around the perimeter of the enormous chamber. They sputtered and flickered constantly, throwing dancing shadows in every direction.
A small pair of bright eyes glanced up at us from under one of the nearby pews. I nearly jumped out of my skin, pointing the rifle at them and yelling.
“Show yourself! Come out now, or I shoot!” Lovebug looked at me, confused. He hadn’t seen it. But a few heartbeats later, a little girl crawled out, her eyes big and blue, her body an emaciated wreck. She wore ripped strands of what looked like leathery human skin to cover herself, tied together with black string. In one small, grime-streaked hand, she held a half-eaten raw mouse.
“Please, don’t kill me,” she said in a small voice. “I’m Emma. My mommy and daddy got dragged away and I’m scared.” I felt sick and weak looking at this small victim. I reached down and helped her up.
“I wouldn’t hurt you,” I said, kneeling down to her level. “I thought you were one of the bad guys. This is Lovebug, and I’m Jack.”
“This isn’t part of the mission, man,” Lovebug said nervously. “What are we supposed to do with her?”
“Well, we can’t just fucking leave her here,” I whispered back. “We need…” But I never got to finish that thought. Because, at that moment, the church woke up.
***
A red glow started at the front of the chamber, the altar where the priest would have stood and given speeches or holy communion. Here, they had a podium that looked like it was carved from a single block of obsidian. Reflected in it, I saw the screaming faces of people burning in Hell, grinning demons ripping off strips of human flesh and spiraling waves of flames, all sculpted by an artist who was able to capture the most miniscule details of agony and torture.
I looked around, realizing Emma had gone. I hadn’t seen her scurry away and hide, but her absence gave me a feeling of crushing dread in my chest.
“Lovebug, something’s wrong,” I whispered, still staring up at the altar. I heard a floorboard creak behind me. I glanced back just in time to see a man wearing full SWAT gear. I caught the flash of a pistol coming down, the butt aimed at my forehead. I heard the cracking, felt the immense pressure and pain. For a few moments, I swam in the currents of consciousness, trying to stay awake, but then the blackness crept in and stole me away.
***
I awoke suddenly, my hands tied so tightly behind my back that I couldn’t feel my fingers. I felt sick and wanted to throw up. I quickly choked those feelings back down. I tried to shake my head, to clear it, but that just brought jolts of pain like electricity shooting through my skull. Nearby, I heard a gunshot, then another.
“Bring it, fuckers!” Lovebug screamed in an insane voice. The explosion of a grenade rocked the building, and I smelled choking black smoke. I opened my eyes, seeing three men in SWAT gear laying dead, their bodies scattered haphazardly around the chaotic scene. One wall of the church had blown outwards, the stone still sending out gray wisps of wavy smoke into the air. I looked at my partner, seeing he had a bullet hole in his left arm and another one in his stomach. He was bleeding heavily, but the adrenaline and insanity seemed to keep him afloat- for now, at least.
I saw something walking towards us from the stage. It looked like a small boy, but black shadows spiraled up around his chest and face, translucent and shimmering darkly. He looked about five or six, his skin pale and smooth. As Lovebug’s face grew slack and distant, the boy abruptly erupted into flames.
“Don’t kill me again, Dad,” the small boy whispered in a hoarse voice choked with pain. The flames rose from his head and skin, melting his flesh, blackening it. Drops of boiling fat dribbled off his nose and chin. “Don’t send me to the dark place again, Dad…” He continued creeping closer to Lovebug, moving like a lion stalking an antelope.
“I didn’t know!” Lovebug cried, his face going paler. Tears streamed from his eyes as the rifle trembled wildly in his shaking hands. For a long moment, he looked torn, the finger tightening on the trigger as sobs escaped his chattering lips.
“Kill it, Lovebug!” I screamed. “Don’t let it get to you!” But as he dropped the rifle and knelt before the small boy, I knew it was too late.
The shadows spun faster and faster around the burning, dying body of the boy. He gave a scream of soul-shattering agony, reaching out to a small hand towards Lovebug.
“Help me!” the boy cried. Lovebug hesitated before bringing an arm up to take the boy’s hand.
“I missed you, Robbie,” Lovebug said before his fingers brushed the boys. The boy lunged forward, grabbing Lovebug’s hand with an iron grip. I saw Lovebug’s eyes widen in shock and surprise. A moment later, I heard the bones in his hand grinding together before breaking with a sound like snapping tree branches. The boy’s eyes darkened into jet-black orbs, the melted lips splitting into a sadistic grin.
“I missed you, too,” the thing hissed as its right arm changed, melting and reforming into something black and blade-like. The insectile limb swung forward in a blur, coming straight at Lovebug’s heart. He gave a panicked squeal a moment before it hit, trying to pull away with all of his considerable strength, his face turning chalk-white as the shattered bones in his hands ground together.
I closed my eyes, rolling away, trying to undo the knots that held my hands in place. Lovebug must have been greatly outnumbered. He would never have let that man tie me up. I heard the sounds of tearing meat and crunching bone nearby. Lovebug’s final breaths gurgled through the air, but I still kept my eyes closed, not wanting to look.
I felt a small tickle on my wrists, then heard a little voice next to my ear.
“I’ll get you out of here,” Emma whispered. I waited a few moments, then I heard the ropes snap. I looked back, seeing her holding a piece of sharp, broken glass in one tiny hand. In her other, she had the car keys. I wondered how she had gotten them, the little pickpocket.
“Thank God,” I said, rubbing my wrists. I looked around for my rifle, seeing it was laying next to the body of one of the SWAT guys. I wondered who these men were. I crawled towards it slowly, not wanting to draw attention.
“Don’t move another step,” a voice growled behind me. I glanced back, seeing the small boy, his features morphing into those of a demon. Curving horns spiraled from his temples. His jet-black eyes stared down at me with hatred and coldness. “You’ll follow your friend who killed my servants. His soul will stay alive forever within my body, a sickly thing wrapped up in an eternal shriek.”
“Fuck you,” I cried, lunging for my rifle. Emma disappeared behind a pew, running on all fours without looking back. I spun as I hit the ground, turning the barrel towards the morphing face of the shape-shifter. Its jaw unhinged, a snake-like tongue flicking out as it flew through the air towards me. Hollow fangs dripping clear venom grew from its mouth in a heartbeat, elongating and sharpening before my very eyes.
I fired twice, the bullets entering through its mouth and coming out the back of its head. Its flesh disintegrated in an instant, the body turning into light, gray ashes that disappeared in the breeze. Breathing hard, I waited, wondering if it was all over.
I heard a rumbling far below me, as if an earthquake were starting. A moment later, the church floor exploded upwards, sharp rubble and splintered boards flying in every direction.
***
“It’s coming!” Emma screamed, running over and grabbing my hand. I lay there, shell-shocked and unmoving for a long moment. In hindsight, the girl was a natural born survivor with much sharper reflexes than me. It was likely the only reason she survived as long as she had.
“The Titan,” I whispered grimly, trying to pull myself up to my feet. But it was like trying to walk on a heaving, sinking ship. Parts of the floor collapsed down into a seemingly never-ending abyss beneath us.
Near the stage, I saw hundreds of long, pale arms pulling something bloated and monstrous out of the ground. It was a Titan, and no explanation can ever convey the true horror of that thing.
It looked like countless human corpses had been melted together, fused into a ball with sagging, boneless chests, deformed faces and millions of writhing maggots. It groaned and gurgled with many lungs, exhaling a rotting, sulfurous breeze that made me want to retch. A soft susurration of many pained, muttering voices continuously emanated from the Titan.
“Emma, run!” I screamed, but she was already sprinting back towards the front door of the church. I backpedaled, afraid to look away from the creeping monstrosity, the juggernaut of rotting flesh moving towards us.
I heard the Titan closing the distance as I sprinted through the front door. The abominations with the silver eyes still slunk around the gate, blocking the car. I raised the rifle, firing blindly at the creatures, careful not to hit the little girl.
“Go to the car!” I screamed at Emma, feeling around for the keys. As the abominations saw the Titan, those still alive scattered, moving in a blur back into the shadows and homes of this rotten place.
The Titan broke the front wall of the church, sending splinters of red stone flying in every direction like bullets. It groaned and gurgled faster, its sickly cries more insistent. I ran to the Mercedes, starting it up and pressing the accelerator to the floor. I pulled a U-turn, heading back to the border of the anomaly.
***
The engine roared, the car bucking like a wild stallion as it pressed me and Emma back into our seats. But the creeping Titan continued gaining speed behind us, and for a few seconds, I feared we would be crushed to death under its massive weight.
The anomaly shimmered ahead of us. I crashed through it at two hundred miles an hour, skidding wildly as the Mercedes hit the dirt road. I nearly flew into a tree. I managed to right it at the last second, pulling onto the paved street as the Titan broke through behind us.
It followed us out. It’s in the real world now.

https://www.hayduketrail.org/
TRIP DURATION: 27 April 2024 - 22 May 2024 (26 days)
LENGTH: 700 miles (My Hayduke was 100 miles shorter, will explain below)
ZERO DAY: Escalante (May 9)
GEAR: https://lighterpack.com/x7aa2i
VLOGS: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiFc6VMd77gf5n93UG-DCqgYxkahTAxPE&si=F57rSvkFVxFj-7Fb
About the Hayduke Trail: It was created by Mike Coronella and Joe Mitchell around 2000. They named it after the main character (George Washington Hayduke) in Edward Abbey’s book, “The Monkey Wrench Gang.” You will constantly see this book in trail towns along the Hayduke. The trail is around 800-miles with various alternates. It’s a combination of cross country travel, roads, trails, bushwhacking, climbing, etc. This is not a beginners trail
RESOURCES: I bought Skurka’s guide and that was my primary source. It was helpful but outdated because he hiked it in 2009 and it hasn’t been updated since. I wish I would’ve bought the Hayduke Guidebook but I’m not sure how much that would’ve helped since it was published in 2005. There’s also a public Facebook group that’s worth joining
TEMPS/WEATHER: You gotta be ready for it all on the Hayduke. I had everything from below freezing temps to around 100 degrees in the Grand Canyon. There were thunderstorms and fierce winds throughout the trail. This trail was the first time I ever slept with a down jacket on. In fact, one night I slept with the down jacket and long-johns in my tent, and the very next night I cowboy camped wearing my underwear and sleeping on top of my quilt. It’s that volatile. I will say that I had more normal to cooler days than normal to hotter days.
NAVIGATION: My primary source of navigation was Gaia. I downloaded the GPS track and uploaded it. I also downloaded the Hayduke on All-Trails which I’m pretty sure was the exact same track. I noticed that All-Trails had more accurate trails and roads on their default map than the map I was using on Gaia which was very helpful at times. When I was on the Arizona Trail I went back to using Guthook which was nice. I don’t think hikers realize how spoiled we are with that app, it makes everything so much easier. This was the first trail since the AT (2015) where I didn’t use Guthook. I also had 11x17 paper maps and compass as a back up but never needed them
WATER: Not as big of an issue as I thought. Most water I carried was 5.75L two times. Aside from that I just carried around a gallon at all times and was good. The only issue was using Skurka’s water chart. Like I mentioned it’s 15yrs outdated so many of the sources that were listed as “good” were actually bone dry. I should note that I don’t drink as much water as most people. One time on the CDT I went 26 miles with one liter of water and had no issues. But since I was in the desert I did force myself to chug water even when I wasn’t thirsty, might as well play it safe. Going into Colorado City I made myself drink water every 20-minutes.
BEST SEASON: In Skurka’s guide he says the month of May is the best and I would probably agree. You won’t have crazy cold temps and it also won’t be an inferno. You will have more than enough daylight to hike. I had light from 6AM to 9PM by mid-May. The snowmelt will also be in effect so the water situation won’t be dire. If you hike in the fall you will have a severe lack of daylight, especially in October. In 2019 I thru-hiked the AZT in October and I remember it being dark by 5:30. The only downside to a May start is you might have to bypass Saddle Canyon and Tapeats Creek like I did. More on that later
FOOD/WATER CACHES: Many hikers like to cache food and water on the Hayduke, I didn’t find that to be necessary. It would’ve cost me a lot of time and money to rent a car to hide supplies all around Utah
WHICH DIRECTION: Most people start in Moab/Arches so that’s what I did. The guidebook is also orientated that way so why not. I might be biased but I wouldn’t want to ascend some of the climbs if I went the opposite direction. Down climbing was difficult enough. I flipped through the guidebook in Escalante and it says that one of the reasons they recommend starting in Moab is because going down Saddle Canyon in the Grand Canyon is easier than going up.
GETTING TO TRAIL: Pro-tip here if you’re starting in Arches. Fly into Moab and bring your bottles and enough resupply to make it to Moab (only 25 miles). If you look at the map you will notice that the terminus is only around 4-miles as the crow flies from the airport. So all I did was fill up my bottles at the airport and then walk a couple hours to the starting point. This saves about a day in town and some money. If you go into Moab to buy your resupply then you will most likely spend the night and then pay for a shuttle the following day. So doing it the way I recommended is a big time and money saver
GOING HOME FROM TRAIL: You’ll see this in my last video but I was unaware about the rockfall that blocks the trail leading to the end, which is Weeping Rock. My hike unexpectedly ended at the East Rim trailhead in Zion because of this. Going home would’ve been easier at the official end because there is a free bus right down the road. I instead walked about a mile out of the park to a campground and used their Wifi to call for a shuttle (Red Rock Shuttles). I lucked out and there happened to be a shuttle in the area so I was able to get a ride to St George pretty quickly, cost $150
PERMITS: Even though you go through six national parks the only permit you need to worry about is Grand Canyon. All the other ones you won’t be in there long enough to require one if you time it correctly. However, for the Grand Canyon you’ll be in there for roughly 200 miles or so. My recommendation is to go into Kanab (if you started in Moab) and figure out your permit there. From Kanab it’s only about 90 miles to the Grand Canyon (mostly on the AZT) so you can easily estimate your arrival. If you start in Zion then it will be easier since you’re only a few days or so from the Grand Canyon so you can get that permit figured out before you even start. If I had to do the trail again I would get one campsite on the Tonto Trail and then the next day hike into the South Rim and stay at the campground. The next day just hike all the way to the north rim which is only around 23 miles of good tread. Once at the NR stay at the campground and then head to the ranger station and figure out the permits for the rest of the way westward
RESUPPLY/TOWNS
Needles Outpost: This is around 90 miles into the trail and I sent a box here. It’s listed as a 6-mile hitch but there’s absolutely no need to hitch in. Just look at the map and walk in and out. Very easy. Not to mention traffic will be minimal on that road early in the season and many tourists around the park don’t like picking up hikers. As for Needles Outpost, it’s not a town, just a campground with two buildings. One for bathroom/shower and the other is the small general store. They have a very limited resupply so you need to send a box here. The entire place is owned by two people and they both live there. The woman was extremely nice and helpful, very friendly. It was nice to talk to someone after 2.5 days of being alone. There is no cell service but there is wifi. Also no laundry because they have limited water. I paid for a campsite. They close at 6PM which is kinda early so keep that in mind if you plan on getting there late.
Hanksville: It’s an 18-mile hitch into town. Hanksville is very interesting. There’s less than 300 people who live there but they get millions of visitors each year. That’s because they’re located right in the middle of Utah’s five national parks and there’s no services in any direction out of Hanksville for many miles so people have to stop there. What did this mean for me? Well, I got there on a Friday and every room was booked. This was legitimately one of the most disappointing moments of my life. I was daydreaming about resting my injured leg indoors on a nice comfy bed while watching TV. I ended up just staying at a campground because that was the only thing available. Huge bummer. However, the silver lining is I met the family that owns one of the cabins in town. It’s called Muddy Creek Mining Company and they’re brand new. They felt bad about my situation and let me chill out in their laundry room which was very nice. They gave me their wifi password and let me do laundry for free. Not only that, they offered to let me camp on their private property for free but it was kinda far away so I didn’t. The next day they drove me back to the trailhead. Very kind people. Whenever I go back to Hanksville I will definitely get one of their cabins, I owe them. As far as the resupply goes I didn’t go to the grocery store because the gas station on the edge of town had a very good selection.
Escalante: If you’re going to ask “what was the best food you had on trail,” the answer is the pizza at Escalante Outfitters. Truly incredible. Anyways, I did the Escalante Alternate to save the 30-mile hitch on a dirt road that is notoriously difficult. I absolutely despise hitch-hiking so I will do almost anything to avoid it. Escalante is a small town, everything is on one street. Plenty of lodging options ranging from dirt cheap to expensive. I took my only zero day here so I stayed at one of each. The first was the cabins at Escalante Outfitters, it was $75 for a small cabin with a shared bathroom in a separate building. Check out the videos if you want to see it. It’s pretty bare bones which explains the price. The next night I stayed at the Entrada Lodge next door. It costs $200 including tax. Pretty fancy. As far as the resupply went I sent a box there that included maps and new shoes. There’s a natural grocery store, a regular grocery store, and several gas stations so you don’t need to send a box here.
Kanab: The hitch is about 30-miles and only took 30-minutes. I got lucky because I’ve heard horror stories about people waiting several hours to get a ride. Kanab is a full service town and the biggest since Moab. It’s well built for thru-hikers as everything we need is on the main drag. I sent a box to the North Rim at the post office here. I actually didn’t buy much of a resupply for the next stretch because I had a ton of food left over. I stayed at the Comfort Suites which was around $170 total. The next day I took a $40 ride (Red Rock Shuttle) back to the trail which was 100% worth it. No way was I walking several miles to the edge of town to try and hitch.
North Rim: PSA, if you send a box to the NR Lodge it will be held by the Post Office which is in the same building. This is important because the PO isn’t open on weekends. I’m lucky I found that out because it saved me from being forced to zero. I hiked around 90 miles in 2.5 days to get there before they closed. Got there on opening weekend so everything was packed. Wifi and cell service was overloaded. Stayed at the campground that night. I was able to shower and do some laundry which was nice. However most of their machines were broken. There was a big field trip of 8th graders from Kentucky who were also there. Some of them were very intrigued with my hike. Talked to a few of the kids and teachers there, they were pretty cool. One of the teachers wanted me to talk to their whole group the next day but that didn’t happen since I get up too early. They were definitely a private school and it was obvious all the kids came from money. Not judging, it was just interesting to listen to 13/14yr olds talk about about Louis Vuitton versus other brands. Apparently, they do this trip at the end of every school year. If only every school could do something like that
Colorado City: I’ve thru-hiked over 10,000 miles and this is the weirdest town I’ve ever been to. A quick google search and you’ll find out why. There’s a lot of huge fancy houses there. I walked by one massive house that was having some a big party on a Tuesday night. I walked out of town at night and someone on a dirt bike flew by me doing a wheely with no headlights on. I could only hear him as there were also no street lights, very dangerous. Colorado City is in Arizona and the town of Hildale borders them to the north and they’re in Utah. So there’s a one hour time difference divided by one street. I tried hitching in but gave up after 20-minutes, it’s only a 5.5-mile walk. During the road walk in I passed a car parked on the side of the road and right as I approached they locked their doors. Guess they thought I was a serial killer. I hate getting judged like that but I guess I'd do the same if I was unaware of thru-hikers. I got there around 8PM and resupplied at Bee’s Market. It’s the first big grocery store right on the edge of town which is nice.
ALTERNATES I TOOK
Needles Outpost: I mentioned this above but there’s no need to hitch into here. Just walk in and walk out. On the way out I made up my own alternate through the park and connected it back to the Hayduke before Butler Wash
Hanksville Road Walk: So this was the first big change up I did for several reasons. I was dealing with INSANE shin pain due to overuse. I think it was shin splints but I don’t know. I would get excruciating sharp pain on the lower part of my right shin. It wasn’t the shin bone, it was the muscle and it was seriously inflamed. It was bad enough that I was worried it would end my hike. The second reason is because I lost around 20-25% of my water capacity in Butler Wash when my bladder bag popped. The section from Hite to Hanksville is notoriously difficult and dry. So I just didn’t want to risk it. The road walk is about the same length but obviously faster. It was pretty miserable to walk but I don’t regret it given the situation
Henry Mountain Low Route: The main route goes over the summit but I got there around 7PM and the wind was pretty crazy that day and many days after. Taking the lower route was a no brainer
Escalante Alternate: This alt is 25-miles shorter according to Skurka’s guide. As I mentioned above I hate hitch-hiking so this was an easy choice. The alternate into town actually isn’t bad. You go through Silver Falls Creek which turns into Harris Wash after fording the Escalante River. Harris Wash was the first time on the Hayduke where I spent most of the day with wet feet and endless amounts of water. It was a nice change up from the dry desert before that. However, I will admit that Harris Wash lost its appeal about halfway through because it’s very slow moving. At the end of the wash when the water runs out it’s just walking on soft sand which is miserably slow. Going out of Escalante I fucked up by plotting the wrong points on my map. This led me straight into a terrible bushwack that lasted a couple hours
Skipped the Grand Canyon Loop: This combined with the Escalante Alt is what made my Hayduke around 100-miles shorter. The loop is a combo of the Nankoweap Trail, Tonto Trail, and the R2R, it’s around 75-miles. I skipped it for a few reasons. One, it’s much easier permit wise to continue 10 more miles down the AZT and into the ranger station at the North Rim. Two, I’ve already done the R2R three times, seven months ago I did the R2R2R as a day hike. So I didn’t really feel like hiking that section again. Three, this is where the hemorrhoids come into play, I’m sure you’ve been wondering about that. Two days before going into Escalante I developed an external hemorrhoid that I’m currently still dealing with as I type this. As you can imagine it was nasty and incredible annoying to deal with on trail. It was accompanied with bloody poop and lots of gas and bloating. I started taking anti-gas pills like candy. I also bought hemorrhoid cream in town but that didn’t help. Sleeping was painful and I was already having trouble with that as it was. I couldn’t sit down unless I was leaning to one side because I’d be sitting on the hemorrhoid. My underwear was stained with poop and blood everyday. I would stop every few hours to wipe my ass and it was disgusting. I’ll save the rest of the details but you can imagine this was ruining the hike. Fourth reason, I’ll be honest I wasn’t really having fun on this trail and I wanted it to be over.
Bill Hall Alternate: This was a tough decision because the regular route down Saddle Canyon and the Tapeats is suppose to be the most difficult and challenging section of the Hayduke. In the guidebook it’s the only section they give their highest difficulty to. I planned on doing it but the biggest factor is how high Tapeats Creek is flowing. The rangers unfortunately didn’t have any good intel. There was one ranger who was there a week prior and she said the ford “might be possible,” which didn’t instill much confidence in me. They also told me five previous Haydukers decided to take the alternate around it. I got there in mid-May which is exactly when the snow-melt is happening so I decided it wasn’t worth the risk. The issue is you have to descend into Saddle Canyon just to get to Tapeats, and Saddle Canyon is notorious for being very slow moving. Past Haydukers have said it takes them half the day just to get through those 5-6 miles. So if after that you found out Tapeats was impassible then the only option is to climb all the way back up Saddle Canyon which would mean you will most likely run out of food. And from there it’s a 25+ mile road walk back to the North Rim to resupply and head back out. Not worth it. In hindsight it was a good idea because there is a high likelihood I would’ve run out of food even if I made it through. Taking the Bill Hall alt (which is faster) I only had 2,000 calories leftover when I entered Colorado City, I’m not sure if that would’ve lasted me if I did Saddle/Tapeats. I found a good 2-3 night loop I can do in the fall to make it up.
Beehive Alternate: Most hikers just call it the Colorado City alternate but the Beehive Alt sounds cooler. I’m pretty sure most hikers take this alternate because it’s a short 5.5 mile walk into a town that most will need to go to. From town you head northeast into Hildale, UT towards Squirrel Canyon Trailhead and take that trail which turns into a road that connects back to the Hayduke. I call it the Beehive because it goes right by Beehive Peak. The only downside is that road ends up being all soft sand for a few miles which was really miserable to walk on
East Rim Terminus: This was unexpected because I was unaware of the massive rockfall that has been blocking the trail to Weeping Rock which is where the normal terminus is. I didn’t find this out until I got to the trailhead at 8:30PM. You can see it in the last video. This was a huge bummer and very anti-climatic but it is what it is
FAVORITE SECTIONS: Youngs/Dark Canyon, Muley Twist, Harris Wash, Round Valley Draw, Hackberry Canyon, The Barracks
WORST SECTIONS: Walking on soft sand, long road walks, the boulder hop
GOOD GEAR WORTH NOTING
Durston X-Mid Pro 1: Probably my favorite piece of gear. Great tent. Huge vestibule space. Easy pitch. This tent held up against some pretty fierce winds that made me nervous. The only hiccup was the string that ties the corner of the floor to the corner of the fly came undone. Obviously an easy fix. I checked the other side and found that was coming loose too so I tightened it
Patagonia Houdini: Been using this layer since the CDT in 2017 and I think it should be in everyone’s kit. It’s only around 3.5oz and actually adds a decent amount of warmth but not too much unless it gets very hot.
Jack Black Lip Balm SPF 25: Most people bring sunscreen but not lip balm. A lot of climbers and mountaineers use this product. I found out about it listening to Jimmy Chin on a podcast. This is probably the best lip balm on the market, it costs $24 for a pack of 3 which seems pricy but it’s 100% worth it to me. I used it daily.
Garmin inReach Mini 2: This is the first time I brought a PLB on any hike and I’m glad it was this one. The Hayduke has you doing some sketchy climbs in the middle of bumfuck nowhere and I was glad I had this since I was solo
Nitecore 400 Headlamp: This thing is great. Very powerful light at a very light weight. I did some night hiking with it and never had an issue with the battery. Never had to recharge it on trail
Black Diamond Alpine Carbon Cork: I will never buy trekking poles from another brand. These poles are from 2019 and they’ve been through the PNT, CT, AZT, and now Hayduke. I’ve put them through everything and they’re still going strong. I will probably retire this pair and buy the updated version
BAD GEAR WORTH NOTING
Katabatic Gear Alsek 22: The quilt is very high quality, Katabatic has a great reputation, that’s not the issue. It’s bad because I personally hate quilts. I used one on the CDT and wasn’t the biggest fan but for some reason I decided to give it another shot, especially since I’ve heard so much about Katabatic. I’d much prefer a sleeping bag that fully closes. I hate having that open section where cold air seeps in. I toss and turn multiple times per hour so I constantly have to be adjusting the quilt as I rollover. I do not want to have to think while I sleep. Sometimes the cold air would jolt me awake and I would spend another 30+ minutes trying to fall back asleep. I’ve always had sleeping problems so this didn’t help. I also used a foam pad so I couldn’t really connect the straps like you can with a sleeping pad. I’m currently selling the quilt if anyone is interested. https://www.reddit.com/GearTrade/comments/1d1d248/wts_katabatic_gear_alsek_22/
SUMMARY: It’s hard for me to believe I was only on trail for 26 days because it felt 3x as long. I’m glad I hiked this trail but at the same time this is the only trail that I’ll never thru-hike again. I personally think this trail would be much better as a section hike. There are two things I didn’t mention that made this hike difficult for me. First is hiking solo was miserable. I’ve done many thru-hikes solo but this one is rough to do alone. I would’ve had more fun if I had someone to talk to and to share the misery with. Not to mention it’d be safer in some sections due to the scrambles. The second is insomnia. I’ve had insomnia pretty much my whole life and it usually doesn’t bother me too much on trail, but the Hayduke was different. I could not sleep at all on this trail. If I had to estimate I’d say half the nights I didn’t fall asleep until after midnight, which meant I was only getting 4-6hrs of sleep. Combine that with the fact that I was doing big miles in rough terrain and my body just wasn't recovering well. Even the nights I spent in town I’d be tossing and turning in bed for hours before falling asleep. I bought some Aleve PM only to find that didn’t help either. In the past I’ve taken handfuls of OTC sleeping pills and it would still take me hours to fall asleep. People who don’t deal with chronic insomnia have no idea how lucky they are
I still recommend the Hayduke, but just know what you’re getting into. Do as much research as possible. I will say that out of all the desert I’ve hiked (PCT/CDT/AZT/Hayduke) that this trail has without a doubt the best views and it’s not even close. You just gotta put in a lot of work to see them.
ADVICE FOR FUTURE HIKERS

• As I mentioned, try to hike with a parter. It’ll be safer and more fun
  
• Look into as many alternates as possible before you leave. I only used Skurka’s list but he doesn’t have all of them. There are many good alternates on the Hayduke worth considering
  
• Do not take a new pack on this trail. Use an old one if you have it. This trail is rough and will take a toll on your pack. I used a brand new GG Mariposa and after just 700 miles it looks worse than my GG Gorilla that I hiked the PNT, CT, and AZT with
  
• If you can get a boat ride to skip the Boulder Hop section then absolutely do it. There’s a seven mile section in the Grand Canyon that’s in-between Deer Creek and Kanab Creek that is potentially the most miserable section on the Hayduke. It’s so bad that even the co-founder of the trail (Mike Coronella) recommends skipping it. This section parallels the Colorado River and the last 3-4 miles is a slow and boring boulder hop where progress will be very slow. Combine that with the fact that it’ll most likely be 100 degrees out with no shade and you have a recipe for pure misery. I started this section at 3PM and by 8PM my urine looked like Pepsi. I’ve never seen that before and it was obviously concerning. It was literally almost black. Thankfully, there’s unlimited water so I remedied that situation quickly. The five hours I spent on that section I only covered 4.5 miles because I missed the route that bypasses an impassable sandstone cliff. You can see this in video #5, I dropped a pin on where that bypass begins and recommend you save it if you're gonna hike it. Oh yeah, there’s also bushwhacking mixed in and it’s very thorny. If you can’t hitch a boat ride then my recommendation is to do this section during the last few hours of the day, and finish it within the first few hours of the following day.
  
• Either skip Tropic or do the Bryce Canyon Extension. To go into Tropic you need to walk six miles on a dirt road to reach the main road where there will be more cars. It’s possible to hitch on the dirt road but it’s not very busy. I was there on a weekday and saw one car at the trailhead and that was it. If you do the Escalante Alt then you can skip Tropic and go straight to Kanab, that’s what I did. It will be a longer carry but that section wasn’t too bad. The other option is to do the Bryce Canyon Extension. This alternate is around 25-miles longer and you will road walk into Tropic and continue west into Bryce. This allows you to do an extra 15 miles in the park. The normal route is only in the park for 12-miles so you don’t see much. If I hiked again this is what I would do
  

RECOMMENDED GEAR

• PLB: If you’re going solo definitely take a PLB. You will be in the middle of nowhere and if something bad happened there’s a good chance it could be days/weeks before anyone found you
  
• Good sunscreen and lip balm with SPF. Don’t think I need to explain this
  
• Rope: Not a requirement but definitely helpful in some sections. I bought roughly 15’ of rope in Escalante and used it during Round Valley Draw. Glad I had it
  
• When it comes to layering just be prepared for all temperatures. I experienced everything from 30 to 100 degrees in the month of May