Battlestar Argus

The air burned with each breath that Victor took. “Still here, still alive” he said to himself as he wrestled with opening his eyes to the new day. “No one is immortal, so this disease can't go on forever” his doctor had said in an effort to console him almost 4 years ago. "Well" , Victor thought, "it certainly feels like forever. If immortality was wasting away a little each day like a decaying corpse then it's been highly overrated". Telling himself that he just needed to get through one more day, he forced his eyes open and struggled to sit up.

Apart from that it burned to breath, he felt almost rested. No one really had any clue as to what his disease was or what caused it. After countless medical tests, the best theory was a mutated version of leprosy. He wasn't dropping limbs, but he was akin to a living cadaver, complete with the smell of rotting flesh. Doctor assisted suicide had been suggested on several occasions but to Victor that always felt like that was like throwing his life away. Prior to the sickness his life had been less than idealistic; physically beaten as a child by an alcoholic father, later regularly drugged and sexually molested by his mother's boyfriend and as if that wasn't enough, his 5th grade teacher constantly mocked and belittled him in front of the entire class. Victor grimaced at the thought and pulling himself as upright as possible said, "I'm a survivor, suicide wasn't an option then and I'll be damned if I take it as an option now. If the grim reaper is coming for me then he will have to kill me himself, cause I'm not giving up".

Stumbling into the kitchen, he surprised himself by looking for some chicken broth to eat. Usually the mere idea of food could make him violently ill, so eating to sustain himself was a chore. The real shock today was actual hunger, not only did the broth stay down, but he felt better afterwards, famished even, and craving something solid. But years of a rebellious digestive track kept him waiting to gorge himself. Wanting to enjoy the lack of nausea, Victor though to himself, "there would be plenty of opportunity to throw up during the next meal". However he never puked again.

Foregoing his usual post-meal nap, Victor looked about his place. It was furnished with antiquities and vintages pieces, somewhat eclectic functional objects whose style was in their workmanship not in any preassigned theme. The more than a century old oak banker's desk with its wooden swivel chair looked inviting. Sitting down and pushing up the roll top, Victor pulled out the one piece of modern technology.

The Internet had become the place to interact with the past, there he watched movies from the 1930s or listened to cylinder music recordings from the Edwardian era. But this day he needed no nostalgia, he was curious about what was happening in the world. When it came to information he knew that social media was a pathetic joke and it was abundantly clear that the traditional media was busy creating controversy in a vain attempt to keep capturing the public's attention. Nevertheless, it was some sort of life and he was desperately craving to be around the living, even if it was only in the virtual world.

The circus that big tech and the news agencies had created was shocking but not as much as the number of people that were willingly participating in it. "Life is too short", he told himself, "to participate in this stupid crap". folding down the lid of his laptop, Victor sighed at the idiocy of so many and leaned back in his chair. It was at this moment that some paper in one of the cubbyholes caught his eye. Reaching up, he pulled out the carefully folded letter, it was addressed to him and in his own handwriting, but he had no recollection of having written anything. How could he have written this he pondered, and why use such an archaic vocabulary, and why refer to himself as Sovereign Master Victor.

The content of letter was written in a bizarre form of the English language, he read it several times and with each reiteration it became more familiar. Convinced that he must have written it over a year ago under the influence of opioid based meds, he was amused by the medieval role playing game it conjured. At the very least, by his 5th reading of it, he was smirking at the image of himself blasted out of his mind trying to role play a fantasy adventure between himself and a character who was most certainly an undead zombie.

The letter started with an introduction from Azeka, who was morally obliged to quit our fight and surrender its life, therefore I had won. It claimed that it was an entity that had accidentally entered my body when I was 3 years old. Despite my young age I remember the incident very well. I was in a taxi cab with my mother and I had opened the door and fell out. I have a memory of a brief moment where I witnessed myself hitting the ground and my little red coat and blue winter boots flew into the air. A man in an old big green car violently swerved to avoid running me over. It was at that instant I felt a severe jolt, similar to that which bungee jumpers experience as they snap back when they hit the limit of the cord.

My master, my host.

My name is Azeka and I am of the Celestial. My home is the place the sons of Adam named Elysium, a place that exists in the shadow of the Glorious. The Exalted sees Master Victor from the corner of his eye, for I yield to you and shall cease to exist. My sorrow is in wanting of my world and in this, I shall not be dead but merely gone, to be no more but memories in the minds of others.

There was a great war waged in my home between us that proclaimed preeminence of the Omnipotent and those that believe that the Sanctity must be refused. They coveted procreation, which had been denied us and they became chthonians. My kind are brought forth from immensity, the nullity of non-creation and we are fully formed as would be likened to mankind adults. All our skills, knowledge and personages are complete with no need to learn or experience. We can neither procreate nor create and neither can we die. Indeed, I will become the first to cease to exist, to no longer be.

Our war waged until the Chthonians were expelled from our domain, to the only other locus, that of mankind. I was unique amongst beings of lightness and obscurity, because I was grey. My loyalties have always been to the Divine and I used my knowledges to observe and undermine Chthonian hierarchies. When the expulsion occurred I knew there would be antagonism and rather than declare my loyalties, I chose to continue my considerations against our enemy. I was cast down with my enemies and became condemned to this realm.

I have witnessed humanity from its birth to this day and the actions of the dark ones. They seek to merge with men but their wickedness prevents them from successfully possessing even the most foul of humanity. As myself, mankind is grey and cannot become one with the cimmerian shade. My existence here was painful and unlike those of darkness, I chose not to possess the living but the newly dead. I could live as human for perhaps 30 years but eventually the corpse would wither and I would then be freed from it.

I entered you by accident on the day you fell from a taxi vehicle into the street. I entered your body when you were but 3 years of age. It was an error of judgement on my part, an impetuous moment for which my penalty is overdue. I had witnessed the Reclaimer of human souls and seeing you fall, I assumed it was you who were his intended. Perhaps my haste was covetous, for I had never before experienced childhood, I shall never know. But in lieu of you, the driver of the vehicle that swerved died from failure of the heart. In choosing poorly, I had become trapped inside you and because you are alive your body did not die within 30 years and your suffering slowly grew.

Eventually I had to choose if I would remain loyal to the Puissant or become Chthonian by forcing your death, as my continued existence within you is doing. The gray is not of the light, but also it can never be unilluminated. So I have chosen to allow you to absorb me. I know not what this might do to you. Perhaps nothing or perhaps it's as the Obscure believe and you will become greater than either of us separately could be. The Chthonians attempts to possess men are in part driven by a fable among the Celestials that claims there is another power which can be used to eliminate chaos, if and only if one's consciousness is strong enough to subdue it. But I know neither if the fable speaks truth, nor if my abdication to your lifeforce will gift more than renewed health.

My humble thanks to you for letting me live your life journey with you, good and bad, sorrow and joy, abuse and kindness.

My former bodily roommate said that both he and what humans might call the grim reaper were present and he mistakenly believed that he had come for me. Death's true target was the taxi driver and he would die from a heart attack that was the result of the incident. From this point on the story got a lot wilder and more unbelievable.

He went on to explain that he was part of a great war between those that called themselves Celestials and they were born from the light. They believe in the Divine but some of them preferred to live in the darkness and despite that all Celestials could hear the music the Creator, they still claim that God is simply a force of nature that could be manipulated for their own means. Their's was a war that waged long before the creation of man and the open hostilities only ceased when the instigator of the conflict was finally thrown from their realm and came crashing into ours. The entity that had been in my body, like the grim reaper, was a being of neutrality but chose to stand with the believers in the Divine. He got stuck in our world because he had been pretending to cooperate with the dark ones in order to gain information.

After that there was a lot about temptation, the defiance of God and how the Dark Ones were on a quest to merge with a living human through possession but so far every attempt had failed. On the other hand, until me my possessor only inhabited the newly dead and frequently did so to both learn about us but also to remove the pain of his now lonely existence. He didn't know why his enemy wanted to posses a human being so desperately but to say that there was a myth that promised it would bring ultimate control.
As I had already said, it read like a fantasy game or novel read by young teenage boys. The kicker is that it turned out to be all true and my disease was my soul struggling against my possessor, a possessor that didn't have any intention of usurping my life for his own means. His capitulation was a decision to finally die instead allowing his host that refused to give in to continue to suffer. - Over the next few days, my health started to return and as a 6ft tall man that was weighing only 120lbs, the only thing I found myself wanting was a thick juicy steak. I was convinced that I was in remission and I wanted to enjoy every moment of it.

*-*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*

When the world had been descending into insanity since at least the 60s'. But in the opinion of many people, it was 2020 when the bottom fell out on common sense. Big tech had decided it would be responsible for dictating public morality, the media decided it would be responsible for instructing the public that morality and government had decided it would be responsible for punishing anyone that broke with the new morality. Little did those people know that their arrogance would result in pronouncing judgment on the entire human race and nothing would ever be as it was again.

“Close the fucking curtains before someone sees me in here with you.” I snapped at the nude young man standing in front of open bedroom window. Dropping low and scrambling for my clothes that were on the floor I followed up by saying that “I don't need the bullshit of a divorce or everyone finding out that the preacher's wife is screwing a 20 year old kid. So close the fucking window!'

I was a bored and miserable mother of two, bible thumping housewife married to Frank Olsen, Faith Hill Baptist church's pastor.. I had tired seeking fulfillment in a career and found that it was even less fulfilling than housework and waiting for everyone to come home at the end of the day. At least as a housewife after I cleaned my home, my time was my own and I could spend it anyway I wanted. So I was amusing myself with an old game of being a closet slut, respectable to mainstream society but hanging out with sexual degenerates while the kids were at school and my husband at work.

So here I was, March 15, 2021, the day the Warden and his Sentinels arrived, screwing a 20 year old kid named Christopher. It had been at least 2 years since I had gotten over my feelings of guilt about screwing around on my family but those sentiments quickly returned the moment I realized that I might be found out. Chris closed the drapes there was a brief moment that I took a look at his nude body and admired the cock dangling between his legs. He was inexperienced but teachable and he was great at power slamming between my legs. Today I was cutting short our encounter but I had every intention of having him ride me again tomorrow morning. If my sexual partner was half as open minded as he claimed he was, I figured that I wouldn't have too much difficulty in getting him to try a threesome and sharing me with another man.

With the curtains finally drawn I looked took a moment to look at his apartment. It was everything my first place was with it's mismatched furniture, thrift store bed sheets and my wet spot in the middle of his bed. With my clothes on, I slid made my way over to the window and surreptitiously looked outside. I was mindful that the dark heavy curtains would make my pasty white face stand out so double checked where I stood to make sure that I was also in the shadows of the room.


The scene outside was surreal. The sentinels outnumbered by what would later be confirmed as 3 to 1. There were 3 types, one the size of a large man, another around 10 foot and the third was huge at about 25 foot. Each has golden skin, pupiless silver eyes and 6 wings on their backs. Totally naked, save for their weapons, they were sexless with no genitals. As for their arms, each had strapped to their waists a whip of 3 tails and a large wavy sword. Needless to say they're intimidating in their appearance and I learned quickly that having one of them look directly at you induced extreme fear. Unfortunately for me, 3 of them, one of each size, looked directly up at me and I swear I heard them say my name, “Katherine.”

I quickly jumped back from the window and decided it was time to go. The truth be known I almost bolted straight out of the apartment but I stopped short of actually opening the door and running out because I was only a few blocks from home. The truth be known I was afraid of seeing those gold monsters face to face but I lied to myself that it was to preserve my adultery. I took a deep breath and asked Chris if there were any old people or shut ins in his building and he told me about one 90 year old man on his floor. So, I fished out my bible from my purse and told him to loudly say he wasn't interested in talking about Jesus as he showed me the door.

There was no one in the apartment hallway so our little show wasn't necessary. Nevertheless, it didn't hurt to play it safe so I continued my charade and went to the old man's door and knocked. He came immediately and excitedly asked me if I seen what was happening. As I looked over his shoulder I could see that there was a news broadcast on that was talking about the golden men appearing all over the world. Convinced it was a publicity stunt for something I continued to play the devout church lady and asked him if he ever read the Book of Revelation. To my dismay, he had and he ushered me in his apartment and for the next 2 hours we prayed together. My break finally occurred when my phone rung and it was the school telling me to come pick up my kids because they were sending children home early because of the current situation. I didn't know it at the time but my days as an adulterous harlot were over and I was on my way to become a motherly role model in a new world.

-----****-----

My family and I, like almost everyone else, spent the next 3 days hiding in our house. All television programming had stopped and the Internet spoke of nothing else. The only issue was, “who are the golden beings?” and none of us could answer that question. China apparently challenged a handful of them and the results were incredibly disastrous. According to news reports, whatever these creatures were they were indestructible and it seemed that any attempted attack on any of them was repaid with at least a thousand deaths. However, whatever their purpose for being here was they still hadn't said anything to anyone. They just stood, wherever they were, and said nothing.

It was early Thursday morning when we had no choice but to go to the grocery store for food and toilet paper. Cellular phone service had been more or less out for the last 2 days and Frank finally felt he needed to put on his proverbial pastor's hat and do something to help ease the anxieties of his flock. He believed that people would start believing these beings were aliens from another planet instead possibly being angels or devils. Or, at least, that's what he said. Whereas in my mind I heard him say that he was going to go to the church, which was only a short walk away, while I bravely drove to the other side of the town to get him dinner and something to clean his butt with. As I since learned, most of us women never wanted equal rights. We wanted me that didn't behave like cowards when push came to shove.

The drive should have taken me 20 minutes or so but it ended up being over an hour. The sentinels weren't the ones obstructing traffic and indeed they just continued to stand motionless unless challenged. It was the police and the military that bogged down the city and they felt the need to interrogate the public. As if the Covid nonsense wasn't bad enough our governments had yet one more thing to make life difficult for us. All I could do was sneer to myself and wonder what do they think they could do if some human was involved in this, after all, they drastically outnumbered the entire human race..

Finally pulling into the parking lot a young women started screaming that something was happening and indeed it was. On the radio it said that the world leaders were about to be addressed by someone named Victor Farinelli and within moments all of the creatures began to speak. They spoke with one voice and they spoke in the language of those nearest to them. It was the creepiest thing I had ever seen and heard right up until people started screaming on the radio and reports started coming about several heads of state losing their heads. That is to say they had their heads cut off,

All in all it was about a dozen politicians which included the Canadian and British Prime Ministers and the German Chancellor. The French President was a hair breath away from losing his head but at the sword just made contact with his neck and only drew blood. A normal person might have retired from politics or at least be careful with what he might say but not this asshole. The President of France played the grieving victim, condemned the attack and convened an emergency government assemble and gave himself more power. For the next 2 weeks he was on every TV channel, several podcasts and all the large Internet platforms. The social media sites were particularly crappy as they went into overdrive with shills and bots all supporting President Maqeureau stand against extraterrestrial terrorists. In hindsight it was probably a good thing that the Chinese found out early on that the creatures were indestructible and absolutely lethal because he wanted the UN to discuss possible nuclear action against them.

Unfortunately, my husband Frank, jumped on the bandwagon with his own brand of fear mongering. As far as he was concerned that these creatures had proven themselves to be of the devil and they were coming for all of us. He organized the church community into round the clock prayer vigils that were complete with at least 2 armed men. I've never been sure if he believed the bullshit he was spewing or if it was just his method of finding a way to hide behind others. I've always suspected the later because he pretty much moved myself and the kids into the church and never once did he ever offer to take a shift standing guard. In fact, it was pretty much only me that ever left the church for any period of time while he conned everyone else into bringing supplies for the upcoming Apocalypse. Where everyone else saw him as a noble leader, I saw only him as week and it sickened me

I took every chance to tell other that these so-called devils didn't attack us, they attacked the politicians. Whoever this Vincent was, he seemed to be more interested in dealing with the political big shots instead of insignificant people like myself. I know it sounds terrible but I didn't care if he killed all of them because all they did was make life more complicated and expensive. A big part of me figured that we would probably be better off without them. I was frustrated and bored and under normal circumstances I would have gone back to sleeping around for my amusement but I seemed to be totally surrounded by losers and idiots. In the end, I couldn't even bring myself to fantasize and I think I would have killed my husband had he tried to touch me.

About 3 days before the world first heard of the man that would later refer to himself as “The Warden,” I walked out of the church with my kids and went home. Along the way I stopped at one of the smallest Sentinels and straight up asked him what he was and he was dong here. Surprisingly I got a an domineering monotone response, “We bring order to chaos.' I stood transfixed looking into its silver eyes and to my surprise I felt no fear but a strange sense of relief and comfort. It was Charmaine, my 5 year old daughter, that broke the silence when she asked if it could tell her grandmother that because she was scared of him. A few heartbeats later it responded by informing me that the message had been delivered. With a smirk, I sent a message to my husband, “I've got the kids and we're heading home. I'll get in touch with you if I we need anything but in the meantime leave me alone.”

It didn't take much time at all for everyone to realize that these beings could instantly relay a message to anyone in the world. All you had to do was speak to one that was nearest to you and the Sentinel nearest to the person you wanted to relay the message to delivered it. In less than a day, humanity went from being scared of these indestructible creatures to using them for their own amusement. Messages could be given to anyone and the newly elected President of the United States was reduced to begging to that people stop calling him names. Far better than the post office because even a locked vault in Fort Knox couldn't stop them from delivering a message, with very little effort, they had ripped all the doors off of the place. So if governments were fearful before they must have been absolutely scared shitless now or at the very least, annoyed to all hell.

I was really happy that I had left my husband because of my recent past I got some very explicit messages. No one wanted to screw when they were scared but now that everyone believed the creatures were our friends, it was once again time to unzip. My interest in sex was effectively gone and I hoped this wasn't going to become the new normal. Well, it didn't last long because Victor decided to make himself known to the world.

Victor addressed the world using the golden beings and it was at that moment we were told that they were Sentinels watching over us. We knew that we were outnumbered 3 to 1, one of each size per person, but that more could be summoned in less than a second. It was made very clear that there was now just a single world government and that all doubt about God's existence was now over. Victor and his enforcers were now proof and atheism and paganism were now illegal. Those non-believers would have to chose between being Jewish, Christian or Muslim. Belief or non-belief no longer mattered, everyone was now expected to keep their opinions to themselves and openly worship the God of Abraham. Jews openly hated this while Christians collectively couldn't form a unified point of view and the Islamic world outright partied their asses off. As for myself, my only thought was 'Fuck, my husband is going to use this to his advantage.”

I think the cowardice of the general public had pretty much accepted that everyone was required to go once a week to some kind of place of worship had also stepped over the line when he declared that abortions were now illegal. For about a month every college aged girl and blue hair feminist and their allies protested in the streets. It was maddening and the Sentinels did nothing but prevent total chaos from breaking out. I did my best to explain to my kids what was going on and why abortion was wrong. As loose as my sexual morals had been I always found the idea of purposely terminating a pregnancy the height of stupidity. After all, if I counted how many men I slept with prior to marriage and during and still never had got accidentally pregnant then these women had no excuse.

My husband lost his brains and I had to let him move back into the house. He felt safe enough to dismiss his guards and to leave his safe space and because of the everyone must worship law, he had the largest congregation of his career. Just the same he ceased every chance to denounce Vincent and his “demonic guards.” So, I did what any miserable housewife that didn't want to sleep around would do, I remodeled the house. I figured that I would eventually get sole ownership of it

I went 1940s style and spent my free time going to flea markets and antique stores. Frank asked me only once if this was my way of dealing with the demon situation. My response was that I was dealing with the situation the only way I knew how. My husband was nothing more than a mouth and not a very good one. His only skill was to spew platitudes and organize his congregation into a kind of club of nice people. He really didn't do anything for anyone and his solution to everyone's problems was to say that he would pray for them. Which, I long since learned, is the polite Christian way of saying go fuck yourself. Well now most of Frank's flock hated going to church and a couple of them had told him to fuck off.

Working on my home really helped me stop thinking about my husband and I found that the entire vintage stuff had a way of infecting my thoughts and how I saw the world around me. In one shop I found someone's diary from the 30s' and what stood out was how resilient she had been. Esther Lastman lived on a farm in the Blue Ridge mountains with her husband and she had buried 2 children before going on to have 5 more. The woman was basically a dirt farmer that supplemented her family's meals with food she foraged in the surrounding woods and sewed by the light of the fireplace because they had no electricity. Perhaps the most astounding part was she was no older than 15 when she started. - Her diary became the equivalent of my bible.

It wasn't long before I took up knitting, cooking, wore vintage dresses and made a sincere effort to be a good wife to Frank. However, he did little to change my opinions of him. What made things worse was that he didn't even seem to realize that our marriage was in trouble and I didn't know how to talk to him about it. How does a woman tell her man that she finds him weak and repulsive. Esther said in her diary that she advised her daughter to never fall in love with a man that's too clean and Frank certainly was that. He never got his hands dirty and certainly spent a lot of time picking out his suits and color matching his clothes. The Sentinels were no longer relaying messages but on a lark I decided to ask one if my husband was gay. I took a deep breath and waited for a response but none came. Undaunted I tried a different a question and asked what did Frank predominately think about. I had read that men think about sex abnormally large amount of time during the day and my idea was that maybe I could find out what he fantasized about. However the Sentinel did respond and it was horrific, my husband thought almost entirely about himself.

It did and didn't surprise me. In many ways it explained and confirmed my worse fears. Frank was incapable of doing anything creative or meaningful in his life and yet he believed himself to be above everyone else. Had he been any less self-absorbed he might have become gay and I think I could have handled that. But he was effeminate in a man's suit and he had made a career out of reciting the same kinds of platitudes he told himself to others. A man of such conceit was incapable of believing in God because he could only believe in his own wants and desires. As big of a slut that I had been and regardless of how many men and women that I had screwed, I realized that I was a believer and this was the worst betrail that I could have never imagined. - Divorce was now inevitable

----****----

My kids and I almost got a front row seat to the televised judgment day as Victor finally decided to show himself to the public. New York city had been going full tilt stupid over the abortion ban and both the mayor of New York and the governor of the state teamed up with some feminist group and an abortion clinic. In Times Square they were going to break the ban and broadcast and an actual abortion. TV sets had been set up on the streets of numerous cities in order to live stream the event. My kids and I had just left a thrift clothing store where I bought my daughter and myself matching dresses when I was handed a pamphlet explaining what was about to happen.

It was surreal. - It was the actual operating room in a private clinic and the broadcast started with the politicians claiming how much they supported a woman's choices and how important it was that they prove that in a democracy they would not be dictated too by anyone, especially a terrorist. When they finally cut away to the woman, she was young perhaps just 18 and she told the everyone how she had been raped. Needless to say, I didn't believe her and my disbelief was about to be validated. With her feet in the stirrups the doctor brought the uterine currette towards her vagina, which was being openly displayed, and the moment before he made contact with her, the creatures attacked.

It was like watching a train wreck in slow motion. I could see what was about to happen and I grabbed my kids and fled to the nearest building hoping for whatever small measure of safety that brick walls could bring. Like myself, the shop owner could see what was about to happen he flung the door open and grabbed me by the hair in order to pull me in the place. As he barked at us to get down I noticed the TV behind his counter was showing Despite the chaos of the moment, I remember looking at that TV set and thinking “Fuck sakes, that shit's here too”

The Sentinels crashed through the walls of the abortion clinic and beheaded everyone but the mother. Then just as quickly 2 of them lifted her off the operating table and left the room. There was then a few seconds of silence, perhaps no more than 10 or 20 seconds. However, the silence was in the streets, indeed it was everywhere and it was deafening. It was the proverbial calm before the storm and it ended in an explosion of screams and flying heads. One young blonde woman's head smashed through the window of the shop landing within a few feet of me. As she laid on the floor I noticed her eyes lock into mine and I swear I could see her pleading with fear. Her mouth opened slightly, I imagine in an attempt to speak and then her eyes closed and she was gone. Whoever this woman was, her death would forever haunt me, making me aware that I alone would bear the responsibility of my decisions. In time I've often found myself praying that God take mercy on her and hopefully on me as well.

Every abortionist, employees or abortion clinics, supporting politicians, members of pro-choice lobby groups, protest organizers and even the more vocal militants where beheaded. The massacre happened in every street of every town in every nation of the world. It was a hurricane of death that should have left no doubt in anyone's mind that world had changed. However, the majority of people were in shock and didn't know what to think. Everyone in the world knew that whatever these beings are that they are indestructible and invincible. Yet somehow, probably because of Hollywood, we subconsciously believed that we would eventually overcome them and our lives would return to normal. - Like paper training a puppy that contentiously defecated on the living room carpet, humanity had its nose rubbed in its own ignorance. As was with our innocence, the arguments surrounding a woman's right to choice was now over and it was only the first of many issues that would be decided for us.

Time stood still for a few moments as the screaming and panic died down. All the screens that had been set up still stood and the image shown came from a camera laying on it's side in Time Square with a dark haired woman in a fetal position sobbing about 20 feet away. A pair of black motorcycle boots under the pant legs of a dark blue pinstripe suit came into the shot. The boots walked towards the woman with a ominous thud from the heels and as they moved away from the camera there was a moment where the jacket and matching fedora were visible. The impression he left was like that of a mobster, a mafia don from the 1920s' that came to inspect the handiwork of his enforcers.

As he looked at the woman 2 guardians came and stood by his side and he finally faced the camera. He looked to be in his 40s with a black goatee, white shirt and red tie. His skin was a lighter shade of the golden color of the enforcers and the irises of his eyes were the same silver as there's. Looking at his body my feeling was that he wasn't fully human. He betrayed his humanity when he spat as if he were trying to rid himself of a bad taste in his mouth.

The woman was 35 year old Helen Kissimee, an up and coming reporter with WHBW 24. Her pleas for mercy were easily picked up on and broadcasted to everyone. “Please Jesus don't let him kill me. I didn't kill my baby... I'll be good I promise.... I didn't kill him... I didn't kill him...”

His response to her was cold and authoritarian. “You're going to live. Now go and operate that camera over there” Helen was wearing a white t-shirt that proudly announced that her employer supported abortion and it had been heavily sprayed with blood. She looked scared, and confused so it was no surprise that she was still attempting to beg for her life when the mafioso barked at her, “NOW!” Wide eyed, a dim sense of understanding started to reclaim her mind and she ran towards the camera stumbling twice before picking it up..

Understandably she was in a state of shock because the image was shaking badly. The fedora man reached out with his left hand and helped her stabilize it. “I'm Victor' he spoke in a slow restrained manner.. “Everyone in the world has 15 minutes to get indoors and stay there until I say you can leave.” He looked straight into the camera and it felt like he was directly looking into the eyes of every single person watching the transmission. “ There will be a thousand killed for every person that violates my stay inside order and I'll know the second someone does.”

The store owner looked at his wife and ordered her to prepare a room for us. She too was stunned and hesitant but snapped to attention when her husband, like Vincent, barked the word “NOW!” at her. He then yelled for his oldest son come bring his gun downstairs. The fruiterie keeper was a man in his mid 50s but he had transformed himself from non-threatening to an alpha wolf protecting his pack. When both of his sons came downstairs he told the oldest, a young man of 16, that he was to remain with him while the younger escorted me and my children upstairs. “The little girl has pee'd herself. Put the water in the bath and bring her mother some clothes from your sister.”

Mr. Najar was short fused, loud and intolerant of anyone that might question his authority or didn't immediately do as he commanded. Under normal circumstances I would have despised such behavior and even perhaps called it toxic masculinity. But the world had officially changed and it was uncertain if it was for the better or the worst. What I do know is that I found myself taking great comfort in his ability to take control of the situation but even more so, his obvious emotional willingness to resort to extreme violence if anything or anyone should threaten our safety.

For the next week the streets looked like a ghost town. For the first couple of days there were cable news broadcasts from people that found themselves having to shelter in the studios but without any additional information they became sporadic by the 3rd and there were mostly broadcasts of empty anchor seats. The Internet was still functional but many sites were having problems and even several of the big social platforms had outages. What still worked fairly well were our cell phones but I received no call from my husband. In his defense, I never made any effort to call him either and instead I spoke to my brother's wife. Homesteaders in Montana, I was told that he had set a chair up in front of their home's entrance way and now sat there with a loaded gun and crossbow. He would barely leave his place to use the bathroom and his conversation with me was terse.

Our host family were Muslims and I figured that it wasn't fair that they were providing and protecting us. Therefore, I made myself as useful as possible to Aaeesha. We cleaned up after the men and children and also brought food to Ahmed and his son Ghaazi who took turns standing guard. One of our duties was to make certain that the living room was prepared for prayer and we did pray. Five times a day, their son, 13 year old Khalid , would sing the Islamic call to prayer and every day we prayed those 5 times without fail. By the 4th day of our lock in we had an established household routine and enjoyed a certain ease with each other. It was then that I realized that I was now looking forward to talking to God and that my faith in Him had been rekindled.

My daughter became fast friends with Maazah, their 6 year old daughter. On the morning of the 5th day I watched them playing and they were practicing putting on hijabs, the Islamic woman's head scarf. They were pretending that they needed to hide themselves from the men so that they wouldn't fall in love with them and take them away. It wasn't long ago that had I seen my child doing this that I would have cringed but I heard their giggles and I knew that feminism was now over. “Good Riddance” I said under my breath and I put on the headscarf that I Aaeesha had loaned me for praying with them.

Aaeesha gifted me an abaya when she seen that I was no longer taking off the head covering. She was pleased and laughed that perhaps I was hoping to become Ahmed's 2nd wife. I laughed nervously and changed the subject to what we were going to make for dinner. Ahmed had also noticed that I was making an effort to adopt their ways but rather than comment he left an english copy of the Quran beside my bed. Weather out of respect for my hosts or because I was yearning for something more to make sense out of the world, I stayed up reading the book and found that there was a beauty in its words.

My 8 year old son Thomas was perhaps the least impacted by the events and simultaneously the most. He had always been a mommy's little boy to the point that I figured he might be growing up gay or transgender. Save for rebukement each time he got in my husband's way, they spent very little time together. Khalid and him rough housed almost non-stop and when they weren't wrestling they were eating and talking about wrestling. No matter how loud they got, Ahmed always smiled and patted my boy's head. The closest he came to scolding them was just a stern warning that if she order everyone to be quiet that they would have to immediately become silent. Children find ways to make even the darkest hours a moment worthy of play and both my kids were doing that. My daughter was adapting but for my little Tommy, he was getting a childhood he wasn't getting at home and he was rising above all his fears. In such a short time he had learned to wrestle with his own fears and he began to see himself as something other than a pest to his father.

It was 15 days before we heard from Don Vincent again. Our guards were the ones to break the silence as they spoke in unison. “Everyone may leave their homes and no chaos will be tolerated.” Ahmed left the house to make certain everything was safe for us but after 30 minutes he came back and told me we would be staying for at least another day. People had died during our enforced imprisonment and their bodies, along with those that were executed, now littered the streets. He didn't want children or me to see them. I was actually very happy to stay the extra day with people that I now considered to be family.

Frank wasn't home or at his church. Instead he got stuck in Dave Olchyk's home with Dave. Well he didn't call me and I didn't call him but still I somehow thought that he would be happy to see me. Instead it was just business as usual and I choked down my disappointment. After all, I was just as guilty of indifference as he was. It was 5 minutes into our discussion that I noticed that he hadn't asked about how our kids were. I told myself that it was because they were standing beside me when we met up with him but didn't do anything more than greet them.

We were all sitting in Dave's living room when I noticed that his wife wasn't present. I had known Diane for at least 5 years and I had to inquire about her well being. She was at her girlfriend's home when the lockdown started and they spoke frequently during it. He said all the right things a loving husband should say about their wife but on some lever that should have rubbed off on my husband. I imagined it would be difficult to watch and listen to your friend calling his wife every day without wanting to call your own when the possible end of the world was upon you. I also doubt that your friend wouldn't have said something when you didn't make any attempt to call. Each time my hosts asked, I lied that I hadn't been able to get Frank on the phone.

There was more going on and it seemed to me that it would be just like Frank to indulge in a homosexual tryst during the chaos. No doubt he wasn't an adherent to the lifestyle but just a sociopath narcissist that ceased an opportunity to get off. Even as a pastor he wasn't above suspicion of having an extra marital affair so I'm sure arrogance prevented him from pursuing that option. But as a married bible preacher no one was likely to believe he would indulge in such debauchery. It also didn't help that Dave was a married man and he stood just as much to lose if anyone found out. I cut the visit short and excused myself saying that the kids wanted to see their own rooms to in order to feel better.

As I drove home, when I got to the first traffic stop I finally whispered to myself. “Well done Frank.. Well done” Everyone in the world was scared to death and my husband found a way to quell his stress and boredom. I thought to myself that he could have picked up that bible he's always been fond of quoting. If I wasn't certain before that everything about him was a sham then this was a clincher and all I wanted to do was beat him senseless. But as the light turned green and I pulled away I remembered that I was no better than he was. I had indulged my boredom by having sex with men, women and in group scenarios so I couldn't judge him without judging myself.

Pastor and the pastor's wife, we were both narcissists and hypocrites but I was already repenting was he? It was the end of the world, or at least as we knew it and this time around we appeared to be judging ourselves. Despite the small differences in his appearance, it was a man that now commanded an invulnerable and invincible army of supernatural beings. At this point I imagine that governments all over the world are scrambling to figure out how to suck up to him. Given the previous events I doubt that they're going to have much luck with that but politicians tend to be stupid so no doubt they're going to try.

I pulled into the drive way of our home and my son was the first to jump out of the car. “Don't worry mom I'll make sure everything is safe.” he said. The uncertainty of the past few days left its impression on him but seeing him pick up a stick and go marching off towards the house made me think that perhaps some of it was good. In all of my screwing around I was always attracted to men that looked and had the attitude like they could handle themselves in a fight. I always figured that it was because I wanted a man that was the opposite of my con artist husband. The truth is that there's something primal and primitive in me that makes me desire physically powerful men.

In this complicated materialistic society that we created I had lost touch with my womanhood It had been overwritten by all the media noise, consumer electronics and the never ending background noise generated by all the special interests groups and their hoards of useful idiots. What was happening to me now was an awakening to my true nature. Femininity wasn't a social construct, it's biological expression that's influenced culture and it had been that way for thousands of years across all the nations. As I continued to ponder on this I surmised that at some point in the late 19th century a dichotomy started to take hold and it would go on to make the 20th century both arrogant and believe that progress was embracing sexual perversion and aspiring to be less than the sum of your parts.

As I watched my sun playing at being our protector I acknowledge that as a woman my role was to stand behind the men. Wanting to climb hierarchies of power, such as the proverbial corporate ladder, was the exception and not the rule among women. Those few women that seem to genuinely desire those positions seem to have a disproportionate numbers of alcoholism, depression and regrets later in their lives.

It was my son that first found out that our front door was left unlocked. I didn't however, expect that anything had been touched. Whatever the ultimate purpose of these beings was, they had the added benefit of preserving order. I got the feeling that this Vincent dictator didn't like criminals and 2020's pandemic demonstrated just how popular a police state is. So it looks like all the people that were pro-lockdowns and masks have gotten their wish because we were now in a defacto police state. I

I felt like a stranger in my home because so much had happen recently and I just wasn't the same person that I was prior. On a whim I walked outside and spoke to one of 6 winged beings, “Can I still get a divorce.?” As I suspected, I didn't get a response and it really bothered me. There was a large part of me that secretly hoped that the creature would answer yes and with a wave of its hand my marriage could be nullified. Obviously, that wasn't going to happen any day soon so instead I went about putting my house in order.

Cleaning can be very cathartic and prayer very therapeutic. The more I cleaned, the more I prayed and the more I prayed the more I wanted to clean. There were no set words to my prayers, just a conversation with God and I figured what I was saying was probably more for my own benefit of figuring things out than actually trying to get closer to my creator. Narcissism was something that, to some extent or another, everyone in the world was now suffering from. The free market and technology had done their job and liberated more people from poverty than had ever been achieved in all human history. Yet, that came with a price and it was that this materialistic culture we created had turned us into weak but entitled egoists.

Most people were incapable of appreciating the sacrifices of past generations that brought us to where we were. As far as we were concern the previous generations were uneducated violent bigots that only wanted war and misogyny and were willing to exploit anyone for a buck. We couldn't see that all our ancestors actually fought and won against slavery, fascism, exploitation and hate. In the 21st century everyone of us had multiple opportunities to make something out of ourselves. But instead we chose to be consumers and enslave ourselves to the transnational corporations that manufactured our technological toys. However, even worse, we drugged our minds listening to the drivel of conceited low IQ celebrities and news media oligarchs that believed they were demigods.

My mind kept wandering towards my husband's recent homosexual explorations. It was really bothering me and the more I dwelt on the issue the less it seemed to have to do with him being a pastor and it had to do with that my mind couldn't deal with male bisexuality. Somehow, to me, his masculinity had been diminished. Which, was saying a lot because a lot my infidelity was directly caused because I didn't see him as being much of a man. In my eyes this made him sink even lower and maybe if he was truly gay instead of just a narcissist I could let go of the issue.

His dreams about building a mega church and even one day following in similar footsteps of the old 1970s televangelists. Frank wanted his own broadcast system, a holy theme park and no doubt the all the luxuries and attention that would go with the position. I found myself with an evil grin thinking about what kind of scandal he would get himself in.

“It's the 21st century, Frank. If you're not careful someone is going to get your sodomite escapades on video and then everything you wanted will be gone.” I had mumbled that under my breath and it gave me a perverse pleasure thinking how the town holy man would have to dance to redeem himself and keep his stuff.