Justin got home from church with his father. He hadn't been feeling well for the past few days, so his father didn't let him go to Sunday school. Instead Justin stayed with his father in the grown ups service. Although he didn't understand everything about the grown ups services, they scared him because there was an urgency about them. He could tell the preacher believed there was something coming that he "had to prepare God's people for." All of the things the preacher talked about scared Justin. The monsters, the opening of "seals", and the four horsemen. Out of the other parts of this scary time, the four horsemen terrified him the most. The image of those four men on horses, rushing at him. He didn't understand what all of the words meant, but he knew they represented something. Military conquest, violent bloodshed, famine, and death. When they got home, he knew he had to ask his father, so he did.
"Well, Justin, the book of Revelations is weird and some of it is just showing things that may happen in a different way but I'll tell you what they mean. Military conquest: people fighting for stuff, violent bloodshed: people killing each other, famine: hungry people, and death which I think you know enough about."
Justin did know enough about death. It made him think about his mother's death. She went away without so much as a word to the world. Thinking about it made him sad. Then he felt tired.
"Daddy, I'm going to take a nap," Justin said.
"Okay buddy."
His father gave him a kiss and he went up to his bedroom, slipping into his comfy bed. The thoughts of the four horsemen and his mother racked his brain before he finally fell asleep. This slumber felt long. He finally woke up, looking around at the darkness of his room. The TV crackled downstairs like it didn't have signal. Usually, his father would wake him up for lunch or dinner after naps. But he didn't.
Justin decided to go look for his father, getting out of bed and plopping his feet down on the cold wood floors. Now that he was out of bed, he noticed that the house was almost unbearably cold. He walked around the house that he also noticed was too quiet other than the static of the TV downstairs. As he walked into his father's bedroom, he saw that he wasn't there. In fact, his bed was untouched and made. The steetlight outside gave no light to his bedroom as it usually did. The trees outside didn't cast shadows on his father's carpeted floor.
Justin started to bite down on his knuckles, a habit he'd had for most of his youth. You big baby! He said to himself. The fear in his heart stayed though. The only other place he could be was in the living room. So, he headed downstairs hesitantly looking around the corner to see the white static of the TV shining into the hallway. He stepped down onto the carpet that he appreciated was a little warmer. He walked closer and saw no one sitting on the couch. The instinct came over him to start screaming for his father but felt like he couldn't because there was something in the house with him. Just beyond the shadows in the corner of the livingroom he swore he could see something. A pouty feeling rushed up his throat and his heart pounded. Justin felt his lower lip begin to quiver but he had to be a man. He had to stay strong to find his father.
It was narrow minded to only look in those rooms, so he walked around all of the lower level of the house, trying his best to avoid the shadows around the room. Once he entered the kitchen, he reached for the light switch only to find it was no longer there. Every room he entered, there was no light switch. Everything that he remembered providing him of a homely feeling disappeared. And now even with the absence of everything he loved, including his father, he couldn't feel more accompanied by something. Something lurked around every corner and he couldn't tell what it was. This feeling or thing made no noise and had no appearance, he knew it resided in the shadows.
Suddenly, he remembered the static sound coming from the TV. That could let him escape this for now. So, he went back to the livingroom and sat down in front of the TV on the couch, grabbing the remote. He tried to switch the channel. Nothing. He tried again, and it switched to a kid's show he'd never seen. It was an old, lame cartoon he'd never watch. Actually, he never recollected seeing it on TV.
Fear set in to the extreme now. Justin looked in every direction, tears streaming down his face as he felt it all around him. Without looking behind him, he reached behind him to get the blanket on the back of the couch. He threw it over his head and laid down on the couch in the new found warmth. Now he started to think about his mother and father. He thought about their loving hugs. Home wrapped him in its protection and the fear drifted away. Everything faded and he fell asleep.
Cold rushed up his body. It jolted him awake. The blanket was gone. It was still unnaturally dark outside and the TV's static buzzed in his ears. He knew the house was cold, but he didn't know it was this cold. The nightmare returned and he couldn't stop it.
The best thing for Justin to do now was to try to escape. He walked to the front door and tried to open it. It wouldn't budge. He tried unlocking it. It still wouldn't move. Windows! He thought. So, he attempted to open a window and couldn't. He took a vase from the table in the foyer and threw it at the window despite the little voice in the back of his mind telling him not to. The vase shattered and didn't make a dent in it. Justin wasn't strong enough to lift anything heavy enough to break the window.
"Justin!" A voice pierced the air.
It was a combination of his mother's and father's voice that echoed faintly from upstairs. Though something didn't feel right. He walked to the stairs with hesitation. The feeling of that thing echoed behind him again. He didn't dare turn his head while he forced his foot to climb each step.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity, he reached the upstairs hallway, quickly looking back and forth. Then he ran from one end to the other and took a peek in each room in a hopeful frenzy to find nothing again. He ran his hands through his hair, still trying not to cry. Why did God put him here? Why was he forced to stay in his home that no longer held what made it a home. It was now just an uncanny shell of its former self with none of its full features. And his parents. His father really, because his mother was dead. The train of thought continued in his mind and he realized he heard his mother's voice too. Am I dead? Is this the end with all of these seals and deadly horsemen. And worse, was whatever he heard even his parents?
Suddenly, he felt the thing behind him. This time the feeling was more intense. The air got cooler. His heart raced. His toes curled and he began to bite down on his knuckles. He turned around slowly until he could see the doorway at the end of the hallway which hadn't been present before. The doorway was never present in his father's house. Only because his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he could make out a faint figure. A hulking mass behind the door frame that made no noise as it pulsated closer and out of the door way. Its features became more clear. The thing was an amalgamation of four horses melded together along with four horsemen also melded to one another. The smell of dead animals rushed forward with frigid air. The horses snorted and struggled to walk because of its mutant-like legs. The hallway expanded in size for its arrival.
Justin could only stare. He couldn't move his legs no matter how much he wanted to. The four horsemen were there and there was nothing he could do. All at once the thing's legs all carried it forward with its hooves lashing out. It pounced and he felt every bit of weight from it. His back slammed against the floor and he screamed the loudest scream he ever had. The massive hooves gathered around him. Some stomping on his arms and legs so he couldn't move. The pain was like no other. He even heard snapping in his bones as it stomped. Another bit of scripture came to mind as he cried. It was something about "brimstone". Was this brimstone? Being locked under the end with no escape. And to make it so much worse, there was pain to go along with the fear.
Screams of pain lashed out from above him. Blood splattered on the floor beside him. Horsemen arms flopped down, holding his face in place while another arm reared the massive body of the combined horses with a dagger. He cried louder. So loud.
"Mommy! Daddy! Please help me! God please! Don't let me go to Hell!"
The dagger neared closer and closer to his face. Justin's limbs flailed about all they could under the crushing weight of the four horsemen. So much fear filled him, that he went quiet, staring at the bloody arm nearing with the dagger. The sound of TV static no longer buzzed downstairs. The only thing he could hear was the slow dripping of blood from the being above him. The dagger slammed into his eye. He let out the largest scream he'd ever let out in his life while his body squirmed away from the immense and sharp pain shooting through his head.
Then the pain stopped. The smell of blood and dead animals disappeared. He opened his eyes which he could see out of, pulling his head up to look for the creature and the door that just appeared. The door nor the creature were there. Just as it all stopped, the buzzing of the TV started downstairs again. Crying echoed through the house. A man cried from everywhere around him. Daddy? Say it out loud!
"Daddy! Help me!"
No answer. Suddenly, the squeel of a door echoed behind him. This time, he didn't feel that thing. He knew it was still in the house somewhere, but it wouldn't hurt him at the moment. He wiped his tears off his cheeks and looked back to see what the sound was. Another door appeared where the window on the other side of the hall was. Warm light came from within that blinded him with its brilliance. A womanly figure walked deep into the bright void. She got close.
"Mommy!"
It was her hair, her loving face, and her beautiful outstretched arms for a hug. She stopped at the door with some room in between the frame and herself. A manly figure stood behind her, too far to see clearly. He could hear faint beeping echoing in the distance.
"You don't have to fight Justin. You can come home if you want to. To be with me," she said.
Her voice soothed his soul. He still felt the being, but it felt as if it faded a little. The air from the door was warm.
Justin smiled. Even though he didn't know what was beyond that door, he knew mommy was there. So, he went to her and gave her a hug. The door closed behind them with a thud. The house warped and shrieked before it crumbled in the shapeless void it formed in. A void undefined to all. It holds what is to come. It holds the inevitability of the end, of what could conjure at the end and how much it could destroy anyone.
"You're Justin's father, correct?"
The apocalypse comes for everyone. Everyone's end comes. The world will end for everyone. The four horsemen exist. The question is, when will yours come? Who or what will it be? Can the fate be evaded? Is your time now? Don't look up from this page, you never know what could be lurking beyond it in the shadows of your room and how painful it could be. Whatever you do, don't look.
This universe will include all of my works, canon and non-canon. Read more about TB. Universe.
Thank you for reading!
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