An idea that popped up to me. Share your thoughts?
Endverse
Finally Armageddon came and passed. Souls were reaped, battles were fought and a final judgment took place where people were condemned saved or left in any one of the hells, purgatories and heavens that spanned across all existence.
When all this business was sorted out time was meaningless for the longest of times. Thus, ‘Once upon a time’ is as accurate as it will get.
Once upon a time in heaven the angels and rescued souls were called into the presence of Z. The captain angel and one of the oldest ones in existence, as old as the devil himself. A highly esteemed spokesperson.
The angel folk and the souls were a bit disturbed, but nothing more than that. It was very hard to worry about anything in heaven. They had long lost such for the lack of a better expression – ‘human’ – expressions. They came here knowing that something important was happening, but not how important.
In hell the screaming was the same pitch as always. There was never a boring day down here. Pain it seemed could never get used to. Endlessly tortured in both body and soul there was a great immediate change in tone when the angel Michael arrived with a host to fly over the chasm. No one ran hell. There was no god here to watch the punishment. It was just a chasm that everyone had been thrown into, and any of their pleas were not to be heard.
In the presence of the angels the souls were able to forget a fraction of their pain as they listened for what was obviously an announcement. Immediately, the single desperate thought came from most of them. One soul screamed out in desperation,
“God has finally forgiven us! We’re free!”
This myth had been perpetrated across time. That eventually, eventually God would have mercy and save the wretched souls.
They waited for the confirmation of this tale. They waited with great pain in both body and soul.
And all the underworlds, purgatories and heavens in between, and indeed even some advanced alien civilizations that had stepped off the entire chessboard of things like soul and judgment on ‘good and evil’ All the smarter ones who figured out the awful truth suddenly had public announcements to make. It would be no surprise if this universal announcement was made by the leaders at the same time. Some phrased it differently though, in a way that baffled most of the listeners.
“The world is ending.” Z finally said.
There was a moment of silence as people looked at each other in confusion. One soul spoke up,
“Excuse me, Z. What does that mean? The world already ended a long time ago.”
Z wore a stony expression like he always did, “By the world I do not mean the earth, which has indeed perished long ago. I mean everything and anything. The universe.”
“What?”
The toneless expression of shock was repeated by more than one soul. Impossibly the thought rose to many of the audience’s mind, “Was Z making a joke?”
That seemed an impossible thing to grasp as well.
Z continued, “The universe is going to collapse in 2000 years. It has been going on for a long time now and God and all other spiritual entities in existence have attempted to hold things together for as long as possible, but finally it is too much. They will continue their efforts for the remaining time but the end result is inevitable. God found no reason to hide anything about the situation. This is all that I have come to say.”
Z disappeared from their presence without a word.
It is hard to describe the absolute all-encompassing terrific shell-shock that gripped the entire audience that was present at that moment. A free fall. The angels who had no human anatomy to speak of still felt like their gut was dropping. Some of the souls felt their hearts hammering with a vicious passion they hadn’t experienced in years.
An angel fell to her knees and wailed. There was no sudden reaction to this. Everyone just heard her lament as it echoed across the golden city of heaven. No one responded to the wail for the longest time, and perhaps it could be heard even in places out of heaven. 7 days later it would be called The Lament of Agnes.