It was a day like any other when the earth shook violently and the skies suddenly turned bright. All around the globe same sight could be seen. People saw what seemed to be giant, glowing beings descending from the heavens, Angels. Angels were unlike anything anyone had ever imagined, with wings blindingly beautiful and an otherworldly radiance that seemed to emanate from their very beings. As they drew closer to the earth, people began to feel an unfamiliar discomfort.

Christians, true believers, were taken that day. Taken to eternal peace, while the rest of humanity was left to ponder their decisions. Angels circled the globe several times leaving an unfamiliar mark on people's foreheads as they left.

Everyone born after that day got the same mark. No one knew what it meant, the leading theory was that it branded them sinners, someone who would never be able to reach and experience what those people did on that holy day.

Since that day, Earth changed forever. Most people stopped looking for material success and turned towards Christianity. Years later first marks finally started disappearing and humanity found hope once again.

Five years later Angels returned once again, taking those whose markings had disappeared. That was a clear sign for humanity of what their goal should be.

Angels repeated the same process five years later and one of them spoke that they would continue to do so. Sins can be forgiven and people can be accepted and brought to heaven with them if they work hard enough, and devoted their lives to it. Almost fifteen years had passed after that holy day and humanity eagerly expected the return of the Angels once more.

All of this did not sit right with Marcus, a history teacher, who combed through every book he could find trying to decipher the strange marking. He found himself in Egypt, at ancient ruins, looking for the final clues, he was so close.

His children and wife waited for him at home, their markings gone almost a year now. His wife Vivian had begged him to leave this pursuit of his and join them, she could help him lose the mark, and become a believer. She could be his guide into eternal peace and ascension.

But Marcus could not let it go, he had to follow his gut. He brought his team of eight people with him to Egypt, and all of them shared the same feeling of uncertainty and eeriness that surrounded the Angels.

They combed through the ancient site looking for final clues, something was missing. Every translation they did reading the parts of the strange symbol made no sense.

“Boss,” Lorein yelled. “I think I have found it, come look at this.”

Carved into one of the stones was a part of the symbol that decorated most of the remaining humanity’s foreheads.

“That’s it,” Marcus said. “We have everything we need. Bring that whole block, we will have the symbol translated tonight!”

They spent the whole night translating the symbol and just before dusk they succeeded.

The message read: "Do not harvest, not fit for consumption."

It was a chilling revelation, one that sent chills through the team. The implication was clear: those who bore the marking were safe and the others were in grave danger.

Minutes later as the team was still proof-checking the earth shook once again and the sky became bright. The Angels have returned once more.

The feeling of dread and horror swept over Marcus, his wife, and children had lost their mark and he was on the other half of the planet away from them. He was right all along but he was too late, he had lost his wife and children.

One of the team members was unbothered by the revelation and angels returned and continued translating part of the stone they have found at the ruins. He finished the sentence that was written at the bottom of the stone:

“If they ever return, find me!”

part 2

part 3 - On my sub, easier to read/post as this post is getting pretty crowded.

part 4

part 5

part 6

[Part 1 of 2]

“Do not harvest, not fit for consumption?”

Erica held her blonde hair up, staring at her marked forehead. How long had humanity hated this mark? Constantly cursing its existence. It was believed to be the mark of the devil, the thing that trapped all of humanity in the ruins that they once called Earth, but it was the opposite of that. It was a marking that saved humanity, well, saved the sinners.

“I can’t believe this. We were wrong about the rapture. That means our ancestors weren’t saved, they were slaughtered. This is incredible. I need to tell everyone.”

Erica knocked a few papers off her desk in her excitement, slamming closed the leather-bound book she had been writing in. She jumped up from her seat, turning around and freezing when she saw a well-dressed lanky man standing in the corner of her room. His blood-red eyes staring at her as he rubbed his pointed tail tip between his fingers.

“How about we keep your little discovery to yourself?”

Erica slowly reached back for her book, holding the heavy object in front of her, hoping that might deter the man from coming any closer. The man smirked, the smirk pushing his pencil-thin moustache towards his nose as he stepped forward, almost gliding with each elegant step.

“Who are you? If you don’t answer I’ll-“

“You’ll what? Whack me with a book? I’m not here to hurt you. If I were, I would have done it when your back was turned. I’m not a fan of a fair fight.”

“You’re the devil.” Erica muttered, as if she had just spoken the first thought that came to her mind.

“Really? Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

There was a tense moment between the pair as the man stood before her. His tanned skin releasing smoke from its pores, as if internally he was on fire. He said nothing, only pointing a clawed finger downward, motioning her to place the book back on the table. Erica hesitated for a moment before setting the book down, losing her only weapon.

“You’re right. I am the devil. Or whatever word you wish to refer to me as. I’m the original sinner, a man or, well, entity that sinned against my kind, being cast into a layered prison that was intended to drive me insane, and it certainly did that for a few thousand years.”

“You said you were a man? Are you human?”

“No, I think I just adopted this form because that’s how you humans kept envisioning me. Well, apart from a few strange humans that drew me in rather unique ways, but that was before your time. I was one of those harvesters, or what your kind refer to as angels.”

“An angel?”

Erica circled the devil, her curiosity setting in. She didn’t see anything angelic about the man or anything even that devilish. Sure, he had a tail, but a mutation from radiation could cause a similar effect. When she made her third rotation of the man, he pressed a finger against her forehead, stopping her from completing a fourth.

“Yes. An angel. I prefer the word harvester. It’s more fitting. My kind grow species, feeding off the good energy they produce.”

“Good energy?” Erica questioned.

“Yes, Here let me explain.” He snapped his fingers, pulling out two puppets. One appeared to be a version of the devil, although it was a little more muscular with a pair of sunglasses on. He gave her a smile, proud of his little creation, only to pout when Erica didn’t show any interest in his craftsmanship.

“Can’t you just tell me?”

“You have the devil performing a puppet show for you and you have the nerve to ask him to give you a boring explanation with just words? No, the puppets stay. Take a seat.”

Erica reluctantly sat, watching as the devil conjured up another puppet. This puppet was of another man made to look far weaker and less important than himself. With the two puppets prepared, he began moving them around, waving them through the air.

Part 2

The year was 129 PR (Post Rapture)

Jacob was the 3rd generation born on Post Rapture Earth. It was 2 years after the Brand was translated and Jacob was on the Committee of Atheist Scientists whose sole purpose was figuring out what this means.

Jacob, specifically, was given the task of traveling across the Raptured Earth to find God to answer our unanswered questions. But there was no way for him to prepare for what he found.

Jacob trekked for 2 days to find The Spine of the Earth. A mountain range named for its tall but flat-topped peaks that looked similar to a human spine. The north end of the range forked in two giving it the shape of a ribcage. People said that God himself died and his body decayed here leaving just his bones.

Jacob knew better.

Jacob followed The Spine of The Earth north. Past the Ribcage mountains. All the way to the single volcano peak 4 days north of the Ribcage. This volcano had two caves at the very peak that often overflowed with lava like the mountain itself was crying fiery tears.

But Jacob knew better.

It wasn’t until Jacob started his descent into the left eye cave of the volcano that Jacob found what he was looking for.

God himself, walking amongst us on earth.

Jacob froze and took in his God. It shocked Jacob to his core. His god was not some immortal being: he was covered in scars, cuts, burns and rashes. His god was not a benevolent God either: bones littered his lair in this volcano.

His God was not a celestial human: His god was a dragon.

Jacob, son. You came a long way from your village yonder. Why y’all trek all the way out here? Yahweh doesn’t speak. Being a god he doesn’t have too. He puts speech into your mind. But with a curiously thick southern drawl.

“Oh, wise and merciful god! I have come looking for answers!”

Well, if y’all got questions then shoot.

“What is the meaning of The Brand oh merciful god!”

Oh. Y’all aint real tasty and that dopamine y’all make from all them sins is poisonous you see. Y’all are like those Japanese pufferfish. Full of poison. Can't cook it out of y’all either. Tried smokin’ em, boilin’ em, grillin’ em, bakin’ em, broilin’ em, shoot I even tried flame grillin’ yall. But I juss can’t make y’all edible, y’all all taste just funny as all get out.

“Wait. So what have you done with all the good Christians that you Raptured?”

Oh them? Oh I ate all them I reckon and some of them never done any sinnin’ their whole life tasted so dang good it made me wanna slap my mama. See they didn’t commit any sins. I wrote that book. The uhhhh bible? Yeah the bible. I wrote that so y’all would stop doing all them things that make y’all taste so nasty tasting. Sinnin’ makes the meat all grimy and stringy. I wouldn’t feed some y’all to my hound pups. When I wrote that book I didn’t think all y’all would believe it. Just a couple of folks here and there that I could fly round and snatch up quick like. But I got real tired of only eating once a week or so. Im a hard workin fella and I get a hankering for meat. Been using this new cajun dry rub on the thighs and shoo that’s some good eating. But you got me running my mouth. I just put that stamp on some of y’all because y’all aint good to eat. Says so right on your forehead. I ain’t my fault y’all dumber than a box of rocks and think big things about what it means.

Everyone remembered it like it was yesterday. Christmas, 1999. The more technophobic branches of society were busy fearing Y2K. Some apocalyptic events due to a computer bug.

Everyone wished they were that lucky. A quick death via the Walmart version of Skynet. What a time to be alive.

But no. Instead, the apocalypse came in the fashion many were unlikely to actually believe. Everybody's religious until actual angels are spotted. That's what happened. And then, people disappeared. Remember all those religious texts about The Rapture? God's chosen people ascend to the heavens and the rest of us are left behind to confront the apocalypse via legions from Hell.

Hundreds of millions of people around the world vanished in an instant. Which in the grand scale of things is already problematic enough. But it's not the people that was the problem. It's what those people were in the middle of doing, at the moment of being connected to God's Wi-Fi.

Vehicles crashed. Multiple infrastructure services, and resources collapsed for a couple of weeks. And generally the world shut down for most of a month. This isn't including things like mass panic, small civil wars, and generally idiocy that tends to occur when people assume it's the end of the world. You know, the usual.

Eat your heart out Y2K.

Then supposedly there would be several years of societal collapse and destruction before the second coming of Jesus.

"Well, Jesus never showed up. And neither did Satan or any demons. So I'd say we're in the clear." Parker said with a grimace. The irony wasn't lost on him.

"That's what I'm saying." Vinay agreed.

The pair continued scanning the various things around the room. In the 25 years since The Rapture, science had truly taken the wheel. Our differences were much more trivial than figuring out what actually happened that day. At least to learn why they each wore a cryptic symbol on their heads from that day forward.

Parker remembered the hours after it scratched itself in on him. A fun thing to occur immediately after losing your family. His mother and brother vanished, his father was killed when their driveless truck hit a retaining wall.

Vinay didn't fare much better. Famine visited his part of the world when much of the local farming community got deleted. Most of his family who didn't disappear starved.

"You know the thing that gets me." Vinay began, as they began working on the large skeleton in front of them.

"Hmm? What's that?" Parker agreed as they let the AI program begin reconstructing the odd symbols they found in the clothing.

"It didn't just take Christians."

Parker sighed. "I kinda' assumed that. The whole world doesn't believe in the same things. That'd just be vanity to think that."

"I know." Vinay continued. "Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims. Mormons."

"Exactly. The whole world got affected. Plenty of people told me their loved ones and friends got taken. Even people who didn't believe."

"So what does that tell you."

"Angels, God, or not..." Parker assumed. "It picked us at random."

"Like tending to a crop." Vinay explained as he checked the scans of the clothing. The symbols matched language used in the symbols on their foreheads.

"What does it say?" Parker asked from the skeleton.

"Do not harvest." Vinay paused. "Not fit for consumption."

The reveal was only a couple of years earlier. But the world erupted in confusion yet again at its translation.

"We're just food for them." Parker theorized.

Vinay continued reading what he could see. "We don't necessarily know that."

"If it was a rescue, you'd say it was a rescue. Unless we're talking tuberculosis, there's usually only one other meaning for the word 'consumption'."

Vinay grimaced at the idea. "We're the flock, they're the shepherds. Did I get that right?"

"Close enough." Parker brushed off. "So what happened to this guy? Thought they weren't able to be killed."

"You'd think that." Vinay said as he checked a work tablet. "Turns out being hit by a 747 at cruising speed does the trick."

They both looked over the shattered bones. The fanged jaw slack and broken. The wings that had been reduced to fragments.

"World's largest bird strike." Parker answered.

Violeta, their team's photographer, circled the body incessantly. She was busy snapping photos of the bones for later research. With new technology, came new chances to investigate past discoveries. She was there to document it all. She wasn't a fan of banter however; and so she continued silently despite their observation.

"Everything that comes in here just suggests what we keep talking about." Vinay said as he rested against a counter. "We're just food."

"What concerns me." Violeta spoke. "Every child born has the mark too."

"Not fit for consumption." Parker repeated.

"Yes." She said before setting her camera down. "But what if someone is born without it? After all this time?"

"...Be prepared." Vinay said as he looked at the bones again. "Because I think they're coming back."

Little bit of eldritch horror. Just a little. r/Jamaican_Dynamite

Before the rapture, there was a constant debate between practitioners of different faiths over who had the right idea behind creation. Of course, the only way to know for certain was to die and for most people, this was out of the question. When you really take a look into many human religions, however, you begin to notice a pattern.

This pattern was angels. Across the globe, many ancient religions adopted the idea of heavenly mediaries between humans and whatever god or gods they believed in. Many of these beings even took the form of human beings and walked among them.

Now how is it that these ancient cultures, separated by thousands of miles of land and sea, came to such similar conclusions? Who were these strange beings, and what was their divine purpose?

...

The day the rapture came began like any other but by noon the world was in chaos. It was all over the news. Beings of pure light, descending from the sky to take away the faithful. Planes fell from the sky, cars stopped in the middle of the street, and in hours essential services began to falter as billions disappeared from the Earth. By the end of the day, the rapture had ended. Cities across the globe were frozen in time as their inhabitants were nowhere to be found.

By sunrise the next day, it was clear, though, that not everyone had ascended. Those that had remained bore a mark etched into the flesh of their forehead in a language no person could read.

These people began their work piecing back together what remained of society, and the question of what the symbol could possibly mean was put on the back burner for the first years after the end.

In Christian theology, it is said that the faithful would be taken into God's kingdom before the end times. But the remains of humanity still had among it even the most devout of Christians. In fact, it had become apparent that those taken during the rapture had nothing in common. They came from different races, classes, religions, sexualities, and cultures. Yet the only common denominator they shared was that they were human.

This puzzled theologists and scientists alike. What set them apart from those who were raptured all those decades ago? Years passed, society was rebuilt slowly, and the human race began to flourish once more. As the population began to rebound, it was discovered that every new child conceived after the rapture was born with the same symbol on their head. Perhaps this cruel scar the survivors possessed had some clue as to why they were not chosen by God.

The question of what the symbol meant came to the forefront of the greatest minds humanity still had to offer. Ruins and temples around the planet were scoured for any clue of what it could mean.

The answer came deep in a burial site in an isolated area of the Valley of Kings in Egypt. In the central chamber of the tomb, massive paintings containing horrific scenes covered the walls. In the images, what looked like angels harvested crowds of people like a farmer would harvest a field of wheat, as people with the mark fell to their hands and knees in worship. The angels also bore a mark on their heads, similar to the one found on the survivors. These marks were found in various other areas of the chamber surrounded by other unknown symbols and more familiar hieroglyphs.

With the knowledge that the hieroglyphs and the symbols were somehow related, humanity's last remaining linguists set to work on translating the foreign glyphs. Slowly the pieces began to fall together, until the two symbols and their meanings were deciphered.

With the language fully translated, the symbol's meanings were presented for the first time at a summit of the world's foremost religious and scientific leaders. One of the linguists fed the symbols into a machine and the screen in front of the auditorium came to life. Horror filled the room as the symbol on their heads was translated as "inedible" or "do not harvest, not fit for consumption" when used in the phrases found in the chamber. The mark the angels bore, was loosely translated as "Otherworldy" or, "not from this planet" in context.

It didn't happen exactly like the Bible said it would. Funny that way, right?

It took time to figure out what had happened. There were rolling blackouts overnight that "day". People who were left behind had hours of time they couldn't place where they were. Of course, many were home, in bed, but some others were in their cars driving, or even on planes. The cars were stopped, the planes resting various places that were not airports.

Billions were missing. There, then gone. Some were the only ones left behind from families, some homes completely emptied, others everyone passed over.

Those left behind had a weird tattoo type mark on their foreheads. The Mark of the Beast it was called. That was a somewhat joking description of it. It had odd circles and lines that looked like no human language, even the ancient ones. And ALL who were left had it, branded into their forehead. No traditional removal techniques would make it go away. Skin grafts would slowly bring the language up. Makeup wouldn't stick to it.

In the years afterwards, some babies were born with the mark, others not. With such a small section of the language to try to decode it, it was so difficult to figure it out.

Scientists worked day and night to decode the simple mark. And one day, after years of AI and Human intelligence alike, it was decoded...

"Not fit for Consumption. Do not Harvest"

It could have said other things, of course, but it didn't.

Now, we worried in fear, you see, approximately 200,000 babies had been born since the first incident who didn't have the Mark. They were on the menu. We needed to figure out something, some way to prevent the next harvest, whenever it might occur. This is what rallied humanity together like nothing else.

If anything, the discovery of what their marks meant had made humanity bold.

A dig in Greece, of all places, had turned up the equivalent of a second Rosetta Stone, allowing for translation of an ancient long forgotten language and thus, the marks every human now bore on their arms.

After the rapture, humanity had basically just milled around in small towns, abandoning the larger cities in search of more manageable resources. Keeping the power on for a small town was easier than figuring out city grids and those towns usually had nearby water, the land required for growing food and wildlife to hunt.

But now, almost 300 years later, with a substantially larger population, they were returning to the cities in droves. Those that had stayed in the cities - in hospitals, hardware stores and the like - were not altogether welcoming, but a shared goal as big as this was enough to convince them to let others in. Especially when the others brought fresh livestock like cattle, chickens and sheep.

The ambition now was to record history and to create it. The long obsolete space programs were re-ignited and globally, every country began to organise armies.

There had been a lazy peace, with 4/5ths of the population gone. More than enough resources for those who survived. Each community largely policing itself without the rules that had previously prevented them from say, killing a rapist or pedophile. Life was safer in a number of ways. Although getting hurt badly was effectively a death sentence without the infrastructure to support a full medical staff. Passionate people pursued their passions undisturbed. Progress ground to a standstill and education was just maintained. The most valued skills now were practical over intellectual.

However now humanity knew they weren’t alone. They understood at least some of the language of the creatures that had done this to them. And the thought that there was no point in killing them had rallied them back into their previously held notions that they were powerful. In control. Indestructible. They were angry for their ancestors. For the lives they might have been able to live. But mostly, humanity was indignant. Who exactly thought they could harvest HUMANS? And just walk away like it was nothing?

The space race was on, and not just by way of shuttles. Humanity collaborated and bickered and toiled. They referenced old sci fi shows for inspiration. What they had lost they clawed back, and the world surged back into an era of progress. They stayed QUIET. They studied, they learnt, they bred. The untied globally, and agreed against war. They had just one battle in mind. One really big battle.

For the next five hundred years humanity refused to leave its own galaxy. Even when they were entirely capable of it. Even when their weapons could obliterate everything in its path, even when their shields could block everything, or contain nuclear blasts. Even when every scouting mission came back safe. Even when every indication was that they were ready, humanity toiled for more.

They had lived for thousands of years without anything like this, so they felt they should have thousands of years more. But the thought these god like aliens could return any time drove them. They would not be satisfied until they were their own gods. Until they could find them with their scouts and go undetected. Until they could learn their weaknesses fully.

They would not be satisfied until they could send a message back to the aliens in their own language. We are coming.

"This is an automated emergency message from the SCP Research Foundation. An XK-class end-of-the world scenario caused by a ZK-class reality failure is attempting to occur across Earth. Proceed to your nearest XK-bunker system with haste."

The SCP Research Foundation. Founded after the Christian Rapture occurred, to investigate and stop it from occurring again. Humanity would move on, when it was ready. This belief was only reinforced when the markings left at every landing site were translated: "Do not harvest, unfit for consumption."

The SCP Research Foundation had discovered that they were talking about souls; souls that believed in Christianity were somehow edible, but it was quite clear that the souls had been stripped from their host bodies and used.

Now, they were back, fifteen years after the fact. A trap set by the SCP Foundation was about to spring.

>Attention mortals. I am God, Father of Jesus, and creator of the universe. You will bow before my might, or I will make sure your race never survives the cataclysm.

TRANSMISSION FROM THE SCP FOUNDATION ON ALL CHANNELS: SHOW YOURSELF

>Submit to my will. Pray for my forgiveness, or the will sin the worst sin of all: Disbelieving.

TRANSMISSION FROM THE SCP FOUNDATION ON ALL CHANNELS: HUMANITY AS A WHOLE DECLINES YOUR OFFER. YOU ARE INTRUDING ON SOVEREIGN SPACE. LEAVE THE SOL SYSTEM NOW.

>You mortals think you can tell an omnipotent being such as myself what to do?

TRANSMISSION FROM THE SCP FOUNDATION: WE KNOW YOU ARE NOT OMNIPOTENT.

>You dare!?!

TRANSMISSION FROM THE SCP FOUNDATION: REALITY ANCHOR NETWORK GO.

>I... What are you doing to me?

TRANSMISSION FROM THE SCP FOUNDATION: WE HAVE BEEN PLANNING THIS FOR A LONG TIME... SOUL-EATING XENO.

>You... help me... I.. this race....

TRANSMISSION FROM THE SCP FOUNDATION: FIFTEEN YEARS AGO, A THIRD OF OUR POPULATION DISAPPEARED. WE RECOVERED, AND LEARNED. WE INVESTIGATED THE MALFUNCTIONING SENSORS, THE RECORDINGS OF THE RAPTURE, AND EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN. YOU TRAPPED US IN AN ANTIMAGIC FIELD TWO THOUSAND YEARS AGO, TO INSERT YOURSELF INTO MYTH. IT WORKED, BUT YOU LET US POPULATE OUR PLANET FOR TOO LONG. WE FIGURED OUT WHAT YOU DID MERE MONTHS AFTER THE RAPTURE, AND WE ARE HERE TO SEEK REVENGE FOR OUR SIBLINGS, WHOSE SOULS YOU HARVESTED FOR ENTERTAINMENT. TERRA FIRMA OR TERRA NOVA, WE WILL PREVAIL!

>help.......................................

TRANSMISSION FROM THE SCP FOUNDATION: TO ALL XENOS OUT THERE. WE ARE HUMANITY. FOR TWO THOUSAND SOLAR ROTATIONS, ONE OF YOURS HAS BEEN EATING THE SOULS OF OUR FALLEN, AND HAVE RECENTLY DECIDED TO EXTERMINATE OUR RACE. THEY WERE GREEDY, AND LEFT SOME OF US TO DEVELOP THE PROPER SOUL STYLE BEFORE CAPTURE. THIS WAS A MISTAKE, AS WE HAVE PREVAILED USING A TOTAL ANTIMAGIC FIELD. WE WILL HUNT DOWN ANYONE REMOTELY RESPONSIBLE. WE KNOW YOU ARE REVIVING THIS MESSAGE. STAY OUT OF OUR AFFAIRS, STAY OUT OF SOL, AND STAY OUT OF OUR WAY. IN GOD WE TRUST NOTHING BUT DEATH!! TERRA FIRMA OR TERRA NOVA, WE WILL PREVAIL!! IN THE NAME OF SCIENCE!!!

-----

excerpt from the First Galactic Terran War, shortly before discovering the entire galaxy fed on the souls of others.

"It says What!?"

All my years as 3rd legion commander of the Separatist Insurgency Nations could have prepared me for... that. After about 20 years of fighting for reconstruction of the world after all the good people left and the world broke, a rather leading figure in our RnD department came to me. See, he was the top of the line in attempting warp travel in both short distance and long. And he had a hobby. After the rapture, the angels left a few artifacts in their wake in an attempt to completely obliterate the rest of humanity... it either didn't work or hasn't started yet. And on these artifacts were inscriptions. Most of them are intangible, but some of them are bible verses that can be reversed translated... well this scientist came to me with a deciphered alphabet as way to encode messages to and from as an added touch of security.

As he was presenting this to me, I brought the aspect of the stamps on all of our foreheads to mention. After all it's the Same language, and I'd feel rather proud about putting the Matter to rest after all these years. He looked at me and opened his mouth, then closed it then flipped the whiteboard he had to present the cipher on to its other side and started translating....

Which brings us back to here.

"Yes... I-it says 'd-do not harvest, n-not fit for--"

"I heard you the first time dammit." I didn't to get stern at the mad doctor, but the revelation was a little much, even for me.

The doctor sulked a bit. I let out a breath of fatigue and apologized "Sigh... I'm sorry doctor... it's just... all this time we all thought that they left us because they were destined, or they had earned it... not... Not to be culled like cows."

The silence that left was heavy

...

...

"P-perhaps we could avenge t-them?"

"I don't follow"

"You've n-noticed how some of the angels artifacts look like portals?"

Given that I was looking at the head of the field for our own portals, I think I can trust him "go on."

"Activate one of their portals, take the fight back to them"

I stood up and looked out the window, a training ground for troops doubling as a watch point due to its close proximity to the ocean... an ocean permanently stained red, and a blackened sky with no sun, a giant snake like monster breaking the depths for but a moment, daemons either of monsterus proportions, or of rather humanoid appearance, both with intelligence rivaling our own. Contact with the devil had made and a treaty had been made, for even his ultimate evil had felt sympathy for us, for hell had just expanded and we had been plunged into it all.

We had nothing left to lose and everything to gain.

We will not let this cycle continue again.

I grabbed the phone on my desk and rang HQ. "Get me Arch commander, I have a message for her."

The year was 2029, the end of an awful decade that somehow seemed to keep getting worse. Plagues, famines environmental disasters one after the other after the other. Humanities hope in any higher power was dwindling across the globe , In retrospect I guess that’s why they acted so soon. It was bright day in an increasingly hot august, the sun outside melting the asphalt, the heat inside melting me. I heard a loud noise, a high pitched unnatural scream followed by a blindingly inescapable golden light. The whole neighbourhood had the same idea as we congregated on the driveways, eyes wide at the scene unfolding above us. A bright, piercing golden light was hovering about 100ft off the ground, a human silhouette shrouded within. Two blurry protrusions stuck out at either side, moving back and forth in a familiar fashion. To anyone who grew up with weekly church outings, nightly prayers and those poorly done paintings of baby Jesus hanging on every wall it was very obvious what this mid air creature was.

An Angel.

I hadn’t been to church since my parents passed but it was still there in me, a belief in something more, something greater, and a hope of a heaven beyond death where I could see them again. My body filled with a warmth, a relief almost as I collapsed to my knees in reverence, Palms pressed together in front of me. My neighbours followed suit as the angel slowly descended. I’d never believed in angels, and knew that if by some chance they did exist they’d look nothing like the beautiful, sculpted creatures from the imaginations of the likes of Michelangelo. But as it got closer, as the glow started to dissipate and the figure within it came into focus that is EXACTLY what it was. Flowing hair, white robe, unimaginable beauty, this thing even had a halo. It didn’t speak a word, it didn’t have to, it just held out it’s palms to those around it beckoning all to come closer.

We gathered around it, tightly packed in a circle all pushing and shoving to be the closest one to it. The light was expanding from it, our bodies disappearing beneath us, we were going somewhere, we were going home. I reached out my hand towards it, I just wanted a touch of the divinity of this creature before my chance was lost, but as my hand passed through the golden particles that should have been flesh it’s eyes shifted towards me. Gone was the warmth and hope, it’s eyes were cold and endless, an unfeeling void of despair . It’s eyes were death and I had gone there willingly. What had I done what had I —

I awoke to screams of anguish and horrors beyond my darkest imagination, a scene from no horror movie as no human could possibly imagine the atrocities that were occurring in front of me. The once angel had shed its golden glow, replaced with the cold sheen of wet flesh and sharp angles, it’s unnaturally long limbs cracking back into place as it returned to all fours.

A group on my right ran for it, there was no discernible exit in sight but it can’t be worse than staying here. But before I could get to my feet they were gone, smeared into the flooring in a paste of flesh, bone and cloth fragments. A human patè. I quickly sat back down. Cold eyes caught mine and It—

I don’t know how many years have passed but I know I’m never leaving here. It’s only a matter of time before I’m processed. I hope it’s quick.

The above is an excerpt from ‘Papers found on a Harvester ship’ found over twenty years ago in the time of the great rapture. Much of its contents has been embellished, some too horrific to be included. Since discovering the true meaning of the sin mark, a mark the remaining were scarred with, rescue missions and harvester recon have discovered many journals and scribblings like it. “Do not harvest, not fit for consumption” were the marks words, translated too late for the 3.2 billion lost souls. This young man’s body was never found.

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As a wisp of frosty wind ran through the streets of San Francisco, everybody was disturbed. People of every background could see but could not fathom what was set before their eyes; a figure standing in the mist, twisting everybody who saw it into a raving lunatic. Figures like this were appearing across the globe, shattering the minds of the unworthy. Whenever a devoted christian laid eyes upon this Stygian beast, however, they would prostrate themselves and begin praying to the lord. They then began to ascend into the sky and frolic in the wind, experiencing a sort of nirvana.

After some days, which felt like centuries to the ones below, the beings began to glow with a divine light, and unify in a speech that not even the most cunning scholar could begin to understand. Along with the glowing beings, all of the devout vanished from the sky and left no trace of their existence.After this incident, the ones left on the earth suffered greatly; many of the holy men had generous positions, and thus left many to starve. An everlasting winter also diminished the world population to nearly three billion. The survivors (And their descendants, at that) were all left with a strange calligraphic marking on their forehead, in a language never before read on the Earth.

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Decades later, there were still humans living on, albeit in harsh conditions. The past calamity, as I will henceforth refer to as the Rapture, for many people understood it to be so, had scarred society and every person who lived.

The Rapture and its lasting effects almost completely halted scientific research, leaving it at a sloth-like pace. Using the voice samples and limited written samples, some scientists were able to make a very basic cipher for the language, although the human tongue could not produce the sounds required to speak it, shrouding the Rapture in even more mystery.

On the exponentially colder streets of New York, a young man struggled to walk through the ice. His name was Frank Williams, and he had been forced to live in the difficult life of a human on the new Earth. He was uncannily smart for his generation, and was a contributor to the Angel Cipher, as some called the attempt to understand the language of the ones who ascended the worthy.

part 2 probably coming soon

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in the year 2076, the strange message left on peoples forehead post the rapture was finally translated. it said 'do not harvest, not fit for consumption'. but it was a bit late. humans were already being harvested and consumed on a mass industrial scale. you could buy a human sandwich, a human ice cream cone, and controversially, a human hummus.

the lord of neo-humanity, fulwick poltergiest, sat and pondered the message whilst eating a foot. he decided it was gods sick twisted joke, one final poke in the eye. he cursed god and threw the foot to the ground, where it was quickly feasted upon by his famished slaves. 'i will have my restitution, he said'. he ordered 100 new human farms to be built, and for the number of humans bread for consumption and harvesting to increase 100 fold.

but it was too late. once the human livestock had heard that the rumours about the forehead message was true, they immeditately went into open revolt, rioting through the farms and the hummus factories and destroying equiptment. they took several hostages and demanded fulwick stand down as lord of neo-humanity. falwick stood firm, and kept the rebels guessing by using mind control laser beams from his neo castle. in the end, the livestock gave in to hunger and started to cannabalise themselves, in a twist of bitter irony.

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