Ethan – New York City
Ethan hadn’t slept.
He sat at his kitchen table, hands wrapped around a coffee mug gone cold, staring at the dead screen of his laptop. His freelance deadlines piled up in unanswered emails, but the words refused to come.
All he could think about was the horse.
He’d Googled it until dawn—“comet New York,” “apocalypse horse sky phenomenon,” “hallucinations during blackouts.” Most posts were garbage, memes, conspiracy rants. Still, a few threads unsettled him. Thousands of people across the globe claimed to have seen the same thing. Some even posted grainy phone videos—blurs of pale light, too distorted to prove anything, but close enough to send chills down his spine.
He wanted to believe it was mass hysteria.
But every time he blinked, he saw that rider’s smile.
And the whisper still hummed in the background of his thoughts, like tinnitus from hell.
Chosen. Witness.
He pressed his palms to his ears again and wondered if he was losing his mind.
---
Mara – Los Angeles
By morning, the hospital resembled a battlefield.
Mara walked the corridors like a ghost, her scrubs stiff with dried sweat and blood. The vending machines had been stripped, and families huddled in waiting rooms with vacant eyes, clutching their loved ones’ belongings like relics.
She paused at a child’s bed. A boy no older than eight lay motionless, IV drip empty. His mother knelt beside him, whispering lullabies through her tears.
Mara wanted to comfort her, but the words stuck in her throat. She was too hollow, too brittle.
On the TV bolted to the corner wall, Adrian Veyra’s face appeared again, handsome and calm, promising swift relief. His voice radiated certainty, the kind that silenced doubt. Nurses who had been crying a moment earlier now stopped and listened.
“Hope,” one whispered, as if tasting the word for the first time.
But Mara only stared at the boy. His lips trembled. His eyes opened. And in a rasp like broken glass, he whispered, “Do not trust him.”
No one else seemed to hear.
---
Adrian – Geneva, Switzerland
Adrian stood alone in his penthouse suite, jacket draped neatly across a chair. The world outside his glass walls was storm and fog, but within, every surface gleamed.
He raised a glass of red wine to the skyline. The world was collapsing, and yet here he was—untouched, rising.
His phone buzzed constantly, notifications flooding in: presidents, kings, CEOs begging for counsel. We need you. Lead us. Save us.
He smiled. He had always known he was meant for more.
In the window’s reflection, something stirred behind him. Not an aide. Not a shadow. A shape, faceless, robed in black, watching.
He turned quickly—nothing.
Still, the air thrummed, and he heard it again, that delicious voice inside his head:
The world is yours to claim. Wear the crown. They will beg for your chains.
He finished his wine, savoring the taste.
---
Jonah – Chicago
Jonah sat alone in the church sanctuary after the others had gone. The candles had burned low, leaving the air heavy with wax and smoke.
His Bible lay open on the pulpit. He hadn’t dared to touch it since the words had shifted the night before. It sat there like a living thing, watching him.
He had preached Revelation for years, mocked as a madman. He had told himself it didn’t matter, that he was planting seeds even if no one listened. But now—now that the signs were real, now that the sky itself bled—he found no comfort in being right.
Because if he was right, then the worst was still to come.
He closed his eyes, whispering a prayer, but no peace came. Only the memory of the shadow in the doorway, silent and patient.
And when he opened his eyes, he swore the Bible had turned a new page on its own.
Revelation 6:4.
And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth.
Jonah’s hands trembled.
The second seal was coming.
