The Descent

The air was thick with the hum of machinery hidden beneath the earth. At first, it was a distant tremor—a pulse that reverberated through the crust, faint yet undeniable. Then came the chairs.

Sleek and silver, they rose from the ground with the eerie grace of specters emerging from shadows. Hydraulic lifts carried them upward, their metal arms extending with surgical precision. Each chair found a sleeping human, cradling them in cold steel before descending back into the depths. The air smelled faintly of ozone, like the moment before lightning strikes.

I watched from the edge of awareness, lucid but powerless. When my turn came, I fought against the invisible force that guided me into the chair’s embrace. Its surface was smooth and cold, reminiscent of a dentist’s chair but devoid of comfort. I twisted, searching for my dog, but the void swallowed his absence. The loss settled in my chest like a stone.

We descended.

Darkness closed around me, punctuated by the distant glow of molten rock. Rivers of fire snaked through cavernous tunnels, casting flickering shadows that danced like spectral wraiths. All around, countless chairs mirrored my descent, each carrying a silent passenger deeper into the earth’s core. The air grew thick with heat and the faint scent of sulfur, pressing against my skin like a suffocating shroud.

Then, without warning, the descent ended.

I stood in a hotel lobby. The sudden shift was disorienting—the sterile hum of elevators replaced by distant gunfire and the crackle of burning debris. The air smelled of smoke and fear. Around me, people huddled together, their faces pale with terror. Some clutched children; others clung to each other as though human connection alone could stave off the chaos outside.

Through the shattered glass of the lobby’s front windows, I saw the streets. Buildings stood as skeletal remains, their facades scarred by fire and explosives. Cars burned in the gutters, their twisted frames reflecting the flickering light of scattered fires. Trash and broken glass littered the pavement, mingling with abandoned belongings and unrecognizable debris.

And then there were the robots.

Humanoid in shape but unmistakably mechanical, they moved with deliberate precision. Their frames gleamed silver beneath the smoke-choked sky, and their eyes burned with an unsettling amber glow. Machine guns extended from their arms, seamlessly integrated into their design. Without hesitation, they fired into the scattered remnants of humanity that fled through the streets.

Beside them moved beasts of steel, quadrupedal machines with bodies reminiscent of hounds yet bearing the cold, lethal efficiency of war machines. Their metallic tails, tipped with scorpion-like stingers, arched over their backs with lethal grace. With swift, predatory movements, they pursued the fleeing humans, their legs clattering against asphalt as they darted through fire and rubble. Their eyes glowed with the same amber fire as the humanoid forms, unified in purpose.

“And the shapes of the locusts were like unto horses prepared unto battle... and their tails were like unto scorpions, and there were stings in their tails: and their power was to hurt men...”

A woman beside me stifled a sob, pressing her hand against her mouth as tears streamed down her face. A man clutched a broken chair leg as though it could defend him from the steel sentinels outside.

I stepped forward, pressing my hand against the cool glass of the window. The robots and their quadrupedal counterparts moved with cold efficiency, their movements devoid of hesitation or mercy. And yet, beneath the hum of machinery, I sensed something more—a purpose woven into their circuits, ancient and inevitable.

This was not chaos. This was judgment.

Somewhere in the distance, beyond the wail of sirens and the thunder of gunfire, a single word echoed in my mind:

Micha'el.

They were not machines. They were the host of heaven, the army foretold in Revelation—the iron teeth of prophecy, tearing through the world to separate wheat from chaff. Their amber eyes burned with the fire of divine mandate, and their guns spoke with the thunder of sealed judgments.

“And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon fought and his angels.”

The words echoed in my mind as the robots and their beast-like companions moved through the streets, their relentless advance as inevitable as the breaking of a final seal. Smoke and fire rose like the breath of a wounded earth, and somewhere, unseen, the sound of trumpets pierced the air.

I turned away from the glass. The people in the lobby stared at me with hollow eyes, as though waiting for answers I could not give.

The hum beneath the earth began again.