Every day, the world fell further. Every sin was but a drop in the quickly filling bucket. The faithful were bleeding away, their desire to profane against Him too great, too well fueled by the world around them. Some didn't even leave the faith; those he liked least. At least the atheist, sinful as he was, was a step closer to honesty. The false were like broken robots: they went through the motions, spoke all the lines, but lacked the heart. They preached their own word like it was His, and bathed in material comforts like they weren't the spawn of Hell. It was despicable.
The man knew he was part of an ever-shrinking group of people, and for not the first time, he mused on his interpretations of scripture. Had he chosen the right path? The Book said that one day His word would reach every ear, and on that day man would be judged. It was right, in a twisted sense: the thing which called itself Christianity had spread to the four corners of the Earth, driving pagan beliefs before itself. The contestant faiths held their flock with similar adamancy, so things were slowing now that the smaller groups of pagans had been culled. The faithless had grown well in times past, but they were slowing. Everything was as scripture predicted. All would hear some version of the Lord's word soon, and then all would bear judgement.
The bus hummed around him, singing its labour-song as it pretended to be a living thing. The man longed for simpler times which he had never known, before the enforced decadence of the modern day. No horses for him: they were expensive, slow, and disallowed on the city streets. He needed to make it to his office job at 7:00, six days a week, to pay for the rent on his apartment. While the venom in his heart cried out that it was an obscene amount of effort for such a small place to keep him and his family, he stilled it. Work kept him honest, focused on family and the Lord.
Looking up at the signs lining the roof of the bus, he rolled his eyes. Keen for adventure? Want to defend your home? JOIN ODIN TODAY!
Recently, the news had been all about some 'alien' objects that had entered the solar system. What insanity had taken the scientific community this time, he had no idea. If He had made other creations, then scriptures would've made mention of them. These were just another part of creation, and would-
Alarms permeated every inch of the city. The tablets in everyone's pockets blared, and loudspeakers rang out in warning.
"Attention! The United States of America has come under attack. Make your way to the nearest safe location designated on the map. You have 12 minutes to do so before the doors close."
The orderly vehicle traffic disintegrated instantly, and the crowds surged, people ducking into buildings and descending the many flights of stairs to reach the underground shelters. Soldiers and policemen seemingly materialized out of the crowds to guide people, ushering them down into the depths of the Earth.
The man was afraid. What existed that could bring down this corrupt society? He had given up trying to fight back against it a long time ago. It had been stable since before he was born.
He stepped out of the bus and onto the streets, looking up at the sky. Through the light pollution, the sun, everything, he saw little pinpricks of light above the sky, and remembered one power that toppled all which were set before it. He had not raised His hand directly against any society since Rome, so the man did not expect to see it now, though he cursed himself for not remembering his Lord.
"Attention! The United States of America has come under attack. Make your way to the nearest safe location designated on the map. You have 2 minutes to do so before the doors close."
The man smiled up at the battle above. The bastions of man, arrayed so arrogantly in their steel cloth amidst trumpets and fanfare, were no doubt being cut to pieces by the Messengers. The day had finally come: man would be judged, and for his sins he would be held accountable.
For a moment, there was nothing. The skies were silent. Then, streaks of light poured from Heaven on High. The man wept, closing his eyes and awaiting His rightful judgement. A wave of impossible heat washed over him, and he lost consciousness.
Spent. His gun racheted empty, and he reached for another magazine to kill these traitors with.
It was horrific. He had seen the Angels ride from on high, implacable in their reaping of man. They touched his wife and children; no doubt they were in Heaven now. And yet… here he was, still eking out an existence in spite of the monsters that made up most of what was left of man. Why? Why were they, his own flesh and blood, worthy when he was not?
He listened to the words from the 'front', while scoffing at the idea that resistance against scripture could properly be called war at all. The infidels, godless and pretenders alike, knew that the Angels were nearly unstoppable, and fought them nonetheless. Bright machines, a brilliant reflection of what humanity would become had the Lord not chosen to stop them, tore across the world, dispensing with the refuse from after the end. And here he was, still trying to earn a spot in Heaven. His efforts had, so far, only infuriated the new corrupt and vile demon nation; The Coalition of Humankind, it called itself.
He supposed it made sense, in a twisted way. With almost all of the righteous gone from the world, the rest would align with Satan in the hopes of pushing the good away from the world. The thought didn't make him feel any better, as the forces of this Coalition closed on his position. His faithful were exhausted, bled dry over the span of weeks of sabotage and sporadic fighting. Most of them were dead, and he hoped that their last war was enough for Him to accept them into His house.
The gun in his hands barked dry again, and he padded his pockets for ammo. There was none, and on that cue, several of those army goons from up north (much of America was found to be worthy of Rapture, bless that nation) advanced from cover with guns trained upon him. They knew his run was up. Before he could rush up to attack, he was struck by a sonic weapon and collapsed, ears ringing louder than any sound could ever be.
When his hearing returned, handcuffs were on him, and his hopes of salvation plummeted.
"Aaron Danvers! You have been convicted of manslaughter and High Treason against humanity itself! How do you plead?"
He stood silent, knowing that no words would be able to change his fate. Instead, he prayed that he might be given a chance to make these monstrous men pay for their apostasy.
"Very well. For your crimes against this world and its people, you have been sentenced to forced labour. May you one day find repentance."
His chains clinked against the ground as he screwed caps into the shells. They didn't give him explosives, no, those were added later down the line. Penalpattern equipment was always assembled in carefully thought-out stages.
He no longer tried to deliberately induce faults into the shells. The foundry had an VI that checked at each step, freed up by a lack of mechanized industry and surplus of observation equipment. Every time, the Coalition would think up a new punishment. Low rations, the butt of a rifle, a shock collar for when he started to perform suboptimally… stripping his Sunday prayers away.
This was not honest work. Every shell he made, every screw he placed within an empty chassis, went towards denying the Word of God itself. And he saw it on newscasts: sometimes, even Angels went down from human weaponry. He might've assumed that they were propaganda, but they were indistinguishable from real combat footage, and there was enough of it. Contrary to the assumptions one made about a nation no doubt headed by a Satanic Cult, the Coalition rarely lied. When they made him a promise, for good or ill, they kept it. Like when they told him he'd be going without rations for weeks at a time because it meant someone on their precious front would be better fed.
Suddenly, red lights blazed forth, the alarms calling soldiers to action and servants like him to flee. But he didn't. The Lord had finally come for him, and he marched out with fire in his chest. The rat-tat-tat of human guns against holy armour resounding, he found his way to the conflict, and was evaporated, entering a time after-life.
It thought for a moment about the strange example of their kind that it had slain. Few 'humans' simply walked weaponless into a firing line and waited for death. They fought, they bled, and they died against the guns of its people. Admirable, if useless. The decision had already been made, and no amount of courage could alter it.
Flipping its weapon back from plasma mode to the standard, it placed carefully aimed shots about the cover of its enemies. This foundry would fall, and the people would be one step closer to lordship.
A/N: I'm a firm believer in the idea that a well-done alien invasion would be quite grim. The protagonist here truly believed that the invaders were Angels, the Coalition truly believed that he had to work so humanity could survive, and the aliens truly believed in their own supremacy. At the end of the day, is it right to force someone to act against truly held beliefs, even if you know those beliefs are wrong? Where is the threshold?