Rapture: The Search For Truth
Relena's eyes scanned over the horizon, drinking in the sight before her. She sat in her room at the girl's school, looking out the window. The Sanq Kingdom was in flames, houses and factories exploding, cars colliding, trains crashing, boats sinking, the entire kingdom was in chaos after many of the population had vanished mysteriously a few hours earlier that moring.
The school was mostly unscathed. A few girls had also vani*shed, but not many, and a 747 had crashed in one of the courtyards when the entire flight crew disappeared, but other than that, the school was fine.
Relena didn't know what to make of it. There was no connection between disappearences, it seemed random. She contemplated what to do next as the light of the fires burning in her kingdom reflected in her eyes.
* * *
The three remaining pilots slept fitfully that night. Heero could not sleep at all. Instead, he turned on the television and watched news coverages of everything that happened. Cars had careened off the street, suddenly driverless, airplanes crashed, pilotless in the blink of an eye. There were even some home videos being aired. One was of a birthday party, the girl of honor walking unsteadily towards a poster of a donkey, a tail and pin in hand. Suddenly the camera fell to the floor, filming a heap of clothing on the ground, no sound remained but the mother's screaming. The movie, replayed frame-by-frame showed that for a split-second, there was a disturbance in the air and the clothing seemed to remain intact as if invisible children were wearing visible clothing, then the camera fell to the floor again.
Heero, getting depressed with all the news of disasters, flipped from channel to channel. About 3 am Chicago standard time (since that was where the current safe house was) he saw Relena's face appear on the screen. Normally he would have immideatly changed the channel, but something compelled him to watch.
"Citizens of the Earth Sphere Alligence," Relena's clear voice began, "I am deeply disturbed by the events which took place in the past twenty-four hours, and I offer my condolences to those of you who lost loved ones," Yeah, you don't know squat, Heero thought bitterly, "I can give you no explanation for this grievious tragedy, but I can tell you that I have the most highly trained experts working on a solution as I speak. Rumors have been spreading about aliens, biochemical warfare, and even the silly notion of this God rapturing his chruch, but I assure you that the most logical explanation is simply this: Because of the global disarmament, thousands of tons of energy has been released in the air, and it finally became so compact that it vaporized those with weaker molecular structure. Our scientists are currently testing this theory, but I belive it is the answer. If anything more should come up, I will notify you immidiately, Thank you, and have a safe day."
Heero's mind had frozen when Relena had mentioned God rapturing the church. What was the one thing Kaitami, Duo, and Quatre had in common? God, or, in Quatre's case, Allah. Kaitami and Duo were devout Christians, going to church every Sunday, youth group every Wednesday. Heero wasn't sure what Quatre believed, but it must have been right. Mind racing at a thousand miles a minute, Heero silently crept up to his room, trying to aviod the creaky stairs, and pulled out the "Bible Bytes!" software.
* * *
Relena kept her look of sadness on her face until she was back in her limo, heading for home. Then, when she was sure she was out of media-range, a broad grin spread across her face.
"You know what this means, Pagan, don't you?" she asked her right-hand man.
"What does it mean Miss Relena?" Pagan asked mildly.
"I can use this tragedy to unify the world! Bring everyone together as one!" Relena started to get excited with the notion, "Why, using the disappearences as a key tool, I can unite every nation under one rule, like during the war, but this time it'll last!" She grinned broadly, her eyes flashing with an inner fire.
"...why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him to into heaven." Acts 1:11