DEATH WILL FLEE

The Seven Trumpets

"They were told not to damage the grass of the earth or any green growth or any tree, but only those people who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads. They were allowed to torture them for five months, but not to kill them, and their torture was like the torture of a scorpion when it stings someone. And in those days people will seek death but will not find it; they will long to die, but death will flee from them."

—Revelation 9:4-6

—

FEBRUARY 1ST 1870
SAN MIGUEL, EL SALVADOR

A distant memory appeared, flickered in an attempt at being perceived—the blurred edges of the scene begged for acknowledgement, nagging away at some unscratched itch—and then slowly faded away. If a mind could not seek to preserve the memory through active intention then the memory would slip into nonexistence.

To face the death of the old was a gift they did not yet appreciate.

The man who suffered split apart with a curious noise that memory attempted to find a comparison for. A swift crack echoed throughout the barn and when more pressure was applied still, a curious pop followed.

The noise was familiar to the man who observed. Not the sound of a skull caving under pressure, but the sound of something quickly falling forgotten from his head.

Going, going, gone.

What good was a sound in the mind that mirrored something else? If the tenor of a crow's caw mimicked the squawking of a noisy child, why should both coexist? When the snapping of rusted razor wire gets overwritten with the satisfying snap of bones on the battlefield, what good does it do to mourn what's gone?

You did not hold onto what you did not need in the south.

The torturer signaled to the muscle at their beck and call. The red-eyed behemoth released the head from his grip and the crushed skull, caved in on one side—a dent in the now-bald head of the tortured—landed with a dull thud on the ground.

"Can you hear me better?" The torturer asked, leaning down toward the mangled man lying in the dirt. The tortured still possessed his limbs and his head, but his nude body was singed and crooked. His scalp still smoldered where the hair had burnt itself down to the roots. No longer was there black hair atop his head or above the eyes. The smell of charred flesh was a new sensory experience to all who stood in the barn: the torturer and the tortured, their muscle and their witness.

Human flesh sizzled and filled the air with a sweet, metallic tang while it sloughed off cleanly, in piles of red and black meat that fell from their bones like it had never wanted to cling to it in the first place. The flesh of immortals, when free of venom, smelled different. Their hair still burned despite the human's burning much, much quicker, and the stench curled the nose, bothered the eyes a bit. The acrid smell of their hard flesh was not remarkable.

It sang as flames licked away at the surface, seeking out the ignition that existed within all of them, begging to catch on the closest hint of the gasoline it so desperately craved. The high pitched hum as their hard skin attempted to repel the threat, a groan so dire that it forced a collective unease through all who heard it. Without venom it could not continue, so after seconds that always felt closer to minutes it would fade away, leaving nothing but blackened skin.

With a thumb the torturer reached out and pressed hard against their victim's forearm where some of the black char—lit to burn the fine hairs off its meal only minutes before—finally crumbled away, revealing skin that wept with the venom the flames had been seeking out the entire time.

"Fascinating," the torturer spoke, leaning forward even still. The man who witnessed it all also watched closely, observing the fresh skin that was pulled taut, unrecognizable from the usual smoothness that their kind possessed. Scarred not by venom, but by the flames that usually destroyed.

The tortured could not speak, he could not move, and even if he could the witness doubted that he would try.

The torturer shifted their hand, reaching up to press a cool thumb against the temple. The shattered skull easily gave way, the noise of the tortured's bones pressing into the soft matter it was made to protect and shield parting with a familiar sound. It was the sound of a rabbit's ribcage crunching as you pushed your thumbs into its chest cavity, a knife in one hand as you ripped and tore again at the flesh, reaching in to split it in two and remove the innards and—

The torturer crooked their finger and for a moment the eyes of the tortured froze, blank and lifeless, the entire body seized with stillness.

It was seconds or minutes or hours later that the tortured returned, awareness inflicting itself upon him like a curse as bones immediately attempted to correct themselves.

What was the thought he'd had before the sweet release of nothing tempted him?

The sound he heard?

The sound of his crushed skull shifting beneath his skin, giving way to a thumb that pushed too far and bent at the knuckle. The sound of shards of bone sliding against a piece of themselves that still appeared to be vulnerable in some way.

A ghostly sensation brushed against memory—a soft pelt a wet knife an easy crumbling—before it was lost, replaced with the new association this existence provided.

The man who witnessed the treatment of the tortured continued to lay on the dry, dusty ground and wondered when it would finally be his turn to be rendered to dust. He could not blink to hide the sight before him. He could not shift his head that had been reattached just barely off-center. He could not feel legs that were not attached and he continued to lay and watch as the man across from him was mutilated in hypnotizing ways.

He prayed for his own torture to end swifter this

His companions were gone. He wished he could follow.

There was a curious flicker of something more—a flapping of wings a noisy roost a clumsy child—when the skull of the tortured was pushed back into position by the brain matter regenerating within. The inverse of a pop, a crunching of bone, a cracking of something that reminded the witness of feathers and food.

Now, in its place, the sound of a shattered skull, blown back.

Esteban did not watch the mutilation of the tortured to learn, but to brace himself for fate's arms. Would his end be as long and agonizing? Would his end be worse, a different type of experimentation inflicted upon his mangled, naked body? Would God finally have mercy?

Later, he would be put back together, fed half of a rotten meal, and observed carefully as his skin began the process of reuniting his limbs. Later, the thunderous sound of feet would shake the ground that he lay on, prompting the torturer to take his muscle and flee. Later, Esteban would dig himself out of the rubble of what was meant to be his grave and watch as the sun rose over the mountainside.

The torturer was gone, his base decimated, his army in pieces, and his work done. Esteban limped across the area, ignored the gurgling cries of those in pieces and not yet dead, and headed back north toward San Salvador.

He'd been inflicted with demonhood, tempted with peace, stripped of his congregation, and worst of all, cursed to live.