Apolysis

Marios Koutsoukos

Description

Armageddon breaks out. Then an Apocalypse of nuclear fire rains down from the sky. The Second Coming of the Lord is at hand& but Angels, Demons and Men have different plans and murder in their hearts. God is assassinated in a coup that shatters the balance of the universe. And yet& this is just the beginning. A world ravaged by atomic fallout, the Scorched Earth, is now mankind's only home and they have to share it with all the once immortal beings that fell from the spiritual realm. Heaven and Hell raise their mighty citadels and offer protection from the horrors of the post-apocalyptic wilderness to those who would worship them unquestioningly in return. Archangel Michael, now a renegade expelled from the kingdom of Heaven, will join forces with an unlikely ally: Lucifer, the ex-lord of Hell, who lost his throne to one of his captains and was exiled. Together, these two outcasts of the Tyrannical New Order will embark on a quest to open a dimensional portal to a New Promised Land, a place that holds the promise of a new beginning for all the orphaned creations of God. Guided by an eerily familiar-looking old man who comes and goes as he pleases, they will set out to free all of mankind from slavery to fear. Little do they know that the battle to end all battles is about to begin.

Sujets

• Fantasy (canción de Mariah Carey)
• Fantasy

Informations

• Publié par: Andrews UK
• Date de parution: 10 juillet 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781849897914
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Title Page

APOLYSIS
Apocalypse Is Just The Beginning










By
Marios Koutsoukos




Publisher Information

Apolysis published in 2011 by
Andrews UK Limited
www.andrewsuk.com

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published, and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

The characters and situations in this book are entirely imaginary and bear no relation to any real person or actual happening.

Copyright © Marios Koutsoukos

The right of Marios Koutsoukos to be identified as author of this book has been asserted in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyrights Designs and Patents Act 1988.




Prologue

PAGES FROM THE DIARY OF REVEREND GABRIEL


December 13 th 2019, 3:04 AM.

Gazing out at the cloudy skies of early morning I feel my soul weighting me down.
Last night the dreams returned, more vivid and disturbing than before. I woke up trembling all over and gulped down a handful of sleeping pills to calm myself. Now I wait for them to take effect while writing these lines.
God, what’s happening to me? I’m fifty years old and this weak heart of mine can no longer take such rushes!
For some reason, the book of the Apocalypse has never quite managed to intrigue me. Up until a few weeks back that is; up until these horrendous dreams arrived and all sleep was lost to me.
Each night I witness the gaping maws of Armageddon, seas of blood engulfing the earth, I hear the wailing of sinners as they crawl before the feet of the Lord, the death throes of the great Dragon, I taste wine served by the scarlet whore of Babylon…
How blessed was Apostle John to have such visions revealed to him in obscure symbolisms he could hardly comprehend! I only wish I shared his luck…
However, I’m not as arrogant a fool as to even assume that I have an insight to the future. No, oh no! My dreams are just that: dreams. Unpleasant ones too… And they feel so real, so substantial, so explainable, so… possible.
Sure enough the light of day disperses all nighttime fantasies, withering them into an ashen gray shade of unreal. Then why am I still so shaky?
Pray dear God; let me be just another hallucinating madman.


December 13 th 2019, 11:20 AM

Upon a bald mountaintop I stand and before me stretches the ever-expanding desert. There, armies arrayed for war face each other. Angry voices quarrel and dispute with fervor and a faint barking of dogs is heard. Dogs fighting with jackals over a piece of rotten meat, when in truth they desire to rend one another apart and taste of living flesh.
I attempt to talk some reason into them, but my words of advice echo hollow and ridiculous. No one is listening anyway. Not even me.
Somewhere far off, televisions and radios transmit war declarations in a multitude of different languages, always in the name of ‘freedom’ and ‘peace’. Voices rise with conviction, prepared to kill or be killed. ‘Freedom’ is the new battle cry.
A delirious laughter rakes me.
Then lo! Nuclear warheads are launched and I laugh harder at the absolution of mass slaughter.
An inaugural explosion shatters the ground and the first mushroom of death blossoms on the blood painted sand. Many more follow. My eyeballs burn fiercely within and laughter turns hoarse, transforming into a prolonged scream of agony.
I wake up, trailing off that scream.
Sleeping pills are useless. I think it’s time for Valium.


December 16 th 2019, 10:36 PM

Returning from Mass today I dropped by ‘O’ Flannigan’s’ for a beer as usual. The TV was tuned to a news channel, where enthusiastic comments came and went about a universal treaty of nuclear disarming, soon to be signed by all the major powers. As always, our ‘nation under God’ had reserved for itself nothing less than a leading role in coordinating proceedings.
The president seemed confident that results would be swift and positive, making decisive headway towards ‘world peace’ and ‘goodwill’…
Were I twenty years younger, I would show them a thing or two, hustling people like that! Damn dictators, smiling in their thousand-dollar suits! They pose for the cameras all gallant and virtuous, flawless as can be, calling themselves humanitarians… It’s easier to fight for a furtive and undefined thing as the ‘greater good’ than actually help one starving man. It’s the way they like it: profitable and hypocritical.
Yesterday I saw those FEMA bastards having a barbecue in a back alley. They were torching three bloated corpses – winos I think. FEMA really made an extra effort this year to keep our streets spotlessly clean. Kids were passing by, laughing their ignorant bliss out loud. Christmas, after all, is neither a time to be sad nor retrospective.
Ho-ho fucking-ho!
Days like this, my collar is suffocating me. Wearing it and turning a blind ear to this all is… wrong. Just wrong.
And yet… action requires courage, passion. And I only have arthritis left.


December 16 th 2019, 2:45 AM

Valium is ineffective. Sleep is impossible. And the dreams are taking a turn for the worse. It’s almost as if they have a life of their own now.
I shut my eyes. After a little while, without having yet drifted to sleep, visions arrive: The Apocalypse, relentless carnage, war underneath the gonfalon of the Dragon, brother slaying brother, the second coming of the Lord, Judgment day, the End of Time…
It takes hours just to recompose myself afterwards. Once the worse shaking has seized, whiskey helps.

Sometimes, I also hear whispers mourning like an afterthought trapped inside my skull. ‘Treason!’ it cries ‘Treason!’
What is happening to me? Why me?
I’ll brave the night through. Awake.


December 20 th 2019, 1:05 AM

I was sitting in a diner when the news broke.
Something is amiss with the universal treaty. Participating countries have banded together and demand first and foremost the disposal of the US nuclear arsenal before they proceed in doing so themselves. Certain parties accuse the president openly of attempted deceit, of never having any real intentions to disarm.
Imagine that…
What a charade! Intentions are never simple in politics; Good and evil are nothing more than a fancy assessment of timing. Things are pretty heated up at the moment. It’s all in the hands of our diplomats.
If they fail, we’ll find out exactly why self-righteous anger and nukes don’t mix!


December 24 th 2019, 7:32 PM

Losing my mind…
Moments ago I opened the window to let a little fresh air in. Absent-mindedly I glanced out.
I beheld a universe razed to rubble! Human skeletons and burnt bodies lay scattered everywhere, skyscrapers melted into an amorphous mass of blackened steel and glass… New York was a vast mausoleum and I the only ghost haunting it.
I blinked in utter horror. Everything turned back to normal, as if some spell had been broken. Untold relief washed over me at the sight of the neighborhood park, streets packed with indifferent pedestrians, the tall buildings of brick.
Now, where did I put that communion wine?


December 25 th 2019. 3:19 PM

Christ is born in Bethlehem, joy to the world! Or so our festive congregation sang…
Outside, on Times Square, video-walls were on fire. The president was broadcasting live. His speech was fraught with carefully choreographed patriotic anger and well placed emotion. Chaplin would have had a party imitating this guy too! To quote the man himself, ‘the American ways are at stake. A handful of brigand nations, who formerly partook in the nuclear disarming treaty, moved by envy seek to weaken our glorious nation, seize our sword of power and ultimately enslave us!’
A torrent of bullshit - the lot of it. Yet most everyone bought it…
Apotheosis came when the president declared proudly defensive war on these usurping brigands. In front of his electronic apparition amassed crowds roared their approval.
Holy mother of God! What kind of man starts war on Christmas day?
Then I knew and I was afraid and dizziness overcame me. Horror! This churning sea of noisy voices was the dominant sound of the bald mountaintop in my dreams. Yes, I recognized its hiatus well.
My stomach convulsed and tied into a knot. I almost vomited.
No. No. No, no, no!
My dreams are lies, not the future! No! The end of days isn’t nigh, the Apocalypse shall happen a thousand years later, not now! Not now…
Yet I fail to convince myself, no matter how many times I write it down.
And worst of all, there is no one to share this crushing burden with.
God is deaf, blind and mute.
Merry Christmas.


December 27 th 2019, 11:55 PM

To be honest, I had hopes. Of what? A compromise perhaps, a diplomatic outlet of this crisis. What’s more common in the century of Iscariot? After all, that’s how we got over the great depression of 2011.
But no. It appears souls are no longer for selling. Now all raven to spill enemy blood and heed no reason.
What am I saying? What am I writing?
An hour ago, the president solemnly declared that the first air strike of nukes has been launched against out sworn foes, the anti-American alliance…
This diary has no meaning anymore. What am I writing? Why?
Each passing day ve