On the Other Side of the Rainbow

Upon the dour moment of the eleventh hour of the sixth day, there came a cry from a thousand gathered men that reached up into the deep heavens. The sky, now painted crimson with the blood of the fallen, dripped slowly down upon their sullen souls. One man among their group raised his hands towards the heavens and shouted, "dear god, forgive those lost and those forsaken, give strength to the rusted breast of man and right those wrongs committed unto thee from blind vengeance."

The ground beneath the weakened trembled and split apart, revealing the depths of the earth from which man had scoured up. The sun, now dimmed in a murky light, sunk deeper into the far horizon. Their shadows grew longer, marching slowly across the wet dirt beneath their bloodied feet. War had killed the weakest, famine etched away at what little strength the rest possessed while disease brought down the oldest among them.

With his arms still raised high, their leader called out again. "Show us mercy, God, and forgive us of our sins. Lead us away from darkness and guide us back into your glorious light." His plea echoed softly off the distant hills and then fell silent into the virgin night. Death swept quickly from over the third hill, chasing the fading shadows of an army once strong and victorious.

Night stabbed viciously into the last traces of dusk as the ice cold wind swept over their beaten bodies. God could no more save these men from eternal sleep as they had already defeated their own through nefarious warfare. As the wind grew colder still, the warm blood from those that remained standing began to thicken. Their torn skin slipped into sickening shades of gray as they labored to take one last breath.

God did not kill these men. These men had destroyed god by robbing the world of its last remaining fortitude of faith. No father would ever see a son born again, no daughter would ever wed her love and all of eternity from the first moment to this day would forever fade into a sort of cosmic amnesia. Man had chosen to renounce faith and spirituality, and in doing so would condemn itself back into the dust from which every man, woman and child had been born.

And as each man had wanted it to become, so then it finally came to be.