Do you believe?

Magical Realism Paper
Life as we knew it quickly evaded from us as the sirens swam around our bodies embedding their screams in our ears and as the consistent sound rang through us, the dread over took my body. The war that we all prepared for was here, the one we read in our holy books, the one which many people spoke about but didn’t prepare themselves for. It was looked upon as a myth, but for us it spiraled around fusing itself with time, making the war between worlds reality. Nothing that I was grown to know, or to believe, was true today.
As a nonbeliever, I was made to believe that nothing existed outside of Earth. I didn’t believe in God, I believed in science, in what I could see, in the physical because to me there was no spiritual. But as swarms of people soon flooded the streets, I soon became something I never thought I would become…a believer. The areas of the cities where we were evacuated to were distinct in smell. It’s as if desperation and anguish had made its own scent in the area we were held in. The look on my sister’s face was overwhelming with fear, and we ran through crowds in search for answers.
“What is that?” yelled out the guards. A massive cloud of smoke fluctuated towards us, and as it did the Earth started rumbling beneath our feet like drumsticks to a drum. Everyone fluttered around the cities yelling and screaming but clumsily fell to the ground due to the Earth’s movement.
“Go, Go!” yelled the guard, pointing at this small squared outlet in the ground. Hysteria enlightened in me, and my mind overdosed itself with adrenaline. Tackling the herds, I held my sisters hand and whipped through the crowds not caring who was in front of me. We walked inside, and realized we weren’t alone. The underground world was flooded with people as far as I could see which carried rows and rows of people with distressed looks. The guard ran in and as soon as he did, all we heard was blistering screams from those who were not part of the underground. Suffering and despair quarreled above us and then silence.
“What was that?”
“What happened out there?”
“Are we going to be okay?”
“Listen up people, as of right now you are of the few that were selected to live, granted a second chance in life. Line up and you will be given a number, stamped on your right hand. We are under attack, and it’s nothing that we can explain as of right now, but…”
“How can you not explain what happened out there?” a man shouted. “Thousands of people are dying out there and now what? We’re here in this hole and we’re supposed to thank you for putting us here? Screw that.”
The guard slowly walked to him, reached for his gun and pointed it to the man’s head, “Does this answer your question? Now you cooperate or else you’ll be like one of them.” He pointed up, signifying the souls they abandoned above.
“Now listen up, everyone will have a certain number signifying your fatality. Unfortunately, not everyone will make it out of this war. It’s us against the world, and if you choose to go astray…” he chuckled, “then you know what will happen. Line up!”
We hustled up, trembling with fear, lining up like slaves waiting for answers. One by one, the numbers were placed on our right hands, identifying us and foretelling our fate, and as I got closer, my anxiety grew. I turned to look at my sister, and upon turning, the scent of blueberry whiffed through my nose and for a second I grew to remember those weekends back when my mother was still alive. My mother always surprised us with blueberry muffins every Sunday morning. I started remembering the night I found out that she was gone. My mother was the closest thing to an angel, and I was extremely close to her. When I found out she died, I couldn’t believe it. She was everything I had, the only thing I had besides my sister, and my sister was still very young to even remember back when my mother was alive. I just never understood why a God could take someone so special and so loving away from me. To me, there was no God after that.
“Move!” the guard shoved his rifle into the side of my stomach.
“David, stay alive,” my sister whispered to me. I was next in line to receive my number.
“771106,” the guard stamped the number and nodded to the other guards. I walked to the nearest spot, surrounded by terrified strangers. Sitting down, I heard a man speak.
“Can you believe this shit? They’ve got us tagged like slaves!”
Another man, older, sat next to me. “Hey kid, what’s your name?”
“David.”
“My names Joseph, they call me Sunny though.”
“Why’s that?”
“ It’s just a nick name that stuck on to me since I was a little boy. Feel free to call me anything you’d like though. So is this your sister?
As the herds of people were getting their identities engraved in their right hands, Sunny and I spoke about anything that came to mind.
“Do you believe in God?” Sunny asked me.
“Not really…”
“Well kid, I’m no preacher, but if I ever learned anything, it’s that God is present throughout everyone’s life. With the good people, and even the bad ones, he’s there. Yup, he’s there! Let me ask you this... has your gut ever spoken to you?”
“Uh…”
“Well, that’s God. He’s always trying to talk to you, but our selfishness makes us believe that that’s not him...it is though. Remember that. He’s always there, always. Even when you don’t believe, you will encounter something in your life that eventually will make you a believer. There’s always hardships in life, believe me I know, and you doubt Him…but what’s to doubt? There’s a miracle in all of this today, he saved you today so you can wake up tomorrow. Maybe even to have you listen to what I gotta say. But just remember, he’s always here, and everything happens for a reason. One way or another, you’ll know the truth.”
The lights fluctuated above us, and as the last person sat down, the lights shut off.
“Just remember that,” he whispered. Millions of thoughts ran through my head, fear overtook my body and silence over grew the room.
“Everyone get the hell up!” yelled the guards. “We’ve got surprises for all of you,” said another guard with a grin on his face. They opened this wooden covered door, where darkness laid. All of a sudden, it sounded as if a herd of animals were stomping towards us, and through that wooden covered door, where the darkness laid, the creatures came to be known. Little troll like creatures ran towards us, with mouths stretching wide.
“These are our helpers, ha ha!” laughed a guard. “Welcome to paradise morons!”
The noises the creatures made lingered within the underground, and the smell cringed between the spaces where people laid.
“Now, everyone line up! We’re going outside.”
Everyone formed a line, accompanied by one of the foul smelling creatures. “Oh God!” I screeched as I saw what lay above us outside. The whole earth was covered with bodies, the smell of death was repulsive, and everything was destroyed.
“Don’t be scared, when our king comes, everything will be normal,” said a guard smiling. His voice evoked anger and fear within me, I knew what was coming wasn’t good. Sunny was behind me and he said, “Well this is what they’ve been talking about huh?”
“Who’s been talking and about what?”
“Look kid, have you ever read the holy stories? They mentioned this, the end of the world. Where life ceases to exist but with death, the road to awe will be revealed and with that, the truth will be known.”
The guard heard Sunny and ran up to him, “What the hell are you saying?”
Sunny reluctant to answer said, “About the Bible.”
The guard pulled out his gun and shot Sunny on sight. My world came crashing down. Images of my mother’s death accompanied with his blood hitting me like bullets made me yell. I went into a shock, in a complete state of trauma. My vision blurred, my chest went numb, and the realization that life as I knew it was done with hung to me like an unsettled burden. For the first time, I knelt to the ground, clenched my fingers together and prayed.
“No one here is to talk about a God, there is no God, there’s only a king and he’s in the golden land,” said one of the guards.
New York didn’t seem like New York anymore, it seemed like a desert, but instead of sand, rubble and bodies lay afoot. Walking for what seemed hours, we finally came across the New York beach, in which a large boat was waiting for us. The creatures ran in first, taking special places for themselves and the guards, and whatever was left, was for us, the slaves.
For weeks, I was numb, with images of death surrounding me and I was awaiting my own.
“Stay alive,” my sister nudged at me.
“Don’t worry Izzy,” I said blankly.
To the distance, I saw the land. Temples and mosques acquainted it, and it was nothing like America. It looked as if the monuments were built in gold. As we arrived, a man with creatures guarding him awaited us. Thousands of people thrived at the ground he walked on, like hungry hyenas with the presence of carcasses. People threw themselves at him, and with every step he took, gold would slither and engulf the ground. He distanced himself with the presence of his creatures, but made his presence known and unique. I soon realized he was blind in one of his eyes, and all throughout his body were tattoos that almost glistened with the sunlight. The tattoos were in Arabic or Hebrew. He glanced at everyone and stood tall.
“There he is!” screamed a guard. “Finally, we meet him!”
We walked through the grounds of gold, where we encountered a huge temple of gold, and besides it, tents made out of debris.
“This is where my slaves will lay,” said the man they knew as king. His voice traveled through my ears with annoyance. “I am who everyone was waiting for, I am the God.”
A man upon the crowd shouted, “You are not God!”
All the creatures ran to him and wrestled for his body, they took him towards the “king”.
“I am not God? Well watch this!” He grabbed a sword and pierced the man’s heart. “I will make this man come alive again, and then you will see I am God!” He grasped dirt into his hand making a fist and then fixated to blow the dirt upon the man whom perceived as dead. As the dirt flew amongst the man and intertwined with his skin, the man gasped with life again. “I am your God…” Everyone looked at the man with complete awe. Astonished, my eyes widened at the sight. I couldn’t believe it.
The “king” continued “…but you are not worthy of life!” He stabbed the man again, and the man led out a deafening screech. As the blood splattered amongst my face, piercing my eyes with images of death again, I felt something speaking to me.
“He’s not the one, remember I’m always here with you,” the voice treaded within my mind. All at once, Sunny’s voice came to me too.
“Remember!”
“You’re not God!” I screamed. The earth flourished and shook beneath my feet. Blinding lights shot out from the skies, and the creatures rushed to their “king”. The blinding lights stood behind me, as if guarding me, and then it yelled, “Go!” I ran towards the “king” and so did all the believers. Accompanied with the believers was the light, which I soon realized were angels. I felt at peace, even when we were at war. I felt love, even clearly there was hate. I felt my mom, her spirit guarding me along with the angel besides me. I marched with my soldiers behind me toward the cowardly king and fought with all my strength. My life was meaningless before, but now I had a purpose, and so I fought for that purpose. I knew in my heart he wasn’t God, and the angels uplifted me with courage because of that.
My sister stood behind shouting, “Stay alive, David, stay alive!”
“He will,” whispered one of the angels in her ear, “If not in this life, he’ll be alive in paradise in the next.”