The Seven Thunders by Ezekiel Kincaid
“And when the seven thunders had sounded, I was about to write, but I heard a voice from heaven saying, ‘Seal up what the seven thunders have said, and do not write it down.’”
Revelation 10:4
Dr. Devin Howard scribbled on the wall of his panic room, then placed an ear to the cold slab.
The vibrations.
He listened for the vibrations.
They spoke to him sometimes. He noticed their patterns and found comfort in them, yet he waited for the sacred ones. The ones which would signal a disturbance-- the disturbance.
With his ear still against the wall, he mumbled, counting on his fingers.
“Four…six…four…seven…seven…three, two, six…” He glanced at his brown dresser, flung open the drawer, then removed his journal and a red crayon. He stopped using pencils and pens because of the demonic voices. They would get so powerful, telling him to stab out his eyes.
He flipped the pages open, then glanced at his watch.
2:52 am.
He scribbled down the time, then recorded the vibrations. He tapped the crayon to his mouth. “No, no, no. Not it. Intervals of three. It must be intervals of three. Then it ends with seven. Seven, seven, seven. Seven seals, seven trumpets, seven thunders, seven bowls.”
Devin plopped himself down on the water stained mattress laying on the black and white checkered floor. He rummaged back through his journal to see if he miscalculated anything.
“No. All here. All waiting.” He looked around at his walls, which he covered in religious graffiti. He had drawn several eyes.
The eye.
The eye that would appear.
He would see it…at least he hoped. It was the infinite eye. The one which would lead to eternal life.
Devin leaned over and reached for the bottom drawer of his dresser and retrieved a document. The Seven Thunders as Recorded by John the Apostle. John had obeyed in the moment, but his obedience only went so far. Devin discovered the manuscript while on an excavation in Ephesus with his former university. He and a team of scholars were granted permission to translate the document. It was brief, only one parchment page, but that one page proved long enough to push Devin down a path of enlightenment. They all said he was mad, and the document was a fake, but he knew better. The document was real, and he was a perfectly sane man.
Devin recounted the seven thunders. “One. Leviathan deceives. Two. The prophet shall come. Three. The wicked overtake the righteous. Four. Hatred rules. Five. The pit opens. Six. The cylinder crashes to earth. Seven. Ag-Silardi.”
Devin perused the walls again and admired his artwork.
They had kicked him out and he lost everything--his job, his family, and the respect of his peers.
“We’ll see!” He screamed. “We’ll see who’s mad, won’t we!” He ran back to his mattress and jumped up and down, pulling his knees to his chest and flailing his arms. “We’ll see who’s mad! Yes, we will! Yes, we will! Yes, we will!” He released a high-pitched, mocking squeal and continued to pounce away on his mattress.
After a few more seconds of leaping, he stepped off the mattress, and dragged it to a corner in the room. He rubbed his hands together in giddy delight. He lied down on the mattress, with one ear pressed against the wall so he could listen for the vibrations. The minutes ticked by, and Devin dozed. He drifted into sleep while counting the vibrations.
In those early morning hours, he dreamed. He stood in a white void. He couldn’t make out any floors, ceiling, or walls. The odd landscape caused his equilibrium to fluctuate. He tried to gain his composure. As he did, he noticed a small, black dot in the distance. He stared at it, and the dot increased in size. He couldn’t tell if it was because the dot got closer by spanning a long distance at a rapid pace, or if it sat just within his reach and only expanded in size. So, he reached out his hand and felt nothing. The dot must be far off, he thought.
Devan stood motionless and the dot sped towards him, enlarging as it neared. The room shook, and the quake caused the white casing to crumble from the room. Splotches of black appeared where the white shell crumbled. On and on the pieces chipped away until everything turned pitch black. Devin felt his equilibrium shift again. Tiny specs of light twinkled, giving him the feeling of floating through space. Then, in a flash, a gargantuan eye emerged from the darkness.
Devin stood just yards from the eye. Its sclera shimmered a dark blue. The iris burned with the color of the sun, and the pupil stared back at him, a black hole threatening to engulf him. Devin reached out to touch the eye, then heard faint vibrations.
The vibrations continued to crescendo and their force pulled Devin from his sleep. He leaped to his feet and pressed his ear against the wall.
“Three…Three…Three…” Devin clamped a hand over his mouth. “Seven! Seven!” Devin pulled off his gown, stripping naked. He threw open his top drawer with such force, it flew to the other side of the room. He ran over and pulled out a tube of red lipstick. For the next several minutes, he drew as many eyes as he could on as many places of his body as he could. He then yelled. “He’s here! He’s here! Ag Silardi!”
The door to Devin’s room slammed open. A nurse and two orderlies appeared.
“Devin, calm down. It’s time for breakfast.” The nurse scolded.
Devin ran to the back of his room. “No! You will not take me from my panic room!”
“It’s not a panic room, you wacko.” One of the orderlies said. “How many times are we gonna have to go over this.”
Devin shook his head back and forth with fury. “No, no, no! Ag-Silardi is here. The vibrations, Three, three, three, seven. It fits.”
One of the orderlies stepped out of the room and beat on a door a few yards down. “Dammit DeLaney, how many times do have to tell you to stop messing with Doc. Stop tapping on the walls!”
A fit of laughing hysterics echoed from DeLaney’s room.
The orderlies approached Devin, put his gown back on, grabbed him by the arms, and guided him out of the room.
“Come on Doc, breakfast.” One of the orderlies said.
Devin tip toed out of his room with reluctance, his entire body shivering. The four walked down the hall to the dining area. Without warning, the entire building shook with an earthquake like force. The walls crumbled and pandemonium ensued. Doctors, nurses, orderlies, and patients ran and screamed, fearing for their lives.
But not Devin.
He stood amidst the chaos and laughed at those in peril.
Something ripped the roof off the small hospital. The floors above crumbled all around Devin as he meandered the rubble, unharmed. Next, a thunder resounded of the likes that had never been heard before. Devin swore the skies ripped opened. He climbed and made his way to the top of the rubble and stood in delightful awe at the bedlam around him. Buildings collapsed, and people fell into fiery pits opening in the ground below.
Devin looked up at the sky, and some type of massive, stone cylinder descended from the heavens above, touching its base to the ground. Around it swirled storm clouds and out of the clouds, tentacles emerged. The tentacles grabbed people and ripped them to pieces, flinging their blood and body parts across the wreckage.
Devin stared down at his hands. He still held his journal and manuscript. He ripped his gown off, scurried across the rubble, and into the streets. He pointed and waved at the people being devoured by the tentacles, then rejoiced with glee. He flailed his journal and manuscript, as his long hair and beard gathered dust from the debris.
“I warned you! I warned you all! I told you I was the sounding of the second of the seven thunder, but you refused to listen! I told you Ag-Silardi would come as judgment!” He mocked all the people meeting their doom.
Devin knew he had completed his task. He dropped the journal and manuscript to the ground. “The seventh thunder has sounded! Ag-Silardi has come! Take me, oh guardian, to see thine eternal eye! The eye of life! The doorway to the infinite. The black hole of perpetual joy!”
Devin felt a tentacle wrap around him and lift him towards the twirling clouds and stone cylinder. He whipped past the pinnacle of the cylinder, meeting an enormous eye in the middle of the cloud. Its sclera shimmered a dark blue. The iris burned with the color of the sun, and the pupil stared back at him, a black hole threatening to engulf him. As the tentacles brought him closer, his entire being sung with serenity.
It was all just as he had remembered.
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