The Warning came at exactly 3:33 p.m. Rome time on Day Five.
No trumpet.
No darkness at noon.
No voice from the sky.
Just a sudden, absolute stillness that fell over the entire planet at once.
Every engine died.
Every screen went black.
Every bird stopped mid-flight and hovered, wings frozen.
Then it began.
Every human soul—living, marked or sealed, young or old, believer or atheist—found themselves standing outside time.
They saw their lives.
Not as memories.
As reality.
Every sin.
Every grace.
Every moment they had wounded God or been wounded by others.
They saw it with the eyes of the One who hung on the Cross for it.
They felt His pain.
They felt His love.
And they understood, with perfect clarity, exactly where they would go if they died in that instant.
Heaven.
Hell.
Or the purifying fire of Purgatory.
No one was spared.
In Rome, Alessandro was walking the Apostolic Palace corridor when it hit.
He froze mid-step.
For the first time in his long, borrowed existence, the thing inside him saw its own reflection in the mirror of divine justice.
It screamed.
The scream echoed through every corridor, every stone, every soul in the city.
Windows shattered outward in perfect circles.
The false twelve-star banners in St. Peter's Square burst into flame and turned to ash mid-air.
Alessandro collapsed to his knees, clawing at his own face, black blood pouring from eyes, ears, mouth.
The human shell he wore began to crack like porcelain.
In the Pauline Chapel, Sofia felt it differently.
She was kneeling in adoration when the stillness fell.
Then she was standing in a vast, endless light.
Jesus stood before her—not as King, not as Judge, but as the Crucified One, eyes infinite with tenderness.
He showed her everything.
Every Rosary she had ever prayed.
Every Mass she had attended with distraction.
Every time she had judged her brother Diego.
Every moment of pride after a miracle.
She saw the pain her small sins had caused His Heart.
She wept until she thought she would die of sorrow.
Then He showed her the other side.
Every act of love.
Every decade offered for souls.
Every time she had chosen Him when it cost her.
He showed her Sarah Kline in heaven, crowned with roses, smiling down.
He showed her Pope Benedict, chains gone, standing beside Our Lady.
He showed her the monastery—safe.
The flames had been illusion.
The bodies, holograms.
Her people were alive, hidden in underground tunnels the monks had prepared decades ago.
Father Elijah, Diego, Dom Pius, the children—all alive, praying for her in that exact moment.
Jesus placed His wounded hand on her heart.
"My little daughter," He said, voice like living water. "The Warning is My mercy before justice.
Many will convert today.
Many will harden their hearts.
But you—remain."
He showed her the final days.
Three left.
He showed her what was coming on Day Seven.
She trembled.
He smiled.
"Fear not. I am with you until the end."
Then He was gone.
Time resumed.
The world gasped back into motion.
Cars that had coasted to stops started again.
Birds flew.
Engines turned over.
But nothing was the same.
In Mark centers across the globe, millions ripped the devices from their hands, blood and screams and sudden repentance.
In homes, workplaces, prisons—people fell to their knees, confessing sins aloud to anyone who would listen.
Priests who had hidden hosts in secret tabernacles suddenly found lines of thousands begging for confession.
In the monastery tunnels, Father Elijah emerged into daylight to find former GEA soldiers on their knees in the snow, begging to be baptized.
Diego laughed through tears and started pouring blessed water over heads like a fire hose.
In Rome, Alessandro crawled through the shattered corridor, human shell splitting, something vast and winged trying to tear free.
He reached the Sistine Chapel and collapsed beneath the Last Judgment.
Black wings began to unfurl from his back.
But the fresco above him—the separating of sheep and goats—began to glow with real fire.
The demons painted on the wall screamed and tried to flee the ceiling.
Alessandro howled.
Sofia walked the corridors until she found him.
She stood over him, olive-wood rosary in hand.
He looked up, face half-human, half-monster.
"You… did… this…"
"No," she said gently. "Jesus did."
She knelt.
Alessandro tried to strike her.
His hand stopped inches away, frozen by invisible light.
Sofia placed the rosary on his chest.
It burned through the cassock like acid.
He screamed again.
Black smoke poured from his mouth.
For one heartbeat, the human man he had possessed flickered through—eyes terrified, pleading.
Sofia saw him.
She made the Sign of the Cross over him.
"Jesus, remember him when You come into Your kingdom."
The human soul fled upward in a streak of white light.
What remained writhed and grew until the chapel could not contain it.
Wings of shadow and fire burst through the roof.
The creature rose above Rome, vast as night, crowned with eyes that wept blood.
It roared a challenge that shook the city.
Every sealed soul felt it in their bones.
Sofia stood on the ruined loggia, white dress whipping in the demonic wind.
She raised both hands.
And began the Luminous Mysteries aloud.
Her voice carried over the entire city—amplified by grace.
Every sealed soul in Rome joined her.
Then every converted soul.
Then every soul still choosing.
The creature above the Vatican shrieked and dove toward her.
St. Michael appeared between them, sword blazing.
The battle began in the sky above St. Peter's.
Sofia never stopped praying.
Day Five had ended.
Two remained.
To be continued…