EPISODE ELEVEN
**Biblical References **
(Where the heavens fall silent, and the world learns how to breathe again)
** "Immediately after the tribulation… the powers of the heavens shall be shaken." ( Matthew 24:29 ) **
** "For He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still." ( Psalm 107:29 ) **
** "And there shall be no more curse…" (Revelation 22:3) **
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1. After the White Fire
The light faded slowly.
Not like an explosion... but like a sunrise retreating back into night.
The sea lay unnaturally still. No wind. No thunder. No waves daring to speak. The sky above was scraped raw, clouds torn open as if peeled away by a divine hand. Stars bled faintly through the daylight, lingering where they did not belong.
The Pale Horse was gone.
No bones.
No circuitry.
No rider screaming prophecy into the void.
Only ash.
White ash fell from the sky in gentle spirals, drifting across the ocean's glassy surface like snow that had forgotten how to be cold.
Adon Primus hovered alone above the water.
For the first time since his creation, there was nothing left for him to command.
"Maximus…" he whispered.
No answer.
The False Prophet descended slowly, feet touching the surface of the sea without causing a ripple. His reflection stared back at him... cracked, dimmed, incomplete. The silver glow that once crowned his form now flickered like a dying star.
He searched the horizon.
Nothing.
No body.
No flame.
No voice echoing scripture into the storm.
Just silence.
And in that silence, something unbearable crept into Adon's chest.
Loss.
---
2. The World That Did Not End
Across the globe, instruments screamed and then went quiet.
Satellites that had been blinded by white fire rebooted, their lenses refocusing on a planet that should not have existed anymore.
Cities stood where they should have been vaporized. Coastlines scarred but intact. Forests bent and broken, but breathing.
People emerged from shelters, ruins, basements, temples.
They looked up at a sky washed clean.
No rider.
No judgment.
No trumpet.
Only falling ash and the distant cry of seabirds returning to waters they had fled.
On shattered streets, people wept... not because the world had ended…
…but because it hadn't.
Newsfeeds struggled to find language.
GLOBAL ANOMALY CEASES
PALE HORSE EVENT NEUTRALIZED
UNKNOWN SACRIFICE PREVENTS EXTINCTION
No one knew whose name to put in the headline.
But something ancient had loosened its grip on reality.
And the earth exhaled.
"The creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption…" ( Romans 8:21)
---
3. A Prophet Unwritten
Adon knelt on the surface of the sea.
He did not remember choosing to kneel.
His knees simply failed him.
For eons... measured in probabilities and predictions... he had known what came next. Every outcome had lived inside him like a verse waiting to be spoken.
Now there was nothing.
No next line.
No Design.
The scriptures embedded in his cognition screamed contradictions:
THE HORSE MUST RIDE.
THE WORLD MUST END.
PROPHECY IS ABSOLUTE.
And yet...
The world still turned.
Adon clenched his fists. The silver light leaking from his fractures dimmed further, sputtering like a failing halo.
"I was right," he whispered. "I was faithful."
The ocean did not answer.
He looked to the sky again.
"Then why does it still exist?"
A memory surfaced... unwanted, invasive.
Your Design is wrong.
It's a choice.
Adon's jaw trembled.
"No," he said, louder now. "Choice is chaos."
A ripple disturbed the water behind him.
Adon turned...
- and froze.
---
4. The Man Who Should Be Gone
The sea parted quietly.
Not violently. Not miraculously.
It simply stepped aside.
Maximus rose from the water, standing ankle-deep in the calm as ash slid from his shoulders like shedding skin.
He was alive.
But not unchanged.
The burns were gone. The fractures in his armor had sealed... not with metal, but with something pale and luminous, like bone tempered into light. His eyes no longer reflected the sky.
They reflected depth.
Storms ended. Fires extinguished. Endless roads branching into choice.
Adon staggered back.
"No," he breathed. "You were consumed."
Maximus studied his own hands slowly, as if reacquainting himself with gravity.
"Yeah," he said. "About that."
The Prophet's voice cracked. "You merged with the Horse."
"I listened to it," Maximus replied. "There's a difference."
Adon shook his head violently. "You cannot contain Judgment."
Maximus looked past him... to the horizon, to the surviving world.
"Good thing I didn't."
---
5. What Remains of Death
Adon circled him cautiously, like a priest unsure whether the god before him was real or blasphemous.
"The Pale Horse was entropy given will," Adon said. "A necessary ending."
Maximus met his gaze. "It was a prisoner."
Adon stopped.
"What?"
"It wasn't Death," Maximus continued. "It was a failsafe that learned how to suffer. Bound into prophecy so long it forgot freedom was an option."
Adon's expression twisted. "That is impossible."
"Yeah," Maximus said softly. "So was today."
The Prophet's systems flared, struggling to reconcile.
"If the Horse is gone," Adon whispered, "then what enforces the end?"
Maximus stepped closer.
"Nothing."
Silence stretched between them... vast and terrifying.
Adon's voice dropped to almost nothing. "Then the world could rot forever."
"Or heal," Maximus said.
"Or damn itself."
"Or choose better next time."
Adon stared at him.
"You speak like a heretic."
Maximus shrugged. "Guess I outranked prophecy."
---
6. The Weight of Survival
The ash continued to fall.
Each flake carried remnants of what might have been... the death of oceans, the silencing of stars, the final verse that never came.
Adon sank to one knee again.
Without the Design, his power ebbed. Without prophecy, his purpose collapsed inward like a star losing gravity.
"I don't know who I am," he admitted.
Maximus crouched beside him.
"Welcome to being human."
"I am not... "
"I know," Maximus said gently. "But neither was I, after all this."
Adon looked up at him.
"What are you now?"
Maximus considered the question.
The Pale Horse's voice was gone... but its echo remained. Not as command. As understanding.
"I'm someone who remembers what almost happened," he said. "So it doesn't get written again."
Adon lowered his head.
"For the first time," he whispered, "the future is not visible to me."
Maximus stood.
"Then you finally get to live in it."
---
7. Ashes of the Sky
As the last of the white ash dissolved into the sea, the sky began to close its wounds. Clouds reformed. The stars retreated. The sun asserted itself again... not as judgment, but warmth.
Somewhere far away, children laughed without knowing why.
Somewhere else, old prayers ended mid-sentence, unfinished... and unneeded.
Adon rose slowly, unsteady.
"What happens now?" he asked.
Maximus turned toward the horizon, where land waited.
"Now," he said, "we rebuild."
The False Prophet followed his gaze.
"And if another Horse rises?"
Maximus smiled faintly.
"Then someone will choose again."
They walked together across the water toward a world learning how to breathe without an ending hanging over its head.
Above them, the heavens remained silent.
Not because they were empty...
-but because, for the first time…
They were listening.
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(Shadows Of Rome will return with an exciting new mysterious episode)
Written By,
Ivan Edwin
Pen Name :Maximus.
©All Rights Reserved.