VANISHED!

Year 2046

Mangrone Strait, Europe.

A slight groan escaped Alexia's throat as she listened to her mom's never-ending lecture about the importance of being true to one's faith. Urgh!

"But mom, I only told you that my boss took me as his plus-one on an official get-together with the other shareholders," she said.

She figured it would be best to help her mom save the bit of saliva that still remained. This was a bygone event. It wasn't as if she could reverse time and change things.

She had come visiting, all pumped up about her great achievement. Her boss, Mr Nephert, CEO of Nephert Telecom Corporation Ltd, had asked her, being his PA, to follow him to an evening buffet in celebration of the grand opening of their twenty-fifth international branch.

The prospect was too enticing to resist. Any sane lady would drool their lives out to be chosen by the damn handsome CEO as an escort. She had given a straight-out yes to him. It was either a yes or loosing her high-paying and hard-to-come-by job.

Telling her mom was definitely a bad choice. Dang my hyper-jubilant spirit!

Her mother harrumphed. "You and I both know what that means, dear. I read the online news. I know quite well your boss's reputation of being a womaniser as well as all the other speculations that he is a kingpin in multiple secret fraternities all aimed at promoting the new world order," she said.

"Mom!" Alexia drawled. "That's not fair to the man who gives your daughter the ability to fend for herself and take care of you and Lydia."

"It's God who fends for us sweetheart," her mother said as she put on the mitten gloves and brought out a steaming hot and to-die-for pan of chocolate cookies.

God.

That's a topic she'd rather not broach. She had given up on the idea of there being a big man upstairs ever since her father died of Kidney failure three years back.

It wasn't even as if she had actually surrendered her life to Jesus at any point. She'd simply followed her parents to church because that was how it was.

Her mother would tell her that she should come back to God but none of those things moved her anymore. She was done with God. Period.

"Hey mom, how're ya doing?" Lydia, her sixteen-year old sister said as she made her grand entrance. She was in the final grade of High School and never stopped talking about how she would soon be 'free'.

Now, she looked anything but soon-to-be free. She looked tired, with her brown hair stuck all over sweaty face. She looked hungry too, especially with the way she was eyeing the cookies on the kitchen table and sniffing the air.

She walked past Alexia and took one hot cookie from the tray. She moaned, an indication that mom had once again nailed the perfect cookie recipe of all time.

"Aren't you going to greet your sister?" Mom asked, playfully slapping off Lydia's hand from the remaining pile of cookies.

"Oh! I was too hungry to notice her. Hey sis! What's up?"

Alexia rolled her eyes. Typical of her sister to try to pretend not to see her.

"You girls should hurry up and come with me. We are going to the Mall. Our groceries are finished."

Mom drove past the Motel Eroshit, lamenting about how the society has so much depreciated over the years that there was now a public motel for homosexual sex workers.

"Look! There's the new Hilliard School," mother said, pointing in the direction of the tall and colourful groups of storey buildings.

"Now that sch-" mother's speech was halted mid-word.

Alexia turned back from gazing out the window to ask her why she had stopped. But mother wasn't there. The seat was empty.

Adrenaline shot in Alexia's bloodstream.

Too scared and shocked to think, she screamed. Her high-pitched and horrifying scream was echoed by that of her sister in the backseat.

The car was just approaching an intersection where a sixteen wheeled trailer was coming directly towards them.

Alexia, still shaking with too much adrenaline rush, still frantically screaming like she was about to be devoured by the Loch Ness monster, held the steering wheel and jerked it sharply to the right, escaping being crushed by the sliding trailer by an hair of a second.

The car crushed its many obstacles: stalls of wares, people even, until it came to a halting stop at the foot of a tall concrete electric pole.

The car looked like an innocent fly that had been swatted with a book. Squished, shrunken, shrivelled and very bloody.

Alexia's breathing were rasped but at least she was relatively unhurt. The belt and airbag did much to press her back and prevent impact. The trembling spread and wacked her whole body, and so did the mind-numbing pain. But her mind refused to be numbed, for she suddenly remembered her sister.

She turned and almost cursed at the sight of the limp, bleeding figure at the back seat.

"No... No... No... Please don't be dead. You mustn't die."

She reached out her trembling hands and checked for her sister's pulse. It was there, feeble though. Whew!

She managed to scramble out of the wreck. Getting her unconscious sister out proved to be more difficult, but she managed to do it, using the fire extinguisher to break the now weakened body part of the car.

They weren't the only ones affected. It was everywhere: blood, fire, accidents, chaos, screams, wails...

The emergency service sounded their sirens; they were as confused and perplexed as everyone else in this city, as everyone left in the whole world.

Alexia carried up her sister's unconscious figure. Lydia was bleeding from a cut on her head.

Alexia cried. She cried along with the others who had seen their loved ones mysterious vanish into thin air.

Only, she knew. She knew what had just happened. It's the rapture of the saints, the one she'd heard of once in children Sunday school, the one her mom had repeatedly ranted on about. The coming of the Lord.

She ran towards home amidst the now chaotic street, her vision blurred by the river of tears flowing from her eyes. Her arms ached from the weight of her sister. Her head thundered drumbeats away, unmercifully. Her heart was heavy with many questions and fears.

But she knew this was only the beginning. The beginning of the end.

~~~~~~~~~~

Basement Storage room.

"Hush!" Alexia whispered to the group of runaways that were hiding with her in this underground basement.

The stomp, stomp, stomp of the robots echoed, sounding from above them.

It took all of Alexia's courage to stop herself from bitting off her tongue. They were so close now, she could clearly hear them searching the storage room above. She held her breath, and prayed.

Some minutes later, the intruders left. Alexia heaved a sigh of relief and turned to the company huddled behind her.

There was one man, a wide-eyed teenage girl with her elder brother, a mother whose twins had disappered too. In total, they were six in number. They had been members of their mom's church who were left behind. Seeing no need to blame anyone but themselves, they had gathered after the catching up and confessed their sins and resolved to not collect the dreaded mark of the beast.

They didn't have to wait for long. Two weeks after the cataclysmic event, a man rose from nowhere, with power, affluence and authority and claimed he had the solution to the chaos on earth: that the whole world should unite under one government.

His identity and origin was well hidden. His henchmen were the ones who did the public announcements for him. And he had the full support of the higher authorities, who were clamouring for peace. The government officials who remained were more than happy to relinquish the government to whomsoever was willing to take on the headaches that the chaos from the masses had brought.

As soon as he reared up sleekly under perfect guise, Alexia knew he was the foretold Man of Sin.

What was his name again? Gretel, was it?

She had been reading the Bible that belonged to her mom and he fitted the description quite nicely. Now he has mandated all people in all countries to accept a chip in either their forehead or right hand so that the whole of humankind can be connected as one and to do away with the problem of sudden disappearances.

According to Gretel, had this chip been mandated earlier, it would have been easy to track those who vanished even to the furthest end of the universe if, as it was being circulated by the scientist, indeed they were abducted by aliens.

He also said, by the chip, they'd be able to transact and travel internationally. No need for cash, national ID cards, passports, Telecom sim cards; everything was encapsulated in the microchip that was as tinier than a mustard seed.

But Alexia knew that it was the seal of the beast and once one accepted it, even by mere ignorance, one becomes eternally damned. It was a blood covenant sort of thing, selling oneself to the devil, branding oneself with his mark.

Alexia had made up her mind to fight till... well, till this whole thing ended. Every single one of them in the basement had destroyed his or her mobile androids, neither could they go outside anymore because drones, surveillance satellites and CCTVs had been programmed to spot those without the microchip.

"We can't hide here forever. We'll starve," Lydia pointed out after the tension of being caught had died out.

Alexia paced. It was true. After hiding in their 'Adullam cave' for over one month, she knew, much to her chagrin, that their supplies were depleting fast.

"Alexia!" her sister shouted, shaking her out of her thoughts. "I'm talking to you. I don't want to die." Lydia was wailing and pounding at her sister's shoulder.

Everyone was sober. The siblings were crying.

"No one will die," Alexia told her sister though she knew that was cold comfort as death would soon become enticing. Unfortunately and fortunately, Alexia thought, death has gone on a retreat for now.

She thought hard. Then it dawned on her. If this was a basement, shouldn't there be an underground tunnel leading out? Maybe they could somehow reach other fugitive believers and maybe, just maybe they had food and proper plan for surviving the next seven torturous years of tribulation.

She went over to the dead-end brick wall in the basement and ran her hand over it. It's surface was smooth but just at the left hand side of the edge, her hand struck something. A lever was opened a slight inch.

"Eureka!"

Everyone scrambled towards her trying to take a look. She tugged at it but it was as stiff as ice from all the years of abandonment.

Kevin, the man with the hefty build, offered to try. He pulled and pulled but it didn't budge.

"There's surely a tunnel over there. We'll just have to break down the wall," he said in a deep but hopeful voice.

"And do you know where this leads?" Lydia asked, a frown etched on her face. When she was greeted with silence, she began ranting out loud again, "This is crazy. We have no food, no supplies. We'll all die like a bunch of crowded rats!"

Alexia looked at her sister in horror. What had her sweet little Lydia turned into?

"Stop it!" Alexia retorted. "Tomorrow we'll take up this project. We're bringing down that wall. If it's our only hope of escape and survival, then we're going to hold on to that thin piece of thread. Do I make myself clear?" Lydia was stunned to silence.

"And since we were too stubborn and wise in our eyes to acknowledge Jesus while we had the chance, I guess you know we're going to save ourselves with our own blood."

Alexia heard her sister's snort as others grunted and nodded solemnly in agreement.

They slept without eating anything. Rationing food was very important at this stage.

~~~~~~~~~~

Alexia was awakened abruptly from a nightmare by the sounds of rummaging and scattering overhead. In the far distance she could hear the siren of police vehicles and the blast of their Public Address System.

Others awakened. Their eyes were filled with alarm. She turned to wake up her sister who she knew was a deep sleeper. Alas, she wasn't there! Alexia's heart almost lunged out her mouth when she discovered her sister was gone. There couldn't have been a second rapture, could there?

Before she even had the chance to voice out her fear and ask the others about her sister's whereabout, they heard impact coming upon the basement door.

The door flew open and armed robots came in and carted them into a van.

All through the journey, she kept praying in fear, not sure if God still heeded prayers at such a time as this. Where is Lydia?

They got to a destination few minutes later. The place terrified her. It was the company wherein she worked before the rapture took place. Nephert Telecom Corporation Ltd.

They took them to the topmost floor and chained them to the ceiling in an empty and dark room.

"I'm sorry," she cried, feeling bad that they were discovered so soon and just when they had hoped to uncover that tunnel.

"We're sorry too," Kevin, and the others echoed dejectedly.

She looked at Kevin. He would have made a wonderful husband if things hadn't turned out this way. He was nice and repentant and strong.

If only I had listened to Mom. If only I had swallowed my anger against God and gone on trusting him. Oh Lydia, where on earth are you?

The door opened.

Someone put on a white center light that shone on a single chair underneath its glare. In came Mr Nephert, primp, sleek and with a triumphant smirk twitching his chiseled jaw. He had been her secret idol, her model. But right now, he looked nothing but evil embodied to Alexia.

"Well, well, well. See who we have here."

"Let us go, Nephert," Alexia demanded, her rage giving her a boost of courage.

"Not so soon, sweetie pie. I want you to meet someone special."

He snapped his finger and into the light came Lydia, catwalking.

Alexia's eyes widened larger than saucers and her mouth dropped to the ground. All that blooming courage wilted the moment she saw her sister, if she could call this entity smiling wickedly at her her sister. She was... different. And it wasn't just the fact that she wore black leather pants and jacket rhyming with Nephert's black themed suit. It was the aura she carried.

"Did you miss me?"

"Lydia!"

"Oh puh-leeze. That name sucks. Call me Linda henceforth." She strolled seductively to Nephert and kissed him erotically.

Alexia shut her eyelids and felt like puking. Had they brainwashed her sister?

"Lydia, snap out of it. What has come over you?"

"The truth, Alexia. The truth," Lydia-Linda screamed. She was staring face-to-face at Alexia.

"The truth is that God is to blame for all this. He killed Dad. He took Mom away. And he doesn't give one d*mn care about what happens to us."

"Lydia..." Alexia was crying now. Crying that her sister had walked into this with her two feet. She wasn't hexed. Had her bitterness grown so deep that she could curse and utter blasphemies?

"Don't call me that! If I were you, I'd willingly and painlessly accept the microchip."

Alexia gasped as she watched her sister raise up her right hand and show her a small inconspicuous dot in the mid-lower part of her palm.

"It didn't hurt one bit. Just like a prick of a needle. And guess what, Nephert has promised that I'll be his special girl for coming out and telling him where to find more of the fugitives."

"No no no! Lydia you didn't!"

"Oh yes, I did and I don't regret it one bit. Now I feel united with the entire universe. You don't know what great privileges and power this teeny-tiny chip brings. Will you accept it willingly?"

"Never!"

"Then so be it."

A robot came and unlatched Alexia's chain. He shoved her to the center chair, forced her to sit in it and then tied her painfully with metal chains to the chair

Nephert came towards her and leaned into her face. She saw his wicked grin and his perusal. He was looking her over like she was a piece of candy to be devoured.

"Too bad. I always thought you were a smart one." And then he whispered into her left ear, "It would have been much better to taste you instead of your teenage sister."

She glowered at him. She could have as well bored two laser holes in his forehead. It took her strongest retraint not to spit on his face and lash a cuss-word whip on his smug smile.

Upon the signal of Nephert, a switch was turned on and Alexia didn't know what came over her.

It felt like waves of fire and electricity and pricks all at once coursing through her blood path.

She let out a blood-curdling shriek and wail as she heard the door of the room shut at the exit of her sister.

Lydia. Betrayed. Torture. Pain... were the last coherent thoughts her mind could form before she passed out.