Floor 6 At 0444

Rain streaked down the passenger window in wandering tracts, distorting the world beyond into liquid shadows. The windshield wipers groaned with every pass—an endless, squeaking rhythm like a slow exorcism. Staff Sergeant Solomon Reaves, last of his line, sat hunched in the passenger seat, eyes vacant, mumbling a spiral of fractured scripture.

“Hail Mary, full of grace… the Lord is with thee… Our Father, who art in heaven… For God so loved the world… I am the messenger…”

The words bled into each other—half prayers, half code. Some in broken Latin. Others in forgotten dialects scraped from deep operations. His mouth moved like it was chasing breath that wasn’t there.

From the driver’s seat, Chief Warrant Officer 5 Randal “Preach” Story kept his gaze on the wet asphalt ahead, jaw clenched, eyes steady—like a man steering through purgatory with a half-dead angel beside him.

“Where are you, Sol?” he asked, low and steady. “Better yet... who are you right now?”

No answer. Only more murmured verses. More divine static.

“I am Sol—the messenger. Sent to spread the good word. He is coming. Hail Mary, full of grace... The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want...”

Streetlights blurred across the windshield—long ribbons of color warping into spectral halos. Preach accelerated through the back streets just outside Fort Bragg, sliding past red-bricked war bungalows and long-forgotten safehouses like ghosts giving directions.

He pointed out a house mid-turn.

“Blue one on the left. If you ever need to disappear—again—that’s where you go.”

Sol didn’t blink. Didn’t nod. Just kept rocking gently to the rhythm of the rain. Pupils dilated, jaw loose. His eyes were locked on the right-side wiper blade, watching it sway like a pendulum on judgment day.

“Get behind me, Satan,” he hissed, thrusting a hand toward the windshield. “For I have not come to punish—but to save the world.”

Then, as if the flood broke and memory surged through him, Sol’s expression shifted. His cheeks tightened with grief; eyes wet—not from rain.

“I’m sorry, Preach,” he whispered. “I messed up.”

Preach didn’t look over. Just adjusted his grip on the wheel and replied:

“No, Sol. You’re not messed up. You’re not compromised… You’re overexposed.”

Preach’s pickup rolled to a stop outside the Veterans Affairs hospital. A jagged fork of lightning split the sky above, illuminating the building in a wash of ghost-light just as the wind screamed and the rain came down like judgment. Above the entrance, the word EMERGENCY burned crimson against the night. A bold red cross flickered erratically above it—flickered like a failing heartbeat—as Preach unloaded Sol.

He moved quickly, with grim efficiency—half fireman carry, half drag, like he was hauling a wounded apostle off the battlefield of Revelation. Sol’s boots scraped across the tile inside the ER doors, each step dragging like the foot of a crucifix scraping the cobbled streets of Jerusalem.

Preach reached into his coat and flashed a card—black, encoded, and not standard issue.

Embossed on its surface: a fish, a Star of David, and a crescent moon—the sacred trifecta. A relic of black operations so deep, even God wouldn’t ask questions.

He often told the boys,

“This card won’t get you through the gates of Hell... but it’ll get you over the wall.”

The intake specialist jolted upright from his ergonomic throne, eyes catching the flash of the card. His mouth moved with old weariness.

“Another angel, Preach?”

Preach didn’t blink.

“No. This one’s a prophet.”

Sol barely registered the motion. Leather bindings snapped around his wrists. A silver buckle bit into his ankle. Another into his thigh. He thrashed as they secured him to the gurney, shouting into the overhead lights:

“By the time the crow cries, you will have denied me thrice! In the beginning was the Word—and the Word was God!”

The trauma team rolled him fast down the corridor—flashing lights above, some buzzing, some crackling out, others fading into darkness like stars snuffed out mid-prayer. As they turned the corner, Sol caught a glimpse of an elevator. Its doors parted like revelation. Stamped in heavy blue metal above the frame: 6

Sol writhed against the restraints. Foam bubbled at the corners of his lips.

“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned! Man does not live by bread alone!”

The gurney clattered through the elevator and out again. He saw her then—just out of the corner of his left eye. Pam? No... just a nurse. She looked through him like he was no one. Like he’d never existed.

“Preach,” Sol rasped, “it’s okay. I’m willing to pay for your sins... Thy kingdom come; thy will be done…”

Preach placed a firm hand on his shoulder. The warmth stilled him.

“Calm down, son,” he said, voice like steady thunder. “This is your resurrection.”

The words stretched as Sol’s senses unraveled. Darkness bled in from the edges of the world.

A tunnel of light surrounded by black narrowed to a single pinhole of flame. His soul shimmered at the edge of reason. The last words to pass through his mind were not his own—but spoken in the quiet voice of surrender.

“Forgive them, Father… It is finished.”

The darkness swallowed Sol whole—like a whale devouring Jonah. Then came light. Streaks of it. Flashing beams that cut across his vision from left to right, then reversed like a reel unspooling. The rays shifted, twisted—morphing into faces. Family. Friends. And then: strangers. Victims. Shadows. Some familiar, others long forgotten—no enemies, just souls left behind.

Sol raised his right hand, pressing thumb and forefinger against the corners of his eyes, though they were still shut. Something clicked in his body—a release. No straps. No restraints.

His eyes flew open. He was free.

He sat bolt upright, breathing hard. His fingers brushed the inside of his elbow, the crook of his forearm. There—a tiny puncture. Red. Agitated. A needle’s kiss. His lips moved on instinct, chanting in a low rhythm—a blend of Latin and Thai:

“That no man might buy or sell, save he had the mark... where the sun is darkened, and the moon turns to blood...before the great and terrible day of the Lord…”

His head turned slowly—east to west—scanning the room. The walls were painted a pale blue, so dull it read more like gray—that cold, institutional hue meant to sedate emotion. The room itself was the size of a holding cell, maybe a foot or two wider. No medical machines. No beeping monitors. Just the twin bed he sat on... and a single, empty chair facing him.

He slid to the edge, swung his legs down—and froze. His left foot brushed something soft.

Startled, he looked down— a body lay curled at the foot of the bed, wrapped in blankets, barely stirring. The figure inhaled, exhaled—a rhythmic rise and fall. Then it moved. She rose, slowly, unbothered by his touch. A woman. Dark-skinned. Skin like smoothed onyx, a shade just lighter than midnight.

Sol stood with her—unspoken synchronization. They moved in a slow circle between the bed and the metal chair, studying each other. No threat. No panic. Just... recognition. They were strangers. And yet—there was kinship in the air.

“Who are you?” Sol asked, his voice gravelled but calm. Confusion padded his expression, not quite distress—but close.

The woman didn’t speak. She simply whimpered, raised her hand, and pointed toward the southern wall—where a massive number 6 was stenciled in faded blue paint. Beneath it: FLOOR in block letters. A voice echoed from beyond the doorway.

“You’re awake, Sol. Good.

We’ve been waiting for you. I see you’ve met Orah. She doesn’t interact with anyone—ever.

But she insisted on sleeping in your room.”

A nurse stepped into view—Pam. The one who injected him. The one who, once upon a time, had been his Staff Sergeant.

“Pam,” Sol said, rising fully now. “Where am I?”

She smiled softly.

“You’re safe.”

Then, tilting her head:

“How do you know my name?”

“Quit playing,” he muttered. “I know you.”

“No, Sol,” she said with practiced care. “We just met. I’ve never seen you before.”

She turned and stepped out into the hallway. Sol followed, uncertain but drawn forward.

Orah trailed behind him—never more than three feet from his side.

“...For indeed our God is a consuming fire...” Sol whispered, his voice rising.

“...And the dead were judged from the things written in the books...”

The corridor was oblong, and widened in the middle. The walls were barren, No posters, no mirrors, no windows. Several doors dotted

He stepped through the doorway into the corridor of Floor 6—a chamber of haunted minds and flickering truths. Behind every door, patient souls stirred—men and women with faces marked by missions they didn’t return from, faith they couldn’t explain, waiting for a message only he could deliver.