Missing the Bus

Jules Tan tightened his grip on his notebook, the faint lines on the page trembling as the chaos around him unfolded. The streets of Chicago, his once-busy stomping grounds, were unrecognizable. Cars stood abandoned, their doors ajar and engines silent. Stores had been looted or hastily boarded up. Screams echoed in the distance, mingling with frantic prayers and bursts of sobbing. 

Jules knew better than to stand out in the open too long. The world had changed overnight—no, in the blink of an eye. He darted into an alley, ducking into the shadows as he struggled to piece his thoughts together. 

He opened his notebook and flipped back to the last interview he’d done, just days ago. Pastor Greg Warren. Jules had sat in his quaint office, cluttered with theological tomes and a mug emblazoned with “Be Still and Know.” Pastor Warren had insisted the Great Disappearances were coming, preaching to Jules with the kind of zeal that made him fidget in his seat. 

“The Rapture isn’t a fairy tale, Jules,” Pastor Warren had said, his eyes steady but kind. “It’s the truth. And when it happens, there will be no room for doubt. Billions will vanish, and what comes after—” 

Jules had scoffed at the time, interrupting him mid-sentence. “With all due respect, Pastor, do you hear yourself? Billions of people, gone in an instant? Just poof? This is the 21st century. We’ve moved past such medieval thinking.” 

Jules could still see Pastor Warren’s knowing smile, hear the parting words he'd dismissed with irritation: “I pray you’ll remember this conversation, Jules. I pray you’ll be ready.” 

Now, with Pastor Warren gone—disappeared, along with countless others—Jules knew. 

“I should’ve known better,” he muttered to himself, staring at the frantic scrawl in his notes. The dates. The prophecies. The warnings he'd brushed off with the confidence of a man who thought science explained it all. 

But science didn’t explain the world’s top cardiologists vanishing from operating rooms mid-surgery or air traffic controllers disappearing from towers, plunging planes from the sky. Science couldn’t account for what every remaining person described: loved ones dissolving into thin air before their eyes. 

Jules had covered tragedy after tragedy in his journalism career—mass shootings, earthquakes, pandemics. He’d thought he’d seen humanity at its worst. Now he realized how naïve that was. 

He’d missed the bus. The Great Disappearances—Rapture, as many had called it—was only the beginning. 

Jules had grown up in America, but his parents, devout followers of Chinese Communist ideology, had ensured their son stayed far from anything resembling religion. “It’s a crutch,” his father used to say. “The opium of the people.” 

That mantra had been ingrained in Jules’s mind from a young age, reinforced by debates at university and his own sense of intellectual superiority. When his neighbors invited him to church, he declined. When his Christian friends offered him Bibles, he gave them polite refusals. Even the Bible-thumping aunt at family reunions couldn’t sway him; her words felt like outdated superstitions at odds with Jules’s sleek, modern world. 

Now, he found himself wondering if she’d been right all along. 

“Hey! Over here!” 

A man’s voice jolted Jules from his thoughts. He turned to see a small group huddled behind a set of overturned trash bins. They waved him over urgently, their faces pale with fear. 

Jules hesitated, then jogged toward them, ducking behind the makeshift barricade. A middle-aged woman with a tear-streaked face clutched a rosary, her lips moving in a whispered prayer. A young man, barely in his twenties, held a crowbar defensively. 

“You alone?” the man with the crowbar asked. 

Jules nodded, catching his breath. “Yeah. What’s going on here?” 

“You haven’t heard?” The man’s voice was bitter. “This isn’t just about the Disappearances. They’re saying Israel’s surrounded.” 

Jules blinked. “Surrounded?” 

“The armies are already gathering,” the woman interjected. Her voice cracked. “My husband’s—he was—” She sobbed into her hands, unable to continue. 

Jules’s heart sank. He’d seen the headlines flashing across every remaining media outlet. Israel. The epicenter of biblical prophecy. He’d written it off as conspiracy theory nonsense—until now. 

The young man nodded grimly. “They say the UN Secretary General is stepping in to broker a peace deal.” 

Kasimir Smirnov. The name sent a chill down Jules’s spine. He remembered the growing admiration for the charismatic politician. Smirnov’s speeches, filled with promises of unity, had captivated the world. But some Christian friends had whispered warnings about him, claiming he was more than he seemed. 

Jules thought back to something Pastor Warren had mentioned during their interview: Daniel 9:27. “He will confirm a covenant with many for one week, but in the middle of the week he will bring an end to the sacrifice and offering.” 

Jules had dismissed it as irrelevant at the time. Now, those words rang in his ears. 

“It’s really happening,” he muttered. 

The young man gave him a sharp look. “What’s happening?” 

Jules swallowed. “The end times. The Christians—they’ve been saying this would happen for decades. The disappearances. The wars. The rise of a global leader. It’s all in their prophecy.” 

For the first time, the others didn’t look at him like he was crazy. Their wide eyes showed recognition. 

“Then what do we do?” the young man asked, his voice low and trembling. 

Jules didn’t have an answer. He stayed with the group that night, holed up in the shell of an old convenience store. As they scavenged food and whispered theories about what came next, Jules’s mind churned. 

What did he believe? He wasn’t ready to accept everything he’d been taught to dismiss. But neither could he ignore the glaring truth before him: Pastor Warren, his Christian friends, even that Bible-thumping aunt—they’d been right. He’d been wrong. 

In the middle of the night, unable to sleep, Jules pulled out the small Bible he’d taken from Pastor Warren’s office after the disappearances. It had been sitting on the desk, almost as if waiting for him. 

He flipped to the bookmarks, passages underlined in ink. Isaiah 17:1. Ezekiel 38. Revelation 13. Each verse painted an eerily accurate picture of the world outside. 

His hand trembled as he traced the pages. 

“I should’ve known better,” he whispered again, his voice breaking. 

Tears streamed down his face as he thought about all the times people had tried to reach him. All the times he’d laughed, shrugged them off, or turned them away. Now they were gone, and he was here, left to face whatever came next. 

He thought of Pastor Warren again, of the prayers he used to scoff at. For the first time in his life, Jules considered the possibility that maybe—just maybe—there was a God. 

And maybe He was still listening. 

The next morning, Jules decided he couldn’t stay. The others begged him to reconsider, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that he needed to go—to Israel, to where everything seemed to be converging. 

He packed what little he had, took a deep breath, and stepped back into the unknown. 

The sky above was a patchwork of angry clouds and unrelenting sun. As Jules walked, his mind raced with questions: Was there still hope for him? Could he find redemption, even after all this? 

The answers weren’t clear. 

But for the first time, Jules Tan wanted to find out.