Armageddon

Armageddon

It had been thousands of years since that first triumphant tribe won the Battle of Megiddo—when they crushed their neighbors, drove off a flock of sheep, and proudly carried away fourteen tent pegs from the defeated chieftain’s tent.

A little less than thousands years later, the Warriors of Israel had blocked the Egyptians rushing to aid their allies in Mesopotamia. That time, not even the tent pegs were left of them—but the Egyptians arrived too late regardless. So some thought it wasn’t all for nothing. They even recorded it in the Book as The Last Battle of Humankind.

And now, that Last Battle had finally begun.

Civilians had long since fled. The locals, wearing blue-and-white and black-white-and-green chevrons, pressed together in fear, hoping to find some protection from each other, despite being enemies just hours before. For on that battlefield unfolded something the world had never seen before... The Final Battle of Humankind.

The allies of both the blue-and-whites and the white-and-greens had already packed up and left, knowing there was no glory to be found here.

The two remaining armies crept toward each other. They had spent their rockets, their mortar shells, their drones; and when they closed to firing range, their grenades and bullets as well. Yet there were still so many of them. So now they met hand to hand, with only knives, rifle-butts, makeshift clubs—and their teeth and nails.

The madness of battle erased insignias. Men with opposing chevrons fought back-to-back; men with matching ones tore each other apart.

“Let’s just hope they don’t nuke us next!” shouted a sergeant with a tricolor patch to a sixteen-year-old boy wearing two colors, whom he tried to shield.

At that moment, a berserker of uncertain allegiance caved in the sergeant’s skull with a rifle butt. The boy, enraged, jammed his rifle’s barrel into the attacker’s groin, then drove it upward into his chest. But before he could move again, the field was engulfed in a flood of blinding white light—the light of a nuclear explosion.

Nothing could be seen, nothing heard—only the all-consuming glare and the heat rising from every direction.

Had there been an onlooker, they might have seen both armies crumble into ash, settling on the blood-soaked earth.

Then, suddenly, the light was gone.

And the soldiers found themselves standing on a green plain, among gentle hills under a clear blue sky.

Beside them stood their fallen comrades, alive once more.

They looked around, dazed, until a thunderous voice rolled from the heavens:

“Great Warriors! You have fulfilled your duty. Your place now... is in Paradise!”

Confused, they turned in all directions, trying to understand.

Then a towering, pale-skinned blond in digital camouflage raised his bloodied tactical knife high in one hand, and in the other, a crimson-smeared rifle—long since useless as a weapon, but perfect as a neanderthal club.

His chevron once had some blue, though the rest was now all stained by blood entirely red.

“Valhalla!” he roared.

And the savage battle began anew.