Intro: This is the story of the rapture. Not the zombie apocalypse, not the version where the aliens come and take us off to who-knows-where or kill us all in our sleep. This is the Biblical account of the apocalypse, and if you can't handle the truth you can't read this story.

Disclaimer: I do not share the views of the main character.

Vanishing Souls

September 13, 2015.

I sit by my grandmother's hospital bed in the white-washed room full of flowers that she had been situated in so very long ago. First low blood pressure, then fainting spells; it all led up to one thing or another, this and that critical condition blah blah blah. You know old people; one fall down the stairs and they're in the drink for good. When this is all over, I'm sure the hospital bill will be atrocious. Out of all the crazy things going on in the world right now, this in addition was not at all helpful. At least she's getting better; I guess all these vitamins and stuff they're giving her are worth the money after all. Not that I'm overjoyed, she always was a crazy old lady anyway. Not one of those kind, plump grannies who are baking cookies constantly like you read about, but a quiet, serious elder who is always staying up late reading devotionals and such; A regular old Bible thumper you could say. My name is Britt, and I'm not the nicest person you'll find on your block. My Mom has been worried sick about Gram for however many months she's been in this stinking place, and she's finally starting to make some headway, so I suppose with Mom happier it's not all thumbs down. I, on the other hand am not currently having the greatest time; my homework isn't getting anywhere near done. It's so stifling you can hardly breathe, and all the flowers are setting off my allergies like crazy. I whip out my iPhone quick. Just checking my inbox won't hurt ... oh. There's a text from Logan, the boyfriend I'm not supposed to have. That's why him asking me for a date tonight is a problem. I send a quick answer; Sorry, doing homework. This isn't especially true, since I haven't gotten ANY of it done in the hour and a half I've been toiling away here. Yep, nothing's going on here. I carefully gather my workbooks and pencils, stacking notebooks into a precariously balancing pile and putting a pen in-between my teeth, delicately taking my elbow weight off of the bed so as not to wake my sleeping grandmother. I nudge the chair I've been using with my foot so that it scoots across the white tile floor and under the bare desk where it belongs, and start to make my way out of the room when I'm stopped by a frail but resolute voice behind me.

"Britt?"

I take my time to turn around and plaster a smile on my face, answering in as sickly sweet a voice as I can manage.

"Yes, Gram?"

To my surprise, she sat up in the hospital bed and landed me with a level gaze which knocked the fake smile right off my face. She must really be on the mend.

"Don't play stupid with me, Britt. I know how you feel about me, about all of this." She motioned with her eyes to the worn Bible on the bedside table. I open my mouth to give her a smug remark but she cuts me off.

"I don't have time for anything you've got to say," She said, her voice surprisingly clear. I stand in the best relaxed pose I can manage with an eyebrow arched, hoping she finishes before my arms give out and my books fall. Her level gaze was as calm and piercing as ever and she spoke one last time, authoritatively. "God has a message for you, Britt, and it won't wait for whatever snarky comment you've got coming. Sin is like a prison cell with the door wide open. It's comfortable, you can't think of a good reason to leave, until the door slams shut."

This resonated eerily with me, and I felt that I would never forget it, even if I wanted to, which I do. I again open my mouth to say something smart, like; "But what if I zip-tie the door open?" Or even; "'Zat so?" But I found I couldn't reply how I wanted to. Besides, she laid down after speaking with this weird smile on her face as if satisfied, leaving no opportunity to reply, so I just squeaked out

"Whatever you say, Gram." And made a dash for the door, planning on as quick an escape as possible in case she planned to proclaim any other creepy proverb, but there was a definite feeling that her mission was accomplished. The words "Out of time" pop into my head.

I just make it out of the room when a loud beeping noise sounds from behind. Thinking I've triggered some alarm, I turn towards the sound when suddenly the lights flicker on and off briefly before shutting off entirely. The beeping sound shuts off with the light.

"Ok, that's weird." I say under my breath. A number of things pop into my head simultaneously. The stock markets have been dropping like crazy, maybe they ran out of bills to keep the lights on, but that's stupid. It's strangely dark outside the fourth story window for this time of day. Was that a small tremor I just felt? I get a weird feeling, like I'm being looked at, examined very closely, and then passed over. But before I can think of something rational like the solar lantern Mom always makes me carry in my backpack, the lights flicker back on. And with them comes a steady, loud beep sound from directly in front of me. In a flash I realize my grandmother's heart monitor just flat-lined. My eyes immediately dart to the bed, and it's empty. My hearts skips a beat, and the next few moments seem to happen in slow motion.

My fingers let go, and my heavy books fall to the ground with a muffled thud, sliding into a haphazard pile. The white lights seem blinding now, the white tile, the white sheets, everything is white. Except the flowers, which used to be setting off my allergies, but I forget all that now. My breath comes slowly, it's so loud, almost as loud as my heart beating in my ears. Where did she go?

"Gram?"

Silence, my voice echoes in the room like I'm outside myself, hearing the feeble calls that are somehow my own and yet so unfamiliar. The fear in my voice, it shouldn't be there. I'm only fifteen, too young to d-d-ie. Am I dreaming?

"Gram? ….. Gram!"

"Gram, where are you? Come on, this isn't funny anymore."

I whip around, this way and that, scanning the room with frightened eyes, my brown hair flying in my face. My hands are pale and shaking but I make my way toward the bed, slowly, almost zombie-like.

I reach out a hand and throw back the covers, looking down with almost unseeing eyes. There's her hospital gown, as flat as if someone just ironed it. There's the IV, the exposed plastic tube dripping slowly into a gathering circle on the sheets. Her finger-clamp which was monitoring her heart is lying there on the bed, empty. This is so impossible. All of it.

Suddenly, I snap out of it. Just as quickly as if I pulled my head out of water, I'm back into the real world, the real me. No more dream-walkers here.

"Ok, so this is creepy."

None of this is supposed to be happening. Unless my granny just took a really fast bathroom break, there's something very wrong here.

Mom had a bad feeling about today, she was uneasy about letting me leave the house. I'm starting to wonder if maybe she had a point there.

My grandmother just disappeared, (kinda funny since it's grandparent's day,) There's not even a silhouette, so no magic rings in use here. Actually, the sheets looked like someone had just made the bed.

Either this is one ninja-fast old lady or something really strange just happened.

I don't waste any time quickly going over and kicking open the bathroom door; the room's empty. Nothing more, nothing less than I'd expected.

As much as part of me wants to spend all day searching uselessly around this one room, by now I can tell there are other things going on behind me in the hospital. Guess I won't be calling this one in at the information desk. By now my Britt-sarcasm sensors have kicked in, and are taking over the situation. Sure, later I'll have a major freak-out, but I don't have time for that right now.

It seems like a few seconds tick past, a few living heartbeats before the entire hospital erupts into frantic chaos. People are screaming, and running to and fro accompanied by nurses in and out of rooms, some rushing down the hallway toward the elevators, which are going to be harder to get to than I had originally anticipated. Multitudes of anxious voices come over the speakers in every corner of the hallway, telling people to converge in the lobby, stay calm, and directing nurses into all sorts of short-staffed places and shouting protocols. My one thought is to get out of here, and home. If there's any one person who can explain this, it's my Mom. She's really into this prophecy stuff. Not that I don't have a feeling what all of this is, I'm just really hoping I'm not right.

A gap opens up in the crowd of hysterical people, and I make run for it. My school-books abandoned and totally forgotten behind me, I make it to the elevator wall and take a deep breath, then start pushing buttons. Really fast. When it comes up, there's a woman looking frantically around, a small article of boys' clothing grasped tightly in her hands. She looks at me with wild, sad eyes and mouths where's my son? Fine then, the stairs it is. I just happen to be all the way on the fourth floor, but an elevator is about the last place I'd want to be if another power outage happens; especially if I'm stuck with a desperate psycho. The stairs are empty, and that makes me feel safer, although I'm afraid I'm going to have to run the block home, God knows my bike is probably stolen. I'm starting to be really glad of those gym classes I took, because four flights of stairs at a full run is very tiring. I finally reach the bottom steps with a burst of speed and stagger to a stop, gripping the railing and breathing hard. I collect myself and glance sharply at my surroundings, assessing everything. I'm in the lobby now, and it looks like I've just beat the crowd that both understood and actually obeyed the nurses over the speakers. I've got an inch, I'll take a mile. I take a deep breath and make another dash across the spacious room. There are still a lot of confused people, but none of them are directly in my way so I take the shot. I'm almost to the doors when a large tremor shakes the ground, bringing my running feet to a skidding, stumbling halt. A few glass windows break, more screams go up and a fake potted plant tumbles over. I stagger backwards, trying to keep my balance as the earth shakes beneath my feet, then almost fall forward on my knees. As soon as I get my footing again I'm running forward, until a massive letter R comes crashing down right in front of me from the "Robert Packer Hospital" sign above. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, I live in "middle-of-nowhere-ville" in upstate New York, on a street no-one can pronounce. Small town, block from the hospital, you know, the perks. We don't get many quakes around here, but lately, the New Madrid Fault has been affecting everything. I was born in this hospital, and I have no intention of dying in it. I skirt quickly around the fallen letter, pausing to look skeptically up at the others before finally making it to the doors. The woman at the desk shouts at me not to leave, like I'm going to listen to her? I have no intention of getting stuck under whatever quarantine they're going to enforce here, given that this phenomena is not happening everywhere else, which is something I'm dying to find out. I choose the side door instead of the revolving one and break out into the cool evening air. Freedom. I stand still and take a breath, resting a hand on the wide strap of my backpack before opening my eyes and taking in the unbelievable scene before me. Getting home, is gonna be a lot harder than I expected.

The End

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Of Chapter 1

That is, if you ask for it

*gasp*the suspense

Outro: I started this story quite a while ago, sometime in early 2014, far before the new "Left Behind" movie came out. This came out WAY later than I intended, like, a year late. ACreativeHobbit's rapture story gave me the idea. (Apologies for the random switching of tenses.) I represent here an even earlier conception of pre-trib. (Which I'm pretty sure is only going to be something major happening.) This is my hope, not my adamant opinion, as we cannot know for sure, only prepare. The fact that nothing major was happening prior to the rapture in this story is also not my opinion, so I suppose that it could have been, but wasn't mentioned. As we cannot know exactly what the rapture will be like, I don't mean to mislead anyone. This story will be continued by request only.

When everything falls apart, don't get left behind.