End of Days in the Eyes of an Outsider.

A crusade had begun. And instead of succeeding, it brought down the organization that was calling for
it. It began with an international offensive lead by a variety of Islamic radical groups. A convoy was
attacked on Indian soil by a group of soldiers dressed as Pakistanis. Rockets were fired from Albania
into Macedonia and Serbia. Georgia started a massive crackdown on Inguishetians in the northern part
of their country, and, as a magnum opus of all the attacks, there was the bomb in Jerusalem. It was the
first nuke to go off in the war, and definitely not the last. In fact, as I write this, there are still nukes
going off in some battlefield quite distant from here. The Knesset was what I think was the name of the
target in Jerusalem. Kinda made sense. But every newspaper, website, and television station was filled
with images of churches and synagogues on fire. The events led a group of lone wolves to further
induce panic in the populace through attacking a hospital, several churches, and a middle school
somewhere in Iowa, or something like that. I never read the news much. And as I saw events unfold
around me, I felt assured that I was right for not trusting the media. When these attacks had taken place,
they had threatened the most “Holy” of sites in the Christian and Jewish world. These sites included the
Church of the Holy Sepulcher, and the site of the Western Wall.

Across the nation, there was a call to arms against Islam, and against all forms of declared evil.
Preachers and Pastors hopped on the bandwagon. It was Nationalism, and a new form of religious
radicalism which swept the nation most notably. The first changes were of the politicians in power. The
“politically correct” individuals in office, which I must sadly say, were the ones responsible for the
Nation's being caught off guard by such individuals, were quickly ousted from office through armed
insurrection or voluntary resignation. People went on their soapboxes to tell the masses everything that
they wanted to hear. The nation's youth went in droves to the nearest recruiting stations. Those that
couldn't join formed militias and gangs that paraded up and down the streets.

A holy war against Islam and Jihad was what was on everyone's mind. Those that had no god to fight
for used America as their solace when they were jumping out of C-130's and running out of their
armored personnel carriers. It got even more interesting when the nukes began to go off. One went off
in Pakistan, where the majority of the fighting had been taking place. The detonation led to a limited
exchange of weapons between India and Pakistan, while China began to move in to get its share of the
fighting. The United Nations ultimately had no power to stop this conflict, because the people with the
guns were unwilling to listen to a bunch of champagne socialists in Europe talk about ethics. The world
had ultimately become drunk with blood. The countries of Europe did not go to war with each other,
but rather broke down into civil war. Germany had it the worst. Russia managed to stay relatively
intact, but it was more due to a last minute change in the Russian constitution that broke it into a
Confederation, rather than a centralized “Federation”. Our country finally reached the breaking point,
when the preachers preached to their congregations.

It had eventually become a war of survival for “Christianity”. The Pope finally gave permission to
scores of individuals to load into boats with their guns to go and fight in the irradiated ruins of the holy
land of Israel. This was now an official Holy War. It was endorsed by virtually all aspects of the
Christian church, except for the Quakers, really. Congress held a vote for a draft, in order to take the
Religious fervor of the masses, and to control it to their own advantage. The draft passed, and many of
the Quakers, and conscientious objectors were drafted anyways, or were tried for treason. And if you
were charged with treason, which had then became a Federal crime, you were already guilty in the eyes
of the jury, and you were already guilty in the eyes of the nation. And you would be taken to your jail
cell, where the guards would announce that your execution was imminent, before shooting you. Some
county prisons were broken into, and “Patriot boards” were set up to see who was a patriot, and who
was a traitor. And in Huntsville, Texas, I know, the National Guard rolled into town to see “traitors”
hanging on every light pole on I-45 through the town.

In Texas, there were fewer patriots, thank goodness. More Christians, but definitely less patriots. No,
there had not been any attacks upon Texas in a while, and so we generally stayed to quiet. We watched
as people who had never fired a gun in their life eagerly signed their lives away in the Northern states,
while in the Southern states, you would see more of a turn to militias. We didn't really want to take
action against something that didn't affect our lives. Many Texans opted for joining the State Guard,
and the National Guard, because they knew that they could avoid being drafted into the Army itself.
And finally, when the skies of the middle east filled with smoke, dust, and radiation, there was still a
massive drive by our nation to keep fighting until there was no more Islam in general. People got tired
of just going after the dwindling numbers of Radical Islamic Militants, and began to go after all
Muslims in general. And in Israel, many of the men fighting there shot all those who didn't have a cross
around their neck, or a picture of Jesus or Mary taped to the stock of their gun.

And when the nukes were finally launched by all sides, we got to see the true colours of our own ranks.
When the kin and family members of people began to die, the tides of war quickly turned. The people
that had deposed all figures of government not ready for war, and who replaced them with Gun Toting,
Fire-and-Brimstone figures soon turned against the figures they put into power, and began to blame
them for the loss of life. Riots broke out, and there was panic in the streets of cities not yet struck with
nuclear weapons. The People rose up again, to go forth, and kill all those who they charged as killers. I
watched in my own town as the other kids grabbed their parents' pry-bars, picks, and hammers, and I
watched as they demolished the local church. And the pattern was seen across the country. The people
destroyed everything that they could blame for their problems, with Islam, Church, Government, and
Military forces taken out of the picture. There was nobody left except themselves. And from there,
people began to blame one another. The war-mongering blamed the peaceful, while the peaceful
defended themselves. The “Peaceful” fought for peace, in the end, until there was nobody left but
people like me. As an outsider to it all, I finally understood what was occurring around me. I heard the
tales of the Quakers and the Conscientious Objectors. The one's who died at the hands of the “Patriot
boards” or by their own hands knew what was to come. They knew who would be left in the end. When
the vast majority of people finally had their own way, they knew the hell that would come to Earth.

It took fear of death to finally stop the wars, but only for a moment. When each country finally
launched the entirety of their nuclear arsenals, everyone finally understood what was coming for them.
They heard the sounds of rockets in the distance. They heard them break the sound barrier. And they
themselves quaked with fear. When the sounds of the rockets had finally ceased, everything was calm. I
knew that a neighbor of mine had gone down with his family in their best sunday attire to go pray at the
gates of a military base. They knew the direction things were going. So they went to the place where
the bombs would go off, and they would no longer be forced to see society tear itself to pieces. The
skies were darkened from the soot and ash put into the atmosphere by other nukes, and by the burning
oil fields across the middle east, and in the Gulf of Mexico. There was a storm in the distance, and I
knew that its thunder had nothing to lay waste to. It was but thirty minutes until the nukes from the
other countries made their re-entry into the atmosphere. And they struck the cities with great power.
And Mankind had nearly then finished the job that it started. The heat from the explosions created
massive lightning clouds, and the water vaporized by the explosions was enough to form hundreds of
hurricanes. The clouds produced by the ash and smoke blocked out the sun, and had begun to rain
down upon the Earth.

I understood that somewhere, people were beginning to understand who the true enemy was. Their
neighbors never were neighbors. They were heaps of flesh and fat that had gone about, doing
everything for themselves. They always acted in self interest, yet never accepted it. These were the
ones that were Christian in name, but not action. These were the one's that hung each other on the side
of the roads, and rejoiced. There were two groups which I had heard of that had began to go across the
country, and had begun to kill all who cried in the streets. All those that were rooting for war, yet now
lay beaten and broken, asking their God why he had forsaken them. And these groups knew who the
enemy was. The people eventually collected together from the ruins of their old lives to combat these
groups, until everyone in those groups were nothing more than bodies riddled with bullets. But copy-
cat groups soon rose. They too saw the truth of everything around them. The war supposedly continued
in the Middle East. Nobody knew how many fought, or how many died, but the fighting continued
nonetheless.

Hurricanes continued, because the colder air from all the cities had mixed with the warmer air of Africa
and the Gulf. Those who now still remained got together to protect the remnants of the town from the
floods. And I, too, toiled outside to fill up sandbags left at the community center. We worked until we
were able to at least protect the inhabitants left in the town. While we were waiting in the center, a
woman gave birth. It was a sad thing, too. I do not believe that any parent would wish for their child to
inherit a wasteland. But she gave birth, and died from an infection nearly 3 days later. The hurricane
started to break up, and ended up going west to back where it had come from.

Many survivors from the cities had broken down. Many were now wandering in the wilderness, and
had gone back to thanking nature for their successes, rather than the Western gods. The government
went into a state of emergency, and the president was given complete power. It was still carrying out
the will of the masses (whose numbers had grown far smaller than before). People who were opposed
to the Disaster Relief programs were taken into the forests and the farmlands, where they dug holes.
When they were done, Army men shot them, didn't bother with lime, and had the next group fill in the
holes. The Government established even better ties with Moscow, and with the other major powers that
were left. Each carried out their wills within their own countries. The people called for Progressive
measures, such as building new houses, and rebuilding the old society. And when the Leaders of the
countries finally realized that bread and circuses could only entice the masses for so long, they finally
broke charity with one another, and went to watch as civil war swept each of their lands.

Now the people that were left still fought. People such as I were beginning to build a new society. We
knew that mankind could not continue fighting. We understood that peace, and thus, life, came only
through actually acting peacefully. We had nothing left to lose, and yet we had so much to gain back.
We understood that. Yet some failed to understand, and they fought against us. But we wouldn't fight
back. Why must we? We no longer had our possessions to fight over. We were back to the state we had
been in tens of thousands of years before. We were now nothing but a pack of apes upon the surface of
a jagged rock, and we were speeding through space around a giant ball of fire at nearly 67,000 miles
per hour. We could not fight anymore. We just simply worked together to help one another, because it
was the only way to survive, now.

I know not how long we shall have to do this. But I look forward to the future. We have nothing to fear,
now. We have no such thing as a society trying to keep itself together for its own sake. We are now
simply people that act for the benefit of each other. We no longer have anything to fight over. One
church isn't battling another church, but instead, it is man who now understands his role in life. And it
is man who understands how to fulfill his role in life. And the only way to fulfill such a role is to
continue living. The peaceful, and those that did nothing through the fighting, yet now remained were
who began to rebuild. And I know not how long it will take to rebuild, but I know that society and
mankind will never be the same. We may never reach the point of war again for another thousand years
or so. And I hope that we do not ever reach that point again. Society killed nearly entire societies
simply through the virtue of killing itself. Any society which may have formed after the collapse of old
society cannot, now. And thank goodness, too. The mentally and spiritually strong at last succeeded
over the mentally and spiritually weak. And now the few that remain are those who have gone through
the entire hell wrought upon the planet and on humanity by itself. The few that remain had never
changed from who they had been, but shall now have children who shall act as their parents. And those
children shall inherit the earth, now. Those children shall be like the first men upon the Earth, and shall
know no suffering from their fellow man, but shall only know the suffering brought to them through
their own actions, and through nature itself. And who can complain of that? Why, those that could
complain are gone now.