I will bring your offspring from the east,

And from the west I will gather you.

ISAIAH 43:5

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It was a bright, sunny afternoon in Nebraska. The streets were full to the brim with cars, the sidewalks crammed with pedestrians. Although threats loomed in both the east and the west, the people of North Platte, Nebraska, continued their everyday life without a care in the world.

Of course, just because they were oblivious didn't render the threats nonexistent. If anyone was just a little more observant, they would notice the wildlife had gone utterly silent. No birds singing, no squirrels chattering.

Then,

Clip-clop.

Clip-clop.

Clip-clop.

Two horses marched down the street, side-by-side. One was pitch-black, and the other ashen. Atop them, their riders stared regally ahead, as if the other people meant nothing to them. A few people gawked at the odd sight, and some were even taking videos and photos.

Then the group turned a corner and vanished.

One bystander wondered if he had imagined it, and when he looked down to view the video, he found it was nowhere to be seen.

Later, girl with sleek black hair slid the money across the counter.

"Oh, you don't need to pay that much-" the clerk started to say, but the girl cut him off.

"That's for the horses. They'll be staying outside."

The clerk frowned slightly but accepted the cash anyway. Only when they were gone did he realize why they unnerved him so much:

Their shoes made no sound on the wooden floor.

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"Breaking news!" a reporter cried, shaking a bundle of newspapers. "The government has revealed the terrorists are believed to be heading west, following a trail of Devil's Plague outbreaks that are leaving many dead."

A military official spoke next, "They appear to be moving towards California, and we have deployed military units to block their path before they get any farther."

The reporter continued, "Currently, eight towns and cities have been wiped off the map. The death toll is racking up, breaching the thousands and sparing no women or children. These terrorists aren't taking hostages. Now I'll hand this over to Serena Williams, who is stationed on the outskirts of the first town to fall to the Plague since the outbreak in the northeast."

"Thank you, Flint. Many families are mourning the loss of loved ones to the Devil's Plague, and police suspect-"

Euna violently jammed her finger down on the power button, silencing the reporters. She scowled, sitting up at the foot of the ratty motel bed. "They're being too conspicuous. They'll lead the authorities right to us, and that'll get messy." It wasn't so much that she was concerned about the possibility of the FBI showing up, but rather annoyed that she would have to clean it up.

"Relax. They can do what they want," Ana replied evenly, her eyes still trained on an old Bible filled with brittle pages and faded ink. "You can't blame them for being a bit... unruly. They were the first ones, remember?"

"Yeah, but they're supposed to wait until we unite," Euna insisted. The flowers in the flower bed in the window simultaneously crumbled into dust. "They aren't supposed to-"

"Don't be so high-strung. At least we can keep tabs on them." Ana tossed the old book onto a nightstand.

"They'll get slowed down, having to deal with law enforcement. Can't be easy, trekking across the countryside when you're making every headline."

"You can't control them," Ana said. "Pestilence should be pretty mild, so it's probably War that's riling him up. That guy's aura could make a peaceful Buddhist monk bloodthirsty." She drummed her fingers on the stained sheets. "I wonder if he's found his horse yet."

"Doubtful. If he had, they would have found us sooner."

"Why are my plants dying!?" the motel owner demanded outside. "It must be those god-forsaken horses!" Good thing they'd paid him to keep the horses, or else he'd have probably already sent them off.

"Look, Euna, you're still human," Ana said softly. "The mission doesn't need to consume you."

"Wrong," Euna snapped. "Humans can't kill plants on a whim. Humans need to eat."

"Those are just little bumps in the road," Ana suggested calmly, picking up the Bible again.

Euna bristled, her crystal blue eyes swallowed up by her pupil, turning the whole eye black. "I feel like I'm starving to death!" she snarled, furious. Across the street, trees turned yellow and grass withered. "But I don't die. No, I'm not that lucky. Food dissolves in my hands. I don't think that's human!"

"Fine," Ana said, flipping back to her page. Euna's bottomless black eyes were filled with anguish and wrath, but Ana's even temper always balanced her out. "But no matter what happens, we were always human in the beginning."

On the ground, a brown mouse scurried by, and Ana glared at it. It froze and slumped over, dead.

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Who knew mass murder could be so enjoyable? Helmer was sure having fun. A piece of him cried for him to stop, and perhaps this was the piece that had begun growing weaker ever since he first laid eyes on Samael Losix.

He had long since stopped hiding his baseball bat, and now it was propped up leisurely on his shoulder, a spike dangerously near his head. He had saved the black leather jacket from the dead guy, and although Sam constantly called him discount Dean Winchester, it was comfy.

Sam had abandoned the blue scarf and trench coat, and was now wearing a black shirt and jeans. He looked so casual, it was hard to imagine him as a harbinger of the Apocalypse.

Sam whistled atop Abalone, the pair of them closer than lovers. Helmer walked alongside them, swinging his bat back and forth. They followed an empty stretch of road in the middle of Scottsburg, Indiana, at night. The residents were dead. Sam only had to infect one person to exterminate everyone, leaving their path clear.

Helmer twirled his bat with one hand. "Do you think I'll find my horse soon?"

"Perhaps. You'll know when you find it."

"I'm not a teenager girl picking a boyfriend, mom." Helmer smiled. "So, did you pick Abalone's name, or what?"

"She came with it," Sam said. "But I like it."

"Aren't abalones usually darker colors? Like, I'm pretty sure white clams are pretty rare. How many drugs does someone have to be on to name a white horse after a brown clam?"

"All the drugs."

They laughed.

Suddenly Abalone nickered and tossed her head.

"There's a car coming," Sam translated. He guided the bleached horse off the road and into the woods, Helmer close behind. They crouched down in the bushes, and Helmer strained to see in the sudden darkness. The foliage above blotted out the moonlight.

Then the low rumble of an engine could be heard, but it was faint. Abalone keened softly, and Sam combed his fingers through her mane, whispering comforting words.

Eventually, a black SUV came into view, windows tinted and headlights blinding. Helmer watched with a sort of detached interest, but wasn't really concerned. It rolled by slowly, the passengers seemingly searching for something. They watched with bated breath until the ominous vehicle drove away, black paint shining in the moonlight. Once it was completely out of sight, they stepped back onto the road.

Sam patted Abalone's side. "Phew. That was close. They're kicking the manhunt up a notch. I would hate to run into a patrol; these are new jeans and I don't need them stained with blood."

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Indiana was hot and humid, a huge difference from the chill of the northeast. Helmer was dripping with sweat, and had decided to discard his shirt. The locals didn't seem to mind this very much.

Sam seemed uncomfortable as well, claiming he was a "New Yorkian all the way" but was too modest to remove his shirt. His ears and nose were severely burnt from direct exposure to the sun, worsened by his albinism. Plus, the relentless heat was especially harmful to him, because he was forced to wear wrist-high gloves. This was because (a): he needed to hide the mark, and (b): he accidentally murdered the cashier at Taco Bell when he tried to hand over some cash, making them slaughter the whole town and move on faster than they would have both preferred.

Now they walked the road of Seymour, Indiana, the residents gawking at Abalone and Sam openly. At first, they tried to stay in the shadows, but the heat was inescapable, and besides, with Helmer holding a spiked baseball bat, they just looked like some cosplayers.

Sam scowled at the people taking photos of them from the sidewalk. "I don't like people posting pictures. What if they trace it back to us?"

"Then we would take care of it. Besides, I don't think they even can." Helmer watched one woman look down at her phone and frown in confusion, then raise the camera again and take a few more photos fruitlessly. "The photos aren't showing up."

"Oh."

Once they passed through Seymour with no incidents, Sam quickly shed his gloves, sighing in relief. Helmer snatched a newspaper from a store right before they left town, scanning the pages and chuckling once he realized every single headline was about the 'terrorist attacks'.

They stopped on the side of the road once, for Sam to remove his shoes and socks. "Thank god," he groaned, wiggling his toes. "I thought I might have died of heatstroke."

"I can smell your feet from here," Helmer grumbled, wrinkling his nose. "And you can't die of heatstroke it only your hands are covered."

"Since when are you an expert on heatstroke?"

"Since now."

Sam rolled his eyes.

Helmer had complained, but in reality, he was jealous. He could feel his feet blistering within his shoes, but the road was too hot to walk without shoes. Sam was lucky he didn't have to walk, perched atop Abalone, casually eating goldfish crackers. For the rest of the day, Helmer felt a consistent twinge of annoyance, which made the nearby wildlife hiss and spit at each other.

When night eventually descended, the cool air freed them from the grasp of the sun. A watercolor painting of warm colors soaked the west, bleeding outwards from the setting sun. The indigo sky faded into deep navy blue and then ebony, drenching the landscape in ink. Pinpricks of light stabbed through the dark veil, stars too far away and too massive to comprehend. Unfamiliar constellations swirled overhead, casting an ethereal luster over the earth.

Helmer felt insignificant, gazing up at the breathtaking view. The trio actually stopped for a bit to watch the incredible sight; albeit, Abalone couldn't exactly see, so it was really just Sam and Helmer.

It was about 11 PM when they checked into a hotel. Outside, Sam said something quietly to Abalone, who then trotted off into the distance. There was nothing for miles around, and Helmer assumed horses love a whole lot of nothing, if that nothing contained grass.

Helmer briefly wondered how Abalone would find her way back, with her blindness and all. He also wondered if his horse would be like that, and decided it was unfair that he was the only one who had to scour the country to find it.

The hotel, just as disgusting and moldy as all the rest, smelled faintly of something gross that Helmer couldn't put his finger on. The bathroom tiles were yellow and nasty, and although the bedsheets looked relatively clean, a blacklight would say otherwise. Helmer took a short, pitiful shower with weak water pressure and crumbly soap, then decided to let himself air dry, because no way in hell was he letting those deceptively clean towels touch his naked body.

Sam was lying in bed, his eyes closed, still fully dressed. He was humming something quietly, a warbling tune that seemed to grow weaker each time it repeated. Helmer carefully picked his way over to the bed, not wanting to interrupt him, but Sam opened his eyes and fell silent anyway.

"My mom used to sing that song to me," he murmured. "She loved that song."

"Sing it for me," Helmer suggested.

Sam hesitated.

"You don't have to if you don't want to," Helmer assured him.

Sam cleared his throat and started to sing, "Succumb to the line, the finishing time. The long distance runner has stopped on the corner, but I won't give up, although I've stopped too."

Helmer stretched out on his bed, listening to Sam's melodic voice echo through the room.

"Before the end of me and you, the patchwork explains the land is unchanged."

Letting the tension drain out of his shoulders, Helmer relaxed into the scratchy sheets, and although it the mattress was still hard, it felt like heaven after their day-long trekking.

"Interpret the runes, my tears in the typing pool. The letters are sighing, the ink is still drying, I told you the truth and now I sigh too. The page turns on me and you, across that white plain the land is unchanged~"

The last notes faded away as Sam drifted off to sleep, but Helmer couldn't bring himself to do the same. He had memorized the cracks in the walls and counted all of the bumps on the ceiling twice before he managed to slip into unconsciousness.

He dreamt of a battlefield. Groups of warriors clashing, bloody rivers flooding the barren plains. Spearheads snapped, swords clattered to the ground, and Helmer remained untouched.

He stood on the peak of a hill, calmly regarding the chaos below. Shouts and cries of pain were music to his ears. War was an art.

In a voice that was strikingly familiar, someone said, "This is what's coming, kiddo."

Helmer turned to see a crimson mare trotting towards him, white eyes alight with hunger.

"Get ready for the storm."

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