"Jesus fucking Christ," Revan exhaled, peering up at something that defied the natural order of the cosmos. In the blink of an eye and with a snap of the pizza woman's fingers, Revan had seemingly teleported through space and time. It had felt as if, within a fraction of a nanosecond, his body had been compressed to the size of an atomic particle, sucked through a wormhole, then spit out on the other side.
It left him disoriented. Nauseous. Dissociated. Unable to discern up from down, left from right.
The air had been siphoned from his lungs. He gasped for breath that wasn't there, hyperventilating as a panic attack came over him. His spirit floated outside his body, as if his soul was trying to catch up with its detached, directionless vessel.
And the place he'd been brought… As he collapsed to his knees, clutching his chest as an impossible tightness knotted, he tilted his head up in search for air.
And there, floating a few dozen yards away from him in the middle of the city street, was a portal. Though time stood still and the city-dwellers around Revan were frozen, the horrible, awe-inspiring rift pulsed with movement. It seemed as though it was composed of pure energy, throbbing as it sliced reality in two. It was equally daunting and beautiful. Composed of white, static electricity. Crackling with ethereal radiance. Blotting the horizon from view. The gate itself was like a bolt of lightning frozen in time, taller than any of the city's surrounding skyscrapers, stretching to the clouds as if it was sent from Heaven's gates.
All things considered, Revan wasn't surprised by the impossible enigma after the events he'd already endured.
"The Four… The Four Horsemen," Revan repeated through straining breaths. The pizza woman had asked what he knew about the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, yet she hadn't given him time to answer. Instead, she'd simply snapped her fingers and Revan had been sucked through a straw and ejected like a spitball to the streets outside of his apartment.
His companion, the only other living creature around that wasn't motionless, giggled. "I could've cracked open a Bible and read to you from Revelation 6, but where's the fun in that? Feast your eyes, Revan Kaiser, on the First Seal of the Apocalypse!"
In truth, it was difficult for Revan to feast his eyes on anything. The portal before him was nearly brighter than the sun, and it seemed as though staring at it would burn his retinas and melt his eyeballs from his skull.
"The trumpet has sounded. The Worthy One has taken the scroll and removed its first seal. From that portal will come the First Horseman of the Apocalypse," she continued. Her voice retained a tone of amusement, as if the things she spoke of brought her great joy.
"I've truly lost my mind…" Revan whispered under his breath, slapping his face in an attempt to wake himself from this deranged nightmare. Revan wasn't a religious man, so he understood little from the woman's words.
His female companion stepped between him and the portal. She no longer wore the wrinkled pizza delivery outfit. Now, even though Revan hadn't seen her change clothes, she donned the garb of some phantom princess, a look that fit her chaotic personality more aptly. She appeared naked, though her skin wasn't visible. Instead, it seemed as if her body was painted—tattooed—with midnight ink that swirled like tribal mist along her extremities. The sight of her updated wardrobe was nearly enough to take Revan's breath away, his eyes lingering places along her body with aroused curiosity.
"I find sane people rather boring," she giggled, hardly disturbed by the fact that the world was ending. "Revan darling, this will all be much easier to swallow if you throw that dusty old brain of yours to the side. Let's introduce a little chaos! Eh?"
"I don't even know who you are, lady!" Revan screamed, the lurking portal outlining her heavenly figure. Its light gleamed through her tight thigh gap. Her hair somehow rippled in the stagnant air, her black bangs dancing amidst surrounding platinum locks.
"I am your second chance, Revan Kaiser," she said, extending a hand to help pick him back up to his feet. He accepted it reluctantly, entirely too fatigued and overwhelmed to stand on his strength alone. As he rose, she continued, "I am an Agent of the Void. I have no name, though you may call me The Recruiter."
"The… the Void?" he repeated, trying to make sense of the statement.
"Yes, the Void, where Chaos reigns supreme," she explained, as if such a sentiment were common knowledge. "As one of its many agents, I've had my eye on you for quite some time. Don't try to make sense of it, darling. The more you try to understand, the less you will."
As silly as it sounded, it reminded him of some Socrates quote he'd heard years ago. I know that I know nothing, as in, the more one knew, the more they knew how little they knew. The infinite paradox of dispelling ignorance.
"Welcome to the Rapture, Revan darling," the Recruiter said, gesturing at their surroundings. "When I allow time to resume, the First of the Four Horsemen will enter this world wielding Conquest. Shortly thereafter, his three companions will emerge from other portals across the mortal realm. War, Famine, and Death."
"But I don't… I don't believe in the Rapture," Revan stammered, examining the portal behind his companion. The statement elicited a sharp laugh from the Recruiter, who saw the irony in Revan's words.
"And I don't believe in gingers having souls, yet here you are," she giggled, pointing at Revan's messy auburn hair. It was a nod to his childhood. Among many other things, kids had bullied him for the hair color so much that he'd one day begged his mother to dye it.
His mother, whose hair was brunette, and who didn't know the pain of being bullied for something out of her control, thought she was parenting effectively when she'd denied his request. So, Revan had endured more than a decade of jokes about his hair—other children saying he didn't have a soul.
What's the difference between a ginger and a vampire? Jace Weir, his elementary school enemy, had once asked Revan. One is a pale, bloodsucking creature that avoids the sun. The other is a vampire!
"You're going to help me, Revan Kaiser," the Recruiter said, not asking, but instructing. She pointed over her shoulder with a single thumb, not looking at the crackling portal, "If you don't believe in the Rapture, I'd be more than happy to resume time and let you live it to completion as many times as it takes. But I don't think that's what you want, and watching you die over and over again would lose its humor quickly."
"But what do you want from me?!" Revan asked, a sense of panic and dread filling his chest. It felt as though walls were closing in around him. In all his life, he'd never been entrusted with any task that rose above menial. He continued, as though he meant to bargain his way out of destiny, "You said so yourself, lady! I'm a nobody! I haven't done diddly-squat with my life! If the world is truly ending, what could I possibly have to offer to someone who can stop time?!"
"The entity I represent doesn't want someone who has their shit figured out," the Recruiter replied, her tone growing increasingly serious. "You asked before if I was an angel, and I told you the truth. I'm not. I'm not an angel, nor am I a demon… What I represent, who I am, is something that predates this world's creation. Before earth, before humanity, before God and his horde of angels and demons… There was only the Void, only Chaos. Endless, raw, untapped potential. Like you, Revan Kaiser. I've watched your actions, particularly in the moments you thought no one was watching. I wouldn't have appeared to you if I wasn't sure. I've chosen you to thwart the Rapture. I've chosen you to become the Fifth Horseman."
"Me? You've lost you're fucking mind," Revan gasped, staring once more at the portal.
"Sanity is overrated. I prefer chaos."
"I don't even understand what you mean!" Revan shouted, hyperventilation setting in once more as his vision grew dizzy. "You've got the wrong guy… I don't know anything about any of this… Hell, a half hour ago, I was planning on blowing my brains out!"
"Your ignorance only makes you a stronger candidate in my eyes," the Recruiter replied. "Everything you lack, I can teach. But I can't teach bravery. Can't teach someone to endure suffering. I can make someone stronger, but I can't make them a hero. You may very well be a nobody right now, but with my guidance, there won't be a goddamn mortal who doesn't bow in supplication at the mention of Revan Kaiser, the Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse."
Revan peered into the Recruiter's eyes for a second that felt longer than his eternal suffering. In her eyes, darkness expanded. A void that had no ending, an entire cosmos of dark matter that grew exponentially to combat universal order. In a split second, he weighed the woman's words, trying to make sense of something that was never meant to make sense. Revan re-lived his entire life in that split second.
Humanity had never been kind to him. This world had chewed him up and spit him out time and time again, and now he was being asked to save it? And yet, he remembered the times in his life when he'd felt most alive… They hadn't been the obvious moments, when the world rewarded his efforts and achievements, rather… They'd been the times when Revan did the right thing—not because others were watching, not because he'd receive recognition—but because he never wanted anyone else in this world to experience the emptiness he felt. Because the world needed balance, and so if others committed themselves to evil, he would do everything in his power to embody good.
He inhaled sharply, and in a split second of foolish, stunning bravery, he exhaled, "Fuck it. I'll do it."