Tales of Light

THE LAST RAY

𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗟𝗔𝗦𝗧 𝗥𝗔𝗬

You squat on the cold concrete floor and gaze out the barred windows, looking up at the pale orb in the sky, casting an eerie glow in your cell. The shadows dance in this claustrophobic space where you are quarantined.

Tears well up in your eyes as you remember the former times of bliss when things were relatively normal.

You were a successful agriculturist and owned a successful agro farm business that thrived in several regions across the five tectonic continents. You attributed your success to God's face smiling down on you. It was one of the things that gave you hope for Earth, despite the rapidly changing climate.

Things had gone bad, with men rejecting God, their hearts reprobate. Real Christians were an endangered species. You became saved in the early stages of your business's spurt growth. That was how you were one of the few existing Christians with a great influence in a major sector of the world.

But then, in the year 2298, the sun began to die out, as if its colour was being bleached out slowly. The sun became white and all the formerly-brilliant colours on the earth warped into a depressing monochrome. All plant life died out slowly. The animals began to go extinct also. Everyone panicked. Only the extremely rich class could eat a meagre meal once a day and at an exorbitant price.
You were in this class. And you made sure to use your sparse resources-the food you'd stacked up in safe houses, based on a God-given instruction you'd received in a dream (akin to what Joseph in the Scriptures had told Pharaoh to do)-to feed the small fellowship of believers you associated with. It was all you could manage. But then, you knew that with time, two years max, the supply would fade out.

You sensed in your heart that this was God's judgement, his way of trying to get the world to repent. But men only cursed God the more for something that was a result of their evil actions.

At the turn of the century, as things grew worse and more of the global population died, something unusual happened, something every unsuspecting human thought was the ray of hope they'd been crying for.
The government claimed they had been in contact with an intelligent race of humanoid aliens called the Neiflims for months and that they would be finally coming to make things right. You were sceptical as you watched the news broadcast that relayed this announcement.

When the Neiflims finally showed up in their numbers in their hovering space pods at the Central Government District of each continent, the desperation made people look past their grotesque brownish reptilian skin and their piercing green bulbous eyes.
These were the Neiflims?
You felt repulsed that these beings had so easily beguiled everyone who hung on their every word. Oh, you hated the fact that they used a translating device-an implanted Augmented Super Intelligence chip-to allegedly communicate with humans. It gave off the mark of the beast vibes. Of course, you and the other believers didn't receive the mark.
You didn't stop praying, but it seemed as though Heaven had shut its gates.

The Neiflims were quite persuasive and had lots of technological innovations that helped salvage the damage that had wrecked the earth. They convinced humanity that the event of the sun's expiration was a necessary cleansing for the Earth. According to them, there had to be a final round of sieving-getting rid of narrow-minded religious bigots, most especially Christians, since such beliefs were only detrimental to collective progress. They blatantly pronounced that there was no such thing as God. The universe was self-sufficient and ever-expanding for endless possibilities.

They painted a picture of another planet of bliss-Styxion, they called it-and promised to make arrangements to transport the few privileged and qualified humans over to this habitable planet to start a new life.