A cold, red sun slowly descends over the rough, rolling hills of Isreal. Raw, unrestricted winds blow from the southeast, bringing the sharp scents of ocean salt and fire-smoke with it.
He is looking into the wind, past the sprawling, ancient city; but it seems he is staring at nothing, and his dark eyes pay no attention to the armies of the nations that had gathered here, at the gates of Jerusalem, for three and a half years. He is an old, Jewish man: his face characterized by a long, gray-tinged beard and broad features, but his skin is darker than the average and is ravaged by scars. His eyes are misted and dark.
And then the haze in his clouded eyes disperses, and the windows of his soul look upon what had been his mortal body. The blood had dried, now, but the corpse was still untouched. The soldiers of the hosts of the world remained in the shaking fear of his power, even while his body lay lifeless, unprotected and broken in the street of the city of three religions, the city of three temples, three gods, three years, three days, three seconds.
Jerusalem, the City of David, Rušalim, the Abode of Peace, the City of the Setting Sun, the Throne of the One God; and now the final battlefield of humanity. It had stood, almost unchanged, for so long; through the strife of the seven dispensations, the crusades, the natural disasters that had precedented this ravaging conflict in the Holy Land.
He watches, unmoving, as the final crimson rays of sunlight faded and the sun disappeared below the distant horizon. Night rises over the Temple of Solomon for the last time.
Asher saw the so-called prophet die. He had clung to the worn cobblestones of the street, desperately praying the soldiers, the prophet, would ignore the tiny, frail boy that lay there, shivering in fear. The gunfire jumped through the smoke, leaving lines of crimson behind them. The prophet collapsed to the ground. Shocked that they had achieved their goal, the soldiers had skirted the edges of the street; keeping a safe distance from the prophet and the unseen boy.
It had been three and a half days since then, and Asher saw the prophet again. He had been there, standing on the roof, or what remained of it, of one of the old, bombed buildings. Then he had faded into the blood-red light of the evening sun of Israel.
Night was climbing towards midnight, the peaking of darkness; and the boy, Asher, feels the ground tremble. For the third night, now, the armies outside the city had celebrated their victory against the four prophets that had held them at bay. But their celebration was over, and now they were coming to complete the war in Jerusalem. Asher feels no fear. He is accustomed to the terror of living under siege; under siege from the world, from the armies around him, from the devils in his own mind.
The masses of soldiers broke through the walls of the city, carving their scarlet path with fire and steel; defiling the ancient temples of the forefathers. Asher feels every second physically, tearing a part of his soul away from him every time they pass. Gunfire echoes in the silent streets, the same streets that had been empty, so empty for so long. As the hosts of the nations of the world rush through the city, fleeing or pursuing or killing or burning or dying, the streets remain empty.
But the silence is not peace, and the emptiness is not order or balance. Asher feels an evil here, a chaos he had never felt before; but not because of the invaders that were destroying his city around him. The streets seem to whisper to him, for the city is alive and it spoke in its silence. It is time: the filthy streets of Jerusalem are to be purged by blood and cleansed by fire, and the prophecies were being fulfilled. All Asher feels us regret, for there were so many things he had not done and things he could have done and things he should be doing now. But he cannot move, he can only watch, dissapearing from the earth as the spirit inside his mind dictates the future; he cannot speak or move and his thoughts are trapped inside his mind.
And as the avenger of sins descends from the heavens and declares his reign upon the mortal plane, Asher watches silently, slowly fading into nothingness.