The Hand of God By Thavien Yliaster

The Hand of God

By: Thavien Yliaster

The grey sky was flat. The clouds had completely blanketed the atmosphere and held the sun’s image for ransom. The cold, bitter, rains had ended as briefly as they had begun. This was his chance.

“It’s now or never,” Charles said. Walking around, bending over, stooping his back, he placed blank white sheets of paper on the ground. Using a measuring tape, Charles set a stick in the ground and made sure that his paper circle had a perfect 5 ft radius.

Trinity watched him, clutching her hands together. She was curious as to what his efforts were going towards, but she couldn’t help but have an eerie feeling. The wind whipped at her, causing goosebumps to rise on the back of her neck.

Charles had walked over to his car, removing two bags from his trunk. Walking back to his constructed paper circle he set both of his bags down and reached into one. Trinity saw that gathered in his arms were five black candles.

Going back to his circle, Charles spaced out the black candles evenly. Trinity saw how the candles were spaced out, and she noticed something. They formed a pentagonal star. The lines weren’t drawn to each of the candles, but she could make out the image in her mind. Charles then proceeded to head back towards the other bag.

“What is that,” Trinity thought to herself.

As if he could read her mind, or as if her thoughts had a voice of their own, Charles answered her. “It’s lamb meat from the grocery store. Lamb chops to be precise.” Tilting the wrapped, thawed, meat Charles let the blood collect to one side. He walked over to Trinity, taking something out of her hair. “Mind if I use this?” Trinity shook her head ‘no,’ curious as to what he was planning. Charles then walked back to his circle and had proceeded to poke a hole in the plastic using her hair pin.

Walking around the circle slowly, he made sure this new inner circle stayed connected.

Drip, drip, drop.

The forest may have been noisy from the rustling of shriveled, dry, tree leaves, but the drops of lamb blood falling onto the paper seemed louder than anything else. Within the circle of white, lay a circle of red. The red may have been wet, but it dried quickly enough.

Charles had a few more items he had to retrieve from the trunk of his car. Returning, he placed each item behind a candle and propped them upright with broken twigs. It was almost ready.

“Mirrors, why mirrors?” The look upon her face was that of bewilderment and puzzling ideas. The whole scene kept becoming creepier to her. She didn’t feel safe, but she couldn’t sense any danger at all. “A 5 ft radius, five candles, and five mirrors, if he had two other things of the sort, he would be five for five,” she thought.

“Step back,” Charles said. Watching ever so cautiously, she saw him walk around and light each of the black candles. The light from them was miniscule, and the candles’ flames were constantly being threatened by the wind. Then, everything changed abruptly.

The wind still blew, but it was as if it was blowing around them. Trinity looked up at the tree limbs and saw the leaves were still rustling, but she couldn’t hear them. She took off her jacket and sweater, and she couldn’t feel the wind at all. It was as if the wind had suddenly become a phantom. Turning her attention back to Charles, she saw him standing stoic and steadfast with both of his arms crossed. His gaze was focused. Trinity walked up behind him, and rested her hands on his shoulders, peering from behind him.

The candles, the flames, the smoke. The flames from the candles had grown tall and the pillars of fire were constantly shifting color from red, to orange, to yellow, only the tips remained the same color, a bright blue. The smoke that had trailed off the candles was darker than coal, pitch black.

The wispy fingers rose up into the air and gathered at the center of the circle. Where the five tips gathered, a mass of smoke was forming. Once enough gathered, the tendrils of smoke disconnected themselves from the pillars of flames from the black candles, however five individual parts remained, only connected to each other by the cloud they formed. The amorphous figure of smoke, seemed to take shape and contour its features, hardening them, but remaining soft.

All the while, the cloud flashed white, then simmered down to a deep grey. If they were standing underneath it, they wouldn’t even be able to separate the image from the grey sky itself.

“Don’t look into the mirrors,” Charles said, “or it’ll vanish from your sight until you focus your attention at its center.” He was right, if Trinity looked elsewhere but the circle, she only saw clear air, no ghastly image at all. Focusing her attention back to the circle’s center the image showed itself to her again. Yet did she want to continue watching, or advert her eyes, she did not know.

The smoke had transformed, before them, floating in mid-air, was a giant hand. It was grey in coloration, but it was well defined. Then the hand seemed to crack its knuckles, and the skin on the back of it started to stretch and tighten. The fingers of the hand then became distorted, and snapped themselves in every direction, even in directions that fingers should not bend. They were breaking themselves!

The flames were cracking and popping in sync with the fingers’ bones and knuckles. The skin on the back of the hand started to crack and bleed. The skin then appeared to be rustling. The entire forest was silent, even the wind, but the dry skin of the hand rattled and shook so vehemently that not even a maelstrom of a blustering storm could make such a cacophonous noise as this. The finger tips then decided to split. The tips of the fingers developed fingers themselves. The cracked, dried, and bloodied skin of the hand had shed off, but it was being worn, like a cloak.

Charles kept his sight focused, and remained unnerved, for there was no fear within him at all. “Fear is a choice,” he kept telling himself. “It is ignorance of the unknown. Fear may exist within me, but I must discern that from danger.”

Below the hood, glaring from below its cowl, looking at the two before it with its scowl, only showing the yellow glimmering light of its eyes, it floated before them. The five fingers had become arms, each with their own respective hands. Floating within the palm of its hands were several crosses, five to be exact. Two pointing upwards, two pointing downwards, and one whose bars were perfectly evenly aligned, making a perfect axis. Two of the crosses, one that was floating upside down and another that was floating right side up, both were rotating in sync, constantly becoming the other. The entity floated before the two, looking at them, peering through its grey robes.

“Trinity,” Charles said, “please, stop shaking. There’s nothing to be afraid of, only the dead and dying must prepare for it.”

Trinity had clung onto Charles, gripping him tightly, pressing her chest up against his back. “Charles,” she said in a shaky voice, “what is it?”

“Well, it’s no angel. It’s not a fallen angel either, so it’s definitely not a demon.” Trinity wanted to look at Charles out of confusion, but the entity’s appearance kept her eyes glued to its otherworldly sight.

“Well, then what is it,” she asked.

“This is the only being capable of passing judgement. When the apocalypse arrives, it’ll take neither side and both sides simultaneously. Its targets will be marked for the four horsemen of the apocalypse. Still, not even the archangels nor the archfiends with their strongest armies combined are capable of comparing to one of this being’s little pinky fingers. This is the one being whose wrath you do not wish to incur, if such a thing were even possible. Trinity,” Charles said, “meet the Hand of God.”