"The messenger is often attacked for delivering bad news. You will hear a great deal about me: People will tell you that I am a liar, a cheat, a conman A mad man, and even a murderer."

"People will tell you anything and everything, Because I am the bearer of bad news, Because I am the messenger. I am the one who must warn you of the ending of this world, And gather the chosen ones who will build the next world. If you want to live, you need to ignore the slander. You need to believe me. You need to follow me." - Joseph Seed

"Bless the name of those who Have dealt you blows. Be grateful to those who Have caused you harm. For it is these sufferings that Have led you to me.” - Sermon from the Project at Eden’s Gate.

If a person had been walking down the poorly maintained road out front of the Seed’s house on that afternoon in June and felt the strange urge to glance over, they would have witnessed a bizarre sight.

They would have seen a man dressed in black pants and white undershirt, frothing with anger, brandishing a comic book in one hand and a bible in the other at his son, a child of about ten.

But no one had been down this road in the poor suburb of Rome, Georgia, in a long time. Not ice cream trucks, not social services cars, not even police patrols. In any case. In these parts, the people kept their noses out of other people’s business, even when that business took place on a porch out in the open.

The father thrashed his arms furiously while the boy, young Joseph Seed stood with his head bowed, contrite and seemingly fixated on the floorboards. If he had looked up, he would have seen the kaleidoscopic colors of an old issue of Spiderman flashing by, alternating with the smooth black leather of his father’s Bible and the ruddy face of the father himself.

​He would have seen the grey teeth - few and far between - of Old Man Seed, as the locals called him, or Old Man Seed behind his back, as Joseph’s big brother Jacob had snickered to him. Dental care was not a priority in the Seed household. The money was needed for other things. So, his father’s teeth always reminded Joseph of rocky crags that pirate ships washed up on in picture books at the library.

The priority in the Seed household, as everyone in the neighborhood knew, was cheap whiskey, which the father drank from dawn till dusk. The more whiskey that went in, the more Bible verses that came out - and the more often his children felt the switch.

The cause of the paternal fury was simple; comics were forbidden in the home - comics and books, records, magazines, radio, and television. Only the Bible was allowed.

Once, when the entire elementary school went to see Gone with the Wind at an old theatre in town, Joseph’s father had leapt up in rage like a drunken jack-in-the-box, and before stunned teachers and students, launched into a rambling sermon condemning the sins of Hollywood, insisting this Babylon had long perverted the most fragile of minds and was responsible for the downfall of all America, with Joseph under one arm and Jacob under the other, he stormed out of the room still hurling curses.

This time, when they arrived home, he beat Jacob only, because he was the eldest and thus responsible for his younger brother. At least the brothers had had time to see Atlanta burn. Thus, when Old Man Seed stood on the porch and began sliding off his belt, the child simply removed his T-shirt, folded it carefully, and bent over to offer his pale, delicate back to the worn-out strap of leather.

Joseph’s head was turned toward the well maintained - at least by local standards - house of a quiet, gentle widow. He considered it a blessing, if a small one. Facing the other way, he would have had to look at the other neighbor’s house, which even by local standards was so run-down as to be hideous to the eye. When they were younger, the widow used to bake them cakes, probably out of pity for them.

The children’s mother wasn’t exactly an impressive chef. She wasn’t exactly a loving mother either. But the widow didn’t bake much of anything anymore now that she was dying of cancer. Instead, she spent her days in her porch rocking chair, rain or shine, tottering gently. Jacob and Joseph argued over whether the groaning came from the wooden rocking chair or the old woman.

Sometimes the widow’s daughter would stop by, just long enough to steal her mother’s medication and barter it for heroin. She never stayed long; prospects in the town were so few that not even junkies wanted to live there.

On this particular day, the young Joseph, age Seven, received 25 lashes. It was the price to pay for having read about the adventures of a man in tights bitten by a radioactive spider. He bore his punishment and hardly ever cried. You may be wondering who I am to know so much about the banal misery of this family living in a poor white neighborhood like so many others. I am Joseph Seed. And if you want to know why I remember that scorching day in June so clearly, it’s because that was the first day the Voice spoke to me.

“He who ignores the low flight of the bird, the darkening of skies, and The taste of iron in the blowing wind deserves the thunder and lighting that will rain down upon him.” ​- Sermon from the Project at Eden’s Gate.

Many people claim to hear divine voices. There are numerous lunatics out there, and if it’s not the voice of angels speaking to them, it’s aliens, George Washington, or John Lennon.

Every busy street corner has a chosen one, a mad prophet. They announce that “THE END IS NIGH!”, that humanity has been irredeemably condemned for its sins and misdeeds, ordering you to repent and damning you to the eternal flames of hell. They frighten children and inspire a vague sense of pity in adults - especially when you catch a whiff of their body odor as you pass. Yet they claim to be heralds of the holy word.

Why should I be any more believable? How am I any different? Probably because I’m not here to talk about saving your soul. I’m here to talk about life before death. I’m only here to help you survive the impending chaos. Don’t get me wrong - the world is coming to an end.

​It's destruction has been foretold. And as glassy-eyed as your street-corner proselytizer is, as confused as his spirit is. I can’t help but respect him for understanding better than anyone else that the clock is ticking.

But whereas he only senses a murky feeling of doom deep in his bones. I know it beyond a shadow of a doubt. I know it because the Voice told me so.

The Voice of the Creator.

I am here to tell you that God has tired of humanity’s behavior and intends to take back everything He has created. Man’s pride has made him so forgetful and ungrateful, that God intends to start over. For we have learned nothing. We have left our filth on everything, soiled it all. And as insignificant as we are, our perversion, our duplicity, the indescribably cruelty we inflict on each other has fanned the flames of His anger.

How can we still doubt the approaching deluge that will wash us all away?

We may have been created in His image, but we have reinvented ourselves, adding make-up, and contorting ourselves into strange shapes to become ghastly creatures. We who were once so pure, who lived in Paradise, now wallow in muck day and night, entombing our original goodness under a thick layer of filth.

We have enraged our God and we will pay the price sooner than we think. Look at what the world has become. Look at how some bask in the opulence while others drown in misery. Witness the vicious cycle of conflicts spiraling out of control, of crusades driven by the greed of men.

Greed - that is what drives mankind. In man’s endless quest, a quest that never ends well, those with nothing are worth no more than those with everything. Victims never dream of a more just society, they yearn only to join the caste of the unjust, to tread on the poor in turn.

The greed of men destroys every hint: forests, oceans, their fellow man. Men kill, they poison, they corrupt. Men care not whether individuals die on the other side of the world as long as we possess the latest technology: they care not whether the multitudes are trampled upon as long as they can fill their cars with cheap gasoline. In their frenzy for possessions, they mock everything. Nothing is sacred anymore. They dance atop ruins, march through cemeteries parading the still-warm ashes of those who were sacrificed in the flames.

In a society where selfishness triumphs, where people can’t see beyond the end of their own noses, where they worship themselves, what becomes of the righteous? What becomes of goodness? Of the humble or those who wander abandoned in this vast wasteland that the world has become? What becomes of those who prefer to understand rather than to possess, to share rather than to keep? They are ridiculed.

We scoff at the generous, at those who care for others. We laugh at those who feed the destitute; we mock people who prefer the real world to virtual illusions.

We point and laugh, call them weak, simple-minded misfits. We heap insults upon them and beckon them to join the macabre carnival of frenzied consumption. And if they refuse, we become suspicious of them and cast them out.

Who else do the FBI and other government agencies persecute these days? Such pariahs are constantly harassed and subjected to the relentless zeal of federal authorities. They are subpoenaed, hunted down, kept tabs on, and humiliated. Sometimes they’re dragged off to prison and driven to madness or suicide. Look deep inside your heart: isn’t this exactly what you’ve always believed too? Are you not a member of this new crop of martyrs, devoured by the invisible beasts of despair and solitude unleashed upon you in the world’s arena?

I see that you hesitate to answer, that you do not agree. Your suspicion is understandable. This vice-filled world - a world to which you don’t belong - has so long forced you to hide your true self away, taught you in painful ways to protect yourself, beat down the impulses of your heart, distrust words, distrust others - even distrust yourself.

But let me tell you what the Voice told me: The Creator has never turned a blind eye to the distress of the righteous. He has been watching mankind and has seen those who desecrate His word, who desecrate themselves in a race toward material wealth and vainglory. Such sinners have angered Him and it won’t be long until he unleashes his righteous punishment. The wheat will be separated from the chaff.

This is the mission bestowed upon me. I must gather those who will be touched by the grace of It’s message and bring them together to form a family. The emptiness you feel inside is a resonant chamber that amplifies the Voice so that you may know It is genuine. What if you could be one of the chosen ones along with others who believed in me?

What if you could be one of those whose preserved purity allows you to grasp the divine source of the message that I’m spreading?

What if you knew from the instant we met, that I wasn’t just another fool at the crossroads? If you too dream of restoring the world’s original beauty and harmony - if you have the faith and the drive - then join me and you will survive the cataclysm that is upon us.

To live again in the Garden of Eden. The way we did before.

"They quote prophets who were born slaves. They sing the praises of saviors born of the people. But in their arrogance, they will never understand that the messenger is not of their caste.” - Sermon from the Project at Eden’s Gate.

When the Voice spoke to me, it had been a long time since I’d heard anything comforting.

Father had just taken me and Jacob out of school to home-school us himself. He meant to pass on knowledge more faithful to his convictions, away from evil influences, as he proclaimed to anyone who would listen.

Which was no one.

I no longer had stories our teachers innocently recounted of the adventures of pious, tight-knit, loving families of pioneers who conquered the country by braving all sorts of dangers. If those pioneers had known what would become of their dreams, they most likely would have chosen not to brave anything at all and to slaughter their oxen and burn their covered wagons. But some home-schooling was quite common and perfectly legal in the state of Georgia as long as one of the parents could read and write.

Father met both of these criteria. The fact he wasn't an alcoholic who beat us simply did not concern the authorities. As for the neighbours, they were too busy with their own problems to worry about the fat of Old Man Seed’s boys.

It wasn’t that they were heartless - on the contrary, they were good people. But despite their kind nature, they had been hardened by misery. In our town, everyone worked the same job - collecting unemployment.

We lived off a patchwork of welfare, food stamps, charity and soup kitchens funded by rich liberals from wealthy suburbs paid for to buy themselves a conscience or so they could brag about it at the dinners they threw at hip Atlanta restaurants. In these parts, everyone had their own cross to bear. Some had more than one, and the worst off had enough to fill a cemetery.

Thus, we were alone with our problems, just us, members of a family descended from pioneers who failed to conquer anything but vast nothingness and gained only the right to settle their misery in one place.

Amid this emptiness, my sole source of joy was running to the corner gas station at the very end of our street. Our mother would send us there to buy - often on credit - the hot dogs and frozen pizza that formed the bulk of our diet. And whiskey, of course, for our father. The owner was a good man at heart who let me skim through the magazines next to the register, without a word.

I would sit alone in a corner, enjoying the cool breeze of the noisy air conditioner and the sound of the radio playing over worn-out speakers. I read and the world disappeared. Sometimes he’d give me a soda, for no reason, without asking for anything in return, as if he weren’t from around here.

Later, when I began founding my community and gathering believers, I decided to give him a visit and bring him the message I bore.

I wanted to save him the way he saved me. That’s when I learned he had been shot years earlier in a robbery committed by people who couldn’t have been from the neighbourhood - everyone in town knew that the contents of his cash drawer weren’t worth three .38 bullets.

May he rest in peace. At least he won’t be around for the horror of the end times. Why did the Voice choose to speak to me on that day in particular?

I believed it’s because recently my brother Jacob had begun to clash with our father more and more.

We were separated by more than just age. He was also bolder. He was the first one to jump into the polluted reservoirs, the quickest to go adventuring in other neighbourhoods, despite the bands of kids who marked it as their exclusive territory. He was also the one who pinched candy whenever possible, at the risk of severe punishment, just so we could have a bit of sweetness and comfort in our lives.

He was surely a thief, but I came to admire him as a modern day Robin Hood, with a forest of broken down houses, cracked roads and overgrown gardens. We were accustomed to our father’s mood swings, the stench of alcohol on his breath, his maniacal sermons. We were even used to his smacks and kicks, to the lashes of his belt.

But he had started beating our little brother, John. Jacob was strong and determined, and I was somehow able to retreat deep within myself during whippings. But John was young and so delicate.

It tortured Jacob to see him cry and howl after being beaten. And the anger Jacob felt mutated into a fierce hate.

Our mother’s lethargy only made things worse. She glided through the house, listlessly, always wearing the same nightgown. She had never been anything more than a ghost to us, of no help whatsoever, possibly doomed to derangement for all eternity, having been crushed by her marriage to a man who spoke like a saint but acted like a demon. Violence seeped into the cracks between the father and his oldest son.

We certainly didn’t lack examples. Violence filled our neighbourhood. Robberies, fights, drug deals, domestic violence - what kids from nice neighbourhoods saw on TV, we saw from the windows. The full range of misery, and its faithful companion, crime, was everywhere we looked. We had all the inspiration we needed. Violence had become so normal that when we went to bed, Jacob talked shamelessly with us about various strategies he had come up with for getting rid of our father.

Maybe he was only plotting and dreaming out loud, like mistreated employees who think about revenge after a few drinks. Nonetheless, I understood that I needed to talk to Jacob and hold him back. We could lie and steal and be forgiven, but could not raise a hand against our father.

For behold, this is the greatest of all sins - the ultimate, unforgivable sin. Why, then, did the Voice speak to me and not my brother? I have often asked myself this question. I have never truly understood, never received a response. I was no better or worse than any of the other
children.

Maybe it was just that I was available, in the right place at the right time to hear the Voice.

In time, I stopped asking all these questions and accepted that I was the messenger as I had accepted the message. I spread the message, tirelessly exalting the souls, like the crackling speaker that warmed the heart of children sitting under a flashing neon sign in a gas station in Rome, Georgia USA.

“They may be united by blood or joined by fortune, but they cannot claim to be family. For the only legitimate family, the only one spared from evil, is the family of those who serve the Father.” - Sermon from the Project at Eden’s Gate.

While my father was whipping me with his old leather belt that June, the Voice didn’t just order me to hold back my brother Jacob.

It proclaimed that we three - Jacob, John and me - had been chosen to achieve Its destiny. And to give humanity one last chance.

Not for a moment did I doubt that I was hearing the Creator in my head. It was much more than just a voice. It was, and still is, a presence that envelops me and warms me to my core, a language that every cell in my body understands, one which I am spreading far and wide to try to convince the pure of heart to join our family.

Nothing can stop me, because this is the mission I have been assigned and nothing can contradict me, for I am the messenger.

That night, I spoke with Jacob in the tiny bedroom we shared. I managed to convince him not to confront our father. Later, he would recount how my eyes shone feverishly in the dark and how my faith had stayed his hand. I was no longer his quiet, timid little brother. The Voice had transformed me.

I was awakened.

As it was, our father never did hit us again: a few days later, two cars, one from the police and another from social services, pulled up in front of our house.

Teachers at John’s school had noticed the belt marks crisscrossing his back and immediately called child protective services who had been forced to send officials all the way out to Rome to investigate. They examined us. The scars on our backs told the same story three times over.

We climbed into their car.

I looked back at our house through the car window for the last time, then at the neighbour’s yard. Amid the brush, I spotted the familiar shape of a rusty lawnmower that had been there as long as I could remember. It sat as a testament to a bygone era when we still cared about such things - a time when the lawn was still manicured, when we hosted barbecues and gave to those less fortunate than us (because there were such people).

All that was in the past now.

Soon there would be nothing, because the world I knew was going to disappear, but I didn’t know that yet.

I never saw my father again. He got into the police car along with my mother.

The officers’ desire to mete out punishment of their own was palpable. I imagine they did that later, somewhere where we couldn’t see. We had seen enough as it was.

My father died in federal prison in Atlanta towards the end of his sentence. Many years later, when I started preaching, I ran across a former prisoner who remembered this Old Man Seed as he was known then. The ex-prisoner told me that he had died in prison after falling down a set of stairs. Was it really an accident? It’s hard to say. But I remember that my father’s sermons could be very annoying.

I do not miss my mother. She was already a ghost when we all lived under the same roof. Today she must be haunting some institution, doubtless glad to be far from the man who erased her life. She might already be dead. She will be soon anyways like the others. We went to an orphanage at first, where doctors and psychologists examined us.

I quickly understood that it had little to do with caring. This was more about determining the amount of mistreatment that we had suffered than it was about healing our wounds. Our suffering might make us violent and poorly adapted. We might represent a threat to society. And that was to be avoided at all costs.

They gave me a ragdoll and asked me to point out where he had touched me, but I was one of the rare children in the orphanage who was lucky enough to have only been beaten.

They placed ink blots in front of me and asked me what I saw. I saw butterflies, dancers, squashed animals, black swans, skulls, dwarfs, and a little girl with pigtails whose stomach had been opened up. All of that was perfectly normal.

And I talked about what the Voice had told me.

The men in white coats talked to me about imaginary friends, post-traumatic stress disorder, subconscious defense mechanisms, transient schizophrenia, and emotional scars - none of which I understood.

I understood only one thing: that I had been chosen. Throwing up their hands, they finally told me to keep my mouth shut about the things I was hearing if I ever wanted to find a family before the age at which I and the Voice in my head could be thrown out on the street.

I decided to keep quiet.

Several months later, social services placed all three of us with a childless couple who lived in a small town not far from Rome. As soon as we were in the car, winding down the small dirt roads to our guardians’ house - who the social worker told us not to hesitate to call Mom and Dad - they started talking to us about our new start, our new life. We were promised love and fresh air. We dreamed about pies cooling off on the windowsill, laughter under thick blankets. We imagined ourselves putting up fences, pushing a mower across the lawn in front of a white-painted house. We thought we would grow up in loving hands. We thought we were living in a TV show.

But what was awaiting us was even worse than our parents. This couple did not want children - they wanted free labor.

They treated us like livestock. We worked before and after school until we fell asleep, without a single day to rest. We took care of the animals and the garden. We cooked meals, cleaned the house, and did the laundry for our guardians, or rather, our owners. We did not complain. We did not even think of trying. The adult world was too hostile towards us. We had to handle it on our own. We were child laborers shackled to their workbench, child soldiers on the front line, more despised than beggars and day laborers one searches for on the other side of the border, in slave markers by another name.

We slept in a barn and were only fed because otherwise we would not have the energy to work. Today, I know that was a test we had to undergo to harden us and prepare us for the heavy task awaiting us. To help us understand how this world is flawed. How it deserves to disappear. We suffered daily, beaten down, but we also became more resilient, stronger.

And one day, Jacob was strong enough.

“They command you not to kill, not to steal. Do you think they are doing it to save your soul? No. They could not care less about your soul or your life. Killing, stealing - they just want to be the only ones allowed to do those things.” - Sermon from the Project at Eden’s Gate.

One night, Jacob woke John and me. Without a word, he led us out of the barn and began pouring gasoline on everything inside it. Then, he set it on fire.

After that, he freed the animals and burned the stables as well. As the flames rose higher, the light, crackling, and the cries of the animals woke our guardians. They ran outside in a panic still wearing their pyjamas.

By then, Jacob had swapped his cans of gasoline for a sturdy axe handle. He knocked out the still drowsy man with a few blows. He was left lying on the ground, face bloodied, illuminated by the flames, his wife screaming in terror while we watched the sight without the slightest feeling of pity.

We had been lied to. Now there was no chance we would call them Mom and Dad.

Jacob also burned the house, cars, and everything our guardians owned. When there was nothing left to burn, we sat on the ground and watched the fire consume and purify the place where we had endured so much suffering, like scouts watching a campfire.

And so, we confirmed the suspicions of the psychiatrists who had examined us the first time: the Seed brothers were dangerous. They had a tainted and nefarious bloodline. What did it matter that we had been humiliated, exploited, and starved? The rest of humanity was not satisfied. Who were we to dare to rebel? We had to be stopped. We needed to be separated urgently.

The authorities placed Jacob in a juvenile detention center, which could be more accurately described as a prison for minors. He left between the arms of two police officers, like a guilty man, like our father. But before he did, he reassured us, promised us that we would be reunited soon and that we would never leave each other again. He told us everything was going to be okay. He couldn’t have been more wrong.

For John and me, still at the orphanage, it was time to get back on the adoption merry-go-round. We were visited by interfile couples, visited by people who were bored but too allergic to get a god, visited by those who wanted to save their souls by doing a good deed; we saw anyone who wanted to adopt a child, whether or not they had good intentions.

John was the first to go. He was the best looking, the least odd. He was adopted by a rich family who, I imagined, lived in luxury in Atlanta or one of those gated communities we had never set foot in.

As for me, I was picked a few times with varying results. Once, only once, I ignored the psychiatrist's advice and talked about the Voice. I was immediately sent back to the orphanage, the same way you return a defective household appliance. I think they were hoping I was still under warranty, and they could quickly exchange me for a normal child, free of charge. But most families who welcomed me in treated me well. They were brave people who almost made me forget that my brothers were far away.

I hope they do not suffer when the end comes.

Continued from Chapter 5A

Of course, I came across many other children during these years; temporary siblings, classmates, teammates, and the like. I had a hard time connecting with them. I was different. I could feel it. Everyone saw me as the odd one out, secretive, a lonely orphan. Teachers and professors worried about me spending too much time on my own.

They did not know I wasn’t alone. The Voice’s message was on a constant loop in my head, promising me an extraordinary destiny. And so, I went from family to family, year after year. When I became a man, and was free to travel wherever I like, I returned to Rome with the intention of finding my two brothers. I had not heard anything from them. We had not seen, called, or written each other. I knew that the government would not help me. They did not have the right, and no one would make the smallest effort for the brothers to find each other.

But I did not doubt that we would be reunited. This was our destiny. I returned to our neighborhood, looking for our street, our house. But neither the house nor the street was there any longer. Instead, there was a shopping center. One fine morning, someone had decided that our suburb needed to become both respectable and profitable.

And to do so, the rabble had to be pushed out and their hovels razed. Someone had simply thrown a dart at a map and thus sealed the fate of dozens of families. Because when the rich move in, the poor get kicked out. Where the Seed house once stood, there was now a fancy pet store with a frame maker and overpriced barber shop on either side.

The neighborhood was unrecognizable. Back then, people threw rocks at stray dogs and shaved in broken bits of mirrors, and the most valued skill was knowing how to avoid having your meager possessions seized by the repo-man or a collection agency.

The local residents had also radically changed. They now had jobs and cars, houses with manicured gardens and happy children. They didn’t need to borrow money to pay their bills. I would find no answers here, in this place where I no longer belonged. I left before any of the residents, casting suspicious glances my way, could call the police.

I began squatting in a part of town that looked more like where I had grown up. It was an old packing plant, unused since its production line was relocated elsewhere. I no longer needed to worry about where I was going to sleep, but I didn’t have anything to eat. I was a well-presented and polite young man, so it was easy for me to find a job as an elevator operator at a hotel.

It was a night job paying minimum wage, but my needs were few and I wanted to keep some of my time free to search for leads on my brothers. It was a win-win. My duties consisted of asking people who got in the elevator what floor they wanted and pressing the right button. That was it.

I suppose it must have been reassuring to customers to see a man dressed like an organ grinder’s monkey paid to press a button for them.

One night, after several uneventful months, three drunk men wearing tuxedos entered the elevator. Alcohol had made two of them extremely chatty, clouding their better judgement, which usually prohibited them from talking to the hired help. The third man was blind drunk, and I had to help the other two get him back to his suite. They offered to buy me a drink as thanks, but I declined.

They asked me if drinking was against my religion. I said no. They asked what religion I belonged to. I said I didn’t know, but the Voice spoke to me. They didn’t say anything in response but notified the hotel manager the next morning.

He called me into his office and fired me on the spot. As easy as pressing a button.

I took it as a sign; I needed to refocus my energy on finding my brothers as quickly as possible.

I searched the archives and newspapers. I flipped through yearbooks, scanning all the faces in the pictures of dances and sporting events until my eyes watered, but I never spotted the name Seed or the familiar faces of my two brothers. While frequenting the city’s libraries, where I had become a regular fixture. I grew interested in religion. In spite of myself, I still sought to understand why the Voice had chosen to speak to me.

Living in a society where people who wore the wrong brand of shoes or who hadn’t read the right books were openly disdained, how could I understand why the Voice had chosen to speak to the middle child of a poor family from the South? Society is harsh and insidious; it keeps us from living just as it keeps us from rising, society needs to disappear.

I read everything I could get my hands on. I discovered something about those who took a vow of silence, who danced to exhaustion, who lived in caves as hermits their entire lives; those who fasted, vowed celibacy, prayed non-stop, ingested hallucinogenic plants to speak to spirits in the afterlife, flagellated themselves in the name of God. All of them had the same goal in mind. They were begging for something to fill the emptiness inside of them.

These people know they are missing something, something that cannot be found in this world, at least not the world as it is today. They are the most sensitive people in society, the most tormented, the most radical, and also the crazies. It is from these people that saints, martyrs, and chosen ones are selected. I knew that when the time came, I would have to choose from among these same people to share my destiny.

“Do not be afraid to punish those who bar your path to the original Paradise. Worry not about the justice of mankind. For theirs is the justice of the guilty and the dead.” - Sermon from the Project at Eden’s Gate.

I remembered Jacob as a child. More than anything else, he loved nature and the forests, only felt comfortable in the outdoors. I could not see him living in Atlanta, or any other city for that matter, so I decided to look for him in northern Georgia.

I visited every small town along the vast Chattahoochee forest. Day after day, I followed the narrow roads and lanes that sometimes lead to woodcutter shacks but more often led to clearings with not a soul in sight. I asked everyone I met whether they knew anyone named Seed, or even Jacob. There were plenty of Jacobs, but no Seeds.

I would return exhausted from my meanderings, covered in sawdust and insect bites. I expanded my search further north, into Tennessee. I went into every bar, every store. Sometimes I would find a job if they were hiring. Storekeeper, dishwasher, gas station attendant - the type of work that didn’t matter. But still no Jacob.

In despair, I decided to look for John. He had been adopted by a rich family at the time of our separation and I thought he might have gone to college. Unlike his brother, he would enjoy the city.

It was no more ridiculous to search through the wilds of a city than through the forest. So I went to the capital. Atlanta, a place that was likely to attract smart, ambitious young people.

I had never set foot in a large city before, but I was no longer a child and I had already seen too much in my life to be impressed by much. The backdrop may have changed, but people were the same everywhere. Whether in Rome, Georgia, along the banks of the Ganges River, or beneath the shadow of the Pyramids, the same drama of lies and desire played around the world.

I knew what was inside those ostentatious skyscrapers, proud men dreamed of moving ever higher and expanding their dominion over us pathetic ants below. I knew they sometimes amused themselves by watching our wretched lives through binoculars, like cruel, selfish children, that they would love nothing more than to crush us, to make magnifying glasses large enough to burn us alive. To them, we were nothing but number statistics and growth curves.

Soon, those arrogant towers would crumble and their lords would be dying under their ruins.

I began by looking for a place to sleep and a place to work. I didn’t need much. I sought neither physical comfort nor professional success, only my brothers.

Once again, I squatted in an abandoned building that awaited the whim of city planners who could decide between restoring it or knocking it down. I found a job as a garbage collector. I was assigned to Atlanta’s nicer neighbourhoods. Our routes began very early in the morning. Rich people don’t like seeing garbage trucks, don’t want to see the people who carry away their trash, and don’t like the way the garbage or the workers smell.

Sometimes I met locals with shiny trash cans that were cleaner than any car in the Rome of my childhood. They would look at me strangely, like an anomaly. Why is this man, who looks so much like me, working in such a lowly job? They did not like anything that disturbed their world. Soon, they will have no world at all.

But this schedule suited me. I could spend every afternoon studying at the library. Plus, the houses were charming, the streets were tree-lined and welcoming, the roads were nicely paved. Even the songbirds seemed livelier and in better health than in the Rome of my childhood. As I recalled, the birds of my childhood were grey and sang as if they had smoked their entire lives. I discovered what people threw away when they owned everything.

I discovered that there was as much as to be learned from observing what people threw out as from what they kept and cherished.

I learned that the rich aren’t as prudish as the poor.

I learned that the habits of the richest of the rich evolve, and others imitate from them, from where their salmon is caught to what brand of toilet paper they buy.

At least we never found dead homeless people or drug addicts in the dumpsters, as sometimes happened in less affluent neighbourhoods.

Two or three of us would stand at the back of the garbage truck and chat. My co-workers talked about their benders, their sexual exploits and their dreams. I talked about the Voice. After a while, they tired of my talk and complained, and once again, I was fired. I must confess that after that, I went through a period of depression. After all, the Voice had only spoken to me once and I had been so young.

A single, enigmatic message had promised our miserable brotherhood an extraordinary destiny. But in reality, I had completely failed to find my brothers or keep a single job, no matter how pitiful. Though every day my heart told me to believe, now and again the serpent of doubt would creep into me. But I did not give up and soon I found a job at a psychiatric hospital. This was an old dilapidated building where poor people were committed. It was for those who did not have insurance or jobs. The poor fools.

Inside the pain was flaking off the walls, the rusty bed frames squeaked horribly, and the place was understaffed. But at least the thick walls prevented the wailing and screaming from being heard outsides. We were not there to heal, but to keep the patients from bothering the rest of the world. And so, they were given copious amounts of drugs to quiet their illnesses and sedate them. For some residents, their daily dose looked like a bowl of children’s cereal; multi-coloured and full to the brim.

I suspect there were other, much more luxurious places for the rich schizophrenics and psychopaths, places with manicured gardens, thick carpets, and private rooms that were completely secluded. Surely, those institutes would not be called psychiatric hospitals, but rather wellness center's or rest homes. Even euphemisms come with a price tag. I wondered if they despised the poor who shared their mental troubles or if they formed strong family bonds regardless of money.

To my great surprise, I discovered that most residents were less unhinged than those on the outside. They were simply a nuisance: less prone to silence, incapable of hiding their quirks, of understanding that some things you keep to yourself instead of sharing with the world. For the most part, their only problems revolved around etiquette and proper behaviour. Their main illness was not being able to accept the world’s hypocritical rules and so society had created a prison in which to keep them hidden.

All the residents were extremely sensitive, and nearly all of them could sense that I was different. Some were fascinated, others were frightened. They were worn out by life, beaten down in one way or another. Even then, I knew that those who would answer my call would only be those exposed to suffering and rejection: The pure souls would be found among the wounded, veterans of the endless war society waged.

The hospital's doctors were not among them. Far from it. They protected society and acted as a buffer for it. They would never shout in the street or leave the house stark naked. They would never mutilate themselves in order to offer up a piece of their body to a loved one. They would never even miss a dinner without apologizing, attend church without a tie, or watch a military parade go by without removing their hat. They would never be able to understand my message. They could never be saved.

“Forget everything you know, for everything you know will be destroyed.” - Sermon from the Project at Eden’s Gate.

The facility was in a poor neighborhood, in an area that was nearly deserted and made up mostly.
of warehouses. Those who lived near the hospital met those with the criteria for admission there and every encounter had the potential to turn ugly. One evening as I was heading into the hospital for the night shift. I had the bad luck to run into three men. I had just barely passed them when they jumped me. I don’t remember what they took, but I will never forget what they gave me.

Doubtlessly disappointed by the lack of money in my pockets, they decided to make me pay for my
poorness. Two of them grabbed me by the arms and the third began punching me. When he tired, they switched roles. They beat me with unbearable contempt that the rich have for a servant. I was invisible to them, nothing more than a punching bag in a rundown gym. More than their blows, it was their disdain that broke me.

I was not able to physically fight off three opponents, so, as men often do, I turned inwards. I beseeched the Voice that had been silent for so long, accused it of having abandoned me after promising me a destiny, of having lied to me, and played with my innocence. I cursed it and insulted it — in my head. I had suffered so much for it since my childhood, our separation, the adoptive families, the miserable jobs, and the humiliation. I realized that the Voice had been the source of all my misfortune, pushing people away and narrowing my job options. It was all a cruel game. But then the Voice answered me.

The Voice broke its silence and showed me. And I saw. I was no longer on a poorly lit street - the Voice picked that day to show me our future. The worst possible future. The end of the world, complete collapse, call it what you will. Everything you know will soon be gone. Humanity has been condemned; it is inevitable, imminent, and terrible. The Voice did not show me exactly how it would all end.

Humanity is incredibly imaginative when it comes to self-destruction. It could last the brief instant of an explosion or could be slow and agonizingly painful. It could take the form of a century of resource depletion. We have brought so many catastrophes, created so many new threats, Our corruption is so deep that we have earned more than just one punishment. I hope the Voice condemns each person to the ending he or she fears more, to know that it would take back what it had given without pity in a final, multi-pronged curse.

It was inspired by the cruelty of mankind, we who kill, lie, and steal what others hold most sacred. No one is innocent. Each person will experience the end they dread. May those who fear the atomic bomb watch as the world disappears in a succession of mushroom clouds that vaporize everything they hold dear.

May tribes in the Amazon rainforest see their serpent gods devour their families and villages. May those who fear the volcano gods be consumed by red-hot ashes and lava. May those who fear illness be struck down by epidemics with neither cure nor vaccine. May sea people be drowned by waves so high they obscure the sky. May ice people die of cold and desert people be burned by the flame of the sun. May drug addicts die without their drugs, alcoholics without their drink and perverts without their perversions.

May scientists exhaust themselves along with the world’s resources and eat each other before dying of hunger. May those who pray to the stars disappear into the dark dust as asteroids crash into the Earth. May believers see demons from their holy books rise up from the bowels of the earth or descend from the sky to commit the ice and Sulphur of their hells unto humanity. This is what I desire from the bottom of my heart; to gather up the sum of all our fears, all our pain, and
everything inflicted upon us. In light of what we have committed, this punishment is just.
But the Voice also told me that humanity would not disappear entirely. Billions would die, yes. But some would be saved.

A few thousand pure souls, whose mission would be to start over and repopulate the earth.
This was our last chance and it was up to me, Joseph Seed, son of the most horrible man, bellhop at the most miserable hotel, garbage collector, and then a caretaker who could never care for anyone, chosen to take on the greatest responsibility ever shouldered by man - the responsibility of selecting and leading the chosen ones who would save not only a people, but the entire human race. I was only a son, but I had become the Father.

A father who had to gather his children, and it was essential that two of them be Jacob and John. To fulfill our destiny, the brothers had to be reunited. Then the Voice went silent and I was suddenly back on the street. The man beating me stopped with his fist in mid-air. He gave me a strange look. In turn, I gazed back at him curiously. I felt no physical pain, no anger. I now had a very clear mission to fulfill. The man told the others it was enough, that I looked like a martyr thrown to the lions. He felt he had done me a favor by hitting me, and it gave him the creeps.

He was the ringleader so the others obeyed him begrudgingly, like children who just had their toy taken away. When I arrived at the hospital, my shirt was covered in dried blood. One eye was swollen shut and one rib had been broken, making it painful to breathe. But I was a new man. The on-call nurses treated my wounds while they complained about safety issues and layoffs, which also affected the police. Then they moved on to unmanageable shift schedules, insurance, overtime compensation, and broken-down coffee machines. They had completely forgotten Joseph Seed, just another poor guy down on his luck. When they finally remembered I was there, they concluded by saying the world was going to the dogs and that it would all end badly.

I couldn’t disagree. That day, I also understood that the Voice had spoken to me for the last time. There was nothing more to say. Everything was in my hands. There was nothing more to say. Everything was in my hands. I would never again doubt my destiny. I was ready. The beating I had received from those three thugs - who would soon be nothing more than dust - was my coronation, my anointment. The Father was revealed. Those who want to live must follow the voice of the Father, the voice of Joseph Seed.

My voice.

“They judged you for your manners and they mocked your burns. Soon they will have no manners, for they will be nothing but burns." - Sermon from the Project at Eden’s Gate.

This is my task: to spread my message and unite the members of my new family before the world collapses. But before I gathered my children. I needed to reunite my brothers. I decided to leave my miserable job to concentrate fully on finding John. At this point, I hadn’t made any headway despite all my efforts. John’s face, which I would have recognized anyway, didn’t appear in any high school yearbook in Georgia.

It had also become clear that he must have changed his name. But I have changed as well. The weight of the revelation was not a burden - quite the contrary. A fog had lifted. My whole life - all my past suffering - now made sense. I was being prepared for my destiny; the way ancient warriors were trained in combat from birth. I could see this fact clearly, once I had shrugged off the weight of my rage and resentment.

Why let this weigh you down when everyone who has ever inflicted pain upon you will soon be reduced to nothingness? I was a new man. I took stock of the situation, suddenly aware that I had missed something in Rome; the radical change my childhood town had undergone was a sign in and of itself. So, I returned to Rome and began making the rounds at real estate agencies, which had sprouted up around the city the way weeds once had.

I met friendly people who boasted of the neighborhood’s safety and tranquility and of the executives and reasonably Avant-Garde designers that lived in the area. Property prices had shot up three thousand percent since my childhood. I doubt that the former residents had seen a
red cent of those steeps gain in value. But I felt no anger now that I knew that the ashes of executioner and victims alike would soon be mingled.

In the same smooth tones, I praised the boldness of the property development plants and asked who had initiated such a profitable venture. A major law firm was mentioned several times, the one responsible for the project. The firm was housed in one of those arrogant skyscrapers, in a business center like so many others around the world. There lay the center of power: at the foot of those towers, business people walked by at a clipped pace, phones glued to their ears, talking numbers - talking to themselves.

Here more than anywhere else, time was money. They were unaware they had little time remaining, that all the money in the world couldn’t change this certitude. All of them would die soon; only a handful would survive. There was only one John working at the well-heeled firm, an associate with the last name Duncan. The receptionist looked at me suspiciously from behind her marble desk as I entered the building and asked to see him. I pressed on; Joseph Seed needs to discuss a matter of the utmost importance with Mr. Duncan, and we’ve previously met. I was lying. I had never met John Duncan.

But I knew straight away that the man in the suit and tie who came out to greet me was indeed John seed. My brother. He was shaken, but as a seasoned businessman, he maintained his composure until we entered his well-appointed office, where he fell into my arms. He recounted the life he had lived since we had been separated at the orphanage. Between our biological parents and our first foster family, none of the Seed brothers had been spared. But for John, the worst was yet to come.

The Duncan’s were rich, very rich in fact. But they were religious zealots of the worst sort. They
psychologically tortured young John so effectively that he longed for the days of Old Man Seed’s leather belt. The Duncan’s were obsessed with sin. To them, a child’s silence could mean only that he was thinking impure thoughts, every absence meant mischief, every movement meant temptation. They were convinced that John’s soul was tainted and must be cleansed, purified by any means necessary. John’s childhood and teen years were no more than one lone, elaborate exorcism.

The Evil within him had to be exterminated. John was urged to confess his sins at all hours of the day and night, and he quickly came to understand that if he had nothing to confess, he should make something up. He played the game as best he could. Ratcheted up the showers of penitence, whipped himself, forced himself to kneel in the tiny, austere chapel the Duncan’s had built and pray for entire days at a time. He became the joy of his foster parents, a saint in their eyes. When the Duncan’s sent him off to a prestigious law school on the East coast, they believed that they had succeeded in changing John Seed fundamentally. In a way, they were right. They had turned an innocent child into a monster skilled at concealment and full of suppressed anger.

Thanks to the endless interrogations from his parents and a series of fundamentalist preachers, John had developed an extraordinary talent; he could show others the face that they wanted to see. In the eyes of his inquisitors, he had become a saint, a pure soul. To everyone, he was a trustworthy man, a genuine friend and confidant. Survival instinct had turned him into a chameleon, as heartless as he was shapeshifting. As a result, people told him more secrets than they told their psychiatrists, parents or priests. And they never lied.

The truths came pouring out, from the most innocent to the most sordid. Even the most distrusting of men couldn’t help but bare their souls to him. Where skilled torturers would have failed, John was able to obtain information with a simple smile. The President himself would have handed John the nuclear codes without hesitation. Maybe that was how humanity would end. In any case, John had become the confessor. He exploited his gift without remorse.

He extricated secrets from anybody and everybody, sold information confided to him. He betrayed men whom no one suspected beat and abused their children behind closed doors. He had an extensive network of people under his control who granted him favors in return for his silence. Most of the time, he didn’t even need to make threats - everyone already knew the score.
John was good to them, yet he hated them all.

Physically, he was society’s very model of success. He was strikingly handsome, elegant, and wore tailored suits. His shoes alone cost more than the monthly income of each family that lived on our childhood street combined. His hair gleamed, his teeth shone, and his hands were manicured. John graduated at the top of his class.

The fact that he knew which professors were sleeping with which students may have had something to do with it. He quickly became one of the fastest rising young lawyers in Atlanta. He rubbed elbows with the political and artistic elite and became acquainted with all the influential businessmen. When you consider where the three of us came from, his rise to success was nothing short of a miracle.

But John never spoke of his origins. He wasn’t there to affirm the American Dream of social mobility. He had put out more than he would ever receive. To the world, he was John Duncan, a man born to a well-to-do family who had inherited a small fortune when his parents died. To the world, he was a devoted son who mourned them with dignity at their funeral.

For he was adept at crocodile tears as well. John was a man constantly in disguise. He wore silk ties the way undercover cops wear gang colors. He hated society. He knew better than anyone that its foundations were sunk deep into the swamps of poverty; that society could not flourish without a bedrock of abused children in the impoverished suburbs of cities like Rome, Atlanta, and elsewhere.

The fact that no one knew of his inner rage made him all the more dangerous. He wanted to watch it all crumble; he wanted the world to burn. Today, we know that it will burn, but in his heart of hearts, John always desired the apocalypse more than anyone.

Continued from Chapter 8A

When we were reunited, John even hated himself. He detested his wretched childhood and his adulthood in equal measure. He was living a life straight out of a pulp fiction novel, addicted to sex and drugs, hosting trendy parties with famous actors, notorious gangsters, police officers, and federal judges in attendance, all of whom crossed paths in bed or around trays of cocaine. Never had flies swarmed so enthusiastically to a spider’s lair. His public face slowly began to overtake John Seed, a transformation that John Seed himself encouraged by destroying his past - starting with where it all began: Rome, Georgia.

As I suspected, he played a part in the development of our old neighborhood. He knew all the people to make it happen. To make matters easier, the Neighbours’ crumbling shacks were worthless. Most were abandoned, all were mortgaged to the hilt, and their residents were in no position to refuse a windfall. In the worst-case scenario, if some stubborn resident refused to move, John knew a high-ranking city planner who had awkwardly confessed to being on the take. But it turned out to be necessary. No one in Rome had refused the offer of more money than they had ever seen in their lives.

Everything was razed to the ground. When I told John of my recent revelation. I also explained how our past had been painful, yet necessary training. He had to accept it. As hard as it had been, it was nothing compared to what he would soon endure, on the first day of the end of the world. The John that he had showed to the world could give way to the real John. He could be himself again. All would be destroyed as he desired, for there were others who had reached the same conclusions that he had, that the world was not worthy of persisting.

On that day, John Seed happily killed off John Duncan and promised to follow me and help me unwaveringly and undoubtingly, unto death if necessary. I expected no less of him. I expect no less of all those who will join me. For they alone will live. Today, John is the confessor in our community. He makes each person new again, relieves our members of the burden of regrets and secrets, so they can be reborn, start over.

He tests the sincerity of those who wish to join us. He ensures that their intentions are pure. Thanks to him, I know that each member of our family is devoted body and soul to the grand plan that I must accomplish and that there are no informants among our ranks. Thanks to John, I know there are no bad seeds.

“Let us thank the Father who was chosen by the Voice, the brother who protects us from evil, and the brother who listens to our heart.” - Sermon from the Project at Eden’s Gate.

Two Seeds had been reunited. There was still one more, but at least I now had a man at my side
whom no one could refuse anything. John Seed may have become himself again, but we still need John Duncan, the man who opened doors. The government was as helpful to John as it had been unyielding to me.

Everything from personal data to confidential files became accessible. This made it fairly simple to retrace Jacob’s steps. We knew it that when we were separated, when Jacob had deliberately set fire to the farm, he had been sent to a juvenile detention center. Thanks to a senior official with a weakness for prostitutes, John quickly had the full report in his hands. Jacob had been a bit of a troublemaker in juvie.

Rebellious and hostile to any figure of authority, he clashed with the correctional system. Despite this, some reports praised his sense of honor and his leadership skills. It seemed that the guards hated him, but his teachers believed in him. Regardless, once he served out his sentence, he had the same prospects as the other juvenile delinquents: the army or a life of crime. Jacob enlisted in the Marines. In his military file - given to John willingly by a high-ranking officer who had gotten mixed up in some shady arms dealing - was a photo of our brother.

He had grown into a broad-shouldered man. His eyes still burned with a wild light, just as they had been when we were children, still had that same flicker of insolence that seemed to tell our father he could beat Jacob as much as he wished but could never change him. He wasn’t as handsome as John, but his features were smooth and balanced - the type of man you would follow to war without hesitation, the type of man you would put in a military recruitment poster. But in the military, Jacob had done more than just march in parades. He had been on the front lines and done several tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. He had been wounded and decorated multiple times.

As soon as he was back on his feet, he would return to combat. This lasted until a medical report warned Jacob’s superiors that he was a broken man. He suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, the syndrome of those who have seen too much. The illness that is kept quiet. Later, Jacob would tell us of what he had experienced over there, everything that the reports kept hidden.
He himself had driven one of the bulldozers that buried enemy soldiers alive in their sandy foxholes.

He saw the hands sticking up above the sand, still waving. He said they reminded him of a father who, during summers at the beach, lets his children cover him in sand with their buckets and shovels. The hands seemed to say, “Stop, that’s enough, it’s time to go home. Now, get this sand off of me!” But Jacob didn’t obey. He didn’t bulldoze the sand away. Eventually, after the final tremor, the hands became still. It wasn’t his father under there, but he wouldn’t have dug him up even if it had been. He had hundreds of memories like that one. They could surge up at any moment, tormenting him day and night. He cried out in his sleep.

He had seen many comrades die, most of them young men barely out of childhood, who only realized it wasn’t a game as they bled out in Jacob’s arms. He himself had nearly died multiple times in merciless hand-to-hand combat. His face had been slashed by knives, his body shot with bullets and there was still shrapnel buried in his scarred flesh.

He had killed soldiers: men like him who had brothers who wished to seek revenge in a never-ending cycle of violence. But this macabre dance will once day end for a lack of fighters. All will die, while only a few righteous survive. Jacob had killed innocent people too. He had taken and lost palaces. He had pillaged and he had shared his food with orphans. He had been a monster and occasionally a human being in the service of the greed that guided those from whom he took his orders.

He knew instinctively that he was liberating nobody and nothing. He was merely accelerating a change in ownership, nothing more than a process server hastening in eviction, using bullets and grenades instead of rubber stamps. After he was declared unfit for service, Jacob spent some time at a military hospital. Once his funds ran dry, he was simply tossed out onto the street. That’s the way used-up soldiers have always been treated.

They are decorated with medals, then told to take a long walk off a short pier. Maybe that’s what all the medals are for: so that they’ll sink and drown and blot out those faces that reveal the atrocities they were forced to commit. The file ended there. Jacob was nowhere to be found. His pension was untouched, he had no driver's license, filed for no public assistance, committed no crime. Jacob no longer existed. But I wouldn’t give up. I knew that the site of our childhood pulled on the Seeds like a magnet. If Jacob was alive, he would be there.

I decided to visit every homeless shelter in Rome and the surrounding area, those meager forms of assistance that society deigns to provide to its human sacrifices, whether they are national heroes or just out of work. The shelters were indistinguishable from each other. All were bare, austere institutions, as wretched and out-of-the-way as the hospital where I had worked. Their residents were identical as well: same stooped posture, same grey faces, marked by both excess and hardship, the same lifeless gazes. Any of them might have known war.

All of them had been defeated, in any case. I spoke with volunteers who worked with these men and women. They told me about the fits and the yelling. They spoke of the theft, the fights that often broke out over a piece of bread or a spot near the heater. Rich and poor alike are always vying for the best position. In the end, the only differences between them is that the poor steal things that are worthless.

Even worse, the drifters who came to the shelter brought with them only what was strictly necessary. If it wasn’t a chipped knife, a laughter, or some spare change that was stolen, it was an item of inestimable sentimental value. I was told a story about an old man who cried for a whole week over a glass marble - a kids’ toy - that had disappeared from his pockets. I heard about a young woman who died of a broken heart after a dried flower pressed between two pages of an old book crumbled. Everyone had some link to their past.

If it wasn’t an object, it was a place that they revisited frequently, like the grave of a loved one, or a simple memory that they replayed in their head over and over. Their world had crumbled around them, and yet they searched the rubble for something to keep as a talisman. One day, in one of those shelters, I spied a silhouette on a cot. A man curled in the fetal position, facing the wall. He was agitated and mumbling in his sleep, seeming to call out. I only understood two words. The man was calling for Joseph and John.

“We have left behind the only illusions, families that were not our families in a world that was not our world. May that theatre of shadows burn.” - Sermon from the Project at Eden’s Gate.

If he hadn’t uttered those words, I would have passed right by Jacob without recognizing him.
There was nothing left of the child I had known, nor of the soldier I had seen in the photo. In fact, there was nothing left of him at all. I had found one brother full of rage, but I found the other completely hollow. The Jacob I stumbled upon that day had become little more than a shadow. John and I were able to take our brother with us without incident.

No one even asked for documents proving we were related. The lives of the shelter’s residents were worth less than a stamp, less than a simple photocopy. It helped that everyone wanted to believe in the miracle of a family reunited and for many at the shelter, it was the first time they had ever seen a happy ending. Finding the Jacob we once knew took longer.

He had seen too much, done too much. Though still young, he had experienced more suffering and guilt than a man twice his age. He was weary. He needed to be reborn. Day after day. I explained to him - as I had John - the purpose of all his suffering. He was a natural soldier, but meaningless combat had crushed his spirit. My spirit was the only one of any value. I recounted to him what had been revealed to me. I told him about our crucial mission, the noblest mission of all. Slowly, Jacob came back to life.

He recognized his strength and courage and, like his brother, swore to stand with me to the end. He was afraid of neither death nor the end of the world. He had already experienced both on a smaller scale. The Seed blood flowed through his veins. Today, Jacob acts as our protector. He selects the most determined of the chosen ones and trains them to become soldiers of our community. He teaches them weapons-handling and combat techniques. He teaches them to become merciless. Most are former military men. They understand the realities of combat. But this fight is different, and they all know it.

Thus, the three brothers were reunited. And thus, were united the first members of the last family
of the world. The time had come to recruit the righteous who would save humanity from annihilation. Thanks to John, we found a place where I could preach. A manufacturer loaned us a former slaughterhouse as a token of gratitude toward my brother. John had kept quiet about a murky case involving spoiled meat that had sickened an entire elementary school.

John’s assistance was well worth the red brick building, which the company didn’t know what to do with anyhow. The place still reeked of death and suffering of tens of thousands of animals slaughtered there. But this didn’t bother me much. I was preaching about a massacre in any case. In the early days, not many people came to our temple. Perhaps it was the lingering stench of blood. Most of the time I preached to my brothers, and occasionally to a curious passer-by or tramp who came in for the warmth. I wasn’t the only preacher in town - far from it.

The streets were full of people wearing signs and wielding megaphones, employees of multinationals of the apocalypse, faithlessly spouting sermons tested and approved in tall towers by the same men who decided what we should eat, how we should dress, and how we should think. The world is full of crooked preachers, rip-off miracle-workers who live off the credulity of followers taken in by phony mystical trances, pseudo-miraculous healings and ketchup covered stigmata.

We were surrounded by wealthy reverends boasting of their virtue only to be discovered later in the arms of prostitutes and corrupt pastors who hide in the shadows of their gods to commit their sins. I don’t ask my followers for money. I don’t care if they are rich or poor. I am asking them for far more than their fortunes. I am asking for their spirits and their lives.

I require them to sacrifice their own desires and give themselves over entirely to our grand plan.
If you want to live, this is the price you must pay. I know that many will doubt me and that many will refuse to listen. We live in a cynical world surrounded by liars ready to slander that which they cannot understand. My message frightens them, and because they are not worthy, they prefer to mock me and treat me like a madman or a crook.

I know that they will die soon, but I am afraid that their lies will scare away men and women who might otherwise join us and be saved. Listen only to your heart and you will know where the truth lies. Little by little, the pews of our temple began to fill up. As I had always predicted, those who accepted my message were simple people who understood the abysmal darkness of the world and experienced it day after day.

The chosen ones are recruited from among those that society calls losers. They will live, and the society of non-believers that condemned them will disappear, having denied its own collapse up until the last second. Some came and went, others stayed. Some were sincere, others less so.

Despite our grand plans, our community also attracted the envious, people who dreamed of power
and wanted to exert their dominance. We sent them packing as soon as they were discovered. But one day, one of the schemers who dreamed of usurping me disappeared after we kicked him out. What became of him? We didn’t know. But his disappearance was a pretext for authorities to come knocking.

They smelled blood. The police found us and interrogated us. With no proof, they tried to accuse us surreptitiously of murdering the missing man. I explained that everyone in the world would die soon, so we had no interest in such despicable revenge. Everyone would die except those who joined me.

But rumors spread.

Rumors are a powerful weapon. They can condemn the innocent, destroy reputations and vilify the virtuous. Even today, our enemies spread this poison among the feeble-minded. I don’t care about such slander or those who believe in it. Those people can't be saved. They are the kind that obey the voice of their masters, who believe everything the newspapers and televisions say. They bow to authority. They will die without understanding they will be told there is nothing to fear right until the bitter end. Today we have learned from our mistakes, and John ensures that those who join us have pure intentions. But at that time, in order to save our community, we had no choice but to leave Rome.

“Those who open their eyes will see, those who listen will hear, those whose hearts are pure will join us.” - Sermon from the Project at Eden’s Gate.

We needed refuge away from the city and away from police harassment, a place where we could.
thrive and be protected from the terrible events to come. So, we unfolded a map of the country and searched for somewhere our community could call home. We quickly turned to the mountainous region in the Northwest - secluded spots that were easy to defend. Many religious survivalist communities set up camp there to flee persecution and live on the fringe of society.

I examined the map closely, my eyes lingering over Montana and that’s when I found it. The name appeared in tiny print, a name that I had never heard before, but which was extremely promising: Hope County. Hope. The hope of giving birth to a new humanity of creating a purer, fairer, more fraternal society from the ashes of the old. We would go to Hope County, where we would fulfill our destiny. I knew it at the very core of my being. I pointed to the name and told my brothers that I knew where we were going.

We set off a few days later, determined to spread our message along the way. Our mission was as much to recruit faithful followers and grow our family, as it was to reach our sanctuary. I couldn’t tell you about every single person who joined us over the course of our travels, for there were a great many of us by the time we reached Hope County. If you listen to your heart and it is pure, you will join us. You will know us all, for you will harvest crops alongside us, you will train alongside us, and you will sing and pray alongside us. But I can tell you about a few of them - like our brother Matthew.

I was giving a sermon, as I later often would in a supermarket parking lot. The security guard made movements to intercede, until he caught Jacob’s eye. He must have done a quick comparison to the peanuts he earned, and the potential risk involved, shrugged and chose instead to patrol the other end of the parking lot. It was a wise decision on his part. Thus, with a simple microphone and speaker attached to the roof of our van. I delivered my message.

Most of the supermarket’s customers walked by without listening. They were more concerned with their carts overflowing with purchases, half of which would probably go to waste. Maybe they would think back on this scene when the end times came. Which would haunt them more: not having listened to me, or the bygone days of abundance? On that day, my words resonated with only one person. He was a very thin young man.

He wasn’t grocery shopping, but looking for spare change that distracted customers might have dropped on the ground. At the time, the young man was named John Kennedey. People found his illustrious name hilarious, and he endured pitiless, mocking laughter because of it. Today, he goes by Matthew, and he is nothing like the man he once was. That man no longer exists. And soon, neither will the people who laughed at him.

Nor will even the memory of presidents, kings, and prophets of yore. But the man that Matthew once was had felt empty inside. He felt incomplete but didn’t quite know what was missing. He felt filled with fetid breath, as if he were nothing more than a balloon inflated by a chain-smoker. And as often happens in such cases, he pricked himself with needles to try and make himself pop faster. Because the money that John Kennedy sought in grocery store parking lots, in trash cans, and in gutters was money for a hit of heroin.

But that day, the young man no longer felt empty. On the contrary - for the first time - he felt fulfilled. The drugs he once took to forget his life gave way to the incomparable light of the revelation. He heard my message and understood it. He became Matthew, and he will be saved. Like a few - very few - others. Many have joined us since then. I love them all equally. They have become new beings, freed from the burdens of their pasts, absolved of their sins. They are pure.

In previous lives, they were homeless tramps and police officers with nothing in common. Today, they are farmers and soldiers, but above all, they are family, equals, all serving our grand plan under a father’s benevolent eye. We were also joined by Peter over the course of our trek. In a past life, he had been one of the most well-known geneticists in his field, but he had been kicked out of the medical association for conducting an experiment that proved fatal for the terminally ill patient. It now seems so trivial to us, we who know that all of humanity has been sentenced to death - all but a handful of chosen ones of all ages and backgrounds.

Having become a pariah of Chicago’s high society, Peter tried to kill himself by crashing his car into a wall. Despite the impact, he was spared by providence - but the fire that began immediately after the crash left his face severely burned. After that he emerged only at night, hidden beneath a scarf. When he answered my call, I asked him to reveal his face to all of us. And we accepted him as he was. As horrifying as his scars were, they were nothing compared to the invisible wounds that many of the chosen ones our large family had to live with. Others followed. The larger we grew, the louder our voice became, like a choir whose volume swells as its membership grows. We were a choir of an invincible army.

We soon became a veritable cortege, a caravan on its way to conquer the Wild West — only we
weren’t driven by a gold rush, but rather by our faith. We found and fixed up some old school busses to transport those who didn’t have their own cars. We obtained tents and makeshift shelters. Wherever we went, good Samaritans let us camp in their field, their yards, and sometimes in their houses. Some of them joined us; others did not. May they experience a quick and painless death.

Soon, the police and even the FBI began circling us like vultures, the helicopter flybys, snapping photos of our convoy of chosen ones became more frequent. They arrested us and searched our vehicles more than once. But they never found a thing. We had our brother Luke to thank for that. Luke was probably the handiest man in all of America. With his own two hands he built a weapons cache under the seats of one of our buses. The work was exquisite and undetectable.

For additional security, Jacob spent most of his time sitting on it, and it was rare that someone dare ask him to get up. We met Luke at a bar in Tennessee. Unfortunately for him as was common among those who joined us, the feeling of emptiness in his heart had left him a shaky man. It was eight o’clock in the morning, and while we were drinking coffee, he was on his fifth beer. Despite all his talent, he had lost his job as a carpenter and became a permanent fixture at the bar.

He spent his days drinking, a friendly barfly. First, he drank through his bank account, then his car, and finally his house. At least he didn’t have a family to drink through, like Old Man Seed had back in his day. When I began my sermon at the bar, his glass of beer was half-full. He never finished his drink and hasn’t had a single sip since.

Such is the power of my message. Its mere breath rescues the flotsam and jetsam of humanity that society has condemned; the drug addicts and alcoholics whose futures have been shattered by war or by mistakes they have made. There is nobody I cannot save and offer a new life. And when we finally arrived at our destination, there were hundreds of us.

“We will build our fortress and it will be impregnable. Nothing will be able to shake loose the stones
cemented in place by our faith.” - Sermon from the Project at Eden’s Gate.

If I had commanded it, I know that every last person would have followed me as far as Alaska,
and even to the North Pole. But our promised land was in Montana, and after meandering through several states, our journey ended here in Hope County. The scene was marvelous. A wide, lush valley with sparkling rivers lay before our eyes. The foothills of the Rocky Mountains lay in the distance. Deep forests flanked the valley, shielding it from the outside world. There were few roads leading in or out, making the site easier to defend. Sheltered in our bunkers, we could withstand a siege here, even against the rest of the world.

Everywhere barns, wind turbines, and windmills were evidence of the region’s wealth of agriculture, and white churches steeples in the scattered towns appeared to be another promising source of recruits. There were even small airfields. We had reached the end of our exodus, and we had been given a promised land that exceeded all our hopes and dreams. The last remaining humans will reemerge from the hollows of this land. To all the generations that follow, this will be the land of their forefathers, the land of the first people.

The place was vast and yet nearly uninhabited. The land was fertile, the forests full of game, and the scenery magnificent but the winters were harsh and cities few and far between. Many people suffered from loneliness and left to seek happiness elsewhere. We, who had come from this elsewhere, could have told them that it was exceedingly rare to find happiness out there. It was challenging land, made for pioneers, for the courageous and the confident. It was a land made for us - for our family.

It was the land of the Project at Eden’s Gate. We had no trouble settling down in Hope County. Thanks to John and his fortune, we acquired lands and farms without hassle. The locals were friendly. As we had imagined, they were used to the arrivals of communities fleeing society and its vices. John quickly formed relationships with the political authorities of the valley’s towns. In just a few months, he had become friendly with all the mayors, sheriffs, and important leaders.

And in those few months, he found out all their dirty little secrets. Humanity is the same everywhere. Even in this paradise, where everything speaks of virtue and devotion, people cheat one another, steal, lie, and give in to every conceivable sin to obtain power, glory and riches. This world deserves to die a thousand times over. Thanks to John, our family is protected. We live together according to our own morals, and no one disrupts our way of life. Many faithful followers have joined us since we arrived in Hope County.

They are mostly men and women who attended my sermons and were enlightened by my messages. For others, the prospect of a healthy, structured life in the Eden’s Gate community was their last hope. Though the spiteful and envious will always spread baseless lies about our community, among honest people in the area, we have a reputation for working miracles.
It is said that the greatness of our Project, our morality, and the support we give to one another have pulled people from the depths of the darkest depressions and the deepest addictions. Such was the case with Faith - doesn’t matter what her name used to be.

When she showed up on our doorstep, she was a young woman ravaged by drugs. She was strikingly beautiful despite the scars left by addiction and the profound despair evident on her face. I told her that the drugs and alcohol were strictly forbidden in our community, that the only highs we experienced came from our faith.

I said that I didn’t judge her past that many of us had turned to bottles and needles in order to forget the cruelty of the world and the loneliness that weighed upon us, but she had to understand that things were different now; she was no longer alone. In the Eden’s Gate community, siblings support each other. We are one big family. The last family and the first. Faith underwent a painful, gruesome period of withdrawal. More than once, she nearly gave up. But with the help of her brothers and sisters, she held strong.

In her worst moments, we permitted her a dose of scopolamine, a medication that gave her some respite and helped her forget the needles and syringes. And thus, Faith was purified. Today, she follows in the footsteps of the others who came before her and helps people forget. She is the
sister who offers carefree moments of joy. Whenever she deems it necessary, she helps our chosen ones find peace, as she found in her time of delirium and suffering. Not everyone is able to withstand the destiny I reveal to them. How can I blame my children for losing sleep when they learn that the world as they know it will disappear forever?

Thanks to Faith, the members of our community are able to accept and internalize the word, to obey without doubting, to give themselves over entirely to the family, melding together to become a single unit with the sole objective of achieving the destiny of the chosen ones. Combining their vast knowledge. Faith and Peter have set up a laboratory and, through people John knows, obtained equipment that normally only hospitals have access to.

Today, with no outside help, we have the ability to provide medical treatment and manufacture medicines that will help us survive. Some valley residents say we are conducting animal experiments in our lab.

Wherever there are people, there are envious people. They sow discord, spread rumors, and live to slander others. Soon they will no longer exist, and when the flames shoot from their mouths, the lies they tell will be silenced forever. The fact that Peter was the first geneticist to settle in the area was enough to set people talking. Or maybe it was the accidents that had been occurring in the woods for some time. Hunters had been found dead and torn to pieces, sending the valley into a flurry of speculation. Like you, I am repulsed by the idea of altering the creation of the divine. I respect its creatures. But the world will cease to exist soon, and in any case these stories help drive away curiosity seekers.

John also helps ensure that the sheriffs don’t come too near. After all, no one wants to risk the focus of small-town gossip. As for Jacob, he is free to build the arsenal that will aid our defense when dazed apocalypse survivors seek us out and try to take our resources. We must purchase weapons - many, many weapons. We need trucks, and tanks, and airplanes. Our men must be strong and hard of heart. They must become ruthless. For the day will come when all those who remained deaf to my message will fall at our feet, begging for mercy. They will hold out their terrified children and ask us to feed them, to take them in. They will call on our humanity, on our love.

But that is not the divine plan: only a handful of chosen ones must be saved. So, we must build walls around our hearts and our homes. We must renounce in order to be reborn, abandon our status as men to become the swords, the vengeful arms of the grand plan that I have revealed. Every member of the family is ready to die for our Projects, but from them Jacob has selected three hundred warriors. Many of them are former soldiers.

They are the fiercest and the most skilled. They form an elite troop of three hundred Spartans who will guard the entrances to our refuges, against which waves of violence and despair will crash. Until everything quiets down.

Continued from Chapter 12A

In the meantime, as we await the inevitable storm, we lead a simple life at Eden’s Gate.
Our family’s first concern is to fortify our faith. When the day comes our souls must be filled with
courage and confidence. We support and help each other; we pray and sing together. I tell them what the Voice told me, again and again. When doubt creeps in, the most fragile members confess to John.

Everyone has known misfortune in one way or another. A Father would have to be uncompromising indeed not to forgive their moments of weakness. Here, everyone has suffered, whether at the hands of others, from addiction, or from their own decisions. They all have families, friends, and memories, and deep down they know that all of them will die. When it’s all too much for them to bear, Faith helps them find peace.

Sometimes they must be punished, as all children must, but we always keep in mind that everyone here has accepted my message, and therefore everyone here is sacred.

Our world is no longer ruled by greed and selfishness, but rather by a brotherhood and an unshakeable faith strong enough to overcome any addiction and make us new again. We live apart from the outside world. We live together, far away from the vile, rotten society that nearly devoured us all at one time or another. We live away from its lies, its false idols, its obscene music, and its overwhelming desire for material wealth.

We keep as far as possible from the toxic fumes of airplanes, hidden messages as advertisements, the hypnosis of television and the internet, and the lies taught in schools. We are hidden from the government that monitors our every move. We have rejected the poison they put in our food, that they inject us with - All those chemicals, and the physical and mental manipulations whose purpose was to enslave us and distance us from original virtue.

We work hard toward the noble goal of preparing for the end of this detestable world. We sow, reap, and preserve. The days are long, but here, everyone knows they have been chosen, and no one spares any effort. We must build shelters, store food, construct defenses and maintain weapons and equipment. Each person works according to his or her ability. The cooks feed us, the soldiers guard us, the farmers harvest, and the carpenters build. Everyone digs and shores up the tunnels where we will take refuge when the end comes - when we are given the sign that we are ready each day to receive. That is the life of the chosen ones.

“We are a family and Joseph is our Father. Together we will walk to the gates of Heaven.” - Sermon from the Project at Eden’s Gate.

If you have read this far, then there is hope yet. It means you have understood how society has deceived you and you corrupt your soul by spreading lies and greed.

They said you were weak because you rejected their selfish unrighteous rules. They said you were not fit for this world, simply because you desired something greater than material possessions.
They called you defective and sick when you were but unfulfilled orphans. You filled that emptiness anyway you could. I am not here to judge your past sins. But now you have heard the message I spread. You have finally seen that the light is what you were seeking. You were like a beacon that only needed divine energy to light up the path and brighten the world.

The light is now shining on you, in you; it radiates out from you. You are stronger, much stronger than they are. You are just and pure. You are the chosen ones. I beseech you to join me, to join our family - to join your family. Society was not right for you. You knew that it was already a cemetery - that it was already in ruins. You smelled before anyone else the horrible odor that is putrefaction. You do not belong in this world. You belong in the next world, the new world. The old one will disappear. Along with everyone who ever doubted both you and I.

I know not the details of the divine plan to annihilate this abhorrent, pestilent society. I cannot tell you how long we will be sequestered beneath the earth. Concealed in shelter that we have dug ourselves, we may experience deprivation and scarcity; there may be times of suffering.
But the light that lives in us will protect us against doubt.

For doubt is a serpent whose venom seeps into hearts and souls. That is why we demand obedience and loyalty from our family members, come what may. For that alone will give us the strength and patience we need to survive. We have our faith, our family and our weapons, and we shall serve our grand plan with blind trust. We will be its pioneers, and in return, we will be giving a virgin land; a new, pure world, a world to rebuild with faith and joy.

A Paradise.

The only question now is whether you wish to live or whether you wish to die with a world that never acknowledged you.

Only a handful will remain.

You deserve to be among them - I know this to be true. Just as surely as they deserve to die, you deserve to live. We are a family and I am your Father. Together, we will walk to the gates of Heaven.

“Praise the heavens for giving us our brother John, who hears our confessions, our sister Faith, who soothes us, our brother Jacob, who protects us, and our Father Joseph, whose love is unending.” - Sermon from the Project at Eden’s Gate.

- - THE END - -

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