Sofia Morales had never heard true silence before that night.
Not the hush of the adoration chapel at 3:15 a.m., when the only sounds were the soft click of her rosary beads and the occasional cough from old Mrs. Kowalski two pews back.
This was different.
This was the silence of a world that had just lost its children.
She was kneeling on the worn red cushion in the front row of St. Philomena's perpetual adoration chapel on the South Side of Chicago, forehead pressed against the cool marble rail, whispering the final decade of her emergency novena for her brother Diego.
The monstrance on the altar blazed like a second sun (far brighter than the tiny sanctuary lamp had any right to be). The Host inside it glowed with a pure white-gold light that hurt to look at directly, yet she couldn't look away.
Then the trumpet sounded.
It was not loud. It was not soft.
It simply was.
A single, perfect note that began inside her chest and rolled outward until the walls of the little chapel shook like Jericho. The stained-glass windows rattled in their frames. The flame on the candle by the tabernacle bowed low, as though someone had opened a door to a wind from another world.
And then… nothing.
Mrs. Kowalski's cough never came.
The hum of the refrigerator in the sacristy died.
Even the distant wail of sirens that always drifted in from the Dan Ryan at night (gone).
Sofia's fingers tightened around her rosary. The beads were warm, almost hot.
"Jesus?" she whispered. "Did I fall asleep? Am I… am I dead?"
She stood slowly, knees cracking. The chapel looked exactly the same, except for the impossible light pouring from the monstrance.
And the empty pews.
Mrs. Kowalski's coat was still draped across the back of the second row, her purple knit hat sitting neatly on the seat. Her dentures grinned up from the floor like a Halloween joke.
Sofia's heart stuttered.
"No. No, no, no—"
She ran to the side door that led to the rectory hallway. Empty.
Father Ramirez's bedroom slippers sat side-by-side outside his door, socks still inside them, collapsed like shed snakeskin.
The kitchenette: Sister Mary Grace's half-finished cup of chamomile tea steamed on the counter, but the sister who had brewed it three minutes ago was simply… not.
Sofia's phone buzzed in her hoodie pocket (one bar of service, the only sign the world still existed).
A voicemail. Timestamp: 3:33 a.m.
Her mother's voice, trembling with joy.
"Sophie, mija… we're going Home. All of us. Your little cousins, your abuela, even the baby in 3B who was baptized last week. The angels came, Sofia. They came and we're with Jesus. Why are you still there? Please, baby… please come soon—"
The message cut to static.
Sofia played it again. And again. Until the words stopped making sense.
She stumbled back into the chapel and fell to her knees in front of the altar. The glowing Host was so bright now it painted the entire room gold.
"Lord," she sobbed, "I went to confession Saturday. I receive You every single day. Why wasn't I good enough?"
The answer came not in words, but in light.
A cross (small, perfect, luminous) ignited in the center of her forehead. She felt it burn like baptismal oil, like confirmation chrism, like the moment the priest had first laid the Host on her tongue at age seven.
The pain lasted less than a heartbeat. Then only warmth remained.
She lifted a shaking hand to her reflection in the polished brass of the tabernacle door.
There, between her dark eyes, a cross-shaped seal glowed softly, visible only when the light from the monstrance hit it at the right angle.
She knew the verse instantly. Revelation 7. The Seal of the Living God.
Footsteps pounded outside (boots on concrete). Voices shouting in panic. A car alarm began wailing three blocks away and never stopped.
Sofia grabbed her phone, stuffed her rosary into her pocket, and ran to the front door of the chapel.
She pushed it open and stepped into a world that had ended while she was praying.
The streetlights on 47th were still on, but every car on the block had crashed. A Metra train on the overpass hung half off the tracks, steam hissing from a ruptured line. Piles of clothing lay everywhere (jeans, hijabs, Bears jerseys, hospital scrubs), some still holding the shape of the bodies that had vanished out of them.
A child's Spider-Man sneaker sat alone in the middle of the intersection. Size 11 kids. No foot inside.
Sofia's breath came in short, terrified gasps. She clutched the doorframe.
And then every screen still intact (phones in dead hands, digital billboards, the TV in the window of the 24-hour taquería) turned on at once.
The same face filled them all.
A man. Thirty-three, maybe thirty-five. Black hair swept back, cheekbones sharp enough to cut glass, eyes the color of winter sea ice. He wore a simple charcoal suit and stood in what looked like the ruins of St. Peter's Square at dawn. Behind him, the bronze doors of the basilica hung open, empty.
When he spoke, his voice came out in perfect English, perfect Spanish, perfect everything, as though the words were being translated inside the listener's own skull.
"My brothers and sisters," he said, and his sadness sounded real, "a terrible thing has happened tonight. Billions of our loved ones have been taken by forces we do not yet understand. I myself lost my own mother and little sister."
He let the silence sit, heavy as snow.
"But I have been given a way to make sure this never happens again. In seven days, every nation on earth will begin distribution of the Evolution Mark (a simple neural interface that will stabilize human consciousness and protect you from any future displacement). It is painless. It is free. It is the only way to guarantee your children, if they return, will never be stolen from you again."
He leaned closer to the camera, and Sofia felt the temperature drop ten degrees.
"To the few who remain and who still feel… doubt. Who feel the call of older loyalties. I beg you: do not resist what is coming. The age of division is over."
The screens went black.
For one heartbeat the city was silent again.
Then the screaming started.
Sofia backed into the chapel and slammed the door. She threw the deadbolt with shaking fingers.
Her phone buzzed again. A push alert from the City of Chicago:
CURFEW IN EFFECT IMMEDIATELY. REPORT TO NEAREST EVOLUTION CENTER FOR PROCESSING. NON-COMPLIANCE WILL BE MET WITH FORCE.
She looked at the glowing Host still blazing on the altar.
And then at the cross burning gently on her forehead in the reflection of the tabernacle.
Somewhere outside, boots were running toward the church.
Sofia clutched her rosary, fell to her knees in the center aisle, and began the first decade of the rest of her life.
"Hail Mary, full of grace…"
The beads flared white-hot in her hand.
And for the first time since the trumpet, she was not afraid.
She was sealed.
**To be continued…**