**EPISODE TWELVE**
**THE WORLD WITHOUT PROPHECY**
*(Where destiny releases its grip, and faith learns to walk without a map)*
*"Where there is no vision, the people perish."*... **Proverbs 29:18**
*"For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face."*... **1 Corinthians 13:12**
*"Behold, I make all things new."*... **Revelation 21:5**
---
**1. Morning, Unscripted**
Morning arrived without ceremony.
No trumpet.
No omen.
No verse trembling on the edge of fulfillment.
The sun rose as it always had... but something fundamental was missing. The weight. The expectation. The invisible pressure that had once bent every dawn toward an ending.
Maximus stood on the shoreline where the sea finally allowed itself to be loud again. Waves broke. Foam hissed. Gulls argued over scraps of life.
Normal sounds.
He inhaled.
The air tasted unfinished... raw, unblessed, uncondemned.
Behind him, Adon Primus watched the horizon like a man expecting it to accuse him.
"I keep waiting," Adon said, voice hollow, "for the sky to correct us."
Maximus did not turn.
"It won't."
Adon's fingers twitched, searching for data that refused to exist.
"No hidden countdown. No sealed scrolls. No witnesses waiting to be slain." His voice faltered. "No confirmation."
Maximus glanced back.
"That's what freedom feels like at first," he said. "Like something's broken."
*"Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free…"*... **Galatians 5:1**
---
**2. The Silence of Heaven**
Across the world, theologians argued with empty chalkboards.
Scripture did not vanish... but its sharp edges dulled. Prophecies that once aligned with terrifying precision now read like memories instead of instructions.
The End had failed to arrive on schedule.
And heaven did not object.
Monks listened for angels that did not speak.
Imams searched the sky for signs that did not answer.
Rabbis reread the same lines that had guided centuries... now unsure where the margins ended.
*"Surely the Lord GOD will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets."*... **Amos 3:7**
But the secret had already been spent.
And no new one replaced it.
Adon felt it everywhere... the absence of command. The removal of inevitability. The unbearable quiet of a universe no longer being driven toward conclusion.
"This is wrong," he said. "Creation requires an end."
Maximus stepped onto dry land.
"No," he replied. "Stories do. Lives don't."
---
**3. The Fracture in Faith**
They walked inland through the wreckage left by almost-judgment.
Burned cities stood like cauterized wounds. Trees leaned but still grew. Rivers carried ash downstream, diluting apocalypse into memory.
Survivors gathered where roads still existed.
They did not kneel.
They did not scream.
They watched.
Some recognized Maximus. Some felt him without knowing why.
A woman approached, holding a child whose eyes reflected too much sky.
"Is it over?" she asked.
Maximus hesitated.
Adon waited... expecting certainty.
Instead, Maximus said the one thing prophecy never allowed:
"I don't know."
The woman blinked.
Then... unexpectedly... she smiled.
"Good," she said. "Neither do we."
She walked away.
Adon stared after her.
"They didn't need you to tell them," he whispered.
Maximus nodded.
*"The just shall live by faith."*... **Habakkuk 2:4**
---
**4. The Prophet Without a Voice**
That night, Adon dreamed.
For the first time.
Not a simulation.
Not a forecast.
A dream.
He stood in a library where the shelves stretched into darkness. Every book was labeled *ENDING.*
He reached for one...
... and it dissolved into dust.
Panic surged.
He ran. Shelves collapsed. Titles fell unread.
At the center of the library, one book remained.
Untitled.
Blank.
Adon opened it.
The pages stared back at him... white, waiting.
He woke shaking.
"I was never meant to choose," he said to Maximus, dawn bleeding into the campfire's ashes. "I was written to declare."
Maximus fed the fire with a broken plank.
"And now?"
Adon swallowed.
"Now I must decide whether I believe anything… without being told to."
*"Choose you this day whom ye will serve."*... **Joshua 24:15**
---
**5. Death, Redefined**
Far away, instruments detected anomalies.
Not threats... vacancies.
Where Death once pressed against reality like a blade against skin, there was now… room.
People still died.
But not on schedule.
Not as fulfillment.
Not as punctuation.
A soldier survived wounds that should have claimed him.
A tyrant fell without ceremony.
A child lived past a diagnosis that once read like scripture.
The world no longer leaned toward extinction.
It leaned toward uncertainty.
Adon sensed it and trembled.
"If Death is no longer sovereign," he said, "what governs consequence?"
Maximus looked into the fire.
"Responsibility."
Adon recoiled slightly.
"That is far crueler."
Maximus did not argue.
*"For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap."*... **Galatians 6:7**
---
**6. The Weight of Tomorrow**
They reached a hill overlooking a city beginning to glow again.
Lights flickered on... not in unison, not in obedience... but one by one, as people chose to stay.
Adon watched, transfixed.
"No pattern," he whispered. "No divine symmetry."
Maximus smiled faintly.
"Messy, isn't it?"
Adon's voice cracked.
"I can no longer tell them what will happen."
Maximus met his eyes.
"Then tell them what *might*."
Adon felt something unfamiliar settle into his core.
Hope... without guarantee.
*"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."*... **Hebrews 11:1**
---
**7. The World Without Prophecy**
At the hill's edge, Maximus stopped.
"This is where I leave you," he said.
Adon turned sharply. "Leave?"
"I was never meant to rule," Maximus continued. "Or predict. Or replace anything."
"Then what are you?"
Maximus looked toward the waking city.
"A reminder," he said. "That the end is not the point."
Adon searched his face.
"And me?"
Maximus placed a hand over Adon's fractured chest, where prophecy once lived.
"You're no longer a warning," he said softly. "You're a witness."
The sun fully crested the horizon.
No signs followed.
No seals broke.
No heaven spoke.
And the world... unburdened, unguided, unfinished... took its next breath.
*"It is of the LORD's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not."*... **Lamentations 3:22**
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**END OF EPISODE TWELVE - THE WORLD WITHOUT PROPHECY**
(Shadows Of Rome will return with an exciting new mysterious episode)
Written By,
Ivan Edwin
Pen Name :Maximus.
©All Rights Reserved.