 I'm reaching out here because I know it's my only option left. I think it may be the only way for me to contact someone outside. I'm begging for this to go through. The only friends I have on Facebook and Instagram Live are in the same town as me, so reaching out to them for help would be beating a long dead horse. They've seen it. They're just as useless as I am. My town is small, slow. I'm not sure what we did to bring upon a divine reckoning. If anything, the people around here are much more devout than most these days. They're kind, giving, and understanding to a fault. Those with faith are truly struggling. I'm an atheist, a bit of the black sheep within my family. I was an atheist at least. I don't know what I believe in anymore. I can barely fathom some of the things I've seen and heard these past few days. The God-fearing folk have taken it the hardest. A lot of them are dead by their own doing. I tried to stop Mr. Warren before he set his house ablaze. I swear I did. I could hear his girls weeping from somewhere inside. His wife was singing. She always had such a wonderful voice. It was difficult to hear over the trumpets. He told me that angels had crawled into his body and kept whispering to him. We failed, he told me. We failed, and this was our punishment. He was dripping with gasoline. I stood outside of his home as he walked back in and closed the door. I stood there as his house was engulfed by hellfire. I'm rambling. I need to start from the beginning. The trumpets began with a sunrise. I have chronic insomnia and like to have my morning coffee on the front porch watching the sky become pale. When I first heard them, I thought it was someone screaming. No, it was many voices screaming, hundreds, thousands. It sounded like it was coming from behind me, above me, and from miles away all at once. The longer I listened, the more it sounded like the entire earth was groaning. There was a ringing quality to it as well, creating some kind of horrendous harmony. It was agonizing. I could see my neighbors flooding out of their homes, bundled and sleepy, looking around in confusion. My next-door neighbor, a quiet, kind old widow, knelt in the grass and began to pray. When I approached her, she shooed me away with an animosity in her eyes I'd never seen before. The local pastor called a meeting to the church. I knew this because my mother called to invite me. The trumpets continued to blare. I told her that a migraine was coming on and that I loved her but would much rather stay home. I checked the news. Nothing. I refreshed all of my social media pages but there hadn't been anything new since around 5.30 that morning. The trumpets continued until around noon. I absent-mindedly tried to refresh my phone while I sat by the window. There was not a single person outside, I assumed they were still in church. I was beginning to feel a bit jittery. That morning had felt like some kind of fever dream but the scope of it was beginning to trickle into my brain. When my mother called me again, she sounded exhausted. She's a wonderful woman, always the one to bake extra for school bake sales and donating old clothes to the shelter. She works at their retirement home and stays hours past her shift to talk to her favorite patients. I had never heard her sound so defeated. Revelations, she said to me, our judgment has been sealed. It was like someone was speaking through her mouth. My mother doesn't talk like that. This was the moment that dread began to pool in my belly. I felt nausea began to churn as cool panic trickled down my back. Sweetheart. The sky. Out of my window, I could see the sun dipping beneath the hills. It looked wrong, like some kind of simulation. There was no sunset, no pink clouds whirled upon an orange horizon. The sky was a crisp blue, even as the last flicker of yellow disappeared. Then it was black, like a light switching off. It was a darkness so intense, it felt physical. I feared if I stepped outside, I would suffocate in it. It was unearthly, unholy. The lights in my house went off with it, all except for the two scented candles I'd left lit in my kitchen. I curled around them for what felt like an eternity. My phone had also shut off, but thankfully it turned back on when prompted. I tried to call my mother back, but it went straight to voicemail. The trumpets began again the next day. They woke me up from where I'd come to rest on the kitchen floor, huddled around my candles. I've slept more in these past few days than I have in weeks. I can't make sense of it. It's now day three. I haven't gone further down the street, where I saw Mr. Warren, as I've become terrified of the people that I've known for decades. I haven't even spoken to my mother since the day it all began. They blame me. I know it. Sometimes in the dead of that pitch black night, I swear I see several pairs of eyes outside my window. They reflect some of my candlelight. Sometimes I hear gunshots. A few times I've heard what sounds like dogs fighting over something. I can't help but picture my good neighbor's corpses being torn up by their own hungry pups. They're all dying. A final apology to God. I don't know why they haven't come for me. Please, if there's anything wholly left to forgive, let someone see this. I can hear the trumpets beginning once again.