Emmanuel looked around, hovering half a mile above the City of Los Angeles. As far as the eyes could see, everything was engulfed by flame. The otherworldly rain of fire set over the gas ducts, over the wood and the plastic, melted the metal and pulverized brick and mortar.
Giant mushroom clouds of black smoke were towering above the valley, as the air full of pollutants mortally invaded the lungs of Californian people with its oily consistence.
Deafening whistles of sirens from firemen cars, and police, and ambulances were piercing the artificial night, passing across crowds of people screaming in pain and terror.
The nation was reacting to what seemed inevitably only the last attack to the heart of America.
Army troops were surrounding the outskirts of the crisis zone, helicopters in formation patrolled the sky keeping far from the clouds of high temperature smoke, cruisers converged to the coast, pointing nuclear heads toward an unknown enemy.
It was like Hell had stepped over Earth, and many were expecting to see actual demons come to reclaim the souls of the living. The idea was unbearable, and many looked for finding death throwing themselves from the top of towers of down the highways.
Emmanuel looked around. What he was saying was not pleasing him, yet he knew it was the right thing to do. Emmanuel lowered himself back down on the roof of the lab, that by now was engulfed in flames. The burned figures of the General and of Otto Shoemaker were lying on the concrete slab.
Emmanuel looked at them, pity in his eyes.
It was then that the apparent dead form of Otto managed to raise the carbonized skinned face, whispering, in a desperate attempt: “Wh...why?”
“He that sacrificeth unto any god, save unto the LORD only, he shall be utterly destroyed said Nwanjoku, diverting his eyes from the exhausted eyes of the scientist.
Pushing over his right shoulder, Shoemaker raised his face a little more, looking for the eyes of the African boy. “What do you mean...”
“If a man also lie with mankind, as e lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them” responded gravely the boy.
The remnants of a man that once was Otto Shoemaker shook his head. “Not all of them were... guilty...”
“Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth and be wanton; ye have nourished your heart, as in a day of slaughter. Ye have condemned and killed the just; and he doth no resist you” answered Nwanjoku, but Otto shoemaker did not heard the words, as his life had just left him.
