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PROLOGUE
Time Will Tell

     "Hosanna…hosanna! Hallelujah! -- Glory Hallelujah! "

     Shouts of adoration to God. Praise for a prophet. Hands stretched out to heaven. Another large park outside of another large hospital -- it happened…again.

     The vast crowd outside waited for Jacob to come out. He had gone into the hospital a half an hour ago. Since then, dozens upon dozens of terminally ill people walked out of the building. Doctors tried to stop them, desperately trying to make sense of the frenzied glee overcoming the patients.

     "This can’t be true!" Replied one doctor. "They’re healed. They’re all healed!"

     Another doctor of higher ranking walked over and snatched the X-rays and medical reports from the other.

    "This can’t be right. This isn’t real…this must be some type of trick. The man is a magician, a charlatan. …Some cheap con-man. Call the police. I want him arrested!"

     "But sir," said the younger doctor. "He -- he didn’t break any laws. He’s just trying to help…"

       "Shut up, Morgan or I swear, I’ll have you fired!"

    Fearing the consequences, the younger doctor fled back into the building as the roaring crowd cheered on.

     Leaving the huge hospital complex and exiting through a backdoor, Jacob Basil, the man called "the Baptist", made his way down a lowly alleyway. The Baptist was trying to flee from the crowd. He didn’t like it when they praised him. For in his mind, it was never his works that he was doing, but that of God. It was now months after quitting a career as a respected jet pilot and astronaut. But Jacob Basil continued his quest. Only days after returning from space, the strange man abandoned everything he owned and took to the streets. Living as a homeless person, he walked the desolate wilds of America’s heartland.

     Soon, he knew that he was no longer the same person. There were "things" about him that he could not explain. He never grew hungry. He never grew ill. He never slept. But the thing that burdened him most was the voices: those hallowed and demanding voices.

     Making his way down the narrow alley, he began to pass up a number of old, homeless people. They slept in the dank shadows like creatures too shy to embrace the light. Suddenly turning back and peering around the alley, Jacob spoke. He had heard them again. The low and rumbling voices, those pictograph words seeping through the tingling edge of his mind.

     "…Who are you? Wait, I know who you are, don’t I? What would you have me do, my Lord?"

     As he asked that, a steady flashing of horrific visions came rushing to his mind. Jacob was jolted back and his body shook wildly as if being electrified. This was another one of his fits -- another one of his visions. The voices were speaking again: not with words, but with images.

    At first, he saw the earth. A bride’s veil was wrapped around it. As red dots grew on the planet, the bride’s gown had turned from the purity of white, to a sickening shade of red.

     "The children defile the mother. You people have raped my bride. There are too many of you. Too many for her to birth!" Said the voice.

     "No, they can change, I can make them change, Lord!" Responded Jacob. "Dear Lord, give me the chance to redeem them!"

  In tandem, Jacob’s mind exploded with the sights of blood and rabid violence. Rot and corroded flesh beyond man’s knowledge erupted in sin and despair. Graves broke open and sickness swept over the land. A plague of Biblical proportions was about to occur. Could he stop it? Was that why he was sent here? Was he to warn people? …To make them change?  He pondered the age of pestilence. In ages past, plagues ravaged mankind before. A killing vapor, raining of frogs and locusts, rivers of blood, and scourges of blisters. Yet these plagues would pale in comparison to that which is to come.

     " -- If the Lord finds fault in our faith." Muttered Jacob.

     These thoughts anchored themselves to his consciousness as the visions continued. He saw death everywhere. There was death in the fields, the cities, the waters, and the sky. Rot and putrid bloodlust ruled the earth. He also saw the future: a possible future. Times when men clung to the air, truly terrified of what ruled the ground below. He saw murder and mayhem. Parents are killing their children. Children are eating their parents. Lovers are defiling the flesh, and then something broke into his vision. Something, no -- some one. He realized the he might not be the only one who "sees". A second later, a flashing moment of a beautiful woman being burned to cinders had crossed his mind as lightening crosses the sky.

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