Heaven's Riders

Catholic priests tirelessly feeding the poor and downtrodden. Police officers and soldiers fallen in the line of duty. Chivalric knights fighting for justice. Dogs jumping into burning buildings to save their masters. What do all these people have in common? They are considered heroes. And most also consider they have a one way ticket to heaven.

But people often criticize theology. The concept that a heaven and a hell can exist at the same time is a bit paradoxical. How could you be truly happy in heaven while there are souls suffering in hell, especially for people as righteous as these?

Ask any preacher or pastor. What happens to unbaptized children? They'll swear up and down that they go to heaven, even if they haven't accepted Jesus. Or even been a good person- they're babies after all! But that's not how it actually works. Why do you think evil satanists sacrifice children and virgins to the devil? Because it sends them straight to hell, even people who have committed no sin. What about Catholics who die just before confession- do they go to hell too, just for bad timing? What about Atheists, swayed by scientific reasoning but were otherwise good people- do they go to hell forever too? Is this really how God's love should work?

The truth is that the battle between good and evil is a battle. It's not something God can just sit back lazily and let it sort itself out. Battles need soldiers.

The Nature of Heaven

When people die and go to heaven, they are reborn in an ageless, flawless, perfect body. Imagine if you actually exercised and slept the amount that physicians recommend. Imagine if you did all that almond milk detox yoga shit. Imagine if you ate and drank nothing but the purest, freshest most natural ingredients. Imagine if you grew up free from stress or carcinogenic chemicals. That flawless, perfect body in heaven is that body. It's the body you would have had on Earth, if life wasn't so messy and full of unknowns.

This perfect body is ageless. You live in heaven with it until judgment day, when God's children will retake the Earth from Satan, and live on it peacefully forever. This perfect body, however, is irreplaceable. You only get one. More importantly, it is still human. Anything that can kill a human can kill this body. Of course, it is very strong, healthy, and eternally young- but it can die. So there is a risk that, if taken out of heaven, you can “die” again. And once that body dies, you'll be stuck as a spirit, never able to reclaim the Earth as a chosen one of God. Never able to enjoy the pleasures of sex or food ever again- never able to bear children and help repopulate the world after the rapture.

This is the risk that the Heaven's Riders must take, to save the souls of the innocent from Satan.

Heaven's Riders

These are the souls of heroes- who cannot sit idly by and let the souls of innocents suffer. They fight back against evil in the only way a mortal soul can- by stealing them back. Remember- God will win the fight in Good against Evil. But the assumption that he will win easily, handily, or constantly is a human invention. It is a feel-good belief, not a factual one. Remember, a third of all angels defected with Lucifer. The forces of hell are powerful- especially compared to a poor human.

Using the power of Heaven, these brave men and women ride “horses” made of angelic metal and powered by prayer. They cannot reappear on Earth- they're still dead already. But they can risk their new, one-and-only true body in battle against the devil. They ride down from Heaven, through the twisting gates of purgatory and the veil, through the realms of the haunting, down past limbo, and then into the fires of hell. Some of them practice on the easier souls- the slip ups who tumble just down to the realms between heaven and hell. These are the easy saves, a good way to get your feet wet and practice with your awesome machine. But when it comes to actually raiding Hell, the training wheels come off and you'd better be ready.

They fly past a soul, holding out their hands and grasping it, snapping them from the clutches of damnation. Skidding over rocks at breakneck speeds- only the reaction speed of a perfect, flawless body and eyes that can see distant valleys could possible pilot this machine. Once the victim is in tow, they must return them to heaven. Do you think demons just let this shit fly? No way. They return in hot pursuit- out of hell, up limbo, through the realms of haunting, past the veil, up through the twisting gates of purgatory- and stop short right at the pearly gates of Heaven. They can't enter, of course, so once you return the soul to heaven, you're safe.

So it's a race on the way back too, and these devils are mean. They'll fire at you with advanced and primitive weapons, blazed with hell fire. They'll try to crash your ride, or even just steal the soul back with bloody chains of evil. If they corner you, you'll die again, and lose your true body for good. The Riders don't bring weapons with them- it's not in God's plan for mortals to destroy evil in that way, and besides, anything you bring along would just weigh you down and make it impossible to escape, especially with a soul in tow.

Of course, everyone knows God will win in the end. Peace on Earth will be restored one day, the wicked souls punished, demons banished to the abyss, and all the innocent will rejoice. But when will that day come? Nobody in heaven knows- not even the angels will say. How long will innocents suffer Satan's wrath? How long will unbaptized babies and tribal people born before the revelations of Christ suffer from hellfire? Even one day of torture would be too much- what about years? Centuries? Millennia? Any amount is an injustice. That is why we ride.