Rapture: A Short Story

As a trans man who grew up in the Modern Gnostic Church, Petra has struggled with religious guilt all his life. With the help of his two loving boyfriends, he's managed to reconcile his identity with his faith. But that reconciliation is put to the test when, at the moment of his baptism, the whole world comes to an end, and Petra wakes up far furrier than before.

Rapture is a story of transformation, identity, and self-actualization. I hope you enjoy.

WARNING: This story is only for adult readers ages 18+. It contains instances of nudity and sexual arousal.

Trigger Warnings

Religious trauma, brief flashbacks to queer conversion therapy, gender dysphoria, drowning (no death), male nudity, sexual arousal

On the day of my baptism, the priest lowering me into the water said the most ironic thing: “For what greater sin is there than to reject the gift of Gnosis?”

If only he had known what was coming.

That was the last thing I ever heard the priest say, in fact. The rest of his words were muffled as he lowered me into the baptismal pool and the cool holy water rose around my ears. I took a deep breath, squeezed my nose shut, and summoned my determination as my head went fully under the water. In that weightless instant, completely lost in the religious bliss of the moment, I reminded myself why I was there.

I was confused and fearful of God like any good Christian. How could I not be? I was a trans man raised in the Modern Gnostic Church—a church which believed above all else that the physical body was a prison, an evil thing, not to be desired. Yet here I was desiring to trade one prison for another by transitioning from female to male—an act so heretical that if the priest had known, he probably would have been tempted to drown me right then and there.

But I knew my religion had to be more than that bigoted teaching. And besides, this was my baptism. It was an important rite of passage for all 20-year-olds of the faith, and damn it I was going to be brave for this. From that moment forward, I would show those old priests that I could do right by God, regardless of my longing to become my true self. I would not, could not, back down now. Unfortunately, that was when the whole world came to an end.

I recall a sudden realization that I had been in the water far too long. Baptism was supposed to take nothing but a quick dunk to rinse off the sin, so to speak, but I had been under for at least a few seconds. The priest’s mumbling ceased altogether, and something spread through the water around me: ripples in space and time, cascading into my body as the shockwaves from the impact made on reality that day washed over creation. Then the ripples vanished, and with them went the priest’s arms.

I didn’t sink when he dropped me, because I wasn’t in the baptismal pool anymore. Instead, I was drifting like a comet through a perfectly dark, empty void. A strange calm washed over me, as if my sudden displacement was no more noteworthy than falling asleep at night. With that comfortable, almost hypnotic bliss keeping me calm, my transformation began.

It started at my feet. The sensation of ghostly hands rested upon my toes, but I didn’t feel a need to draw back from their unexpected touch. My feet tingled as those invisible hands teased my nails, turning them black, thick, and curved. Fingers traced my skin, liberating deep brown fur from underneath, which moved up my foot like wind sweeping across a field of wheat. I opened my eyes and watched in a nonchalant gaze, the void calming me until the change was as soothing as a hot bath.

Those ethereal hands pressed into the arch of my foot, stretching it like putty. What should have been painful sent ecstasy roaring through me instead. I gasped, and my head lolled back as my heel grew upward and the front of my foot filled out. The fur swept up and under my wet baptismal robes, the agent of change, shaping everything as it coated my sensitive flesh.

The fur reached my middle. My groin surged with heat, as if warm clay had settled upon it and begun molding my sex anew. When the fur reached my breasts, it brought the same heat, but with a pressure like one of my chest binders. I writhed as the fur emerged from the sleeves of my robe and traced thick pads that rose like islands from my palms.

Fingertips gently fondled my chin as the fur reached my neck, my cheekbones, my lips, my nose. The transformation was like a deep kiss drawing out my face, changing the color of my eyes to gold and remolding my teeth into fangs. My nose became wet and leathery, flooding with new, invigorating scents, and every sound turned vibrant and complex as my ears grew tall, curved and pointed.

Finally, my lower back surged with heat. I panted and whimpered as pressure built up at the base of my spine, begging for release. A tail burst out from my waist and shrouded itself in fur, rocking my body in ecstasy. The release made me shake, spasm, and thrust, my back arching as I let out one climactic howl that echoed through the void.

As the pleasure faded, an afterglow settled in. My eyes fluttered, and I surrendered to the pleasant embrace of sleep.

When I woke up, water was rushing into my lungs.

Reality struck like lightning and returned me to the baptismal pool. I gasped, which only drew more holy water inside my lungs, burning like magma. I was so disoriented that I couldn’t right myself. I flailed and tried to cry out for help, drowning pitifully in a shallow pool of God’s own blessed waters.

But just as my consciousness began to fade, I felt someone wrap their arms around me and pull. In one big lift, I burst through the water, choking, coughing, and retching.

“I’ve got you! Come on, Petra, cough it up. There you go.”

I coughed up the last of the holy water, returning it soiled and cloudy to the pristine pool. Weak and disoriented, I would have keeled over if not for the arms holding me steady.

“Woah, not here. Let’s get you out of the pool first, alright?”

I barely understood where I was, much less what my rescuer had just said. Heart pounding, they led me half blind up the baptismal steps. My rescuer lowered me to the church carpet to curl up on my side, a shivering mess.

“You’re going to be alright. Don’t move. Just rest,” I finally recognized the voice of my savior as they calmingly stroked my back.

“Mark?” I asked. “What… what happened?”

“Shhh. Get your bearings first. Deep breaths.”

I did as I was told, drawing in and pushing out a slow, wheezing breath.

“Stay back for now, alright Seth? We don’t want to overwhelm him.”

“He’s okay though, right?”

I recognized that voice as well. “S-Seth?” I asked, reaching out to the blurry forms in front of me.

“I’m here,” Seth said, too concerned to heed Mark’s warning. He grabbed my hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze.

I smiled at him, though something about my face felt different. He gripped my hand tighter in response, and I heard him let all his stress out in one big breath.

The last I had seen of Mark and Seth, they were standing next to my family in the front row of the congregation. No wonder the loves of my life had been so quick to jump in and save me from… whatever had just happened. There was no one I would rather have saved me from drowning in a shallow pool.

It was only when I started getting my senses back that I realized Seth’s hands didn’t feel smooth and slender like before; instead they were large, rounded, with a texture that felt like… fur. My vision finally resolved. I froze, like prey meeting the eyes of a predator.

“Petra? Are you alright?” the beast in front of me asked, its inhuman jaw somehow forming Seth’s voice. It looked like a tiger, with that familiar orange, black, and white fur, but it wore clothes on its lithe body, and it crouched on two legs that bent at odd angles. Its feline face and emerald eyes were so expressive that I couldn’t deny it was Seth; his eyes shined too bright with that familiar worry and care.

“W-what are you?” I asked.

“Petra, it’s me,” the tiger said. “I know I look different, but I promise it’s true. Please don’t freak out.”

I was certainly freaking out. How could I not? But I held the panic in somehow and just responded with a single hesitant nod.

Seth took a deep breath and looked up at something behind me. “Okay, if he can handle what I turned into, do you think he can handle you too?”

“Maybe,” came Mark’s voice. “I suppose we’d better find out.”

Mark circled around me and came into view. I saw his hand first as it landed upon Seth’s shoulder, and it was so alien that I would have scrambled back in fright if I’d had the energy. Mark’s hand was red and scaled, with jet black claws that seemed moments away from tearing into the tiger’s flesh.

My head snapped up to behold the impossible beast towering above me. At first, I thought he was some sort of lizard. That changed when I noticed the wings on his back, standing out from the tatters where they had ripped through his shirt. Just like Seth, Mark had transformed into some sort of beast, but one that was supposed to have been entirely mythical.

“Hun, it’s me, Mark.” The dragon crouched next to Seth, and his fiery-orange eyes locked with mine. “It’s been an hour since you went under. We were all taken somewhere for a long time, and in that time we’ve… well, we’re different now.” He gestured down at himself. “Do you understand you’re different too?”

I couldn’t comprehend what he meant at first, before remembering my vision. I drew my hands from Seth’s grasp and looked at them—the same paws from the void. Trembling, I brought them to my face and felt the long, thick muzzle and the pointed, furry ears atop my head.

“No way,” I muttered. I tried to sit up, as if in fight or flight against myself, but I fell right on my butt, yipping as I jammed my tail. I leaned forward and caught sight of my feet, which had transformed into the same big footpaws from the void. I scrambled over to the edge of the pool and looked into the water. There I saw the dim reflection of my new lupine face, yet to my surprise, it somehow felt less alien than the human face it had replaced.

“I… I’m a—”

“You’re a wolf!” Seth said, crawling up next to me. The sudden rise in his voice shocked my sensitive ears, which recoiled on my head. “And good news, it looks like there’s even more to it than that.”

I blinked and followed Seth’s gaze as he let me discover it for myself. First, I noticed that my sopping wet baptismal robe wasn’t clinging to my generous breasts; those had disappeared. Instead, my robe clung to a flat, firm chest, like a boy might have. I ran my new paws across it, as if searching the tight surface would uncover what had vanished. Then, a shocking question occurred to me.

Without a care for the fact that the dragon and tiger were watching, I reached down, paws shaking, and pressed them between my legs. I squeezed, gasping as I felt something that hadn’t been there before.

“No way,” I choked out, a goofy grin spreading across my muzzle.

“Congrats on being the proper sex now,” Mark said, his smile full of pointed teeth. “Though you’re probably a bit furrier than you thought you’d be. How does it feel?”

Mark’s question made me look inward, and there I found a war. Pure elation grappled with fear, but somehow elation seemed to be winning out. I was a man. I had the parts. And on top of it, the body I had always felt so misplaced within had become something utterly unique. Whereas most people might have been horrified, I could hardly contain my excitement.

“How is this possible?” I asked, half-laughing.

A devilish grin stretched across Mark’s scaly face as he proclaimed,

“And when all its wardens are cast down, mankind’s prison shall fall to ruin. At last from thy flesh you shall know the bliss of freedom.”

My golden eyes went wide. Mark had drifted away from the church in the past few years, for reasons he had never really explained, but he clearly still remembered his scripture.

“I think Sabaoth has been victorious,” he proclaimed. “The last of the fallen archons has been slain. It’s over.”

Now back then, only the Gnostics knew of Sabaoth and the archons, and what the end of their battle meant for us all. But the gist of it was this: in the terms of Modern Gnosticism, Mark had just told me that while I was under the water, at the very moment of my baptism, the world had come to an end.

That seemed impossible—too grand and biblical an event to ever happen to us. And being turned into animal people certainly wasn’t a part of the Gnostic apocalypse story. If the end had come, we should have escaped our bodies and ascended to heaven, as was foretold. What made Mark think this was that day of judgment?

I searched for the answer, finally taking in my surroundings. To my surprise, I found myself exploring not with sight, but with smell. I closed my eyes and inhaled through my nose; it was suddenly as if the church Mark and I had grown up attending was coated in colors I had never seen. The woody aroma of the pews, the crisp freshness of the baptismal waters, and even the smell of wine on the altar whirled around me. Strongest and sweetest were the scents of the tiger and dragon patiently watching. I let those in deep, the scent of my mates flooding into my memory, sparking feelings of love and safety.

I could smell the others in the church too, but something was strange about those scents; they lacked the solidity of Mark and Seth’s. They were weak. Ethereal. Like flowers blown away by the wind, leaving only pollen behind. I opened my eyes once more and quickly learned why.

They were gone.

In place of the church congregation, vestments, robes, and dresses lay scattered across the floor, peppered with jewelry, phones, wallets, and keys. The priest’s robes floated in the baptismal, where the man had disappeared mid-rite. I searched desperately, but didn’t find anyone in the church except Mark, Seth, and myself.

Every Christian of certain denominations knew this sign, whether from eerie videos in their religious classes, or from apocalyptic fables told by parents to scare their kids straight. Few children had avoided the nightmare of being left alone in the aftermath, doomed to wander the world and burn in whatever sins had earned them God’s abandonment.

Rapture. 

“Wait, no,” I said, my voice strained as if waking up from sleep. “That’s impossible.” I tried to stand up, as if ready to chase after the souls that had departed without me, but I lost my balance, expecting to walk on human feet, not lupine paws.

Seth, with newfound reflexes, saved me from falling into the baptismal. He asked if I was alright, but I hardly heard him, because the walls of the church were rapidly closing in on me, squeezing out every bit of excitement I had about becoming a male wolf, forming a hollow space inside of me where only terror remained. My paws trembled as I clutched my scalp, crushing my big triangular ears.

“We… we got left behind? But… but that means…”

Nausea gripped my stomach and ice chilled my blood. The fur on my whole body stood on end as traumas I thought I had beaten long ago broke through their restraints.

You will burn if you don’t repent.

You are broken and must be fixed.

Only those who reject Gnosis are doomed in the eyes of God.

The priests’ voices emerged from my memory, snaking through my brain and taking hold once more.

“No, I’m not broken. I’m not wrong.” I banged my head with the leathery pad of my paw.

“Petra,” said Seth. “What are you—“

 “Why didn’t He take me?” I asked the tiger. “Why didn’t He take us?” I turned my head to see Mark, who stood still as a statue.

You have succumbed to evil.

You will be abandoned.

You are wrong.

Mark walked up and put his hands on the sides of my face, pressing his snout against mine. “Don’t you dare, Petra,” he said. “This isn’t your fault. You have to know that.”

But I didn’t know. Not anymore. I looked down at my parents’ fallen clothes and remembered them telling me this would happen, screaming at me for the crime that had now manifested between my legs.

Seth hugged me from behind while Mark held me from the front. The dragon’s wings fanned out and wrapped around us, shutting out the church.

“Shhh,” he hushed. “You’re safe, hun. Please don’t worry. There’s more to this than you know.” He looked up at Seth. “Can you get his clothes? We should get out of here before sundown.”

“No,” I said, shrugging them both off. “We need to stay. Maybe if we just pray to him. This is the house of God. He’ll have to hear us, won’t he?”

Mark’s slitted eyes locked with mine, staring with that knowing gaze, as if peering right into my soul. He placed his hands on my shoulders. “Petra, we’ve been awake longer than you. Just listen.”

I kept talking, as if I hadn’t heard. “There has to be something we can do to repent and earn his forgiveness. Anything. If we just try to—”

I stopped mid-sentence. The familiar sensation of ripples, like those within the pool, cascaded through me again. My breath caught in my throat, my heartbeat seemed to cease, and the entire church fell out from under me.

Forest hills. Stone ruins. Dusk, then dawn. A tiger, a dragon, a wolf, sheltering together. The wolf looks at me. He smiles. Reaches out. With a flash of lightning he’s suddenly gone. Thunder rumbles in the void. Crimson stone wings rise from the earth, and a pillar of light awaits within.

“Petra, are you alright?” Mark asked, shaking me by the shoulder, his eyes full of anticipation “Did you see it?”

I jumped, as if awakened from a deep sleep by the sound of an explosion.

“We can’t stay!” I said, nearly shouting. “I saw where He wants us to go.”

Mark nodded. “Thunder Hill, right?”

I cocked my head.

“Like I said, there’s more to this than you know.”

“We had the same vision before you reappeared,” Seth cut in. “We need to be at the hill by dawn.”

“That must be our second chance then,” I declared. “Something will come and reveal to us how we too can ascend. That must be it!”

Mark and Seth looked at each other. I watched as their confusion turned to concern. Had they come to a different conclusion than me? Through my fear, I struggled to see what else such a vision could possibly mean.

Whatever their concern, Mark didn’t give me an answer. He nodded toward the church doors instead. “Will you come with us then? We should go there together, like the vision showed.”

There were no further questions. No protests. Just a decisive understanding. I thought I knew what I had to do now, spurred on by faith, and fear greater than I had ever known.

Our clothes didn’t fit anymore. Our footpaws forced us to leave our shoes behind, and the best we could do for our tails was to use our claws to tear holes in the backs of our pants. Mark’s wings had been impossible to work around, but he had no qualms about going shirtless, showing off the red and black markings on his broad chest, and the muscles shifting beneath the scales where his wings met his back. Seth, meanwhile, took off his church-appropriate clothing and revealed his usual ensemble of a tank top and tight shorts, which showed off even more of his stripes.

The sight of them both made my fur tingle and my tail wag. They flirted and teased each other up as we prepared to leave, and I wanted so badly to join them like I usually would, but every time I willed myself to try, a priest’s words echoed in my head.

Don’t give in to temptation.

Temptation is their chain.

And so, I forced those feelings down, replacing them with silent prayers.

We found the world outside just as empty as expected. Front doors hung halfway open, garden hoses sprayed water, and bicycles lay fallen on their sides. Cars idled where they had stopped right before the Rapture took their drivers. We walked the neighborhoods we had grown up in, past our elementary school where we had first met, through the park where we played as kids, and even past Seth’s home where we spent most of our time hanging out and falling in love. All of it vacant. All of it left behind.

But the empty town didn’t feel as eerie as it should have. My canine ears picked up a chorus of sounds replacing the silence of humanity. I could hear wind chimes playing from blocks away, squirrels skittering high up in the trees, and even the drumming of both my lovers’ heartbeats. And then there were the smells. The world was painted in scents beyond anything the church could have offered, and my brain struggled to sort through them all. I suddenly understood why dogs tried to stop and smell things on their walks; I had to force myself to keep moving every time my nose caught an interesting scent.

Seth was vocal about the feline experience; he tested how high he could jump, how fast he could run, and especially his control over his tail. Eventually he started asking me questions, knowing that I must be experiencing some sort of sensory overload as a wolf. I wanted to indulge his curiosity, and to share with him these beautiful new dimensions of sound and smell. Instead, I tried desperately to shut it all out. I immersed myself in silent prayer, giving Seth nothing but short answers and hints to leave me alone—hints the tiger just wouldn’t take. 

It finally reached a breaking point when I felt him flicking at the end of my tail. I tried to ignore it, but the sensation was so distracting that I eventually turned and snarled, baring my fangs.

Seth held his paws up, pink pads out. “I’m sorry! I couldn’t help it. It's just too tempting.”

I stared daggers at him, which clearly wasn’t the reaction he’d expected; the big cat looked like a kicked puppy.

“I’m sorry,” I sighed. “It’s just that we shouldn’t be playing around in these bodies.” I settled into my best ‘scripture reading’ voice. “And Sabaoth proclaimed: The archons crafted thy form in deception, and indulgence in their lie will bind you to your prison.”

Seth hadn’t grown up in the church like Mark and myself, so I soon learned what an utterly confused tiger looked like as he jogged up next to me.

“He’s quoting the Gnostic version of Genesis,” Mark explained, waving his hand. “The story’s different from how most Christians tell it.”

“What’s different about it?” Seth asked, excited and curious. “None of the Adam and Eve stuff then?”

“That’s still there,” I said, “But their story’s a bit different too.”

The tiger waited patiently to hear the tale, and I eventually gave in.

“Gnosticism teaches that Adam and Eve weren’t created by God, but in defiance of him. The archons are the demons who stole our divine spark from God, and created the human body as its prison. Only by achieving Gnosis—by fully rejecting our attachment to our flesh—can we hope to escape it and ascend back to the Lord.”

Seth tongued at one of his fangs as he thought that over. “So the Rapture is like being broken out of prison then. By… what did you say his name was?”

“Sabaoth,” I nodded. “The chief architect of Adam. But he was redeemed and tasked with defeating his fellow archons.” I gestured around us. “What you see is the result, I guess. The archons were like the pillars holding up our prison. When Sabaoth defeated them, the prison fell. Now all righteous souls have escaped their bodies and returned to heaven.” My voice darkened. “And all sinful souls have been left to wander the earth.”

“Well that’s kind of mean,” Seth protested. “I know I’m not Gnostic, but I don’t think I’m worse than everyone in town.”

“There was more to it in ancient times,” Mark cut in. “The real religion actually died out over a thousand years ago. Modern Gnosticism is just a watered-down reconstruction that really homed in on the whole ‘the body is a prison’ thing.” The dragon practically spat the explanation out. “It was never supposed to be that way.”

“That part’s always been true though,” I insisted, a slight growl to my voice. “We must resist the temptations of our bodies and reject them, lest we become bound to our flesh and never escape.”

Seth scratched the fur on the back of his neck as he considered. “I don’t know. I’m kind of starting to like this ‘flesh.’ I mean, I’m a tiger. I have a tail. It’s definitely a lot cooler than being human, right?”

He twirled ahead as he said it, showing himself off. My face warmed up at the sight of his colorful stripes, his lithe body, his long tail…

As if sensing my arousal, the tiger stepped back to my side and wrapped his arm around my waist. He leaned in and spoke into my tall ear. “You look really great too, by the way.” His paw caressed my side. Heat surged from ear to snout as he ran his paw across the curve of my hip, down to my rear, below my tail.

“No, Seth,” I resisted the deep desire to return the favor and grabbed his face in my paws, squishing the white fluff of his cheeks. “You have to stop that kind of thinking. I don’t want you to get bound to that body and left behind, okay? You don’t deserve this. You have to resist it, no matter what.”

Mark looked back at us from a few paces ahead. I noticed his disappointment, and my ears fell back in shame. I let go of Seth, leaving the cat with his muzzle half agape.

“Just making sure he’s not going astray,” I said, trying to will away the heat between my legs.

Mark and Seth stared at each other for a moment, something unspoken passing between them.

“Going astray how?” Mark asked, following behind me. “He’s not wrong. I think he makes a very handsome tiger.”

A proud smile stretched over Seth’s muzzle, and his green eyes sparkled.

“Don’t encourage him,” I snapped. “He appeases the archons. If they weren’t all dead, I’d worry for him.”

“Why? Can they possess people or something?”

“Yes, they—”

“No, they can’t.” Mark’s voice was strangely adamant as he cut me off. He collected himself and cleared his throat before saying, “That’s not how archons work. They’re just as trapped in their own bodies as the rest of us. We were made in their image, after all. It’s why Sabaoth was able to share his power with people, once upon a time.”

My eyes went wide. “What are you talking about? That’s not in the scriptures.”

“Not in your scriptures,” Mark said with a wink. “Sabaoth had his own archons to help him fight the fallen ones.” Mark’s eyes got a distant, nostalgic look. “I always wanted to be one of them. It sounded badass.”

“Where did you learn this?”

I noticed Mark’s heartbeat speed up ever so slightly. “You’d be surprised what you learn about a church from the outside.”

I scoffed. “Why would you spout such heresies now of all times? Aren’t you afraid of being left behind?” Without realizing it, I had begun stomping forward on my footpaws.

“Petra,” Mark said, “Why do you think that’s what’s waiting for us at Thunder Hill? Why do you think any of us will even be able to ascend? I strayed from the church long ago, and Seth has never been religious.”

I was ready to dismiss Mark’s question as absurd, but his face was completely serious. I swallowed, borrowing more words from my memory. “We may be heretics for being tempted by each other, but we can still repent and ascend as well. We can’t give in to damnation just because God has bestowed challenges upon us.”

The words felt so very wrong slithering out of my mouth. They weren’t my own, but those of the priests who had tried and failed to fix me. Fear was turning trauma into doctrine.

“What about you?” Seth whimpered, piercing me through the heart. “What does Gnosticism say about being trans?”

I knew any answer of my own making would just make Seth insist I didn’t deserve God’s wrath, so I quoted the church’s scripture instead—the one that the priests had read to me over and over again.

“Damned are the traitors who would trade one prison for another, for they perpetuate the archon’s will and forestall Gnosis for all.”

“Petra!” Mark scolded. “We talked about this. That verse is messed up and you know it.”

“It comes straight from the scriptures. And after all of this,” I grabbed Seth’s tail and waved it around. “I’m not so sure it’s wrong.”

“But you want to be a man, right?” Seth asked, swishing his tail back. “Don’t you still feel that way?”

“It’s not about how I feel. It’s about what God wants.”

I thought that had finally quieted Seth and Mark, and I nearly began walking once more, but both their arms wrapped around me and pulled me into a hug.

“Petra,” Mark said, “I don’t care what the scripture says. I care about what’s right. You deserve better than whatever the church wants from you. We want you to be who you are. Not whatever the church wants you to be.”

I didn’t know how to respond to that. Faith and desire grappled and left me without anything to say. So instead, I spoke yet another line from the priests.

“What God wants of us is right and just. Nothing can change that.”

We reached the outskirts of town in an hour, passing a gas station, a car dealership, and a few crumbling old barns before finally arriving at a small gravel parking lot on the roadside. It bordered a wooded county park, where hikers, students, and bored groups of friends—ourselves included—had once visited to pass the time. A map enclosed in a plastic window outlined the hiking trails leading into the hills, but we didn’t need to consult it; we had walked those trails all our lives.

Paved paths turned to gravel, then to dirt over the next hour. We took a shortcut, hiking up paths only recognizable by bare spots of hardened mud. The ground rose to a steady incline, and though we found our new claws helped us climb, it was still an ordeal that filled my ears with a cacophony of rapid, thumping heartbeats. I even started panting, much to Seth’s delight.

As the ground started leveling off, we noticed cobblestone structures among the trees, and antique bricks littering the ground like fallen acorns. At last, we emerged into a vast clearing of tall grass and crumbling ruins.

Thunder Hill was a long-abandoned town, named for the thunderclouds that raged when its textile mill burned down nearly two hundred years before. Now the place was nothing but a few shattered hip-high stone walls outlining old buildings. But in the center of those ruins now stood something entirely new.

At first, I thought I was seeing things. The structure was far too pristine for this place, and didn’t even seem physically possible. It was a statue of massive encircling wings the size of a small house, rising into the rough shape of a dome, with impossibly intricate feathers carved from red stone. An entrance waited between its wing tips, as if Sabaoth himself was inviting us into the safety of his embrace.

“There they are! The wings of Sabaoth, from the vision!” I ran up to the statue as fast as my footpaws could carry me, falling to my knees at the threshold. The beautiful carvings brought tears to my eyes as I traced my claws over the detailed feathers. I could feel the divinity emanating from the stone, and I whispered a prayer of thanks. With renewed hope, I summoned my faith and prayed as hard as I could.

Mark and Seth, as usual, didn’t share my commitment to prayer. Seth eagerly stepped inside the temple to explore its inner chamber, but Mark waited outside, looking around the clearing as if the monolith didn’t surprise him in the least. When Seth emerged from the shadowy interior, having found nothing but a bare open space with a circular window in the ceiling, Mark turned to me.

“Hey hun, me and Seth are going to see if anything else has appeared around here. Will you be okay alone for a bit?”

I looked up at him, confused and wishing they’d stay and pray with me, but I nodded regardless. The dragon wrapped an arm around the tiger’s waist as they walked off into the ruins. I wanted so badly to follow them, but I couldn’t allow myself to leave this temple, no matter how much I wanted to. Reluctantly, I returned to my prayers.

Or at least, I attempted to. I had hoped prayer would ground me, but instead I felt like a mountain climber desperately searching for a handhold. I remembered how committed I had been that morning to showing God would accept me despite being trans. Yet here I was, fearing that I had been abandoned and begging forgiveness for that very thing. It felt so wrong, but I knew God’s will must be right; to feel otherwise must have meant something about me was broken. My fear-ravaged brain couldn’t think of any other explanation.

As dusk approached, and as the red wings deepened to crimson in the orange sunlight, my prayers wavered under the strain of Mark and Seth’s words.

We want you to be who you are. Not whatever the church wants you to be.

I told myself I wanted to be fixed; that was what God surely wanted, after all, and what the church would have told me to want. But my body itself began to fight back against that thought. The swish of my tail in the grass. The warmth of fur against the cool Spring air. The heat that stirred between my legs. It was all so distracting, so tempting. Soon the sensations broke my prayers apart into loose strands of thought, and I realized I wouldn’t be able to pray any further without sating my curiosity.

The priests rose up in protest.

Do not let yourself enjoy your body.

It is false. It is a trap.

But I had to do it. Not because I wanted to, of course not, but because it was a necessity for me to keep praying. Surely God would forgive me if I did this for His sake.

It was an irrational loophole, and it brought the most furious of the priest’s screams, but my desire was too strong resist. I immediately lifted my shirt and ran my claws through the fur there, stimulating the undercoat and finding my nipples buried beneath it. Their sensitivity, which had always felt so foreign to me, was now dulled, and I found a few more similarly desensitized sets below the first. I couldn’t help but smile at how right this male chest felt, but I soon caught myself; I was doing this for God, not for me.

I reached back and grabbed my tail, played with and splayed the toes of my footpaws, wiggled and flexed my ears, and even booped my own nose like I’d done to so many dogs in the past. Finally, I reached what I had been dying to investigate since that morning. I looked around to make sure Mark and Seth hadn’t returned, then I undid my pants and slid them down. There between my legs was a furry sheath and balls. I cupped them in my paw, trembling and unable to keep my glee in check. I teased the rim of my sheath, and the hit of sensitivity sent a shiver up my spine, causing my sheath to plump up, and the beginnings of a red tip to emerge. It felt so wild, so new, so incredibly right.

“Nice, isn’t it?”

I jumped and fell onto my back, quickly shimmying my pants back up to cover my modesty.

“I’m sorry! I was just—I was just trying to—”

With a laugh, Mark waved my panic away. “It’s okay. You’re curious, I get it. Seth and I just did the same thing a little while ago.” The dragon winked and sat down next to me. “It looks good, by the way.”

My ears grew hot at the compliment, especially coming from Mark, who was usually disinterested in such things. I had the sudden desire to see what the dragon’s own cock looked like, but I swallowed my curiosity down.

“Where’s Seth?” I asked, noticing that he hadn’t returned, and desperate to change the subject.

“Off over there,” Mark said, pointing toward a distant ruin. “He needed some time to think. It’s been a heavy day, and he’s worried sick.”

I spotted the tiger sitting a few dozen yards away upon a broken stone wall, his shoulders slumped and his tail swayed idly as he stared off into space. I had never known Seth to be an introspective person, but perhaps the reality of the Rapture was finally catching up to him.

“He shouldn’t worry,” I said, returning to my religious convictions. “I have no doubt that once God shows us the way, he’ll be able to do whatever’s necessary to ascend. He’s too good to stay here.”

“Petra, he’s not worried about himself. He’s worried about you.”

My ears shot up. “Me? Why?”

“Why do you think?” Mark sighed. “Look, you’re afraid. We get that. Who wouldn’t be spooked by the end of the world? But you’ve been quoting scripture and mumbling prayers and saying things that don’t sound like you all day. We’ve only ever seen you like this once before.”

My ears fell back at that unwelcome reminder. I scratched my claws idly through the fur on my wrists, staring off into space as if in tandem with the forlorn tiger.

“You’re saying I’m acting like I did after they tried to convert me?”

Mark stared, his answer in his gaze.

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I suppose that makes sense. They were right, after all.”

“Petra!”

“Well, weren’t they?” I snapped. “Once it was just the priests and my family telling me I was damned for wanting to be a man. Now it’s God Himself.”

“Hun, that isn’t what’s happening. And hauling you off and locking you in a room with those priests was evil.”

“They had the right intentions,” I said. “They wanted me to see that this would happen someday if I didn’t repent. I relapsed, and now here I am paying the price.”

Mark shook his head and slumped back on the ground. He sighed and looked up at Sabaoth’s crimson wings.

“You’re having those thoughts again, aren’t you?”

I grit my teeth, feeling caught out, but I hesitantly nodded. “I’ve been remembering the things they said ever since you took me out of the pool. The memories just sort of pop up in my head out of nowhere, always yelling at me.” My shoulders slumped and I sighed, feeling suddenly bitter. “Why did they have to be right, damnit? Why can’t God just let me be… me.”

Mark’s eyes brightened at my sudden lack of conviction, but they darkened again when he saw me wince and straighten up, more words popping into my head to pull me back on track.

“Do you remember how different you acted after they took you?” Mark asked. “You had that thousand-yard stare and I swear you could only speak in scripture half the time. You wouldn’t even admit that we’d ever been more than friends. They put you back in your egg, and you were too scared to come out for a long time. Now you’re throwing yourself back in. Why?”

“It’s… it’s necessary,” I said. “I got caught up in becoming someone else. I rejected Gnosis, and now I’m paying for it.”

Mark placed a hand on my paw. “Petra, the way you’re seeing the Rapture doesn’t make any sense. This isn’t about condemning you for wanting to be who you really are. If it was, there’d be a hell of a lot more people left behind.”

I shook my head. “I don’t think that’s true. And if it is, there must be something about the judgment of the Rapture that’s just as important. Like maybe on top of everything else, it judges whether you’re broken or not. I’m definitely broken.”

Mark stared at me, hoping I would find a more rational conclusion in the awkward silence, but my faith held fast and firm. He sighed.

“When we deny who we are, it leaves a hollow inside of us, where things will crawl in and make us something we’re not.” The dragon opened a wing and wrapped it around me for some much-needed comfort. “We’re here for you, you know. Whatever happens tomorrow, I have faith you’ll get to be who you really are in the end. Sabaoth won’t leave you to live a life you don’t want.”

I nodded. “Same for you and Seth. If God decides otherwise, I don’t know what I’ll do. You’re right about one thing. I am scared.”

He wrapped me in his arms, holding my head against his chest and comforting me with the strong beat of his heart. “Whatever happens, you’ll have the power to be happy in the end. I promise.” He looked up at the sky and was silent for a while, just staring at the emerging night, as if reading fate from the stars. “Yeah, we’re going to make sure of it.”

That night, we slept in the wings’ embrace. It was rough, lying on the hard ground with no blankets or pillows, but I told myself this was only for one night. In fact, if I was granted Gnosis in the morning, I would never experience physical discomfort ever again.

Naturally, I couldn’t sleep, so I rolled away from Seth and Mark to sit and stare at the ceiling. My eyesight in the dark seemed much improved from when I was human, so I spent the hours idly stroking my fur and staring at the stone feathers swirling like a whirlpool toward the stars in the open center. My mind was similarly chaotic; I couldn’t sink my claws into a single line of thought before they were swept away by the stormy seas in my head.

I looked at Seth and Mark, who slept so soundly together. Mark had cuddled up close to Seth and draped both arm and wing over the sleeping tiger, while Seth’s tail had curled around Mark’s leg. They looked so beautiful, smiling in their sleep as if the Rapture had taken their worries away instead of their souls. I tried to steady my envy, to no avail.

The aimless stroking of my fur soon escalated, and I found myself exploring again. I fondled my cock, which had grown further out of its sheath and become unbearably sensitive as I yearned for the tiger and dragon just a few yards away. It throbbed in my paw, begging for attention past the point of simple exploration. I whined as I drew my paw away.

It wasn’t fair.

With a huff I stared up at the ceiling again, trying and failing to chant aimless prayers, which had become even more impossible lately despite the scolding of the priests in my head.

“Petra, you’re awake?” I heard Seth whisper. When I looked over to answer, he was already crawling out from under Mark’s wing. The dragon mumbled a bit, but he stayed fast asleep as the tiger crawled over on all fours, his hips and tail swaying.

“Yeah,” I said. “Can’t sleep.”

“I can tell,” Seth said. “I um… This is going to sound weird, but I think I woke up because, well, you’re giving off a scent.” He looked at my paw, which clumsily concealed the stubborn bulge in my pants.

I realized the implication and my face grew hotter than ever before. “Oh no, Seth I’m so sorry, I couldn’t help it.”

“No, it’s okay. It didn’t smell bad. It was actually kind of, well…” He averted his eyes. I could tell he was blushing under that fur. “Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything. I’ll try to ignore it.”

I reached out and placed a paw on his. “No, it’s okay. Just stay for a bit, please? I could really use some company.”

Seth smiled and agreed. He attempted to sit cross-legged in front of me, but the new shape of his legs confused him, and he opted instead to sit clumsily on his side. I couldn’t help but snicker.

“Hey, I’m doing the best I can,” Seth laughed. He finally settled into something that only looked half-comfortable before asking, “How’s your head?”

“Not great,” I answered. “I can’t settle down enough to pray. I feel like my head’s going to explode if I can’t find a way to relax.”

Seth tapped his claws on the ground rhythmically in thought. “Here, let me try something.” The tiger scooted close and lifted my head onto his lap, careful not to crush my ears.

“What are you—?” I asked, but when I felt him run his paws through the fur on my neck, it silenced me completely. It was like a burst of heaven, his fingers tracing through my fur, rubbing behind my ears. The tension went out of my muscles and my tail wagged uncontrollably.

“I had a feeling. Maybe you have some dog in you, huh?” Seth looked down into my dumbfounded eyes. His smile turned me to putty in his paws, deepening the longing I had felt for him all day.

Seth leaned in and ran his paws across my chest and belly. I whined as he slipped under my shirt and my thoughts came to a halt. All the guilt went out of me as I enjoyed the ecstasy of his gentle touch.

“How is that?” he asked.

“G-Good,” I gasped as he rubbed up my sides and returned to scratching my neck. My tongue lolled out of my muzzle as I panted in pleasure, mindlessly content.

Seth chuckled. “I think I’ve set you off. That scent is back.”

Mortified, I realized how tight my pants had become. “I’m sorry, it just does that,” I said. “I don’t know how to control it. I don’t know how any of this works.”

Seth smiled and sat me up. To my surprise, he placed a paw on my aching need and looked lovingly into my eyes as he undid the button of my pants. I smiled awkwardly and began to look away, but Seth lifted my chin with his fingertips, leaned in, and kissed me.

The tiger made it feel so natural, even with the awkward shapes of our muzzles. My eyes went wide and my fur shivered. I shouldn’t let this happen. God was surely watching. I needed to stop myself.

But I couldn’t stop. The taste of Seth’s tongue on mine, the heat of his breath, the heady scent of his own emerging arousal; the tiger was intoxicating, my lust for him overwhelming. Not even my faith could stop me from embracing the beautiful tiger’s gift.

Seth put his paws around my hips and pulled me close. Free from thought, I pushed into him, and we fell back onto the ground where I stood on my hands and knees, grinding against him. Seth pulled my pants down and my cock spilled out, painfully hard and dripping. He fondled my package with a gentle touch that sent shivers through my whole body.

 “Come here, you handsome wolf. Let me show you how to use this.”

I must have only slept for two or three hours that night, but it was the best sleep of my life. I woke up holding Seth in my arms, muzzle resting against his cheek. I licked at his fur and squeezed him tight without even thinking. Only when I opened my eyes did I realize what I had done.

“Good morning you two,” Mark said, a tease to his voice. The dragon crouched next to us, a huge grin on his face. He caressed Seth’s cheek, and I felt the cat’s purr vibrate against me. “Good kitty,” Mark cooed, then he reached over and rubbed me behind the ears. “And good doggy.”

Despite my ears going hot from the pet name, my stomach turned from the guilt of what I’d done. I released Seth from my arms, sat up, and averted my eyes, staring emotionlessly at the ground.

“Petra?” Mark said.

I didn’t answer.

“What’s wrong?” Seth asked.

But I stayed mute, listening to the voices in my head.

No joy may come without consequence.

This is the sign of your cage.

I stared at the entrance to the temple. Light had begun to drive away the dark and paint the world in gold. Dawn had come.

I stood, pulled on my pants to cover my sin, and stumbled out of the temple into the open field. I turned around to see every part of the hill, my ears swiveling like radar dishes in hopes of finding something, anything, to show God was still coming for us. But everything was just as it had been before.

When Mark and Seth emerged from the statue, they found me on my knees in the damp morning grass. They approached slowly, Seth hiding slightly behind the dragon’s wings.

“I’m sorry,” I said to them. “I should have tried harder. I should have stopped myself.”

Seth looked confused, as if he wasn’t even thinking about how our night together had just ruined our chances of ascending. No doubt it had anchored us to our bodily prisons now. From wherever they’d gone in death, the archons were no doubt cackling in victory, and it was all my fault.

Mark crouched at my side. He opened his mouth to say something, but he was clearly struggling to form the right words to condemn me.

“Petra,” he finally said, “I need to tell you something. It’s very important, so… listen close, and please believe me.” I readied myself for the dragon’s fury. He took a deep breath in, readying his fire, and finally let it out.

“God didn’t give you the vision that brought us here. I did.”

My brow furrowed as Mark waited patiently for my reaction. It took a few moments for my mind to catch up.

“That doesn’t even make sense,” I said.

“It was the only way to make you leave the church,” he said. “I put it in your head, so I could bring you here to the wings of Sabaoth.” My brow furrowed, but I squinted as I remembered the moment in the church when Mark had locked eyes with me and put his hand on my shoulder, just before the vision took hold.

“Remember the humans Sabaoth raised to become his archons? How I always wanted to become one? Well, a few years ago, I got my wish.”

I stared, remembering how Mark had cut me off so adamantly as he explained the true workings of the archons.

I froze, as still and as cold as the broken stone walls around us. “Why are you saying such ridiculous things?”

“It’s true,” Seth said, stepping out fully from behind Mark’s wings. “He showed me a long time ago. We just couldn’t tell you because, well…” The tiger hesitated, then shook Mark by the shoulder. “Show him what you showed me.”

“I was just about to,” Mark said. “Look me in the eyes, Petra. Just like at the church.”

I locked eyes with Mark, though out of anger more than from his direction. I was about to scold him, but he placed his hands on my shoulders, and the ripples returned. Everything—the sky, the field, the ruins, the distant trees—fell out from under me, and I finally saw the truth.

A boy plays with his two friends. Grows up. Falls in love. As a girl is taken by the priests, he cries out in helpless grief. He is visited, told of the coming end, of what he and his own will become. The boy trembles with the weight of the secret. He falls away from the church, holding his mates closer each passing year. Revealing the secret to one who would stay, keeping it from one he thought would ascend. Then baptism. The end. The vision. The wings. The wolf who remained. A dragon and a tiger, conspiring in secret, desperate to heal the scars of the terrified man they love.

I found myself back at Thunder Hill, trembling in the arms of Sabaoth’s archon. He held me close, his snout resting on my shoulder.

“The Rapture doesn’t judge whether you’re good or bad, broken or whole,” he said. “It judges who you want to be. The fallen created our bodies as prisons, but we can reclaim these prisons and transform them into homes.” The dragon kissed my forehead and placed a hand on my chest, firm against my racing heart. “This is where you belong. It’s where you want to be. Your home.”

I could scarcely breathe as I took in his words. It didn’t make any sense. It wasn’t right. How could it be so when the church taught that our bodies were wrong?

“W-what’s going to happen?” I asked, recovering from the shock.

“We’re going to live as ourselves,” said the dragon. “Everyone on Earth who’s been left behind—and yes, there are many more—can move on from humanity now. On to better things.” Mark held my fuzzy paw in his scaled hand. “Much better things.”

Seth kneeled next to us, placing his own paw atop ours. “Mark has offered us a chance to become Sabaoth’s archons too,” he said. “We don’t have to if we don’t want to, but that’s what the wings are really for.”

I recalled my vision—the pillar of light shining down through the wing’s center.

“Sabaoth will grant us the power to make this world our new home. We can be who we are, instead of the church making us into something we’re not.”

The priests screamed in my head.

The wardens crafted thy body in deception!

Indulgence in their lie will bind you to your prison!

Damned are the traitors who would trade one prison for another!

They had crawled so deep inside my head—the archons of my own personal prison. I shivered as I gazed deep into the dragon’s eyes, and I whined.

“Help me.”

Mark put a hand under my chin, lifted my snout, and kissed me. The priests screamed in fury, but their voices were obliterated, their memories drawn out by Mark’s love and Sabaoth’s power, stripped of their very existence.

It broke me.

Mark pulled away from the kiss. Tears fell into my cheek fur. Seth hugged me from behind as I sobbed. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

They held me steady between them, letting me know there was nothing to apologize for. They both told me they loved me, and I returned the words again and again.

I stood at the threshold of Sabaoth’s wings. It was noon, and the sunlight shone down from the window in the temple’s roof, forming a pillar of golden light.

Seth had gone first, and he had come out of the light much the same as he had gone in. A glow in his eyes dissipated as he walked up to me, a big smile on his muzzle.

“It feels good,” he said. “Like a hot shower or something. And you learn things, too, like what we can do and how we can make things better.” Seth pointed at the ground; flowers now grew where there had only been dry dirt seconds before.

Mark walked up behind me and ruffled my head fur, making me smile.

“This place will be a city someday,” he said. “The center of the new world. And together we’ll help it thrive.” He showed me a vision of what he intended: a grand city of color and light, peaceful, happy, and free from the pain and oppression of the old world. I saw the citizens who inhabited it, all of them exactly who they wanted to be.

“More animal people?” I laughed.

“You’re damn right more animal people,” he said with toothy smile. “No more humanity. We’ve moved past that, right?”

“Right,” I agreed, wagging my tail and standing my ears up tall.

“This will be fun,” Seth said. “Lots to see, lots to do.” He ran his paw across the curve of my hip, down to my rear, below my tail. “Lots to explore.”

I laughed, swatting him playfully away. “Save it for later, you horny cat.”

Seth gave me a little growl. “I will, you sexy wolf.”

I hugged him, then Mark—my two lovers and saviors, who I’d never let anything pull me away from ever again.

“Alright, let’s do it then,” I said. I walked up to the light and tested it with my footpaw, as if testing the temperature in a pool of water. It was warm, comfortable, welcoming.

I looked back at the tiger and the dragon one more time, and I finally stepped into the light.

THE END