A piercing trumpet blast shattered the noise of the busy city streets. Paul, the temple’s head groundskeeper, looked up from the flowerbed he was working in at the gold statue perched atop the tallest of the temple’s six white spires. He stared, perplexed, as the trumpet continued to sound.

After several seconds, the trumpeting stopped.

With abject horror, Paul watched as the statue pitched forward and fell from the spire.

“Watch out!” Paul yelled to the churchgoers milling around the temple grounds.

The statue crashed to the ground with a thud. Paul raced across the green and immaculately mowed lawn, pulling his gloves off as he went, to see if anyone was injured.

He skidded to a stop halfway to the fallen statue when he heard a loud mechanical whirring sound above him. The white spire was rising off the square pillar upon which it sat. With disbelief, Paul watched the spire pivot on what looked like a hydraulic piston. It canted to a forty-five-degree angle and turned toward the towering mountains to the east. Three more of the spires did the same thing.

Paul looked back at the first spire, perched precariously atop the tallest of the six pillars, and then over at the mountains. He squinted, trying to focus his aging eyes better. Something was flying toward the city. Hundreds of somethings—if not thousands.

He heard a crash behind him and turned his head. An SUV had rear-ended a sedan. The driver of the SUV staggered out just as another truck crashed into the SUV. A fourth car slammed into the truck. The sound of crashes began echoing all around, near and far. Then screaming—lots and lots of screaming.

Paul looked back toward the mountains. The somethings were now discernible. They looked like flying reptiles with leathery wings. He watched in horror as the creatures dove toward the city, spewing torrents of fire from their mouths.

“What in God’s name?”

Nearby screams stole his attention from the fire-breathing creatures. People ran everywhere, abandoning their vehicles, many toward the temple.

“Help!” someone yelled.

Two men were struggling to cross the lawn, one helping the other to walk. Paul hurried over and lifted the injured man’s limp arm over his neck. Together, the three made their way to the temple entrance.

A loud humming sound from the closest spire caused the trio to hesitate. Paul looked from the canted spire to the approaching creatures and back. The humming grew louder, the spire pivoted, and the white spear-like tip launched into the air. With amazement, Paul followed the spear as it streaked across the sky and struck a flying creature. The creature screeched and fell, crashing through the roof of a house. Spears shot from three other spires as well. They flew through the sky, two of them impaled creatures, sending them crashing to the ground, but the third missed.

The nearest spire continued to hum. Paul heard what sounded like gears grinding, and then another white spear emerged from the mechanism at the end of the spire. The spire moved again, angling slightly higher as it turned to the right. The second spear launched into the air. It arced through the sky and pierced another creature through the body, near its hind legs. The impact jolted the beast, causing it to turn sharply in the air, but it didn’t fall. Paul stared transfixed, unable to convince himself to move. The beating of the creature’s leathery wings became erratic. Soon, it slowed, its head dropped, and it tumbled to the ground.

The trio started forward again and passed under the pillar as another spear launched from the spire. As the trio approached the temple entrance, Paul noticed the steeple on the next-door meetinghouse was also canted at an angle. Like the temple spire, it pivoted on a hydraulic piston, and then the needle launched into the air. The needle flew through the air and pierced a target. The man beside Paul pulled him toward the temple entrance, but he resisted. Needles were flying through the air from meetinghouses all over the city.

Paul eventually gave in to the tug and stumbled into the lavishly decorated lobby. It was crowded with people huddling together as temple workers ushered them farther from the doors.

“Let’s find somewhere to lay him down,” Paul said.

“I didn’t mean to,” the man said.

“Mean to what?”

“I-I, whatever those things were, I saw them and I—”

“It’s okay, son. You did the right thing to help him,” Paul said. He gestured toward a wooden bench padded with cream-colored cushions and said, “Here.”

Together, they helped the injured man onto the bench. Paul noticed for the first time the blood streaming from the man’s forehead. “Are you all right?”

The injured man nodded. “Dazed is all.”

“Let me grab a first-aid kit.”

The injured man nodded.

“I’ll wait here with him,” the other man said.

“Good,” Paul said. “Be right back.”

Paul started down a hallway but stopped when John, one of the temple councilors, grabbed him by the arm.

“What’s going on, John?” Paul said.

“Come with me, please.”

“Why? I was getting a first-aid kit for—”

“We’ll get someone else on it. Brother Kendal sent for you.”

“Me?” Richard Kendal was the temple president. What could he want with me? And now of all times? “What’s going on? What are those things?”

John pulled Paul by the arms and said, “Dragons.”

“Dragons? Like from the Hobbit?”

“Sort of.”

John led Paul through the temple, past the many rooms where sacred rituals took place. They passed instruction rooms, the sealing rooms—one of which was where he and his wife were sealed more than fifty years ago—and the baptistry. When they arrived at the celestial room, the holiest place in the temple, John shoved the door open and strode in without reverence. Paul heard screams from behind as he followed John in.

The celestial room gleamed. Intended to be a taste of what it was like to be in God’s presence, it was the most ornate room in the temple. The stained-glass windows and the sparkling chandelier created a feeling of holiness. But John paid it no mind as he walked behind the padded chairs lining one side of the room and placed his hand on an inconspicuous spot of the marble wall. The marble glowed red under John’s hand. A door-sized hole in the wall recessed and slid to the side.

“Come,” John said.

Paul hesitated. In all the years he’d visited the celestial room, come here to pray and to be in God’s presence, he never knew there was a door on that wall.

“Paul!” John called through the opening.

Paul followed John into a small room. There was a spiraling staircase leading down. John was already several steps down by the time Paul entered. He stepped up to the stairs and peered down. All he saw was John disappearing into the darkness.

“Paul! We don’t have time!”

Paul descended the stairs to a section of the temple he didn’t know existed. His shoes echoed off the concrete walls with each step he took.

“Follow me,” John said when he reached the bottom.

Paul followed John down a narrow hallway. At the end, John stopped and entered a code into a keypad, then placed his thumb on a sensor. The keypad beeped, and the door swung inward.

“What is this?” Paul said.

“We’re under attack.”

“From those creatures?” Paul said, still confused as to what was happening.

“And this is where we fight back.”

“Fight back?”

John stepped through the door and said, “We need your help.”

Paul followed John in.

Both walls in the room he entered were lined with floor-to-ceiling flat-screen monitors. There were also six black chairs resembling barber chairs, three on each side of the room. Each of them had a joystick resembling a fighter jet’s on the armrest. Four of the six chairs were occupied. He recognized the men sitting in the other chairs: Richard, the temple president, Tim, the second temple counselor, and Ben and Eric, both of whom were stake presidents.

Richard turned from his screen to look at them and said, “Oh, good, you found him.”

“Richard,” Paul said. “What’s happening?”

“You were in the Air Force, right?”

“Yeah?”

“Well, we’re a man down,” Richard said. “John, you mind getting him settled in?”

“Sure,” John said.

John ushered Paul toward one of the empty chairs, but Paul stopped next to the chair Tim occupied. He watched what appeared to be a video feed from a high-definition camera somewhere outside the temple. As the view panned around, Paul gained his bearings, recognizing the mountains in the background. As he watched, he noticed Tim was using the joystick to control the camera.

Dozens of those creatures—dragons weren’t real, how could they be—were flying around, dipping and turning, breathing fire on buildings and homes.

The screen focused on one dragon and zoomed in. When a red circle appeared around the creature and began blinking, Tim squeezed the trigger on the joystick. The red circle continued to track the dragon until a white spear pierced the dragon right below the dragon’s wing.

“Take that motherfucker!” Tim shouted. “Got another one, gentlemen!”

“Huzzah!” the others shouted.

Paul’s eyes widened at Tim’s exclamation. How could a temple counselor be in good standing with language like that?

Paul felt a hand on his shoulder. “Paul,” John said. “Please.”

“What is this place?”

John stopped in front of one of the empty chairs and said, “Sit.”

“You can’t be serious?”

“We need every temple and meetinghouse to be running at full strength if we’re going to survive this.”

“But I… how am I supposed to know how to operate this?”

“It’s pretty intuitive,” John said. “And with your fighter experience, it’ll be a cinch. Sit, and I’ll explain it to you.”

“Got another one!” one of the others shouted.

Paul’s mind whirled as John explained the joystick’s various buttons.

John sat in the remaining empty chair when he finished and said, “You’ll be surprised how fast it comes back.”

He was a fighter pilot too, Paul remembered as John began manipulating the joystick.

Paul settled into the curves of the reclining chair, looked up at the screen, and saw that his camera was faced west, away from the mountains. He tentatively grabbed the joystick and used it to pan from left to right, as far as his camera would turn. It looked as though he had about one hundred and eighty degrees of movement. The joystick felt familiar in his hand.

The dragons were everywhere, destroying buildings for as far as he could see. He used the thumb toggle, as John had instructed, to adjust the zoom. He picked a dragon and started tracking it. Trying to keep the camera pointed at the dragon as it climbed, dove, and swerved around proved tricky at first. And the closer he zoomed, the more difficult it became.

“Darn it,” he said when the dragon flew off the screen.

He zoomed back out until he found another dragon, then repeated the process. It took him five tries before he got zoomed in enough for the camera’s locking system to engage. The red circle appeared around the dragon and began tracking automatically. Paul watched with rapture. The creature was… he didn’t have the words to explain it.

“Squeeze the trigger, Paul,” John said.

Paul looked over at John and said, “Huh?”

“The trigger. You gotta squeeze it.”

Paul looked back at his screen. The red circle was still tracking the dragon. Fire spewed from its mouth in spurts.

Paul squeezed the trigger.

A spear flashed on the screen. It flew past the dragon, just missing it.

“I missed,” he said.

“It happens,” John said. “Keep trying.”

This time Paul only lost two dragons before he locked onto another one. His experience flying the F-4 Phantom began to surface, and long-dormant muscle memory returned. As soon as he saw the red circle and the camera started auto-tracking, he squeezed the trigger. The spear took the dragon in the neck. The camera zoomed all the way out and Paul watched the dragon fall.

“Atta boy,” John said.

Paul worked silently for the next hour, killing a dozen dragons. His control over the camera became routine, and his thoughts wandered.

He grew up in the church, checked every box required to stay in good standing, and served in the temple whenever he could. When his kids were gone, he gave even more of his time to the church. He’d served in many different capacities over the years.

“John?” Paul said, his mind swirling.

“Yeah?” John said without taking his eyes off his own screen.

“What in God’s name is happening?”

John removed his hand from his joystick, causing the camera on his screen to stop, and looked over at Paul. “Honestly?”

“Honestly.”

“Truth is we’ve been preparing for this day since the beginning.”

“The beginning of what?”

“We didn’t know when—we’re told no one knew the exact day, not even the Prophet—only that they would come.”

“Who’s we?”

“The Church.”

Paul furrowed his brow. “What do you mean?”

John hesitated, causing a tinge of fear to rise in Paul. “I mean that the Church is a carefully constructed network established for the sole purpose of preparing for the dragons coming. An illusion, if you will.”

“You mean a lie.”

“Nobody could know what we were doing.”

“But…” it couldn’t all be a lie. It was true, Paul knew it. He was a man of faith. He’d dedicated his whole life to the Church. He’d asked God, just as their holiest of scriptures instructed, whether or not it was true. And he’d received his answer. His mind swirled around the many pieces of evidence he believed testified to the veracity of everything he’d been taught.

“Call it a stroke of luck, or whatever you want, but the Prophet found out what was going to happen so he—”

“The Prophet?”

“—knew what he needed to do.”

“So, none of it is true?” Paul didn’t believe that could be possible. People don’t invent religions.

“No.”

“How can that be? What about the witnesses?”

“Honestly, Paul, people lie.”

“The plates?”

“Are real. But not as we’ve been taught.”

“What were they then?”

“They were made of steel.”

“Steel?” The plates were what the Prophet used to write their holiest of scriptures. If that wasn’t true, then… “What did these plates say?”

“They contained instructions on how to prepare for The Scourge of the Earth. And the truly amazing thing is that the technology described on the plates didn’t even exist yet.”

“They couldn’t possibly have imagined this,” Paul said, gazing at the giant monitors.

“No, but the descriptions were enough. The initial plan was simply to build the infrastructure so we’d be ready when the technology arrived.”

“You mean the temple?”

“Yes.”

“This is its true purpose?”

“It is. The meetinghouses, too. It’s no coincidence that the Church is headquartered here. The Prophet knew that it was in these mountains that the dragons hibernated. He knew if there was even a chance of humanity surviving, that we needed to be positioned as close as possible to hit them when they are weakest.”

“But there are temples all over the world.”

“Part of the ruse, Paul.”

“Fuck!” Paul heard one of the others shout. “John!”

John looked back at his own screen. Paul’s eyes shifted to John’s screen as well. He flinched when he saw a dragon flying directly toward them. The dragon crashed into the camera, and the screen went blank.

“Shit,” John said.

The language grated against Paul’s being.

The dragons were unbelievable—unimaginable—but he refused to believe it all to be a lie. His life was not a lie. But how could God create such a vile creature?

“They already got mine,” Tim said.

“They’re going for the rest of them,” John said.

“We’re out of time,” Richard said. “Let’s go.”

Paul looked at his own screen just in time to see the lizard-like skull zoom into view before his screen went black. “What now?” he said.

Richard strode past Paul’s chair to the smooth, blank wall. He placed his hand on a sensor, and a panel slid open, revealing several military-grade rifles nestled into a niche in the wall. Richard pulled out a rifle and handed it to Paul.

The others approached, and Richard handed each of them a gun in turn. Lastly, Richard took one for himself. He pulled the charging handle to load it.

“Brothers, we need to hold them off until help arrives. And pray the others are more successful.”

Pray? To who? God? Doubt jolted Paul. Is he even real?

Richard started for the door. Paul followed as they made their way back up the hallway and the spiraling stairs.

Screams destroyed the peaceful serenity of the celestial room.

Richard broke into a jog, leading the others toward the lobby. They shoved through people hysterically clambering deeper into the temple. The sight of six men running with rifles didn’t seem to calm the chaotic swarm, despite their pleas to make way.

Paul’s group spread out when the flow of people lessened and covered the breadth of the carpeted hallway. Paul took up position on the far right. He raised his gun but fumbled for the safety. He hadn’t used a gun since the service.

A fleeing passerby bumped into Paul. He almost vomited when he saw the man who stumbled by. The flesh on the side of his face was severely burned, completely gone in some places, revealing parts of his cheek and jawbones. An entire side of his body was burned as well, the remnants of his clothes hung loosely on his body. The smell sent Paul’s hand from rifle to mouth.

“Paul!” John called.

Paul turned from the man, seeing he’d fallen a few steps behind the others. He hurried ahead, taking up position with them once again. The acrid smell of burning flesh grew stronger with each step they took.

The horror of what was happening overwhelmed Paul as they approached the lobby. Bile rose in his throat. Burned bodies were everywhere. All of them were positioned as if running away from the entrance as they succumbed to their wounds. Cries of pain emerged from those still trying to crawl to safety.

Paul held an arm over his nose, futilely shielding himself from the smell, as they made their way up the hall. The other men moved like a skilled military unit, seemingly unaffected by the surrounding death.

It took them what seemed like an eternity to arrive at the lobby. When they finally did, they found it on fire. Paul’s eyes darted from a burning bench to a charred body. Everything was burning. His eyes locked on the creature on the far side of the lobby, its head and front legs inside the temple. Its front feet scratched for traction. It’s stuck, he thought.

The others opened fire on the dragon. Its reptilian eyes locked on them. Paul winced in pain from the cacophony and reverberation of the gunshots.

The dragon roared, unaffected by the barrage of bullets whose effect was like that of swarming gnats.

Fire shot from the dragon’s mouth.

Paul watched, helplessly, as the fire reached the others first. They dropped their guns, turned, and screamed. Frozen, unable to bring himself to move, Paul wondered how he had lived his entire life so obliviously.

The flames crept toward him. He watched the flailing bodies of John, Richard, and the others as though he was watching a movie in slow-motion.

He realized his entire life was a lie.

Everything he believed was a lie.

The gun, unused, slipped from his fingers as the flames drew closer.

He’d spent many a night lying in bed, wondering what hellfire might feel like. It was reserved for only the worst, he knew, but he feared it, nevertheless. Even though he knew he was not the sort that would get condemned to eternal hellfire, Paul lived in fear of falling short, which is why he always strove for the utmost piety.

But it had all been for nothing.

He’d lived for a lie. Devoted himself to a lie.

Paul barely had time to feel the regret seeping into him before the hellfire he spent his entire life trying to avoid took him.