byChrisWhite – 2025

NOTE: The following is a fictional scene that presupposes the idea that the prophesies of Revelation have already occurred, an idea with the name Preterism. I did’t write it to preach the idea, nor do I support that belief necessarily, it’s just new to me. I actually overheard the idea for the first time at the breakfast table, and immediately thought that I would explore it to find out why some people believe it. Then… I wrote about it.

Rome burned exquisitely that summer night, a delirious red bloom upon the earth’s darkened face. Nero stands on the balcony of the Domus Aurea, his excited pupils wide as coins, reflecting on a thousand licking tongues of flame. He lifts his chin, relishing in the scents of burning cedar and the sharp stench of scorched human desperation that trails wretchedly in the night air.

They would call him beast, madman, destroyer. He would wear their curses as laurels, accepting each epithet like the lover’s bruised kiss. History, he knew, would be written by trembling hands, hands that carve prophecies from fear and loathing. Nero beams, grasping at the raw delight in Rome’s chaos, in the great undoing of a city built on hubris and deceit.

“Behold, my Christian Revelation,” he whispers, and in his voice lives pure, undisputable darkness and a type of dispassionate triumph that invites fear and uncertainty.

Below him, men and women scurry like insects under overturned stones. Flames claw at stone arches, devouring marble, turning monuments of arrogance to dust. Nero see’s not tragedy but truth: Rome, the Babylonian harlot, stripped and exposed, punished by its own vanity and sin. The cries rising through smoke-stained skies mingle with visions, unbidden yet relentless, visions of fiery chariots, beasts born of our nightmares, and an endless abyss yawning wide beneath humanity’s feet.

Yet even now, at the crest of his dark victory, Nero feel’s an unease coiled tight in his chest. He understands the whispers. He proudly accepts them. He believes they named him Antichrist, the beast foretold by the ancient Judean texts. What was prophecy but the cruel gaze of hindsight, the desperate attempt to bind the present horrors in threads spun long ago? Yet Nero laughs softly, defiantly, as if he alone understands that evil is not born of supernatural darkness but from human hearts besmirched by power, greed, and despair. He gladly accepts their name.

From the horizon, messengers bring frantic tidings from Judea. Jerusalem stood defiant, a city swollen fat with rebellion. The very name tasted bitter, an open sore festering beneath his rule. His fingers tighten on the balcony rail. He had dreamt of their utter ruin, the final act in a drama written before his birth, a revelation of wrath and judgment that would silence the prophets and vindicate his fury.

“Emperor,” came a hesitant voice, sodden with reverent dread. He turned, seeing Tigellinus framed in shadow. “Jerusalem…”

“Let it burn,” Nero commanded. “Let the prophecy fulfill this glorious moment.”

Skies above Rome bled crimson, smoke veiling the stars like funeral shrouds. Nero closes his eyes and witnesses, yonder the smoke and ruin, the anguished faces of prophets, priests, and madmen. He feels the ancient dominion of the scrolls they clutch, inked in visions of plagues, seals broken by divine wrath, and bowls poured in judgment upon an unrepentant Earth. And in that instant, that stained moment of pure evil, Nero senses an eternal hand pressing him straight toward destiny, an unwilling yet complicit instrument of cosmic vengeance.

Nero opens his eyes yet again, Rome stretches out before him in torturous splendor, a kingdom fashioned in fire and despair. And deep within his flame-annealed heart, an insatiable hunger stirs, a gluttonous thirst not merely to witness the Christian’s Revelation but to become it.