In towns and cities across Europe people are going about their daily business, generally trying to find enough food and water for their family to survive. For most families this has become a daily task which requires many hours of effort. It involves going from store to store, standing in line to get whatever there is for sale that day, then moving on to another store to repeat. People seldom get what they want. The best they can hope for is to arrive home after a long day of searching, feed their family enough to survive another day, and then repeat the next day. Life has become repetitive, boring, tedious, and miserable. There is no more leisure time, not like before the Vanishment. There is no hope for a better future. Even the sun is going out, many believe, so forget climate warming because it is freezing cold in most of Europe during the summer now. Suicide rates are very high, and it has become the second leading cause of death after starvation. Most people are going through their lives like the walking dead. They are starving, thirsty, bitter and without hope.
On a street in Lisbon, Portugal, a man has just bought half a loaf of bread in a store, now he is headed to another store in hope of finding butter or maybe even some meat, which is very rare. In the distance he sees what looks like a huge flock of birds flying close to the ground. They are so thick. Then he hears what sounds like a collective scream, but far away. The sound gets closer, and closer. Then he sees them. It is "the Swarm," and they are swooping everywhere randomly attacking nearly everyone as they go along. There are thousands and thousands of them. A rolling wave of screams is going out as the Swarm makes its way toward him. Within seconds he is attacked and stung several times. His scream joins the thousands of others. The pain is excruciating. No torture ever devised could match it.
Someone in the crowd in Lisbon uploads a video to the LANX website just as the Swarm begins its attack. Jill Steiner is the first to air the coverage. She immediately knows what it is, and what it means.
Jill: "News has just come in of the Swarm attacking citizens in Europe. Roll that video now." The video shows a frightening scene of the "Swarm" appearing suddenly in the skies and pouncing on the helpless population below as it proceeds. It darkens the sky as it approaches. Then it strikes. A rolling wave of collective screams is heard as the first sign it is approaching. When they get closer to the camera, their physical appearance is frightening.
Jill tells her audience: "These are not creatures of this world. These are demons who have come to torture the human race."
Then Jill begins to read from Revelation and also from her book:
Revelation 9:6 “During those days people will seek death but will not find it; they will long to die, but death will elude them. 7 The locusts looked like horses prepared for battle. On their heads they wore something like crowns of gold, and their faces resembled human faces. 8 Their hair was like women’s hair, and their teeth were like lions’ teeth. 9 They had breastplates like breastplates of iron, and the sound of their wings was like the thundering of many horses and chariots rushing into battle. 10 They had tails with stingers, like scorpions, and in their tails they had power to torment people for five months.”
Jill: "Let me also read from my book:"
"The first thing to note is that these demons are visible to humans. This demon criminal group is compared to an army prepared for battle. They travel in swarms and make a horrifying noise which adds to the paralyzing fear they induce among their victims. The look of this demon army is like cavalry riding into battle with helmets, emblems and armor. The individual demons are fierce looking with faces resembling man."
Revelation 9:11 “They had as king over them the angel of the Abyss, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon and in Greek is Apollyon (that is, Destroyer).”
The demon army is led by the number two demon of all time, Abaddon. At the Fall of Satan, 1/3 of all angels followed Satan and his top lieutenant Abaddon. It should be noted this is Satan attacking his own people, since they are attacking mostly unbelievers, and those believers who depart from their faith. The mantra is “make them suffer!” Evil has no loyalty. This part of the angelic conflict shows Satan as ruler of the earth is incapable of being “like the Most High God” which power he lusted for and caused his original Fall. Satan uses people and spits them out, like any other unfair and ungrateful dictator. And he dared to think of himself as equal to God."
Reports continued to come into the studio showing that the Swarm started in several locations around the world at the same time. In Europe it started in Portugal which is the western-most major city in continental Europe, and spread eastward. Additional Swarms began on all the other continents at the same time. Over the next several weeks the Swarms made their way into all parts of the seven continents, having spread in all directions. Then they randomly went back to where they had previously terrorized their victims and attacked again, so that no one knew where or when they would strike. There was no place to hide from them. They could not even be locked out of buildings, so there was no safe place. But believers were unaffected by the stinging demons.
During the next five months Jill covered the effects of the "stinging demons" as they inflicted excruciating pain on their victims all over the earth. They continued to strike randomly when least expected, which made their torture even more intense and it drove fear into the hearts of people everywhere. Since no one knew when or where they would strike next, intense and debilitating fear became part of daily life, along with starvation, thirst, and pain.
After several months of "the swarm" roving the earth, unbelievers everywhere are at the breaking point. They can no longer stand the intense pain of their attacks, the anxiety of not knowing when they would appear next, and the fear of what all of this meant. But they remained hardened in their resolve that God was not the answer for them. Suicides skyrocketed in number.
Jill reports the news of the end of the demon torture: "After five months of torture the attacks have ended. Just as suddenly as "the swarm" had appeared, they just as suddenly departed. The air is now clear of them. People everywhere are rejoicing that this scourge is finally over. Several months of this torture was nearly unbearable. It has been just over six years since the Vanishment, so we are less than one year from the end of the Tribulation. That end is called Armageddon."
Jill concludes her report on the end of the Swarm by quoting from Revelation 9:12:
“The first woe is past; two other woes are yet to come.”