The Great Disappearance, also known as "the Rapture" or the "reaping of souls. "
It is day like any other. Who could fathom why God chose this moment to begin the end?
There are burnouts in California that have become more and more frequent, even as temperatures reach a searing 112 degrees in summer.
The combination of the heat, a severe water shortage, and the brownouts have made people short-tempered, angry, and even violent. Daily reports show gangs roaming streets and looting. Reports of domestic violence has risen dramatically, as has assault-and-battery cases involving neighbors.
Millions of people all around the world suddenly disappear, leaving families and strangers alike without any idea of their fate.
Remorselessly, inexorability, the Great Disappearance wreaks havoc across the globe.
Just how the Great Disappearance is handled in the campaign itself is up to the Game Master.
Fathers and mothers away on business trips never returned, or had nothing to return to. People out late at loved ones at home waiting in vain for them to return. Not all of these vanishings are totally without trace. Some of the disappeared never come into work, solders leave their posts, others disappear in a flash of light and some eyewitnesses even swear they were stolen by flying creatures. The numbers of people that vanish are so few that social structures and parts of production are not threatened, though crime rates do skyrocket. Still the world is gripped by an unreasoning terror of not knowing what had happened and when and if it might happen again. World governments appeal for calm, asking that people stay in their homes.
The enigma will be even more confusing when it becomes evident that large numbers of nominal religious followers, including eminent pastors and theologians, are among those remaining.
Now it is day two and people are starting to ask why. Many rightly assume that the end of the world has come. Others are more skeptical, looking in vain for scientific reasons.
Every conceivable explanation for the disappearances and many inconceivable ones as well, had been put forward. Each new explanation brings panic to someone. Most are uncertain what to fear and so fear everything equally.
There was a great religious schizophrenia in evidence. People flocking to churches, synagogues and temples desperately seeking solace, direction, hope. Many congregations and former congregations shared a common despair and assumption that the end of the world was rapidly approaching. Incidents of panic attacks, nervous breakdowns, suicides and mass hysteria were common, particularly in the West. Hundreds of thousands of people were planning pilgrimages to the Holy Land in anticipation for Judgment Day.
Who was Raptured?
This experience is reserved for those who have been “saved”—i.e., who have admitted that they are sinners, have conceded that they can be redeemed only by allowing Yeshua into their hearts, have embraced the idea that salvation is a matter of faith alone (and not “works”), and have accepted Yeshua as their personal savior. Catholics, in other words—with their huge church hierarchy, their pope, their confession and absolution and so forth—are not included. Most Protestants are not included, either.
GMs are free to define the specific criteria of those who have disappeared.
Exceptions typically include:
Atheists and Secular Humanists
Orthodox Jews.
Muslims
Catholics
Most children.
All infants and newborns.
The extremely mentally retarded (since they cannot knowingly give their lives to Yeshua).
In fact, pretty much no one is included except Fundamentalist Dispensationalist “born again” Protestants.
A Celestial Disturbance Event
“Immediately after the suffering of those days, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of heaven will be shaken.” (Matt. 24:29)
A celestial disturbance is a frequent theme in the Bible. If the GM decides, the Yeshua did not just arrive on the clouds without any warning to the world, and that he will use a harbinger to announce his impending judgment and deliverance. This celestial event can be anything but inconspicuous, Yeshua may be even use heavenly bodies to cause a celestial salvo, a cluster of disturbed celestial bodies portending the impending wrath of God; unprecedented so the world will not mistake it.
There are many options, from a literalistic extreme saying the moon will actually turn to blood and the sun will literally burn out to the opposite extreme claiming that the language is only figurative, symbolizing God’s power. Both of these views possess imbalance. If for instance the sun burns out, humanity would perish immediately. The same goes for stars falling from the sky, which would consume the earth in their path. So, what will be the exact nature of these celestial events? It is likely that the falling stars refer to meteors and the moon turning blood red and the sun darkening will be caused by an earthly cataclysmic disaster, possibly volcanoes (or worse, a singular super volcano). In any case, it will not be a single celestial event. It will be multiple events functioning together as a salvo of havoc, signaling the day of the Lord as unmistakable.
The Fate of the Young:
Contrary to many interpretations, not all children are Raptured. Like the last days judgment story of Sodom and Gomorrah, there are no children spared. Like the story of Noah, all breathing life was destroyed, except that which was on the ark (i.e. Noah and his wife and children), and all the remaining children on earth were destroyed with no exception. The first part of the tribulation was described like “the days of Noah." Believer children are raptured/saved (e.g. Noah’s children) but an “unbeliever's” children are not.
There is no "age of accountability" identified in Scripture, as such. There is nothing in the Bible that says, "Here is the age and from here on you are responsible!" Thus, only those children who have specifically and genuinely pledged themselves to Yeshua are among the disappeared.
Some children staying with grandparents or friends were whisked away, leaving parents with no clue where to look, and with no hope.