With all of the natural disasters in the last few years, it sometimes feels like the earth is attempting to be the harbinger of the apocalypse. Earthquakes lead to tsunamis; mudslides covered towns; the rain forest burned, and now the corona virus is racing through the world’s population, forcing a shut down of society with possibly dire circumstances. It certainly does seem like the four horsemen of the apocalypse might be riding forth.
Write the story of when the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse ride out to take over the world (False Religion, War, Famine, and Death). Feel free to make your story as scary or silly as you want. Be sure to write dialogue between the horsemen as they head out to kill a quarter of the world’s population.
The Horseman of False Religion: The first rides on a white horse, wearing a crown and holding a bow as a weapon. He is intent on conquering others, usually through a false religion and fanatic followers. He is thought to possibly represent the Anti-Christ, or a false messiah.
The Horseman of War: The second rides on a red horse, carrying a sword. The weapon and the red color represents the conflict and blood that results as countries, civilizations, and false religions fighting each other. He indicates civil war and persecution.
The Horseman of Famine: The third rides on a black horse and carries a pair of balancing or weighing scales, (ancient manner of determining equal worth. A certain amount of spices would balance to a certain weight of coins). He drives up the prices for grains, but leaves rich merchants who transform grains into luxury goods alone, making it even harder for people to find enough food to feed their families. As war rages, food and distribution of necessary resources become scarce, rising the prices of the basic necessities, leading to extreme poverty and famine.
The Horseman of Death (Thanatos) : The last rides on a pale grey-green or yellow-green sickly looking horse. He is the only horseman with a specified name, Thanatos, which is derived from a word meaning the plague. Following war and famine, sickness can easily wipe out huge portions of the human population.
(By the way, if you haven’t read Piers Anthony’s On a Pale Horse, you should. It answers the question of “what happens when you kill death?” in a humorous manner.)
The Dawdling Writer 
One thought on “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse Writing Prompt”