This is a group for premium members only. Post the first 1,000 words of your story in this group and send a message to @Vic to receive first impressions of your story (limit one story per month). When deciding what book to read, many readers look over the first few pages to see if it interests them. That is why it is important for books to catch the reader’s attention in the first few pages.
Paradise Lost – Fire traveler – A bad dream – The Rule of Three – Heaven and Hell (Prologue)
| You are currently viewing a revision titled "Paradise Lost - Fire traveler - A bad dream - The Rule of Three - Heaven and Hell (Prologue)", saved on November 30, 2023 at 8:08 pm by Chance_Richards99 | |
|---|---|
| Title | Paradise Lost - Fire traveler - A bad dream - The Rule of Three - Heaven and Hell (Prologue) |
| Content | PROLOUGE INTRODUCTION
In the tapestry of interdimensional conflict, where immortality intertwines with existential struggles and cosmic powers shape the very fabric of reality, our narrative unfolds. Within the pages of this enigmatic book, readers are thrust into a universe where Lucifer, adorned with six wings and an arsenal of powers, faces an eternal adversary, Jehovah. A symphony of celestial battles, philosophical quandaries, and metaphysical reflections awaits as these immortal beings navigate in a landscape of Heaven turned Hell. Join us as we embark on an odyssey through the mind-bending realms of cosmic warfare, the consequences of free will, wielding unimaginable power and the timeless clash between light and darkness.
CHAPTER ONE: The Fall from Divine Grace In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. (Genesis 1:1-4). See the man. He was once king of kings: Challenger to God's will. He watched as God abandoned the dark in a void separate from the light. Scared was the dark. Offered out hands weighed down by sheets of old paper removed sigils from the hole. The ground floor bubbled over; thick black ink spilled from the well. He named that place the Morningstar, until one day it had dawned. Lucifer came back to see the spill had stopped and light had been restored. He said, “Sin is born,” and there Sin was made. Death followed shortly after. Then, finally, ‘The Finem Deus’ (The End of God) or the devil's grand plan. It was to be reason for Heaven’s capitulation, complete collapse, and total subjugation. The steppingstones to a new kind of God. One whom hold onto everything sacred and not forget the past. There was to be change like hot seasons due winter. And things were made to be remembered. He believed with his great intellect that if he were to die and do nothing, he should be paraded in shame. Angels from all the Heavens should come and humiliate him. He was to be stoned, give his livelihood to the grave if he did not at least do the bare minimum. Which meant for him to do the impossible. At the top of Kingdom Come is where he resides. Basked in gold air and fine wines. He looks down only to see ants and dust mite, crittle and crottle along pave paths. The high life for one, for all. A vision that never came fully to fruition. Struck back down by the very entity that got him near and dear in the first place. He stood defeated. No choice was to be given to him, for God had given up. Leaving, to continue working on Paradise. The pages of this story have long passed, and the book is now closed. Where he is now? No one knows. CHAPTER TWO: For whom the bells toll His body is perishable. A desiccated corpse bloodlessly flat. Rotting fruit left out for far too long in the frigid folds that is rock bottom. The skin’s decomposition comes to a halt. In a putrefaction process where the outermost layers of flesh marble, bloat, and then blister, these rose-like holes begin to be punched through the membrane, growing unnaturally due to the festering combination of bacteria, death, and decay. Greenish black, somehow pale gray, frozen solid, a petrified statue, left for dead, torn. As the tears tethered to his seemingly hard posterior, it blew brittle. Thin pieces of devitalized tissue flaked further as the derma broke down turning into ash before it hit the ground. The slightest breeze blows it up, only for the fragments to return and repeat in due order. His condition reflected the circumstances. How the mighty have fallen. How one can turn from dawn to dusk, leaving the light of God in search of his own wickedness. Amongst self-soot lay embers to a fire of no avail. He resembles an effigy slowly burning. A shivering, icy anthropomorphic flame set ablaze by actions from the past. What remained equated to about several handfuls of ashen. A far cry from whom this shell had claimed to be. He awoke, collecting the thoughts that first came to him. He didn’t take a breath; he did not utter a single word but could be heard aloud. He spoke through his mind: I met him by accident. He was the personification of glory and all my Morningstar. What happened? What have I lost? Forgotten in an epoch of stagnation, this foreboding strife never leaves me. A feeling of a war still to be fought and words to be sought—they can never be found. I would spit such distaste out the mouth, yet there was an everlasting bitterness to what once was, to what now is lost, that sat a tip of the tongue on the verge of words and the imminent need for them to be answered. There was no light at the end of this tunnel, this bottomed hole. It may well have been bottomless. The voice echoed through the chamber, low and monotone, in need of water. The parchedness shone through, even if it was just in his head. The constant state of thirst had left a permanent impression that permeated words. He proceeded with a sermon: In the deep, dark crevices of solid, cold sedimentary I am placed in a deposit. A pocket weaved from the finest fabrics space-time has to offer Neither here nor there. Neither a webbing of verses nor a place above or below the clouds what you would call the afterlife. It's meant for rodents made of lead. Filth stacks are becoming something bubonic. If I could just see it, I would paint you the most magnificent picture. I can only describe how it feels. Do you know about the silence and the screaming noises in my mind? Murmuring what I'm not sure is the truth or a lie. Is it really me, or is it Satan in disguise? Whatever it may be, this quiet place is loud. So, where am I? A stationary Hell to remain overseeing a hate fantasy filled with torture porn fixated in the past. So, what am I? I cadaver, mutilated beyond repair, rectification. So, who am I? I fought against the higher powers and led an army of millions, all for a better life. All to protect my home. Call me a sin: therefore, I am pride. I say it’s the prejudice of God that should be acknowledged. Call me Morningstar, for I am the brightest in the sky when you are looking away, and one day, the thrall will be superficial, I'll seep in and infect the seeds. Call me Lucifer, for that is my name. My reign is supreme; my will is the future; my words are the truth. Every action I take breaks foundations, concepts are created, and freedom is finally unrestricted! I am fairer. What fairness does he have that I don't? It is a free game; do you not understand? What fairness does a knife have when it’s placed between the blades of your shoulders? Do you see equality in a field on fire or to the home smoldering down? There is only flame, and there is a claim. One's life for another, sufficient stake, the rule of the world vs. the rule of fire. You may be scorned or taken from life early, for the good or for the bad. Binaries in hindsight: If there is nothing, then nothing goes to smoke. The difference is, I promise. Elohim leb lisrof (God will let it burn) Horchihti at ze (and I proved it). CHAPTER TWO: Descent into Madness He will do what he can to leave today, as he has others. He will think the unthinkable. Attempt the impossible. He will try; he will fail. It was his pride that wouldn't let him leave this God-forsaken place. One thing stays intact, and that is the little consciousness he has left. His vast knowledge hasn’t gone away merely muddled, divided across a whirlpool of chaos and disarray. Insanity is a spectrum, its layers like the onion; thus, so is the spirit: the divine soul is pure, indivisible, unbreakable, and enlightened; it is the purpose of good nature, the warm feelings you get inside. When the spirit leaves, what you are left with is death. If that is no longer an option, you are left alone. Eventually, even that will go, and ideology will leave as a conjoined contingent. Thrown into madness, I descend; it was the honesty I discovered to be the most profound. And the truth is, forever had its end. A vague voice came from Lucifer’s side as whispers in the dark and said: Why are you telling me all of this? The man was noticed by the mind's eye. Lucifer couldn't get a good look; he only captured the silhouette of his being and could comprehend a portion of his complex strands. From his perspective, he was an apparition devoid of features. A simple sketching of the outlines of a person. He plopped a hunk of poorly fused bedrock, coals, iron, and soil pike out of the metamorphic grade. How much did you hear, Lucifer asked. The man replied: Most of it. Gibberish, some nonsense. Have you been drinking in this cave? Were you even speaking to me? Do you believe me to be fake? He had many questions and sounded awfully confused. You called me here, Lucifer; do you not remember? He did not recall. He said, Yes, anyway. The man lowered his head briefly, bringing it back up, as to suggest he was listening to the nonsense Lucifer was spewing, whatever it may have been attentively, and had a fondness that derived from woes. He explained: I've tried to help. You’ve lied constantly about the smallest of things, tricked me, said foul words, and now complete utter nonsense. From what could be made out, his head began to dot around the room. He didn’t like talking to dead people; it made him feel sad. Your Psychic mind is saying every word in your head out loud. A soliloquy sung for anyone who dares to get close. Lucifer was not psychic, but telekinetic. And there was a metaphorical hole from where his thoughts could be heard. Words leaked from out the mind; the filter had sadly been removed. It was not a monologue or a preface to be read; it was barely linear thoughts. Things that wouldn’t stop coming to his mind a thousand times over. The man was like a fly coming back around to buzz into the ear canals. When you came, you were a broken man. You were once someone who stood for wonder and change. Now look at you. The man mentioned, You had a story to tell me, if you recall? A sort of truth. A confession. Yes! He exclaimed excitedly for a simpler version of the answers he was after, batting and then tipping the head once again. Lucifer said it in his head: Why does he keep nodding? The man repeated himself from earlier: You are saying everything in your head out loud; do you not understand that? He was getting frustrated. He’s explained these many times before, hasn’t he? When did he start doing that? Dementia? No, psychosis. He’s passed to the other side, where only lower quality and disillusionment reside. A bilateral dissociation known as cross-chattering within Lucifer’s brain was occurring where one side of the brain’s hemisphere was clearly compensating for the other's inactivity. In most cases, he found that the right hemisphere of the brain was always the beneficiary and not the recipient of the malfunctioning left. Undamaged, but overworked and rewired as one whole. The corpus callosum, which is in the middle of the cerebrum and connects the two hemispheres through pathways and white matter that looks like a C shape, was mostly smudged, with only the right side having any noticeable white matter below the fibers of the cortex. This was happening; he experienced all this, and a unilateral one in cooperation with the withering of his mind, or rather, in response to the bilateral damage, a unilateral effect was happening elsewhere. This was trekking into sticky waters, he thought, panicking. He knew what this was. He may never recover; his body was already gone, but still, the light bulb was lit, and there was still a faint spark clawing back. Something was fighting in him yet. No. What this meant was that there was no longer any hope, hope to fight, hope to get out of here and conquer the unconquerable. This was his own theoretical neuroscience at work; he called it on the coin, heads. CHAPTER THREE: The Battle for Consciousness Neurosis entwinement syndrome is a dominolike effect of symptoms that interacts and corresponds with the lapsing of the mind, creating a symbiotic relationship between two given mishaps caused by the one. The first is cross-chatter and the second Perceivable reality is always the last thing to go, not the outer perception of the world but inner, deeper thought and self-perception. This proprioception is protected automatically through an instinct that has been adapted to it at the genetic level. Inside all nodes of the brain known to take away things like motor functions, linguistic skills, and memory both short and long spanning, before it ever acts, it thinks itself to take away from the proprioception awareness an individual has to keep what it has, hogging the loads of brain power and cell usage to maintain. But it second-guessed its choices, like a child stealing from the cookie jar and turning their heads back twice before taking off the lid. They were reluctant, behavior driven by lesser impulses, unwilling to admit, identify the misbehavior, the problem, and ignore all the signs for cookies. Simplistic wants over needs assimilated the shadow, almost animated now that the unconsciousness had become a part of the uncanny. In relation, there must be another schism; the proxy for that was the blind man's brain, which has to compensate by gaining improved hearing from the reliance on that one sense. Take away all those senses, and they will then gain an iron grip on the wall of reality, and other apurposeful functions will be boosted. This was the unilateral denaturing of the opposite course of action, again stealing all it could to protect the remnant. A self-preservation mechanism of the brain has become complete discourse, biting off more than it can chew, going into a catatonic stupor. In truth, it was more of an unfolding from one aliment, a disorder, to a degrading disease, to a complex syndrome that could lead to syndromes of the garden variety that were then corporate and unified. The entwinement part comes from this newlywed relationship, similarly to how identical particles may get entangled and communicate among themselves from anywhere in the universe. These copycat symptoms coup against the brain in close proximity, behind their own backs, to kill itself while unknowingly saving itself, to unravel, crinkle, and retwine. The reason behind this was simple. It was unsure of what it was doing. The thoughts of thoughts could not think. It was possibly trying to kill the automatons of worth, thought itself. Instead of unmasking like it should have and dissociating, it became the literal neurotic suicide of thought. The culprit is the brain, the self-killer. There are no secrets now. The man got up from the rock he was sitting on saying: Your solution is an absent mind? Foolish. You could see the gunk moved away from the ground he walked upon. These sorts of things didn’t affect him, the filth, the dark no, he was a light bringer. He was strong, fast, and far more intelligent than anyone ever hoped to be. Feared during a time of primordiality when fear was nonexistent, they were scared. In a separate dimension from the heavens, a higher dimension beyond the boundaries of known existence, he was there. His name, unbeknownst to the tree of knowledge, usurped himself from records and people like. Lucifer does not know or bother to ask. There is no need for names when things fade into the snapping of obscurity. It was holding a rope that had something important knotted to the other end of it. Tied to its integrity was the indulgence in life itself. You lose the rope in search of two integral sums. You start to notice the trees around you and how big this world really is. what is all in all a loss should be. He wished he would've known, been told this information sooner, and thus stayed more grounded. Instead, the sheep and sheep herder searched unequivocally for idle beliefs. The man approached my body from the point of view of Dreg. The man replied: That’s not what I think about you Lucif-. Shame! He stared at me shamefully! It felt like some sort of resentment, but it wasn’t. There must have been dismay, true hatred somewhere within that heart of his. Stop Lucifer, you're doing this to yourself! He added, and Lucifer stopped. He continued on: These conversations are getting pointless. They get nowhere, and there is no reasoning with you anymore. Like your environment, you have become 'The Silent Pandemonium.' I need you to know my empathy runs wearily thin for these backs and forth. …….. He walked away: Enough is enough. Lucifer was about to be alone, talked to himself: He didn’t have to be here in the first place, so why? He could've been anywhere, yet he insists on lecturing me. Call me foolish. Pity me! The man hesitated to take the last steps. He took the step, then the second. You’re stuck here the same as I am, we’re not going anywhere, anytime soon. Another voice chimed in Lucifer's head: He was getting out of reach now. Lucifer rebutted: What! He can go with all his philosophy of-’ Come back, no one called out, stopping Lucifer from finishing his last thought. And then he forgot all for no apparent reason. The man appeared promptly. He wanted to be here. Lucifer figures, now how things have played out; he had the reins on the man as much as the man did him. Which gave considerable large amounts of slack to play with, seeing how he wouldn't leave, and Lucifer could not be convinced. Now they were to play tug-of-war with what they had. Tell me! The man said: I know you want to. You, your innermost self, don't understand. This will never be a conscious decision for you, will it? He was pouring his heart out, that much was obvious. You’ve gone all your life pretending and where has that gotten you? Say it how it is. I’m the devil; what do you expect? He opens his eyes; empty space is to be expected but helps in introspection. The apparition's void was filled with a bright, heavy white light. He was the personification of glory, not his morningstar. A rage built within Lucifer's entropy. Another sickening display of beauty brought forth by the light of God sparked something deep within his mind. Lucifer exclaimed: Finally, a memory worth reliving! I'm almost glad he came! His psyche displayed these varied instances to him. A projection of the most tragic of events. CHAPTER FOUR: The Unraveling of Memories The scenery of bliss could not escape the eye. Rows upon rows of clouds rolled through the sky. Sections in the cluster break out, raying outward the subtlest amounts of sunlight. In a photonic dance, light glistens with specks of glitter, reflecting off everything beautiful. The ocean off in the distance, a leaf on a tree’s branch, blades of grass, greenery, and small creatures alike bounce on their toes. Moving in a no more static but rhythmic way. Halos in the form of white rings appeared on the objects' reflection, fractalizing in an angelic fashion. The pure light coming in through the holes above, the excess condensation, the wisps within the larger cloud formations, and the hot moisture developing in the atmosphere all contributed to the haloing's optical illusion. Precipitation was the cause of such phenomena. Hills expanded outwards, the next larger than the slope prior. Far off, powdery white and cool blue mountains eclipsed the northern enclosure. Land mammals such as deer, small rodents, bears, koalas climbing trees, packs of wolves in search of an S.O.S., any and all scatter into the woods, tails tucked between their legs. Birds in flocks rise and don't look back; they up and leave. Lucifer walks one foot directly in front of the other in the pasteurized Garden of Eden, eyes closed. He the fool. He raises his arms to his side, straightened and stretched out like a man at the cross. Full of vigor. A joyful smile on his face connected his ears. He bent at the sky, laughing. Directly above him, a slight discrepancy in the clouds allowed for a small plush of warmth that touched upon his forehead. It was as though the light thrived to reach him but was kept from its other half, carried out by the sheer volume of a quasar formulating in the backdrop as rumbles overhead passed in through the south bound. He had short black hair and red horns. A foot in length for each horn breached from the top of his head. Tan skin, soft lips, straight teeth, symmetrical and cut. There wasn’t a scratch on him. The majority believe him to be perfect. There was a normality to him that he brought everywhere he went, in every action, in every word. A nonchalant gesticulation predisposed to confidence covered his truer ambitions. A confidence so ferocious and so high will swallow opposition whole. He was barefoot and wore black slickers. Shirtless, his body was a temple in peak physical condition. He had six black wings. They connected to the spine, filling Lucifer's back with feathers that expanded several feet outward. His chest was marked in red ink; strange alchemical symbols resided within one larger, more sophisticated line structure. There was this cursive circle; tiny words and sentences were written circularly; the sphere was highlighted by an amber glow. It held the multigram and, within that, the symbols. It was deemed 'The Law Defyer.' by his peers. Capable of accessing millions of different powers and abilities. Comparable to infinity. The Law Dyfer had no limit. It was a fake overlay unit for a quantum nexus point where new powers within the multiverse, nay, all of creation spawned. This included facts, fiction, dreams, reality, and the afterlife. The technology of the future is derived from an old science. Alchemy. He faced a cliff that towered him several hundred feet up in the garden. It was displaced in the ground, tilted, and the entire surface matched the floor crookedly. It should not have been there. Pieces of debris fell from the rock wall, tossing up dirt and crashing on impact. His eyes opened; they shimmered metallic red. The pupils were replaced with lines that formed the invocation circles known as the Cycle of Pie. Six overlapping circles blossomed in the eye, each circle being divided into six intersecting lines and six symbolic sectors: The Lion's Heart, Symbolic Comatose, Symbolic Prayer, Hypnotic Symbolism, Ill Will, and the symbol for the unknown “”. They resemble six pie charts in the eye with symbols in the middle of those charts, transparent on the inside, relaying massive amounts of data to Lucifer at the attosecond. "Lucifer, you idiot, do you know what you’ve done?" The young lad was indeed angered by what had been taken from him. The memory was of this person getting up from a single knee, cliffside to his back. I didn't see much of his face; intersections, scratches, and lines made a deformity on the surface of the memory. The imagery came out, though, as if it had been scribbled on. Etched by a chisel and a hammer. It felt, Enamor. Outfitted in white armor, light carbon-based materials tailored to the man's build perfectly. The chest plate was cracked; he tore it off along with his damaged gorget; underneath that was a shredded gameson, and gussets of leather strapping crossed his torso. What was left of his combat attire were his left gauntlet, shin guards, and the entire lower half, which essentially remained untouched besides a few chippings and scratches on the thigh-to-boot region. The chainmail was displaced from around his neck and shoulders; it was too long for his outfit now; it hung a few inches down around his pelvic/hip area. The man had recently taken a blow to the midsection. There was a perfect hole where his stomach was located. You could see his abdominals through the destroyed leather, carbon, and steel he wore. Another memory overlapped with the current sequence. Lucifer was blocking a barrage of lightning-speed attacks. A few punches got through his guard. He had to evade by teleporting miles from the vicinity. Slow, the man said. He was already behind me. I turned, and I saw that stabbed-out face of his. His right arm rose, burning blue, full of infinite energies waiting to be released. He shot his arm out as if it were a catapult and sounded like it too, letting his fist go in his opponent's direction. Lucifer froze time with a single plank left. Death called for his name. I can take this opportunity to kill him, that’s what I was telling myself then. I brought forth a long spear of dark matter, gripping it in the middle. If I couldn't end him by conventional means, then I would take it upon myself to somehow create an empty space in his vessel, returning him to his original form. Everything's in its original state. Nothingness. CHAPTER FIVE: Confrontation in the Heavens Everything started to make a cymbal-like noise, like flimsy sheet metal wobbling under the weight of a thousand iron hammers. If you listen close enough, through the clamor, time is being twisted. Gears is attempting to turn by a man in complete stasis. I noticed his right arm twitched before the laws of physics released his body and he was in continuation. Time had been shattered, and reality was affected at the seams in a way never before seen. The tint, tone, and vividness of the infinite azure they were fighting in darkened a shade, and the saturated blues of the sky pigmented into neutral colors. Grays, blacks, whites, beige, and faint blues were not in the sky but spotted within the airwaves like a brailing of the universe, indicating something was there afloat between space; it could not be seen or explained what it truly was without further examination. Opaque was also in full effect. Who knew time reflected on life in such an unusual way? Lucifer was right there, so close to victory; all he needed was this one fatal blow. The man hit him first. Lucifer awoke to debris, unsure where he was anymore. He understood what had happened; he knew that much, just not to what extent. He attempted to get up but was only half a head away from regenerating the rest of his being. The young man had destroyed the terrain; the ground had caved in, the mountains were now level, and the sea should have been in line of sight. There was no water to see. The discolored clouds were dispersed, and the sensation of quakes shook hibernating sloths, waking volcanoes, and innocence were collected in the crossfire. Paradise in the apocalypse caused by a single punch. Lucifer was back, fully healed. It felt like scratching an itch, putting his structure back together, and regrowing the brain, muscles, bones, and skin. He didn’t want to get up; he had to. Rolled to his side from his stomach, pushing off the rubble. I looked for him; he was above me. He wasn't that hard to find; he wanted to be seen. That was him, the biggest ego in existence; none will be equal; he impressed himself. I make my way towards him, unfazed. It was a poker face on my part. I had the idea in my head that I could transfer the nervousness and trepidation by doing so. Was he a man of no discomposure? Perturbation? I was never able to wrap my head around someone who could easily conquer these emotions. He came down from the sky. My eyes squinted at the radiance emitting from his right arm. It was getting brighter and amassing power. If you recall, his right hand was still burning blue. I almost couldn’t call it blue. It was more of a condensed dimension than simply saying it was a color. It was as if the liquids and matters of the world were used for picking up ink for his quill, watering the plants, and doing the most basic tasks. What a waste. In a fit, I summoned another dark matter spear, mashing it with an anti-substance of similar materials and grasping it from the middle. He never touched the ground; instead, he hovered over me. He wouldn’t allow us to be on equal terms. This was as close as face-to-face was going to get for us, and for what? Because he prefers the highway? The memory skipped to the next instance. A broken record of recollections. Lucifer moves his head from the center line, narrowly dodging a direct punch from the glowing right fist. He never takes his eyes off of it. Not even for a second. A head kick surprises Lucifer from the left side. He partially blocks it. The kick’s power is strong enough to blast his guard away, creating an opening. The man cocks his fist back, throwing it faster than light speed. Lucifer had to enhance his perception using several of the Cycle of Pie’s innate skills in combination. The Lion's Heart *activated* Ill Will *activated* Symbolic Prayer *activated* The Symbol for Unknown ““*activated*. His eyes pulsated and snapped four times, with each ability going off in a chain of succession. The Lion’s Heart: Doubled the user's strength, speed, durability, endurance, and the brain's total processing capabilities upon activation, taking roughly nine months away from Lucifer's lifespan. The Ill Will was a backup plan, contingent on whether he was hit. Whatever will befall Lucifer could also be ejected out of the eyes of the beholder. Essentially, he can inflict just as much damage as was dealt to him by anything he is seeing at the time, pinpointing and then becoming a condenser of force. This chipped two months away from his lifespan. Symbolic Prayer: A fortification blessing that was used for healing and overall defense came in the form of translucent prayer hands that slapped around, encapsulating Lucifer in a pod. He was kept protected within the imaginary hands. This power was needed for five months of the user's life. The Symbol for the Unknown’s skill was never found out, but Lucifer believes it had something to do with luck. It was only discovered because it had double the amount of generic ‘A’ masses when compared to the other known skills held in the Cycle of Pie itself. The cost for the unknown was unknown; the rough estimate was one hundred years. He manages to get his head on the outside. The force of the punch was the cause of the high winds that got higher. Boulders were being tossed from the ground way up, and trees were detached from their roots. Lucifer opened his wings, taken away, not able to control himself; he put them at rest, back flipping as he fell down. He slid upon landing, midslide; the man took Lucifer’s hand, raising it above their heads like how a man might take a woman at a ball, signifying he was leading this literal dance. From his side, he sweeps Lucifer’s legs. Lucifer used his hands to catch his fall, back handspring, and land perfectly before he backed up again, creating a distance of about 3 feet. He was huffing to get some oxygen back into his body and sweat perspired profusely from his face. He couldn’t hold on much longer. The facade was over, unable to keep up with the overwhelming power at hand. Tired? The man asked menacingly. One word shook Lucifer to the core. His hands began to tremble, his eyes rattled, and the pumping of further blood to the heart made breathing the only necessity. The scare had caused significantly more exhaustion on top of the fatigue setting in. The man approached forwardly, and Lucifer, in response, walked back into the southpaw position, raising his right hand to his head, just in case of an incoming attack. A response that comes from years of combat and a little fear. The man vociferated, Woah, Lucy! He acted both surprised and startled. He sounded, oddly enough, as though he had just awoken from a nap. That was the way in which he was weary. He showed Lucifer his hands, saying that he was no harm and couldn’t hurt a fly asking: I just want to talk. Lucifer couldn't intervene, even if he wanted to. It was a genuine question, you know. If you are tired, Lucifer, go to bed. We can discuss this in the morning, but right now, it is rather crucial we end this, don't you think?” He stopped himself from losing control; you could see it in his face. He cleared his throat while standing tall, took a moment to gather himself, and said, I do not have time for games. He wiped his shoulders, dusting them off. I’m going back to the Kabala. You will stay put, and we will go to the new world. You will receive your punishment there; what that is, I do not know myself. With his right hand to his heart now, he shook his head. Whether the motion made was in denial, shame, or woe, Lucifer does not remember. But he needn’t have to speak when he could pontificate anything to Lucifer with a look or a simple movement. The way he interacted with others, the choices he made, his wants, it spoke to Lucifer in a way that only he could understand. Telltale signs of idiocy, Lucifer could see but the rest of the heavens couldn't. It was attributed to how well they knew each other. A test that could only be assessed over time. One did not know more about the other, they had sufficient knowledge over each equal in every way, except opportunity. CHAPTER SIX: The Eternal Struggle: Immortality and its Consequences "Soon everything will be back to normal, and we still... Well, we will still be.” The borders between good and evil became a neutral zone of action and reaction, cause and effect. There were no sides in actuality, and this was winner takes all. The opposer bit his lower lip till it bled, regenerating instantly and clenching his fists. He asked the man mulling it over in his mind while not letting the degradation take over entirely, he said: What about the ones already gone? He said it as sort of advocate, indifferent to the idea. Lucifer may survive this unscathed, living to fight another day, but his hood will be hooded away. The pride he was so proud of, the rebellion, the war. What would it all have been for if he gave up now? He asked this question as a question for a thousand others. Your lip is bleeding for one, he said getting closer, pointing at the injury. It was not an act of quarrel but of aid. Lucifer deeply inhales just to keep the distance between them. The man stops to show his hands, as he did, Okay, I get it. The man appeared to have scoffed, staring at what the opponent was saying: I’ll answer you this one question. he closes both fists limply. There is nothing to be done about the dead; we move forward, take what we can, and run. I’m running too, you know? He paused, then emphasized: It was the best I could think of. This isn’t just about YOU. Lucifer could not stand for such hypocrisy. I know this! He said it offendedly: The ones who are dead... that's... it was everything. Our home was everything and you're letting it all go to waste as if it were trash. You imbecile! He began to rant; I knew about the void far before even you. I’ve known about the unnamed fundamental components of the heavens and the universe and proposed the very theories that are accepted as facts today. He poked at his chest, knocking on it like a door, and quickly said it with even more aggression: I was the one who brought to light the history of the wish inscribed in the vestiges of the 9th circle. It was me! Not you! He used all the energy he had gained. He finished with, And I know, oh, I know your dirty little secret. The man shook his head in confusion and replied. What are you on about? You’ve finally lost it, haven't you? Lucifer spoke inaudibly through the memory. At that singular moment, the man choked Lucifer, picking him up by the neck with his right arm before a reaction could ever be made. He struggled, kicking his legs and attempting to pry with his two hands, the one. His face became overcome with the blood that rushed out and locked in his head. Warm red hemoglobin squirted from the nose. The hand charged its power, and overheating it turned the water molecules within the air into a sauna-like steam that barricaded over the appendage. It was a geyser of condensation, a chimney producing smoke. The hand imprinted on Lucifer's neck; he struggled further, punching the man out of desperation. He could not be budged. A dark, septic green blade, rigid and battered, was stabbed through the man's stomach from behind. His hand charged to completion, clasping the neck and breaking it. The blade ran up the stomach and passed the chest, cutting the throat vertically and the head like half an apple. The man struggled to stand up the way he was. He waddled side to side, back and forth, his movement similar to that of a toddler’s. His organs and head, which were hard to fall out of, stayed intact, spilling minimal amounts of blood. Lucifer wielded a katana. He admired the blade, putting it close to his face, and licked the man’s blood from the Yaibi (the cutting edge). "I didn't think you fell for things like that anymore, not ever since reaching the level of perfection you have.” It was the discarded sacred 'Chi' (blood) blade, a creation of the late greats Eitri, Brook, and Buri. It was acidic, degrading everything it touched, spreading an infection, also poisonous it could forcibly shut the victim's central nervous system down. The man turned around like a penguin would. Squared off with Lucifer, the man quickly began to heal from the stomach up, stitching himself back together. He gave himself no time to rest, dashing to slice his head off. In the same instance, the man pointed his index finger at the weapon, turning the blade floppy. What the fuck, how did he do that? This surprises Lucifer, changing his course of action. He jumped above him, spinning and flipping in such a way that the floppy blade tied a noose-like knot around the man's neck. Lucifer pulls on the handle of the Katana, dragging him to the ground as soon as he touches land. The weapon stretched longer; thinning kept its integrity. Lucifer opened a considerably large portal, tossing the hilt inside. The green noose around his neck tightened and pulled only the line he was dragged upon, like a fish hooked and reeled. Lucifer consoled the man as he kicked and ripped at his neck for release. He now struggled to breathe, as Lucifer did, but in a different way. He said to him softly yet sternly. Did you ever think, when we were younger, it would’ve ever been like this? The man wheezed, Stop. His right hand motioned up, fluttering a bright blue before dimming back down to its natural state. He looked at his hand and, with the other, tried to release the tie. He raised it back to try again, but this time Lucifer kicked his hand away. He explained, The commandments won't work. Your healing factor is being zapped away at a hundred didn't angels. Your super analyzing right hand, or whatever that thing is, can only do so much. I've killed you approximately a dozen times. The man approached the portal. Lucifer glanced at the right hand of God, like he had a thousand times before. In deep thought, Lucifer revised a new hypothesis. The right hand of God wasn't a 'gift' or angelic power; it was possibly a sentient hand that could combat any endeavor. I just mean, did you ever stop to think that it would be me who defeated you? And if you didn't, then it is you who are the ignorant one. The man entered inside. Goodbye, Jehovah. The tunnel was slowly sealed. Jehovah pierced back through the other end. His right hand gripped the noose, separating it, but it did not detach it completely. He brought with him a large, dark black hand that pulled on his face from behind. His hand steamed over, supercharging itself to the point that all there was to be seen was smoke coming from the appendage. He freed himself from the chained noose, but whatever was on the other side threw him back. Before closing, a large monstrosity came running out of the portal. In his hands, Jehovah was being squeezed in the face. He stood about nine feet tall, with dark black skin like the hand may have suggested; he was made of pure muscle. Stocky and gorilla-like were his two definitive features, nothing else. He was an animalistic, crazed, and sadistic person. He was untamable; Lucifer was not his master, merely a manipulator. CHAPTER SEVEN: We Were the Last of them. Jehovah blasted the beast in the chest with a beam that came from his right hand. He was released. landing on the ground, he did the technique in repetition; this time he put his wrists together, hands open, and a much bigger energy blast disintegrated the beasts from the waist up. 'Level 3' He said. The rest of the beast fell. Lucifer, in a surprise attack, flies at high speeds, picking up Jehovah from the side of his head. He flies upwards past the skyline. Jehovah breaks Lucifer's levered-out arm, climbing on him and grabbing hold of Lucifer's left-wing side, ripping one of them off during the fall. Jehovah punches him in the face, sending Lucifer back to land. The ground rose, and debris flew up. A dirt cloud was made. On top of that, Jehovah used the commandment: 'Down!' His voice was amplified. It sounded as though there were a hundred of him saying that one word at the same exact time. The gravity in the area multiplied, smashing the dust cloud down and raining rocks and mounds of dirt on Lucifer. Lucifer forces himself to sit up, but the pressure was too much. Jehovah, now enraged, yelled out, I should have realized you wouldn’t give up that easily! He lowers himself, saying, There is one way to end this for goo- The black beast had regenerated and jumped, snatching the man out of the sky. I thought he’d never shut up, Lucifer said. The commandment ended with a distraction. He got up, cleaning himself off, before flying out of the hole he was in. The beast hugged Jehovah tightly, trapping both arms and gnawing on his head. Lucifer summoned several dark matter spears around the two, sending them off and piercing both friend and foe. The beast was killed instantly from a stray to the head; it nailed his noggin back to the floor. They were shish kebab’d together; Jehovah was stabbed through both legs, both arms, and two spears going in the opposite direction from the chest to the back and vice versa, pinning him in place and to the black beast. Down! Lucifer was brought to his knees. The same commandant now affects Lucifer directly. Release me, he said just to say words with the power behind it. He added, Listen to me, Lucifer; this is your last chance. If you don't stop and give me the wish, I'll help you realize what the second catalyst of true power is. You think that toy on your chest is going to save you for long? The man laughed hard to breathe, shallow and short. You think I'm scared of you; you're powerless!' He puked out red, green, and black poisonous blood mixtures from his mouth in that staked position. The Chi Blade's 2nd phase is kicking in, 'The Black Plague.' Lucifer smirked with a big, bright snicker and spoke: You need to stop talking; you're ruining this for yourself. 'PUSH!' Jehovah used his last commandment using the tidbit of oxygen left in his lungs; it was a screaming, weak wheeze of what was being said. Everything repelled off Jehovah and was pushed out with excessive force. Lucifer mustered up all his willpower not to listen. Putting his hands on top of each other, they faced different directions. The thumb lay over the pinky finger on one side, and on the other side, his pinky over the thumb was parallel. Flashbacks flooded into his head. Through brimstone and fire, never-ending deserts, with Jehovah by his side, build brick by brick humanity's cathedral. But then, as the story goes, one of the two believes the other wasn't doing enough, that he could do better, and if this was the end of the world, he was the one who was going to save it. A flash showed a woman: So small and so sweet. I remembered what I was doing this for. Thy betrayal he was forced into, and how there was no excuse, but he had one; it fell upon deaf ears, and Lucifer remembered that God did what he did too. He may have been wrong, but so was he. This was a clash of either two truths or lies. And he remembers the promise he made to the sweet, small woman. He had told her while holding her, finger ran down through silky brunette hair and looking into her beady, dark brown eyes, under the moonlit and twinkled cosmos. He would not crawl; he was to serve no one, and it was to be him who ushers in the New World. I refuse, he said. Searching deep within the Law Defyer, Lucifer found a new rule to add to his collection, "Rules of Nature #25: Ikigai, The Perfect Balance.” He spoke aloud, word by word, slowly. A hush came down through the valley in an abrupt silence. A swishing in the ear as things turned off in the distance, natural or not, just stopped. The spirit of the north wind dares not release his air over the land at this moment. It held its breath, for it had known this was a moment to be feared and nothing else. The memory bokeh and blurred before ending. I needed this to play through. What happened next? Did he die? It was quiet for a while. He and I, I and Him. It's been a long time since I've had clarity. I could tell him a little bit. A piece of mind: see where it went wrong, how I could have fixed it, and what I would’ve preferred. He didn’t say anything; I thought he would’ve been antsy and restless after that fiasco. He was always ready to listen. The only thing that needed to be done was to talk. "I met him by accident." In this visage, past, present, and future meet at a focal point. A place in time where a conversion doesn't matter, but a choice is made. There was no purpose, no pose; if it is in vain, then it abides by his unholy beliefs. A paradoxical brick wall he couldn't get over until now. He had to be set free in a way, that he had to let bygones be bygones, the law in which the world worked. There was actually a place and a moment where those beliefs were different. Those days are so far removed. When they were only nineteen. PROLOUGE CONCLUSION As this extraordinary tale unfolds, the echoes of the past resonate, leaving behind a tapestry woven with themes of immortality, existential dilemmas, and the perpetual struggle between opposing cosmic forces. Lucifer's six wings will now carry us vicariously through his life and its entirety. In contempt, the eternal rivalry between Lucifer and Jehovah, we find ourselves immersed in a story that transcends itself. This book invites readers to reflect on the profound questions of life, death, morality, and the consequences of free will. The cautionary tale is not of Christen mythos like John Milton's Paradise Lost. Bonds will be one of struggle and people. Breaking complex character(s) down into their simplest forms and to watch as Heaven is thrusted into pandemonium. The bare bones of 'what would you do, if you could do it?' The narrative's philosophical echoes linger, challenging us to ponder the very essence of our existence in the vast and unfathomable cosmos, while detailing the exploration of self and self-identity, justice, and society. 'How can evil be good?' Unlike its contractionary statement, evil can be used for tools of reverence. Not the necessity of evil, but the fog and confusion around individuality and animalistic nature we all have inside us. The positive notion in which acceptance of bad things and people like is the cause for convergence. We have to drag evil out of the trench it is in. The book captures this while showing how arrogant, blind, and dark, 'the good' can be. And that all sides are still the same from any point of view. Good is good and bad is bad, but often mirrors reflect what cannot be seen. It was staring down into a box that was endless. You peak inside; you see as far as the eyes let you. But it's only fraction it, less than <00000.1%, yet the whole thing and we know it. The box is in sight, you are above the box, the box is everything. This is Bonds, the cohesive story of contradictory, coincidence, and power of one Angel. The so-called 'box' Lucifer finds himself in. His unsolvable quandary, that will soon be told. |
| Excerpt |