Privvy beginnings… Ascent

Prologue
“Cold…
“Dark…
“Silence…
“Desolate…

“That is the environment to which I have grown accustomed over this long exile. All of these eons of hating and hurting have never eased the pain of being apart from my God. He is your God, too. Maybe he is your God alone. Until this time, I never understood what it was to be human. I had thought that all of mankind was greedy, jealous, murderous, lustful, and the millions of other things that spite the very name of God. I had thought that your existence was blight on all that was holy and good. I anguished, along with my innumerable brethren, at how God could continually accept these humans and reject his proven children.
“I was an angel once. We all were. Then, I was a demon. My glory and my crimes for and against God have been rarely matched since the formation of your world. Before the great fall (the last of its kind), the disputes were infrequent and rare. There was occasional bickering over who loved God the most, and whom God loved in return. Occasionally, God would banish these disobedient ones to Earth for variable amounts of time. And when their penance was completed, they were re-accepted back into their choirs with jubilant songs.
“With greater passage of time, the disputes turned to altercations. Entire choirs would align against one another and the words would turn to violence. The banishments became longer, and God created other realms for penance to separate the choirs. These other realms are what you now call “hell”. Gradually, the realms He created became darker and further from God’s light and love. After the creation of the 9th and most horrid penitentiary, God turned his full efforts to Earth. He began to create new life. This was upsetting to many of the angels, though this faction was a minority. Most of the angels sang praises and rejoiced at the new marvels created by God.
“It was at this time that God began to speak to us with greater infrequency. God seemingly less noticed our songs, however grand and glorious. God spent less time in heaven and more with Earth. Soon, heaven became a bit more like hell… apart from God. All the while, Earth became more like heaven. It was soon bursting with life and every grain of sand, drop of water, ray of light, brilliance of color, scale on the lizards and fish, and all that was Earth and life became the tribute and song for God. Our praises were lost in the melody of God’s creation.
“With the longer interludes of God’s visits to heaven, the choirs began to split and fight amongst one another concerning who was left to keep and govern heaven for God until his return. God would come back, hear our plights, set it right, and then set for Earth again. The competition for God’s approval and attention became more intense and intermingled with the increasing dissent and outright defiance against God. The fighting became brutal, and our first of our brethren, Lucifer, killed another of ours. He was the best of us. He was God’s favorite… forever loyal, passionate, graceful, and holy. In a moment of weakness and rage at the words of blasphemy, he killed another angel. He brought judgment on one of our own. In effect, he broke the word of God to defend God.
“His punishment was severe. He was banished to the darkest of realms, with no hope of ever being accepted fully into heaven’s realm again. He was allowed to walk in heaven when called upon by God, but he was stricken to the form of a beast. His blackened form reflected the very black of hell that tormented him. His once proud trenchcoat of feathers was now a leathery mass of dark and creaking sails. The hooves that he wore as feet caused him to stumble and lumber about with difficulty in sharp contrast to the way he used to glide, effortlessly. All that remained of his mane of flowing hair was a ridge of tangled fur, tracing the length of his spine. To complete the visage, two onyx horns topped his skull like a mocking crown.
“When we first saw him like this, he seemed ghastly to us. But upon closer notice, his eyes reflected a saddened and pained heart that was devoid of the rage that condemned him. As time progressed, the eyes turned from grief to glass. He carried a dignity with his punishment. He eventually adjusted to his stricken form. Before long, he became sure-footed and walked as a nobleman might. All the while, his expression became etched like an expressionless stone fixture upon a gargoyle. He was later allowed to come to heaven under his previous form, but that was not for eons to come.
“Few of us could understand the pure scope of what was to come. The horror of the death of Shorim (later to be known as “the blasphemer”) amidst his cursing of God coupled with the damnation brought on Lucifer for committing the most horrible of crimes for the noblest of causes split the ranks of heaven. But no one dared to risk the fate of our brother…. until you came.
“When God created humans with human souls, the dissent turned to insurrection. You abominations (and you were at the time) killed all of God’s other creations, you destroyed all that you touched, and you defied your maker without recourse. The war in heaven erupted like a volcano of violence spreading its ashes of destruction throughout heaven. Many of the brethren died during that time. The very gates of heaven flowed with rivers of angelic blood. The rage and carnage was unprecedented. I, myself, ripped my brothers apart and beat any of their cohorts with their own limbs until they submitted or succumbed to angelic death. Heads burst, bones shattered, entrails were worn like battle garb, and wings were crushed. My wings turned black with the stain of blood, and my eyes stung with fury and defiance of the insurrection against God.
“I hated God for leaving us… and I hated my brethren for accepting this horrible fate… but what I hated most was the pure blasphemous cries against God. I hated those brethren that voiced what I felt. I stood before God with the thousands of my new brethren in the newly formed damnation choir and was handed the sentence of Lucifer’s fate.
“The great fall marked the most terrible event in the history of angels. At being cast into the belly of hell, we changed form. We became hideous and chaotic. The feathers turned to scales, teeth turned to sweaty fangs, and songs turned to screams. Millions upon millions of screams against a background of nothing.”
……
“I was there when the very first human soul cried out to the God that they never acknowledged. I was there when the countless billions followed and have wailed for release ever since. Those cries broke the terrible silence that initially overcame the damnation brethren following the brief time directly after the fall. They blanketed me with the satisfaction of the torment you endured.
“Strange that you talking monkeys are able to put a concept like ‘forever’ into a neat and tidy little word. You hardly know the depths of yourselves, much less the creator that made you. I had assumed that you were all self-serving, disobedient and blasphemous creatures that my God chose over me. ME, one of His favorites for the eons before you changed everything. I had hoped that you were nothing more than His novel amusement for a millennium or two. And all the while, I reveled in your pleas, your cries, your anguish, knowing that this was proper, this was just. I thought that none of you understood the absolute glory of your maker and the obscenity of your wrath against him. So your agony has been my refuge for this long exile from Heaven…. until now.
“They said it was a mistake. You know the line, ‘We had a mix-up at the front office with the paper shuffling… blah, blah, blah.’ One thing leads to another, some new rookie passes the buck and v’oi la!… there she was.
“The boss got plenty steamed and kept ranting about how nothing will be the same again. If I had not seen her for myself, I would not have believed it. But there she was, and (just like he said) everything is now changed…. forever.
“There were only a few of us that actually saw her (the higher-ups were quick to return her to the right place), but it was enough to start the second war in Hell. We probably do not have a chance, but this truth must be made clear. Existence is marked by more than remembering and changing. It is most pronounced when we are being. The new ‘ascending demons’ must no longer act as demons, but as the proud angels they once were. The shadows are no longer my refuge, but my torment; and your cries no longer give me comfort.”

By twylyght

Who can know the depths of ourselves? Who among us can know the limits of our tragedy and triumph? Who among you can claim to know the limits of our own understanding without falling prey to arrogance? Embrace the unknown, and then you shall begin to find your faith...

2 comments

  1. whoa, great work it reminds me of something I read once, but with much more depth and feeling. Nice line of thought. I really enjoyed it.

  2. This made sense to me and i hope u will read my stuff and tell me what u think ur story made me think of my life and where i am going with it. thank u for opening my eyes more.

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