| The Fallen Curse that day. Curse that horrible, fateful, stupid day. Curse the absolute grand fool of the universe that took me with him. My name is Helia, and I am of the fallen. Originally it was all beautiful. We were all singing praises to the Elohim. I've been in many churches and synagogues. Sometimes on business, sometimes just to remember that day. All of it that I've experienced is only a shadow of that glory that I partook in. Granted, when I was there on business they usually weren't even trying. But even when they were reaching for God from the bottom of their soul, it was nothing compared to that day. Well, I was worshipping. There was a seraph there named Lochion, and he was one of the best friends of the leader of worship. After the Elohim, Lochion had my heart. I'm sure you're somewhat familiar to the story after that. Well, you are if you live in what some of our infiltrators have termed 'Christendom'. (The idea was to turn a movement dedicated to God into a worldly government. After all, the moment it becomes a government it falls under our sway. The word we used for that was 'Christendom', at least that was the English word.) Well anyway, Lochion had his eyes on me as well. Although the original idea was that some of us would be created female so that we could better minister to that portion of the physical creation, I guess I somewhat had the idea that I could love Lochion the way the humans love each other. That we could be, well, married or something. I was just about to propose this idea, optional marriage for the seraphim, to the Creator when Lucifer demanded the throne. That day was a horror. I keep replaying the scene in my mind. It was the day I lost everything. Lucifer was shouting demands at the Elohim on the floor of the throne room, and my beloved Lochion was at his side, together with some of the more influential seraphim. They all had been promised a place in the new government after the revolution, and Lochion was going to have Lucifer's old position. I wasn't sure. I loved the Elohim, to be sure, but I also loved Lochion. So after Lucifer's rantings were heard and rejected by the Elohim, the whole of them stormed out of the throne room. Lochion was the last one out. Before he left, he turned to me. "Are you coming with us, Helia?" I went. With tears in my eyes, staring back at the throne room and the Elohim, I went. It's written in the weapon of the enemy that "He who looks back is unfit for service in the Kingdom of God". I guess it's also true that 'she who looks back is unfit for service in the kingdom of Sheol'. I was. I was a nuisance to the others, constantly pining for those days back in the throne room when I was pure and perfect. They hated me. They hated me so much that Lochion and I were sent on a dirt job up in the middle of terra incognita. We were sent to play the bad guys in some backwater little barbarian religion at the top of the world. We did that pretty well, for what it's worth. We both debated over our roles for a while, and then came up with a decent-enough plan that would play to our strengths. I was to be Helia, the queen of a bleak, chilly wasteland where the nobodies who haven't done great deeds in battle or died in childbirth go when they die. Lochion was to be the great trickster god, lord of all things reprehensible and disgusting to these people. Of course, I thought he was rather admirable and cunning for a slimeball fake god. All the same, we were under orders from two high-ranking Sheolian seraphim, Wautian and Thiore, the whole time. Whenever we wanted to add an element to the religion, we had to go through them first. And for their parts, they were playing lusty ignorant war gods, and were aptly suited for the role. I try to do a good job, make a decent enough civilized religion to rival the systems in Hellas and Roma, and all they want to do is kill stuff and have their way with human women. And all these scholars are wondering just how giants could have ever existed. Ah well. We were summoned from that muckhole when the seraphim behind the Herodian court reported that Mashiach ben David had come. So as I'm coming, I'm expecting for the big fight. Our strategy was to always keep a major earthly power next to Israel, ready to attack when ben David came. Babylon, Persia, Macedonia, and the latest was the Imperium Romanus. Getting increasingly nervous with the spread of Judaism, we had even stationed soldiers inside the country and put a Roman puppet government in charge. Let the Mashiach get past that. Of course, Lochion had managed to figure out, just by studying the prophecies of the enemy, that the Mashiach wasn't going to set up an earthly kingdom. He wasn't sure what He was going to do, but he told Lucifer that killing Him would accomplish nothing. Lucifer, the grand unthinking buffoon that he is, took his own counsel and had Mashiach crucified. Of course, he lost by doing that. But the fact remains that Lochion knew more than Lucifer. (Of course, I'm willing to bet that even if we hadn't killed Mashiach that the Elohim would have still beaten us somehow.) So when Lochion said 'I told you so' as they watched the blood of Mashiach drip to the ground, Lucifer had his lieutenants kill him. I was there, and I watched Lochion die. So after we had pretty much lost the war, I went back north to try to win the battle. My heart had never really been into it, but for a while I had teased myself into thinking that it was better to be revered as a goddess than to revere the true God. But after the death of Lochion, I was disillusioned. I asked for a transfer from Lucifer, to become one of the common footsoldiers instead of a goddess. Not wanting me to have a position of power with which to avenge the death of Lochion, he granted it to me. (Of course, Wautian was sorry to see me go and even offered to name the sixth day of the week after me if I would stay. I told him that I couldn't, so he gave the honor to the seraph Fria instead.) So I roamed the world in sorrow. Not so much sorrow over the death of Lochion, although that was part of it. Mainly it was sorrow over the death of the illusion I had painted for myself, the illusion that I was gonna be okay without the Elohim, that I was my own ruler of my own domain. But really, though, I had always answered to the seraphim in charge of our pantheon (and Lucifer above them) and my domain was an imaginary one designed for the entrapment of humans. I was there when the Church was winning too many souls for our good. I helped to paganize and officialize it. I was in human form in England when a raiding party attacked the village I was in (and built an altar to me on which to burn the corpses, no less). I was there when the north was added to Christendom, and when a few people fell prey to linguistical corruption and worshipped my dead lover as Lucifer (I had quite a laugh about the irony of it all). In fact, I possessed a few of the worshippers from time to time and made them do stuff. Nothing major, just enough to convince Lucifer that I was still fighting for Sheol. I was there when Europe started running around pretending they were in ancient Greece and thinking rationally enough to find better ways to kill each other, and I laughed the first time that I heard the term 'Renaissance' in use. I was there when Luther nailed the Ninety-Five Theses and started exposing the work of our agents. We fought him in every way we could. In fact we even managed to get a few centuries of bloody warfare and the whole denominationalism thing out of those theses. (Well, the rest of the fallen did at any rate. I was sick of the Elohim-Sheol war by then and I debated philosophy in France during the whole time.) But nevertheless more and more seraphim were realizing that we were fighting an uphill battle from there on out. The enemy just had too many opportunities to spread the Kingdom of Heaven. So I'm calling it quits. I chose on that day long ago to turn my back on the Elohim because I loved Lochion more. I wish I hadn't. I don't think it's possible for the fallen seraphim to be redeemed. But I can ask. And even if we're never redeemed, if I serve the Elohim with my remaining time, I might still end up in the burning lake. But I know, from what I've seen over the aeons, that the Elohim is merciful. Maybe if I beg and prostrate myself before His throne I could go where it doesn't burn as hotly. PREVIOUS NEXT |