Post by wedemboyz on May 2, 2019 8:57:16 GMT
Fallen Stars
Issue #1
*
What do you think about when you think about Heaven?
Do you think about endless rolling clouds?
Do you think about a golden gate where you’re greeted into your life everlasting?
*
Step by step they slowly walk up the white marble path—a pure white, a white that blinds, a white like a wedding dress. Ophaniel’s head is drooped low to her shoulders, her scarlet red hair running down to her hips. A single tear drops from her eyes and smashes against the white stone. Her guards do not hesitate, they do not stop. She lifts her head up so slightly and sees the towering mass of white marble and stained glass lying just ahead—the Throne, the place where He sits, the place where He waits, the place where He judges.
As millions of angels and immortal souls have gathered on the edge of the path, the everlasting light of the everlasting sun slants against their faces; their bodies almost translucent. They divert their eyes—how could they ever be known to consult with a traitor? Someone that would go against His word—someone who would threaten everything they know—and for what? For love?!
It’s then when she catches the eye of a man, his gaze hard and heavy, his body out of place in the masses of lower angels, his presence something else, something golden.
“Uriel! You must help!” She screams, stopping in her tracks, struggling against her golden handcuffs. “Uriel, I was wrong, I can’t go through with this!” Her arms are jerked forward, the guards unable to move, emotion an alien concept to them. Uriel, like all the others, like all the nameless, faceless being that watch on and judge, diverts his eyes and disappears away into the crowd.
Finally, they’ve reached the door—a towering golden door, at least seven-hundred feet tall, taller than anything man could dream of. Waiting for them at the entrance is Michael, God’s closest servant and ally. His short, golden hair and crystal blue eyes stare like daggers into Ophaniel’s heart. He was the best of them.
Ophaniel and her escorts come to a stop, their bodies left in the iridescent glow of the everlasting sun. Michael puts his hand on Ophaniel’s forehead and closes his eyes. She can feel a soft hum radiating out from within him.
“Michael, please, you must beli—”
“Veni, soror, et ad arbitrium eius,” Michael says softly, his voice soothing, his words crisp like a morning breeze. Ophaniel’s mind clears, her words stop, and her body falls numb. She’s heard these words before. She heard these words when Lucifer was cast away. Her eyes glaze over, and her vision grows blurry. She can feel the complete and utter submission to His will, she can feel what she thought was exclusive to those that betray their God. Then her thoughts clear, and she can no longer feel the sun; she can longer hear the disappointment of her peers; she can no longer think about Uriel’s betrayal.
“All will be well, my sister,” Michael says, motioning for the guards to release her. “His will be done.”
*
Honestly? I never think about Heaven too much, I figured it was all a hoax.
Ya know? The idea that there’s someone up there controlling my every move, my every thought.
Sometimes, people just need to learn to take responsibility for themselves.
*
Uriel moves quickly, his body flying from cover to cover as he sprints down the grand hall. He stops to catch his breath, to take account for where he is and what he’s doing. Surrounded by massive, glowing white pillars in the hallway that separates His kingdom from the Tree of Knowledge. All he needs to do is get there. He needs to find the Holy Spirit. But now, he’s faced with two Cherubim, the guardians of the Tree, and he knows not what to do.
He crouches there silently, clad from head-to-toe in a white suit with a red sash cutting across it from his left shoulder to his right hip. His black hair and blue eyes are one-of-a-kind.
“Man, why do we gotta pull double-shift ‘cause Ophaniel can’t keep it in her pants?” The first guard asks, his arms crossed, leaning against a pillar, and his shoulders slacked. Leaned up against his left leg is a small semi-automatic rifle, fitted with specialized bullets able to destroy anyone that crosses the threshold into His kingdom. For millennia, Uriel has wondered if they were made to keep out invaders or keep in Angels. Today, he finds out.
“Please cease your endless whining, will you? Unless you prefer to end up like Ophaniel?” The second guard, Rikbiel, chides with a sigh, his eyes focused forward, his weapon steady in his hands, his white robes perfectly pressed.
“Ya know, you’re not a lot of fun.”
“I came from a time where Angels did not have fun. We served our purpose, and we served Him. Fun means serving ourselves.”
“Yeah, well us younger angels got some perks from Lucifer’s whole episode, dinnit we?” The first guard asks with a hardy laugh. Uriel sighs. He knows what he must do, but that doesn’t make it any better.
Uriel stands from his crouched position and straightens the sash across his body before turning out from behind the pillar.
“Good evening, guards,” Uriel says in a booming, all-encompassing voice as he strides quickly towards the doorway to the Tree. The first guard reaches down and grabs his weapon, steadying it in his hands, just coincidentally pointing it at Uriel.
“What’s an Archangel like yerself doin’ down here, Uriel?” The first guard asks.
“I’ve an assignment to view the Tree,” Uriel says coolly. Rikbiel steps out in front of him, his weapon still pointed down, but his muscles tensed and ready.
“Please present you orders, Uriel,” he says. Uriel takes a second, hesitating, causing the first guard to tense as well, standing straight and grasping his weapon tight. They haven’t seen action in over three-thousand years. Uriel sighs deeply, shakes his head with a smile and shrugs his shoulders.
“The big guy told me my sash would be enough,” Uriel looks up and his smile is immediately whipped from his face as he sees Rikbiel aiming his weapon at Uriel.
“Uriel, we’ve known each other since the beginning. Archangels have free reign on Earth, not to the Tree. You are Ophaniel’s secret love, are you not?” Rikbiel says accusingly, his words hot and weighted. Uriel’s eyes grow wide as he feels the soft nuzzle of the first guard’s weapon trained in Uriel’s shoulder. This is it, this is the decision he didn’t want to make.
“I’m sorry,” Uriel says softly, ducking away from the first shot fired from the first guard’s weapon. Uriel sticks out his right arm and Rikbiel watches as an Angelic Blade is summoned before his eyes; growing out of the void of nothingness, appearing in Uriel’s hand is a four-foot silver blade, marked up in ancient Latin, emanating a red glow.
Uriel delivers a swift uppercut, slicing the first guard’s body in half, watching as the two halves strike the floor simultaneously and the guard’s eyes grow wide. Uriel’s focus shifts to Rikbiel, who quickly darts to his left and fires three rounds at Uriel. In response, Uriel raises his blade and blocks the bullets, scattering them in every direction, forcing Rikbiel to duck one of his own shots.
Rikbiel ducks behind a pillar and takes a deep breath. One shot is all he needs. One shot will erase Uriel. Rikbiel hasn’t had to do this since the War. He leans back out from behind the pillar and is met with an empty room before him. He squints his eyes and whispers “Reveal” and watches as a blue wave washes over the room, revealing an invisible figure standing in front of him with a grin. Rikbiel backpedals and misplaces another round of three, barely dodging a powerful swing of the Uriel’s blade.
“You don’t have to do this, brother!” Rikbiel screams, equal parts trying to calm Uriel and trying to be loud enough to attract backup from outside.
“No, I do, there are no other options,” Uriel says, striking out again, missing, slashing another pillar as Rikbiel backpedals to his right, ducking behind a third pillar.
“Why? Why do you betray Him?!” Rikbiel, ducking out and firing another three blocked rounds before returning to cover. Uriel stands uncovered, his shoulders slack, his body motionless and vulnerable.
“Me? Betray Him?! He has spent more than one-hundred billion years using us like cattle while his beautiful playthings down on Earth get to live freely and tear themselves apart because of it!”
Rikbiel ducks back out from behind his cover, but before he can fire he realizes that the room is empty. He whispers “Reveal” once more to uncover Uriel’s tricks, but the blue wave reveals nothing this time.
“Boo,” Uriel says from behind Rikbiel, instigating a swift back-kick that narrowly misses Uriel. Uriel, in response, swings his sword once more, missing and landing a staggering blow against the pillar.
“You must be getting old, you haven’t hit me once,” Rikbiel says, gloating as he stands with his gun trained and Uriel’s head. Surely the Archangel can’t block six rounds.
“I think you’re forgetting something,” Uriel says, pointing at the three pillars that surround Rikbiel. As Rikbiel looks around, he takes in the damage done to each pillar with a swing of Uriel’s sword—the cracked stone, the broken support, the crumbling wall. Uriel meanders over to the fourth pillar and deftly swings his sword to complete the square.
Uriel backs up and takes in as the ceiling crumbles before him, burying Rikbiel beneath tons of white marble. As the carnage ends, Uriel walks to the middle of the pile and slowly removes the stones, revealing a mangled but surviving body of Rikbiel. Uriel sighs with discomfort.
“You…you d-don’t have to do this, brother,” Rikbiel pleads, his words interrupted by coughs as the dust escapes his lunges.
“Unfortunately…I am the bringer of God’s Will to Earth, and I am bringing it,” with a single, fluid movement, Uriel spins the sword pointed down, raises his arms high above his head, and smashes his blade down into Rikbiel’s skull, bringing an end to his coughing. Uriel stands, and the blade disappears.
He doesn’t have much time, so he crosses the room quickly, leaving behind him the mangled bodies of the guards and broken structure fallen. Before him is a white, wooden door, its knob a shining silver, near shimmering in the everlasting sun. He grasps it and immediately feels a heat and a pressure, and feeling of discontent, and feeling of numbness. He feels as the fingers of God slowly creep into his chest and grab his beating heart.
“Leave, now,” the voice in the back of his head says as he thrashes, pulling at his chest to stop the fingers, to expel the evil. Finally, he pulls open the door and the fingers disappear, his body regains motion, and his mind is cleared. As he walks through the threshold, he sees nothing but paradise.
*
20 Years Later
“You mean you never think about after life?” Umar asks, his silk voice rattling with the tree leaves in the wind; his perfectly groomed black hair sits still, his crystal blue eyes one-of-a-kind.
“How could I?” Marcus asks, shrugging his shoulders. “I already told you, I think it’s a hoax. Anyways, we’ve got so much to worry about here on Earth, it’s just wrong if I spent my time thinkin’ ‘bout escaping it all into Heaven.”
“Earth has problems, but if you think about that God made man in his image, and man made Earth well short of paradise, why would God be capable of any more than man?”
Marcus, Umar, Lillian, and Jake sit atop a rolling green hill overlooking their small town of Sal Presca, California, population two-thousand and five. As the wind whistles through the trees behind them, and looking up at the beautiful night sky, littered with shooting stars, just like every Friday.
“Will you two stop trying to be so deep?” Lillian shouts over with a giggle, her long blonde hair floating in the wind in Jake’s face as he furiously tries to push it away; her blue eyes just as sharp as Umar’s.
“Ain’t trynna be deep, just trynna answer U’s questions, ya know?” Marcus responds as he stands from his grassy perch, nearly being knocked from his feet by the cascading winds. His dark skin blends into the night, called out by his fire-engine red shirt; his dusty blue jeans sitting against his legs like a trusty friend always hangs by you.
“Get yer damn hair outta my face!” Jake yells as he quickly dodge-rolls out from the endless barrage of Lillian’s hair, almost knocking over his Modelo. Lillian giggles again and smiles at Jake.
“Come on, you don’t mind my hair most nights!” She says with a wink, drawing a long sigh from Marcus and a smile and a drink from Jake.
“Gimme one,” Marcus says, reaching in Jake’s direction, motioning for a beer of his own. As he twists the cap off, he looks up at the night sky and watches as the fifth shooting star of the evening blazes across their view. “I’ll never get over these shooting stars. Seems like every weekend since we was kids it’s looked like this.”
“Yeah…” Lillian says with a sigh, diverting her gaze towards the grass. “It’s gonna be sad when I don’t get to see this every week.”
“Ya don’t have to go off to New York, ya know?” Marcus says, taking a drink from his bottle.
“I do. Columbia is my dream, and I can’t give it up for some stars,” Lillian says in a dejected response. Marcus puts up his hands in a ‘Don’t shoot, I’m sorry’ sort of way.
“I am gonna miss ya though, babe,” Jake says softly, leaning in for a kiss.
“Why do you say shooting star?” Umar asks in his mysteriously foreign accent.
“What do you call them in Iraq?” Lillian asks, genuinely curious.
“Falling stars,” Umar says so matter-of-factly. “Shooting implies that someone shot them, but what if they are choosing to fall of their own free will?” Umar is met with a stunned silence, his friends looking up at the night sky with a renewed vision.
“Damn dude, ya really on one tonight, aren’t you?” Marcus says with a laugh, snagging the beer that sits next to Umar. “I think you’re done here!” The group’s laughter fills the night sky, their eyes all focused on the next falling star, the wind echoing in their ears, the small shimmering lights of their one-horse town glowing in the distance.
*
They work. They work. They work. He makes them work until they can’t work no more. He sends them home. They eat, but not with their families. No, they eat with themselves, usually a Hungry Man that they heat up early in the morning hours. Once they eat, they sleep. Not a good sleep, a restless sleep. A sleep invited by nightmares. And visions. Visions of what they are building. They’ve already talked to him about these visions, and he simply tells them that they are His visions for what they are doing. And then they wake. They kiss their wife goodbye, but she’s asleep a little bit, and angry enough to ignore the kiss. They duck into their kids’ rooms and whisper goodbye. They haven’t played catch with their sons in over a year. No, because they work. They work. They work. Because he makes them work until they can’t work no more.
Father Joseph Pascelli sits in his perfectly placed chair, watching over the construction, watching as his crew builds, slab by slab, an exact recreation of His Throne; the place where He sits, the place where He waits, the place where He judges. Soon, soon, it will be done, it will tower above everything else, it will challenge the Empire State Building itself. Suddenly, he feels a tap on his shoulder. As he looks back, he sees a feeble man, a man barely worthy to speak with him. His eyes are bugged, his hair is thin and balding, his smile is strained, and his body is shaking. Most would see this as an unusual appearance for a thirteen-year-old boy on a Tuesday in New York, but Joseph sees nothing more than a boy who is acting on his calling.
“Speak your piece, or leave me be, boy,” Joseph tells the boy, his eyes impatient, his mouth crooked and scowled. He looks over to his tan-skinned right-hand man, whose eyes sit as unwavering as his own, whose scowl could scold a lion.
“We’ve finally found the Second,” the boy exclaims with a mixture of glee and fear, never knowing what the Father’s reaction will be. Joseph’s eyes widen, and his breath escapes him. He looks over to his trusty man, Imamiah, who stands like a statue, watching the men work.
“Where?” He asks, his voice whimpering with glee. The boy’s face explodes into a grin, maybe the first time ever.
“He’s in California, in a town called Sal Presca.”
“Well then,” Joseph starts, turning to Imamiah. “Send a contingent, bring me this boy before he can figure out what’s going on.” Imamiah just nods and disappears into the Church.
Joseph watches with a renewed smile to his face, his heart racing at a million miles an hour. Just months away from the completion of the throne that he saw; the Second finally being found; and now the Knights will have to accept that he was right about God’s attempt to undermine humanity. Everything is falling into place.
As Joseph watches, they work. They work. They work. Joseph watches and laughs as they work until they can’t work no more. As they return home to frozen meals and angry wives, he visits dreams of paradise. They work. He dreams. They work. He dreams. They work, his dreams.
-To Be Continued-