I walked down the hall next to the king's butler, a little nervous but doing my best to stay strong. The king's butler was a young, thin 13-year-old kid, and none other than my brother. His name is Christopher. We all worked for the king, my whole family, besides my sister. At least, we did. My mother and father were the king's best knights, so it was no wonder the king would send them on his most important journey yet- exterminating the devil. They were sent on that journey 6 years ago, when I was 13, and have never returned. I have become a knight now and go on journeys for our majesty, the Angel King.
Yes, we are angels.
I approached the king's door and my brother opened it. My brother gave me a good luck high-five behind my back as I walked in. I turned and smiled at him for a second and then looked forward. I walked up to the king's chair and bowed before him. The king was a young, 21-year-old man. I wasn't really much of a fan of our king. Not because of his personality, looks, ruling manor, or even the fact that he wasn't an actual angel, but a demon (mother was demon, dad was angel). No, I disliked our King for something a little personal. He had stolen my sister away from me.
Allow me to explain. Last year was my sisters 13th birthday. In the Angel Kingdom, a girl or boy's 13th birthday marks the day they become a woman or man. It also marks at which age a woman or man can start working or be married (or in royalty's case, become king). Well, when my sister turned thirteen, the king called for her to his castle, offering her a job at his castle so she could follow in my mother, my father, and my footsteps. She went to the castle and the king brought her into a different room with a bed. He handed her a contract that stated she was to become his girlfriend, eventually his fiancé, and then his wife. She refused, which made the king extremely angry. He slapped her, making her head hit the bed ramp and her knock out. He locked her in her room for a week; a plate of food was delivered to her once a day. The king even raped her a couple of times. I could hear her scream through the walls. Eventually he couldn't handle her not loving him back, and pinned her to the ground, then putting poison in her arm through a needle. The poison made her forget everything. Me, my brother, even my mom and dad. The king convinced her they had been dating for a year.
That is why I don't like our king, King Abadeer.
I looked at our king on his throne, with an empty seat next to him, for my sister.
"Here is the medicine", I said, placing the bottle of red liquid on the ground in front of the king. King Abadeer was a tall, black-haired haired man with large, golden wings that overpower my regular white ones. When I was twelve I had begged my parents to dye them. I gave that up when they left.
"Thanks, Jon," The kings said stepping down from his throne.
King Abadeer was wearing a black suit with a dark purple tie. He had a sword holster with a crystal sword in it attached to his belt. It was a gift from the king of the crystal dimension. He sent my brother in and gestured toward the medicine bottle.
"Bring that to the hospital. Tell them it's for Autumn." He said.
My brother hurried to the hospital room, his little butler flaps flailing out behind him.
My sister, Autumn, had been sick for a while. It wasn't deadly, but the cure was only found on the surface, which is my specialty.
King Abadeer walked over to me and put his hands on my shoulders.
"Look, I know you want to see Autumn, but it's dangerous for her to see you too often. She might remember."
"I know, but I just never got a chance to say goodbye to the old her, the REAL her." I said.
He gave me and awkward hug and I just backed away and said "I got to go."
I walked out of the castle and home, seeing my brother already looking in the fridge for food.
"Finally, I'm starving!" he said.
"Go do your homework, squirt. I'll make you something."
The next day I took Chris to school and then went home. I didn't have anything to do today so I just kind of sat around, bored out of my mind. You can't make any friends on the surface. There are no angels and becoming friends with humans is too dangerous. Eventually I got a call from King Abadeer and rushed to the kingdom. I usually wouldn't be in a rush to go to work, but I was really bored. When I got there I went into the throne room and bowed.
"What is your mission for me, my king?"
"I told you, you can call me Hudson." He said. "Anyway, before I give you the mission, I need to tell you a story. Do you know what today is?"
"… The 24th?"
"Today marks 7 years your parents have been gone."
I stared at him for a moment, and then looked down.
"I didn't realize. I had mostly tried to forget."
"That's okay, it's not important. Moving on, here's the story; 7 years ago your mother and father came into this room and were given a quest. The quest was to seek out and imprison the devil, Lucifer, before the prophecy that was foretold came true. The prophecy was that in 10 years Lucifer would create a bomb. The bomb was going to be made to exterminate the human race. In order to stop this, he must be exterminated. Since the quest was so risky, the couple had to first sign a contract. The contract stated, along with many other circumstances, that in 7 years there eldest child would continue his or her parents quest if they failed to return successfully. Fast-forward 6 1/2 years, and there return was still unheard of. It was decided that this was to apply with no return at all. 6 months later, and here we are, no return and there eldest son standing before me wondering what his next mission will be. Do you know what his next mission will be?"
King Abadeer said everything so fast I didn't have much time to soak everything in.
"You want me to kill the devil? But how? I don't even know how to get to Hell."
"This will help you," he said, handing me a small bag about the size of a baseball. There was a note written on the cotton bag.
'Open where there is no light to follow.'
"I have one more tip for you. To find Lucifer, visit Death."
I left and gathered my things together. I went to Chris's school and picked him up early. As we flew home (all of our money went to food and bills, so we didn't have a car) I told him I was going on a mission. A long one. I didn't explain about how it was to find Lucifer. He would only try to come or not let me go. I told him that I had gotten my closest friend (if you can call her that. Like I said, not many friends,) Lillian to stay at our house. Lillian was a year younger than me, so she still went to school. I said goodbye and headed towards the elevator to the surface. You can't just fly there, it's dangerous. You must take a special elevator to get below the clouds, and then fly down. I will skip about getting to the surface and walking (cant fly on the surface or the humans will see me) to my destination and explain were I am going and the legend of Lucifer.
Lucifer's parents were just like any normal godly skeleton people. They met, fell in love, and had children. There first child was named Death. He was a skeleton like them. Years later they had another child, but this one was not all bones. This one had some flesh. Not a lot, just some on the face and chest, but enough to have a heart. It took the father a minute to realize why. 'You cheated! You cheated'! He shouted. He loved his wife too much to hurt her, so he left her alone, but not the child. The child was named Lucifer. He was shunned by the father. He did not have the father's jeans. The mother loved him very much, though, so the father didn't lay a finger on him. Years passed and the wife was murdered. 'You did this! You killed her!' The father screamed at Lucifer. He blamed the entire thing on Lucifer. Now that the mother was dead, the father didn't have to be quite as kind to Lucifer. By this time both Lucifer and Death were grown up. Death had moved out into a castle he made himself. The father forced Death to let Lucifer live in his castle so the father didn't have to look at him. Death then hated Lucifer too. He didn't want him in his house, so he imprisoned Lucifer in his basement. Lucifer now had a lot of time on his hands. He started using the dirt in his cell to make demon figurines. One day, the figurines started coming to life. They were his minions, is demons. The small figurines slipped through the bars and started digging a hole in the wall. They kept digging and digging and eventually found a cavern where they created a city. The city can only be found by Lucifer's followers. That is why I now head to Death's castle.
I got to the specific portal that could take me there and went through. I flew to Death's castle and went inside. I looked around and found Death in his backyard, which was pretty much empty. He was raking at the ground. I walked over and bowed.
"Hello, my Lord Death I am here in need of assistance."
"Hello. An angel? I don't many of those come here. What do you need?"
"I need to find Lucifer's Caverns."
"They don't exist. I have searched for them hundreds of thousand of times. He simply died in the cell."
"At least let me see. Maybe I can find it."
He sighed.
"Fine, but don't get your hopes up."
We went down to his basement. It was extremely dark in there, you couldn't see a thing.
"See? Nothing. His cells over there if you want to look around."
I went over to the cell. There were still a few unfinished clay figures in the cell.
"Hmm… well, the hole would've been dug somewhere around here," I said, point at an area of the wall.
"There's nothing there."
"Maybe…" I said, slowly pulling out the bag King Abadeer gave me, "There just isn't enough light."
I opened the bag and a burst of light came out. All of a sudden, the castle started to change. It started to change from being made of whatever to being made of… light.
"What did you do to my castle!?"
"I don't know!"
Then something caught my eye. In the very corner of the room, hidden behind a bookcase, it was still dark. I walked over to the bookcase and pushed it aside. Underneath it was a hole.
"Look!"
Death walked over and looked in.
"Huh. In all my years of looking, why did I never check here?"
Before Death could say another word, I jumped down the hole. Death didn't follow me. If he did I never saw him.
When I got to the bottom of the hole I took a good look around. Almost everything was red or black. Demons small and large paraded the half-built city, creating building and bridges. Of in the distance I saw a tall dark mountain with a castle on top. In the mountain was inscribed 'Long Live Lord Lucifer'. I figured that Lucifer must be in there and flew toward it. I just barely dodged an attack by a winged demon with long arms. I got to the castle and flew around to the entrance. The castle wasn't very big, but it was one of the few things fully built. It didn't take me long to find which room Lucifer was in. I could here shouting. "No, build the door here! And its 457 feet, not 453 feet!" I knocked on the door and… something opened the door. Its image was repulsive. Its face was not really a skull, but the flesh on it wasn't really skin. It was white and slightly hairy. It had large horns and wore a small crown that looked more like a tiara. Its hands were bones and it wore a brown cloak. It didn't have eyes, but black sockets with small yellow lights in the back, just barely light enough to see. It had no nose or hair. I was … inhuman.
He gave me a look of shock and confusion.
"You don't look like any demon I made. They're all red."
"I'm not a demon. I'm an angel."
"Well, then you have five seconds to explain why I shouldn't kill you."
"I started to slowly pull out my sword, by Lucifer caught me by the neck and lifted me in the air, choking me. His bony fingers felt like rocks on my neck. He gave a slight laugh.
"So you're here to kill me? Yes, I can see it in your eyes."
"I struggled to get out of his grip, but it was too strong. I was going to die any minute. Then Lucifer's expression changed from evil happiness to confused happiness, in a weird way.
"I see potential in you. You have some evil in you. It's the most common, revenge evil, but it's still evil." He dropped me onto the floor and I gasped for air.
"I'll make you an offer. But first, I want to show you something. I want to show you a world where you have the power to succeed your greatest rival.
There was a flask of white, so I closed my eyes. Everything went normal, so I opened them and looked around. It was back in the AngelKingdom I saw me, my brother, and some girl. I looked closer to see that the girl was my sister. She was walking along casually, like she used to do. When she remembered. She was with a young man and a few children. Her family. I was walking with Lillian. We had made a family too. I looked up at the castle and saw there was no castle. Everything looked… perfect. Then everything went back to Lucifer's office.
"What did you think if that world?"
"It was perfect in every way," I said, still holding the memory in my brain.
"If you abandon your quest and come be trained by me, I can show you how to achieve that world."
I looked up at him.
"Really?"
He nodded.
"All you have to do is 1, be trained by me and 2, put on this amulet."
He pulled out a large, purple amulet.
I thought for a minute. That world. I love that world. I want to share that world with everyone and everything. There's only one way to do that.
I looked up at Lucifer, nodded, and kneeled.
"I accept," I said.
"I am your humble apprentice."
3 years later_
"C'mon! Create the damn storm!"
"I'm flipping trying!"
I concentrated hard on the spell. Two years had passed and I was full of evil and hatred.
There was a flash of light and nothing. We looked out the window and saw a huge storm of mass proportions wreaking havoc on the finished city.
"Excellent."
"Finally! I got that spell!"
I clapped my hands together.
"Alright! What's next?"
He went over and sat on his throne.
"That's all that I can teach you."
"What?! Two years of training just to suddenly stop?! Like that?!"
"There's only one way to learn more."
"What's that?"
"Kill me."
Pfft, I couldn't kill you in your sleep."
"Jon, I want you to kill me."
"Why?"
"I am done with my life. My purpose was to build my city and find a successor. I have done both, and I need you to kill me."
"But-"
"Kill me now!" he shouted.
I hesitantly grabbed my sword and decapitated Lucifer. In one quick motion he was dead. I looked down at his body. At first I was a little upset, but then I smiled.
Now I can really beat King Abadeer.
I planned an attack for the rest off the day. It was a little sloppy, since I was rushing to act fast, but I did my best, and then went to work.
I used a spell I learned to reattach Lucifer's head and take over his skin. I looked just like him and had the same strength and power, but I talked and acted like me.
"Now my next step."
I retrieved the bomb Lucifer had been creating. It was half nuclear, half demonic.
I grew as large as I could and ripped off the amulet. I made it up to the surface, ripping a whole in the mud walls. I stepped out of my city and set of the bomb, making a large, green mushroom cloud of demons.
I heard screams all around me. Everyone ran away, and a few fell into the hole leading to my city. They were killed on contact by my demons.
I grew bigger. I knocked over buildings. My city wasn't enough. I need to rule the surface too.
After a while I could see people flying in the distance. Angels were coming. I didn't fear them. They were too small. They feared me. As they got closer, I could see that among the angels were The King and my brother. I hadn't realized that since I left, my brother would take over my position. They flew up to me and the king commanded them to attack. I reflected it with ease, laughing at how awful there attack was planned. It went back and hit a few men, knocking them to the ground, among them my brother, who was knocked out. I quickly pinned down the king with my large hand.
"Idiot." I said. By the sound of my voice he could tell who I was.
"Jonathan Pens?!"
"Oh, far from it. Jonathan was your weak little servant. I am my own master! I am The Lich!"
"How could you?!"
"You will see why. You will feel the way that both my sister and I felt when I wipe your memory."
I took out a syringe of blue liquid out of my cloak and shot the king with it.. He was knocked out cold and would wake up in an hour with only the memory of how to breathe. I then threw my old necklace around him. He can have my old kingdom. I then threw him in the pit.
I picked up my brother and looked at him, unsure what to do. I may be evil, but I do have some feeling, and I know he's my brother. I didn't want to kill him, but I didn't want him to suffer through this world I will make either. I reached up into the clouds and placed him there. Now he can rule the angels.
I continued flinging people around and watching the demons from the bomb swoop down and pick up humans, carrying them away into oblivion. I smiled at all the destruction.
I saw my sister standing on the ground with a little girl next to her, petrified. The girl was about 3 with short, black hair and a dress with overalls over it. I could tell it was her child. I could also see that my sister was very large and at least 7 months pregnant.
I bent down to pick them up and put them in the clouds, but the little girl ran. She ran past the pit and behind a building. My sister ran after her, but tripped and fell into the pit because she was carrying the baby. I tried to catch her, since she would die because she wasn't even part demon, but it was too late. She had disappeared. I never saw my sister again.
A look of dread came over me. I couldn't believe it. I wouldn't accept the fact that she was dead. I just shrunk back to normal size, closed my eyes kept shaking my head. Eventually I opened my eyes and once again looking around. Nothing seemed the same as the last time I looked around. Last time I saw what I had wanted, my ruling of the world. Now I saw what had actually been formed. The streets were emptied, smoke filled the air from fires started by falling buildings, everything was dark, and trampled bodies laid everywhere. I picked up the nearest girl and held her in my arms. She looked almost identical to my sister, and about the same age. She had the same autumn-leaf red hair, sun-burnt-red skin, and round face. This girl wore a pair of glasses that came to a point at the sides and a green turtleneck.
I held the girl to my chest, and began to cry.
