Prologue: In the End

Blood. Blood everywhere. Blood everywhere. It covers the floor, and most of the walls. And most of it is mine.

Blood. Blood I should never have even had. Blood is for mortals, and I am not mortal. But there I lay anyway. The cold stone floor underneath me allows it to slip and slide everywhere, dripping into the few cracks that radiated from the crater in the center of the room, but not actually soaking into anything. It flows along the ground, eventually drying, but it doesn't matter, because it seems like it would just be covered with more blood. God, how can the human body hold this much blood?

As my life continues to ebb out, my heart continuing to beat and force the blood into my veins and then out of my dozens of various lacerations and holes in my new body, I wonder if He willfinally love me again now. After all, I have never stopped loving Him. Never. Will he finally let me see Him again? Now, after all I have done, after everything I have sacrificed, after all the good I have done, will He allow me back into His good graces? After I die, will I go back into the torture I have endured for what seems like eternity? Or will I finally go back home?

Maybe He will just wipe out my existence altogether. Even that would be an improvement. Nothingness would seem blessed after all the pain and suffering I've been through. I would rather be completely removed from the universe than return to my prison.

But despite everything I've gone through for Him, despite all the sadness, all the terrors, all the anguish I've felt, I still love Him. That's the most important thing: I never stopped loving Him.

Everything I did was for Him. From the beginning of time to now to the end of time if necessary, everything I do is for love of Him. I have never stopped, even when He shunned me, even when He cast me down, even when He disowned me. I knew He would do it – I forcedHim to do it – because I love Him.

So now I'm here. I'm lying here now, too weak from blood loss to even sit up straight. I'm lying here, bleeding blood should never have had, suffering from wounds I should never have felt, afraid of a death I should never have been able to experience. How did this all happen? I know how it started, billions of years ago, and I know where I am now and the immediate reasons for that, but how?

I realize that I don't feel any pain anymore, and I understand enough of mortal physiology to know that I'm only minutes away from death. A split second later, time slows down so rapidly that the blood doesn't even flow from my veins anymore. Technically, it is, but each drop is like a glacier – moving slowly, slowly, only a tiny fraction every few minutes, but still inevitable. I have power, real power, but not enough. Not enough to stop my own death now, only enough to forestall it for maybe a few hours in my own mind. In reality, time hasn't even slowed – it's just that my mental processes have sped up so far that it seems like everything else is frozen.

But my body is still too weak to move, regardless of how fast I can think. So all I can do is lay here, putting death off as long as possible, and think about everything that has gone wrong since the beginning of time. About how I, God's most trusted and loyal servant, the strongest ethereal creature besides God himself, the Morningstar, grew to be the most loathed creature in the universe, despised by mankind, pitied by Angels, wept for by God.

The right hand of God. Most powerful of all the bodies in Heaven. Most revered, most holy, the one creature that could commune with the Lord at any time, any place, for He loved me above all others. And yet I'm here, dying. I can feel His gaze fall on me, then look away in sorrow.

How did I get here? How?