Mantinas-I know I should not be meddling in something new, but this has been bugging me for sometime and I hoped it would clear this writer's block I've been having. Plus life in general. NOT MY BEST WORK BUT I TRIED AND I STILL LIKE IT!
Disclaimer-I own nothing! Partially inspired by Jesus Christ Superstar(the first paragraph) but everything else is owned by the religious peoples.
Judas placed the noose around his neck with one hand, the other holding his body up by the branch of the tree. He let go with his arm and dropped, the noose tightening around his windpipe, strangling him. His body twitching before going limp.
It was dark absolute. Nothing could be made out before him. Fear began eating away at him, he knew he would be damned, but he did not think such isolation would be his punishment. Betraying his friend so blindly…Sucking it up; he sat down, curling his knees up to his chest, crossed his arms on top of his knees, and laid his head there in self-pity and loathing.
Innumerable time passed before he saw anything. It was a light, pure and bright that combated against the darkness. In time, he could make out a shape in the light. A boy looking about on the cusp of manhood walked within the light. No. The light came from the figure. Curly blonde locks framed a porcelain, cherubic face of the teen with eyes of blue and a perfectly pointed nose. The only thing standing out as odd was the rueful smile he gave him.
"Hello, Judas." A velvety voice of a man much older poured from the youth's mouth as a hand was offered to him. "Welcome to our Eternity."
Judas rose, almost as if he were in a trance, a feeling he loathed for he felt it before with Jesus. What was it about certain people that they could hold sway over people? Yet, as soon as he had that thought, he took the offered hand and was pulled near the youth.
"Wh…Who are you?" Judas asked, finding his voice after several attempts of unsuccessful attempts at moving any of his vocal muscles.
The cherub smiled before he began walking once more. Dragging Judas along by the hand he had not let go from a vice-like grip. The grip of a lonely man the thought crashing like a wave to shore in his mind before it slipped back into the ether.
"I am called Satan now." The boy said, sending a jolt of fear down Judas' spine. "But since we are destined to be together for a long time; making us friends and allies, you may call me Lucifer."
"And this is Hell?"
"No, there is no Hell, Judas. Just a pit-stop at the Edge of the Edge of the Universe where the souls of your ancestors are waiting for…Well, you'll see soon enough."
"So I was not alone?"
"No," Lucifer said gravely. "for these souls, they are cast away from God's light, love, and gaze. Here they, as I said before, wait until His Coming, though I don't think they even know that."
Here, let me show you one of your fellow forsaken." Lucifer changed direction and in almost no time at all they came upon an old man who shrank away from the light with a loud scream as his hands reflexively covered his eyes. Judas looked away from the poor soul, but noticed his companion's reaction. He was putting on a strong front, but Judas could still see the sadness peaking through.
"I couldn't help but notice that you left me out when you mentioned them."
Lucifer glanced at Judas before lowering his head. The voice that met his ears sounded like a scolded child.
"I'm sorry Judas, but, like me, you shall reap the rewards for doing God's Will." Lucifer met Judas' gaze. "We shall be truly alone in a matter of minutes now with no one but ourselves as company until the End, where upon we shall be erased with everything else. Forgotten by the very being whose dirty work we preformed to such perfection! And without even knowing it until it was too late!"
A terrified, maddening look turned limped pools of cerulean into stormy weathered oceans. His grip surprisingly tightened on the betrayer's hand. The child's voice was gone, and in its place came the desperate ramblings of a confused man drowning in sorrow.
"Here we are to be forever damned! Alone as long as everyone believes in the Son and Father. No matter their actions in life(1)! They can murder, rape, do the foulest acts imaginable and they shall be spared! They will see God while we rot here in the dark!"
Without thinking, Judas knelt down and embraced the Fallen, quieting him instantly as he stood stiff in the embrace, too shocked from deprivation to even respond in shoving him away or embracing him back. But in time, he slowly wrapped his arms around Judas' shoulders and wept.
"I acted alone, as did you, for what we thought was right at the time." Came the raspy voice of the Fallen Angel. "Little did we know that we were puppets on a string. The string is cut and thus we are thrown away."
And though I am glad, despite my pride, that you pity me, Judas. For no one else does…My brothers hate me. Scorn me." His face contorted in rage, though it went by unobserved due to their faces' location inside the hug. "I do not pity you. Yes, your name will be dragged through the mud, you will be scorned, and many will revel in stories of romanticized stories of your damnation, as they will mine, but you will never truly see it. And though his eyes haunt you, they won't for long. Not after space is made."
Judas said not a word as he clung to his sole companion. He stared off into the distance as a bright light appeared. A star. And within the star was Jesus. The very man he betrayed and left to be crucified. He stared out into the vast darkness and spread his arms out like a father welcoming his children into his arms.
"Come to me, my precious children. It is time to come home."
Balls of light erupted all around them. An old, haggard woman who had an empty eye socket stood before Judas, who was transfixed on her as well as everyone around them. An eye grew from within the socket and her features began to smooth out and become supple in youth once more. Just like everyone else.
And then they began to rise and float towards Jesus. One by one they disappeared into Him, leaving them behind until the last soul had gone. Jesus closed his arms and then let his gaze land on Judas. The warm, fatherly gaze had left him and a cold shroud of indifference had encompassed his face before he, too, blinked out of sight.
Judas raised his head from the cherub's shoulder and saw that his eyes were closed, perhaps closed the entire time, and a frown marring the beauty of his lips.
'Once more he is abandoned,' Judas thought. 'Once more he stood before God's court and once more he is denied and then he is relieved of those he walked amongst while they sat in despairing shadow. He probably felt kinship to them despite the fact that they could not bare to see him. Now it is just me.'
Lucifer said nothing as he opened his eyes. He swallowed audibly before sighing. Judas let go, but offered his hand to him. Lucifer took it, grateful for the actual companionship despite everything. They walked.
"You mentioned that those who believe in the Father and Son are saved. What will happen to those who do not?" Judas asked after mulling over what to talk about to fill up the silence.
"They will burn in the sun for as long as it takes to cleanse their soul. Uriel(2) and his band of angels will watch over them and send them on their way to Heaven." Lucifer said. "And no, it's not fair. But who said anything was? God did not, and I should know, I was there since the beginning."
Judas nodded his head as they walked on, talking a good portion of the time, though a comfortable silence did follow the pair as well until the day God got tired of this creation and wiped it all out. In the blink of an eye, everyone on Earth was spirited away to or the sun where they would cleanse themselves for a time before joining everyone else in a section of Heaven for them away from God but still within his presence, light, and Love.
And as for Lucifer and Judas, they blinked out of existence like everything else. Though whether or not either knew it happened before they were erased, and their reaction in either circumstance, not even God would know.
1) All throughout the Bible they make reference that if you believe that Jesus came down and sacrificed himself for us and believe in God, you will be saved NO MATTER WHAT!
2) Uriel as he is in Paradise Lost as the keeper of the Sun...And I would imagine this would make the Uriel in Supernatural happy, no? XD