(The world is only silence.)

(And then it is deafening screams.)

The universe is collapsing all around you, and all you can do is scream and reach and gasp and beg but there is nothing left to save you. You know this because you watched Death as he moved all around you, because you watched people fall by the thousands even after those you cared about were gone. And you think you did your best to protect them, but did you really? This—all of this—could have been stopped. It could have never happened if only you weren't so weak.

You're not hard-headed give-'em-hell attitude like one brother, and you're not cautious and logical approach like the other. You're somewhere in between, a useless conglomeration of the two most important people in your life, but now that they're gone (it's your fault) that doesn't really matter anymore, now does it?

There's blood all around you and on your hands and feet and coat and face

(It's their blood.)

(Something deep inside you snaps.)

and you know, somehow, that these people are gone for good. There are no more miracles lined up to save those two boys—they are gone. God has abandoned you all, and you stand alone in the midst of total destruction.

(But, suddenly, you find that you don't really care anymore.)

Because, as you start to understand, you realize that these thousands of people lying dead at your feet are only human. And humans—they're what your brethren always made them out to be.

(Of course, they're not around to say so anymore, but you remember.)

(You always remember.)

They're weak and breakable and utterly useless, because if they were any better they could have saved them. They could have saved those two—no, three, for their father was like a father to you as well—from this terrible fate; they could have prevented this senseless destruction and saved their world instead of calling upon God to do their work for them.

Of course, God is long gone, and you know this because no God would ever allow anyone to hurt this much. (Something pulls at your mind, something like comforting insanity. You think vaguely that this is the breaking point, but that does not matter. You've already stepped over the brink, after all.)

So in the end, there is only you. There is you and there are the bodies that aren't really bodies anymore—after all, whatever attacked this place left little in the sense of remains.

(You can't remember what this place was even called, what these people called their home. Perhaps it is San Francisco. Perhaps it is Houston. Perhaps it is Boston or New York or Phoenix. Perhaps it is even Detroit, which was always the beginning of the end.)

(You're glad you can't blame Lucifer for all of this, though.)

(After all, he's your brother, and the only things humans have to offer in that sense are those you've already lost.)

It doesn't matter what this place was once called, because it is no more and you do not care. Your eyes take in the sight of the carnage, and your ears hear the ringing silence in the wake of it all, and your nose smells burning burning burning flesh, because at some point a fire was started and no one was there to put it out.

The whole place is gone, and every one of its lowly inhabitants is dead.

(You think you might have felt regret for this, at some point. Now, you feel nothing, and it is so much better than the something that is desperately trying to surface from the edges of your mind.)

You don't care whether these humans live or die, because they couldn't protect them when it really counted. The three humans—who you never really saw as humans anyway, because humans can only take so much heartbreak and they've been through so much more—who you have cared about, have worried over and protected and given everything to keep safe—are gone. All because you weren't there to save them, and because the others were too weak to protect them from the darkness reaching for their souls.

(Forget forget forget that this is really all your fault. It's not your fault because you were busy; you had business to attend to in Heaven, and surely leaving them alone for less than two days would not amount to anything of this scale.)

(Of course, you were wrong to think so. But when are you ever right?)

You don't know where their bodies are, now, but you expect they are somewhere among the wreckage of this once-proud city. You don't know what kind of monster would be able to do such a thing; after all, what has such power but God himself? Surely, He would not bring such wrath down upon His creation, because He so loved the world (that you have learned to hate) that He would do anything to keep it safe.

(Of course, that was millenia ago.)

(Nobody has seen God in centuries. He has left His world to ruins.)

You do not know, cannot think, but thinking is for rational beings, anyway. You are not rational right now.

(They are dead. They are dead. THEY ARE DEAD.)

You stare numbly around at the carnage and think that at some point you would have wanted to stop it. At some point, you think, you might have truly cared about these creatures that you were ordered to love. At some point, you might have mourned this massacre.

But you cared—you only cared because of what they taught you. They taught you emotion; they taught you love and self-sacrifice and free will. But they aren't there to teach you anymore, and their lessons fall away like so many grains of sand.

You simply can't care anymore, because those whom you cared about are gone.

(You don't even remember how they died, what kind of monster stole their lives away.)

(All you remember is the blood.)

You're moving, now, away from the blood and the death and the nothing. (This is where they will be buried.)

You think that you could find them with a thought, bring them somewhere for a proper burial, because some distant corner of your mind says that that's what they deserve... But you find that you don't care what happens to their mortal bodies. They will rot here; they will rot in this landscape of despair simply because sentiment is beyond you now.

(A part of you withers and dies, but so much of you has already disintegrated today that you barely notice.)

You are moving, wandering aimlessly as you step over the mangled bodies of children and infants and mothers and fathers. They are beneath your notice, and you do not care that desecrating their bodies is adding pain to this already senseless bloodbath. You do not care. You will never care again.

The world is your playground, now, and there is no one left to stop you. Your brothers and sisters are dead; your Father is gone; the demons cower in fear, and what else can possibly stand up to your might?

You are an angel of the Lord.

The humans are weak beings that could not replace you when you weren't there to protect them. So why do they deserve to live when those you care about could not?

(God is dead.)

(You are the new creation.)

The world is at your feet. You will purge; you will destroy and recreate and perfect until there is nothing left except those who deserve to live. (And if nothing on this miserable planet is important enough to keep alive, well, that's not your fault, now is it?)

You think that they would have tried to stop you. You think that they would have raged and screamed and pleaded with you to stop, because they did nothing but defend life and they would want you to do the same.

And you also think that, maybe, they would have succeeded.

But they aren't here anymore, now are they? So they can't ask you to do anything, they can't stop anything, because they are gone and it is your fault and there is nothing you can do to get them back.

(So to avenge them, you will kill every pathetic being who couldn't protect them.)

(Nothing is safe, and you don't care anymore that this is wrong.)

You begin your journey, and you do not look back.

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