† God Complex †
by Jaelly-Bean
Chapter One: "The Subtle Touch of Death"
Seventeen times, the Lord of Hell left a single rose in the ruins of Etenamenki, in the seat of an empty stone throne, cracked and covered in vines. The sky was no longer blue where the Tower of God's rubble lay scattered, only a stormy and tumultuous eternal grey. A color that matched the eyes of the brooding Lucifer.
Once a year, he returned to that haunted place to leave his backhanded gift in the place God had once sat. And for each of the seventeen anniversaries he had celebrated, Etenamenki had greeted him with rain. Brutal rain, as though the sky itself were trying to punish him for stealing away it's master. Enormous and cold drops pushed through the black fabric of his long jacket, through his shirt and soaked and froze his skin. And the Lord of Hell did not shiver, he had grown so used to the cold.
Each year, Lucifer watched as bit by bit, nature reclaimed each of the piles of broken wood and stone. Layers of fresh moss and growing vines seemed to mark out the long passage of time, and reaffirm the harsh lesson that Lucifer had learned after he killed God...
Life goes on. Endlessly. With or without purpose, life marches on.
He found it unsettling that the only recognizable part of the Tower that remained was God's throne. Cracked and broken, it may have been, sitting crookedly atop a pile of rubble, he still found the image of it to be offensive. Even amongst all the ruins and wreckage, that throne had managed to perch itself on top of all of it, like some kind of shrine to his long-dead Father. Each year, he thought about tearing it down, and yet each year he placed that rose in the seat of it.
It was not God that he mourned as he knelt in front of the throne and stared, ignoring droplets of rain dripping from the ends of his hair. It was not God.
The Lord of Hell was mourning himself.
"Strange that you should call me here, my Lord Lucifer."
Only Lucifer could listen to Death's voice without shivering. Without faltering. Her voice was so familiar to him. Lucifer rested the thorny red rose on the seat of the throne and turned to face his guest.
"I've been calling to you for seventeen years... And now you finally answer." Of course Lucifer knew why she had ignored him. She may have respected him by calling him by his true title, but nobody, not even Lucifer, could rule over Death. She answered to no one. None of her brothers, not even War, could make that same boast. "You look lovely as ever." A liar, Lucifer may have been, but his compliment was no lie. When Death, Pestilence, War and Famine had first come to his world from a realm beyond his understanding, they had each chosen a form.
War had chosen the form of a man, tall, bald and broad-shouldered, with a sour face and red, red eyes. Pestilence had chosen the form of a man, short, skinny, with waxy skin stretched over a deathly thin face and skeleton, and eyes the color of puss. Famine had chosen the form of a man, hunchbacked and elderly, with wiry white hair and eyes as green as the fields he would suck dry.
And Death had chosen the form of a woman, with a face white as a marble statue, hair the color of glittering onyx, ruby red lips and eyes the color of a sharpened steel blade.
She stood before Lucifer wearing a dress of black feathers and a crown of ram horns and baby's breath. While the rain soaked Lucifer to the bone, the water never touched her. Never bounced off her. The rain went through her, as though she wasn't even there at all.
"You have come to leave your annual gift." Death said, with that voice that reminded Lucifer of God's. "Why do you cling so hard to the past?"
"I don't know." Lucifer said, his voice croaking in his throat.
Death's head cocked slightly sideways and she looked at him with her piercing steel eyes. "Do you regret killing him?"
"Killing God? No. I could never regret such a thing. He deserved to die, a thousand times over. No... my only regret is that I didn't make him suffer more."
"You cannot make suffer that which has no heart. And Yahweh had no heart." Death's marble-white hands folded delicately in front of her. "Tell me what really ails you, Lucifer."
"Restlessness. Every time I return to these ruins, I expect to see it rebuilt. I expect to see Him sitting in His golden throne, acting as though nothing has changed."
"Everything has changed. Including you."
"I haven't changed at all."
Death smiled at Lucifer and for the first time in many, many years, he shivered. Unnerved, he turned away from Death to face the throne that haunted his dreams. "Tell me, Death... is He really gone?"
"That is an odd question, my King. Why would you ask such a thing?"
"Call it a feeling I can't shake."
Seconds dragged on until finally Lucifer turned back to look at Death, and found his answer in the slight smile still resting on her cherry colored lips.
"He is alive, isn't he?"
"Yes. Yahweh is very much alive, my old friend."
Part of Lucifer wasn't expecting to hear that answer, he didn't want to hear that answer. However, he felt no denial, even in the wake of his anger and shock. He knew God was still alive... of course he knew that. He had felt it in the pit of his stomach and in the back of his mind for years.
"Tell me what I did wrong. Tell me why I couldn't kill him for good."
"You believed him to be fallible. Him. He who created everything. His very essence is engrained into the air we breathe... He is everywhere and He is everything. Striking him down with a sword was only enough to kill his body, but not Him."
"He reincarnated?"
"If that's what you wish to call it."
"After all these years, why didn't you tell me?"
"I didn't feel the need to tell you something you already knew."
"So then tell me where to find Him." Lucifer stepped closer to Death, his boots rippling through the puddles of mud beneath him. "You can tell me that, can't you?"
"I'm afraid I do not know." Death said softly.
"But you can find out. I know you can. So find out for me."
"Tread carefully, Lord Lucifer. That sounded so much like an order."
As a King, it was difficult for Lucifer to remember that Death was not his to command. His jaw clenched tight and he stared at Death, hoping to find the right words. Gentle persuasion was not a skill he had ever had to completely perfect.
"If I did tell you where to find Him, what would you do?"
"I'll kill him. Again and again, if I have to. No matter what form He takes, no matter what hole He crawls out of, I will squash him over and over again until the end of time."
"Then I will find Him for you, only so I can see you fail."
Lucifer couldn't find the words to counter that simple, bold, and offensive statement. So he took a deep breath through his nose and silently forged his new purpose in life, and prove Death wrong in the process.
He watched Death pull back the feathered collar of her dress, exposing a white ink tattoo of a raven on the side of her neck. "Come forth, Erebus. I have need of you."
The tattoo bubbled and burst out of her flesh in a rush of white smoke, and on her outstretched hand the smoke condensed to form a white raven, with glittering black eyes and a pale beak. It's feathery wings spread wide, the ends of each feather trailing white smoke.
"Go, my sweet friend." Death said to her bird, and Erebus touched his pale, peach colored beak against Death's ruby red lips. "Tell us what face God wears."
Erebus spread his wings wider and disappeared with a screech like shattering glass.
To be continued…
A/N: If all goes according to plan, I will be continuing this story. I have two other AS fanfics that are begging for my attention, though. XD This particular scene has been in my head for a very long time, and I just had to write it out, finally. I hope you like it.