Sophia's Chronicles

A/N:

Sorry for the long hiatus! I have a lot of new chapters written so I can make more regular uploads (once a week or so). This chapter is part one of two of an 'episode' in Sophia's life and we will see the scenes shifting from archangel to vessel. Both of their plotlines are kinda important and determine what will happen from now on. Hope you guys enjoy and I can't wait to hear what you think of it!

Also, I know it's kinda late but happy 4th of July to my American readers :)

Chapter 36: The Guest in The Basement

(Zara's POV)

Sophia's House, Illinois – 4 July 2011, 5.33am

She stood in a daze, staring at the figures in front of her. A bright cloud of light which she understood to be Sophia swirled around those creepy statue things in the field and with a flash of bright light, they vanished, no trace of them remaining. Now it was just her, all too human, alone in this house in the middle of nowhere with a child on her hip and a prisoner in the basement. A rush of emotions overtook her. She remembered everything. Losing consciousness in the vault, waking up with no control over her own body, feeling like she was trapped in a flesh prison. Sophia had reassured her that this didn't have to be uncomfortable and for a while she accepted it, trying her best to relax in impossible circumstances. She had seen people being slaughtered through her own hands, unable to look away. She had given birth though she had never envisioned herself to have children at the young age of 24. She had almost died when Sophia was stabbed by Raphael. The past year and a half had been one hell of a ride.

Now she was here. In this moment, she was in control of her own body, grounded to the earth. She had never doubted for once that it was the wrong decision to say 'yes' to Sophia – nothing in her life could have measured up to the amazing things she'd seen as an archangel's vessel. It seemed like this was her destiny, what she had been born to do, and she embraced it completely and whole-heartedly. Yet, thinking about the ruthless nature of an archangel's wrath and killing made her uneasy. This was her human self thinking about the suffering that had been brought through her hands. After all, killing people was supposed to make us uncomfortable. Being a vessel and seeing stuff like this happen through Sophia's eyes was one thing – it kept Zara distant from the brutality of what was happening. But without Sophia there, without the feeling of another powerful being forcing her to partake in these actions, Zara shuddered just thinking about it.

Dawn was breaking. The sky brightened slowly, spreading dim rays of light across the field. The silence was soon eclipsed by birds chirping and singing. Zara snapped out of her daze, and looked at the kid in her arms. He simply stared back at her – and he had been for quite a while now – with curiosity. He had seen his mother in this woman but now he saw a human looking into his eyes. For Zara, she was still filled with awe at the thought that she had given birth to this beautiful child and though he was no human, he was still her son. "I don't think we've met properly, Luc," she said to him. "I'm Zara." She gave him a warm smile and kissed him on the forehead. A loud grumbling in her stomach caught her by surprise. "I guess I'd better eat first before we play, huh?"

Luc certainly wasn't like any baby she'd ever seen – he always looked at everything like it was a mystery waiting to unravel itself. He was also way quieter since he rarely cried. He was always running around, picking up things and putting them back down. It was quite a sight to see while she was having her breakfast, so long as he didn't break any of Sophia's fine vases or got a hold of the many weapons scattered throughout the house. Shit, she realised. I'm a mom now. It was her responsibility to keep the house safe and in good condition, as well as keep Luc from running into danger. How was she supposed to protect an archangel child when she was just human? Sophia left her with her archangel blade and she had her limited training from Lucifer in Hell, but she still worried that this wouldn't be enough. And she had to take care of herself too, which included food, water, entertainment and sleep. Then there was the memos Sophia had left – trim the flowers, collect the fruits and vegetables, bathe the dog. This was way too much responsibility. Worry raced through her mind as she cleaned the dishes after a simple meal of a grilled cheese sandwich.

"Play with me!" Luc begged as he tugged on her long dress.

"I don't know, Luc, I'm tired," she plopped down on the couch. Months of having no rest and constantly working was catching up to her and she probably needed to nap for a week straight. Seeing as that wasn't an option, she would just have to settle for short but frequent naps. Sighing, Zara pulled up her legs and kneaded her calves where she was beginning to feel cramps. Luc wouldn't give up. He simply came up to her and placed his hands gently on her calves, easing her pain. "Aw, thank you," she chuckled, touched by his gesture. She felt better already. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad, she thought.

(Sophia POV)

Aphelia's Arch – Unspecified time in space

We were flying across space, at a speed even unknown to me. Suddenly everything looked so unfamiliar and new. It had been too long since I'd been this far away from earth and even then, there were probably reaches of the universe that I had never been to. We landed on a planet with a dull golden shine, something that was atypical of any planets I'd studied before. Gold was too heavy an element to have been formed at the heart of any star in a mere 14 billion years. This had to be made by someone else. That's when the whole landscape of abandoned buildings came into view. The whole area was like a desert with few short buildings scattered about. It was almost like a small settlement of dilapidated houses. Whatever it was, the feeling of nostalgia and death permeated this whole place, like the scene of a village emptied in a war. Yet, there were no signs of anyone ever having been here. Being silent and unresponsive as ever, the two figures who I'd travelled with led me past the buildings to a giant metallic arch. This arch was continuous with a wall and this was no ordinary wall – it was wavy, reflecting shades of black, purple and blue. I recognised it. It was the veil. The one connecting the two universes and the one pierced by the scientists in that government research facility.

One of the figures, or 'Agents of Khaos' as they'd called themselves, maintained an iron grip on my elbow, which I tried to shake off in vain. "Unhand me, creature!" I yelled at it.

For the first time, it showed emotion by snarling at me. "Stand down, Zorg," a voice said. I turned as soon as I felt the cool release of my arm. It was Khaos. But He looked different this time. Again. This one was taller and leaner, almost like a stickman.

"Yeah, Zorg, cool it," I taunted, still bitter about the reception.

"Don't be mad at him. He was just doing what he was told," Khaos explained.

"I'm sorry if I seem a bit angry, but your minion killed my dog!" Yes, I was still upset about that.

"Yeah, Zorg tends to do that sometimes. It's a flaw in his wiring but I decided to keep it to make things interesting." Seeing as I wasn't amused, He continued. "It's nice to see you again, Sophia. I'm Khaos Theta. You can just call me Theta."

I narrowed my eyes, confused.

Understanding my predicament, He elaborated, "As you know, we, Khaos, are not simply one being but many, though we share a common perspective. In fact, we often deploy ourselves as individual beings with different personalities and tasks to make things easier."

"So there's a whole group of you and you're all the same being?" He nodded. Boy, this is complicated. "So who was the previous guy?"

"That was Delta, the one you met at the labs and the one who brought you to Agnes. He's the snarky one. And the one you met before Him was Alpha. That guy can be a real piece of work, if you ask me." He was referring to the one who threatened me and put on a frightening face. Great, just great.

"Okay, Theta, why am I here? And where is here?"

He made a gesture to Zorg and his friend and they both disappeared, leaving us both alone. "This is the edge of the universe. Past that arch is the void where all I reside. And beyond that is another arch that leads to the sister universe. This is where the gap between the two universes is the greatest, which is why it's where I am situated. I have brought you here because it's finally time you knew."

This was the moment I'd been waiting for. The mystery of why I was indebted to Khaos. Why Khaos was so interested in me, what His deal was. A strange mix of fear and curiosity gripped me. What was I going to find beyond this arch? Did I want to know? Of course I do. Why wouldn't I? I had always delved headfirst into whatever gave me more knowledge, embracing the risk of finding out something bad or frightening but this time, my fear seemed to be greater than usual. Perhaps it was Death's warnings playing in my head. He had told me that a time would come when I had to make a difficult choice that my freedom depended upon, as well as that I had to be careful around Khaos. As much as I didn't want to believe him, the doubt was ingrained in me. Maybe this was where I would have to make the choice. Was I ready? What could be so bad that Death would come to warn me about it?

"Take my hand," Theta ordered. I obliged. Soon we stepped through the arch and the universe dissolved behind me.

(Zara's POV)

Sophia's House, Illinois – 4 July 2011, 9.26am

"Alright, alright, that's enough," Zara huffed and huffed for breath. She keeled over, placing a hand on her flank. "You win, Luc." They had been playing tag for the past hour, with Luc being faster than a human toddler should be and Zara helplessly chasing after the kid. She hated running but Luc's adorable puppy-face was irresistible so she went along with it. After all, the kid seemed to enjoy it, squealing in excitement every time he'd caught her and took off running. For someone who was just a child, Luc seemed to show an understanding beyond his years, especially with regards to how others felt. Grabbing Zara's hand, he waddled back to the house, pulling her behind him. Surprised by the move, she simply went along with it, curious to see what he would do next.

When they entered the house, Zara picked up a towel from the back of chair and wiped the sweat off her face and neck. She looked back down too see little Luc holding in his tiny hands a cup of water. Her heart melted seeing him. She knelt down to his level. "You are just the sweetest kid, you know that?" she tapped a finger on his nose, which amused him, before taking the glass from his hands and gulping down the cool liquid.

By this time, the sun was up and high, bearing down its heat over the field. And Zara still had to do the trimming and stuff. She looked over at the field through the open doors, studying its vast expanse. This is going to take forever, she thought. She made a mental note to split the work over a few days. And she'd have to do it before sunset or else she would not be able to see what she was doing. Sighing in effort, she picked up a basket and gardening tools and headed out. Luc hovered around her, always doing one thing or another. Sometimes he rummaged through the soil, inspecting his own dirtied hands. Sometimes he picked up insects and worms and spiders of all kinds and played with them. Zara told herself that she was glad that bacteria couldn't affect him because if he were a human child she would never let him play in the field like this often. A million different things could go wrong (like snakes!) and Sophia just let him run about as much as he wanted. Thank God, you're an all-powerful being, Luc.

While she pruned the garden, her mind wandered to other things. For one, she'd been trying so hard not to think about the basement. There was a human being in there. An actual person, with cuts and wounds on his body, inflicted by her hands. Her hands paused in a rose bush, recalling the moments where a knife from her hands had drawn blood from his skin. Terror crawled under her skin thinking of what he went through and suddenly she shivered. "Ow!" Her finger had grazed a thorn and blood pooled from the cut, forming large droplets that fell onto the fertile soil. For a moment, she simply stared at the blood, forcing herself to feel the pain from the wound. Is this what he felt? she wondered. As much as she didn't want to think about the ethics of having someone tortured in the basement while she carried on around the house like nothing of the sort happened, something resembling guilt seemed to weigh down on her. She had clear orders and reasons for why Sam was there and on some level, she may have agreed with it. Still, she was human and that meant she had empathy. At some point, she was going to have to go see him to keep him alive. Something about this made her deeply uncomfortable. She thought about Luc. How could Sophia keep Sam in her own basement while leaving her son, who she'd confessed to wanting to keep innocent, in the same house? Sophia did keep a sort of barrier between the basement and ground floor to keep the noise in, but would that be enough to ward off the darkness that emanated from the basement?

She shook her head. Going down this train of thought would bring her nothing but despair. Casting these thoughts out of her mind, she put her finger to her mouth, sucking the blood and placing pressure on the cut to make it stop bleeding. And so an hour passed. And then another. Until the sky began to darken. She had been so engrossed in her work – it had become quite routine and repetitive, enjoyable even – that she hadn't noticed time passing by. While she had been seated, cutting off the flowers, little Luc picked some of them up from her basket and weaved them through her hair. Now her hair had an assortment of different flowers. She wasn't complaining. Going back into the house, she arranged the remaining flowers into vases and baskets and placed them around the house. She stopped for a moment to admire her work, wiping a hand across her sweaty forehead.

"I could use a shower right about now," she said to herself. Her eyes wandered to Luc, who was covered in dirt and grime. "And it looks like you could too. Bubble bath?"

Like any baby, Luc was fascinated by the bubbles. In that respect, he was as normal as a human child. It amazed Zara to learn more things about him like this. Though, she wondered if all this isolation from other people was a bad thing. Human children needed to make friends their own age by 3 or 4, or risk never developing the capacity to form deep connections to people – Zara had been interested in developmental psychology at some point and read up on some good ol' Piaget. But it wasn't like there were any archangel or angel children around for him to play with. Maybe those nephilim children, but they were still much older than Luc. Even then, Luc would grow up fast. He wasn't going to be a toddler for much longer. He would grow into an adolescent, a teenager, and then an adult, all within the next year or two. Then what would his mental age be? What age should his friends be? Everything about this child was new and uncharted territory and anxiety about the future gnawed at Zara as she dried her hair with a towel.

After the whole day of effort, she was beginning to feel sleepy and she could sense that Luc was too. He had to sleep too and this was convenient, since she could make sure he was safe in her arms while she was asleep. And perhaps this was the only time she could tend to the guest in the basement – while Luc slept. The final vestiges of the sun spread across the horizon in orange and blue hues while stars began to appear like spots on a dark blanket. "Alright, Luc, it's time for you to go to sleep," she instructed as she helped him put on his clothes in the bedroom on the fourth floor.

"Will you sing to me?" he requested.

"Sing?" she cracked a smile. She thought to the times Sophia put him to sleep by singing to him. Zara had no idea how, but Sophia sang to him with operatic vocals. Those were her vocal chords, yet Zara had no idea she was even capable of such a thing. She didn't know how to use them like that and she worried Luc wouldn't take to her natural singing voice as well as he did to Sophia's. "I can't sing like Sophia, but would you settle for some Celldweller?" She picked him up and sat him on her waist, walking out onto the cold balcony. "Why don't I teach you about the stars?"

"Okay," Luc answered.

Zara cleared her throat. "Look up at the stars, son," she began singing. "My father was saying. Now go wish upon one. And spend your life waiting…"

She pointed to the North. "The Northern Lights can hear me whispering…"

Her finger moved to the three stars in the sky that indicated Orion's Belt. "Hunter Orion, are you listening?"

Then she pointed out the bright spot in the sky where Saturn was. "Nine rings of Saturn circle endlessly, and I'm still waiting…"

Next was the seven stars of the Pleiades. "I cast my hope upon The Pleiades, The Seven Sisters who would come for me. They'd fall to Earth to grant a child's dream…" she tickled Luc, who seemed enamoured by her song. "But I'm still waiting."

Then she repeated some verses from the song, pointing out the stars again. When she looked back to the child, he was fast asleep on her shoulder. Glad to see him sleeping so peacefully, she walked back into the room. "Alone in this darkness, there a dream still worth saving. I cling to a promise… and I am still waiting…" She laid him down on the bed and kissed him gently on the forehead. As she closed the door to the bedroom behind her and leaned against a wall, she realised it was time. Time to see the guest in the basement.

(Sophia's POV)

The Void – Unspecified Time

Images zoomed past me. Noises were jumbled. Sensations attacked me from all sides, bringing comfort, pain, heat, cold, all at once. It didn't feel comfortable, but it didn't feel uncomfortable either. It was chaotic. This was the void, then, huh? Then suddenly, blackness surrounded us and our feet touched solid ground. Theta led me by the hand to this large room with screens upon screens all around us, casting a dim glow onto the room. So many different images showed on each screen, some I couldn't even comprehend.

"What is this?" I asked.

"This, Sophia," his hand gestured to all of the screens. "Is the omniverse."

"The what?" Possibilities raced through my mind, but I waited for Theta to clarify.

"You've heard of multiverses, yes? Humans would envision it as an infinite number of universes that are all slightly different from each other. Almost accurate. As you know, every universe has a sister universe. You've been in both of them. And there are infinite versions of these paired universes, which we can observe from here. This room, right here, is the one constant among all of them. This is the limit of all existence and this is called the omniverse," He explained. "The omniverse is the space in which everything that ever existed is. It's also my office."

"Wow," was all I could say. This was the metaphysics of creation and I had been permitted to see it. "Why me?" I blurted out. "Why have you chosen to show me this?"

"You know why," He responded. "Information is the code of the universes. You are the only one, other than me, who can understand it." He led me to a lone fixture in the centre of the room, which was waist-high and had a crystal built into its top. Putting my hands on the crystal, He stood behind me and placed His hands above my own. Suddenly I could see things. Things He wanted to show me. There was a universe that He showed me, where I saw Castiel standing before the gates of Purgatory, releasing all the souls back into them except for some that held onto him. "You see that one? That's a universe where you don't cross the veil. You never stopped that angel from opening Purgatory and the Leviathans roamed free in the world. Here's one where you did cross the veil, but you fell in love with Michael instead. Quite boring, that one. Oh and here's one where the two universes fought a war against each other."

"All of this is real…" I muttered under my breath. "All these possibilities…"

"Yes it is. And you can see it all from here."

A question that should've been obvious popped into my mind. "What about your siblings? God and Amara? Are there infinite versions of them too?"

"Yes, you would be right in thinking so. But to me they are one of each since they remain essentially constant in personality throughout all these universes."

"So you're stuck with them, huh?"

Theta simply shrugged. "You don't get to choose family, right?" He paused, ruminating on His siblings. "But you can choose your friends."

I sensed that this meant He wanted something from me. Wasn't that the point of friendship to those with power? "What is it that you want from me, Khaos?"

"Honestly? I want to share all of this with you. All of this power, this knowledge, it can be yours too. Come help me do what I do." Sounded too good to be true. Khaos did say He was a lonely being, but Death, who was basically His son, told me to be careful.

"Say I accept your offer. What would you expect from me in return?" I pressed.

Theta smirked. "Now we're talking. But there's still more I need to show you, if you are to fully understand what I'm offering."

(Zara's POV)

Sophia's House, Illinois – 4 July 2011, 8.44pm

Her hand paused in mid-air in front of the knob. She then retracted it, hesitant. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up. It had been almost a whole day since Sophia left. Zara didn't know what to expect. She had just left Sam down there with nothing but his injuries and a saline solution. He was probably hungry, his mouth was probably dry and his body probably ached all over. Without anyone to talk to, he was probably going insane too. Or maybe he already was, with those hallucinations that Sophia talked about. Either way, this was a man pushed to the limits of human suffering, and she was going to see him. With the syringe kit and nutrient medium in one hand, she took a deep breath and just went for it.

The door creaked slightly as she pulled it open. The stairwell leading to the basement was dark. Barely any noise came from inside and this began to spook her out a little. She took one step in and already she was shuddering from entering the darkness. Her finger tapped on the light switch and some light filtered into the stairwell from the basement. Okay, that's better. She released a deep breath and closed the door behind her before slowly moving down. As the table came into view, her heart pounded wildly, though the smallest bit of relief found its way into her mind. He was unconscious, so he wouldn't notice her coming and going. She didn't know what she would do if he started talking. Sophia had failed to provide instruction regarding that.

Making as little noise as was humanly possible, she made her way over to the table, setting her things down. She opened the syringe kit and drew up some of the pink medium. Her fingers tapped against the syringe which was held upright to bring the air bubbles to the nozzle, and she pressed lightly on the plunger to make sure that no air bubbles remained. Then her gaze wandered to his torso. These wounds were a bizarre sight and once again, memories of inflicting them on him came to her all at once. Her breathing grew heavier and she just couldn't help but shudder at the thought of the scalpel that lay right next to her digging into his skin. She couldn't control her thoughts anymore. She set the syringe down on the table and buried her face in her hands, shaking her head and trying to get it together. Let's just get this over with and get out of here, she finally told herself after a good five minutes.

She picked up the syringe again and looked at his arm. "Ah shit," she said to herself. "I don't know how to do this." Zara reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone, an action instinctive to a twenty-first century person like her. She googled 'How to inject something' and went through the results. "Find a vein… see blood in needle… alright. Let's hope I don't kill you." She put her phone away and turned back to Sam. Now his eyes were wide open, staring right at hers.

"Zara? Is that you?" His voice was weak, a little more than a whisper.

She gasped. She didn't know what to say.

"It's you, isn't it?" he asked again.

"I… I'm not supposed to talk to you," she blurted out. Berating herself on the inside for saying anything at all, she placed her hand on his arm and looked for a vein.

"Where's Sophia?" he questioned, though he probably knew the answer by now. Not here. The needle pricked his arm. "Hey, hey, what are you doing?"

Zara sighed. "Keeping you alive. Now would you hold still?" He did as she asked and with some difficulty, she managed to finish the job.

She turned her back to him and disposed of the needle and syringe in a separate bin. "Zara, you need to get me out of here," Sam pleaded.

Her nerves began acting up again. "I can't," she spoke softly, her back still turned to him.

"Why not?"

She spun to face him. "I just… can't, okay?"

Sam wanted to believe that she was a bad person for saying 'yes' to Sophia, but the look on her face at that moment made him think again. She had the look of a person who was being forced to do something horrible against their will. He'd seen it before, when times became desperate, like during the apocalypse. Moreover, it was his and Dean's fault that she got caught by Lucifer anyway. They were supposed to look after her. She was just another one of the people they failed to save. "You're a good person, Zara. I can tell. You don't have to do whatever she says. Whatever she holds over you, my brother and I can help you face it. Just please… let me go."

She avoided his gaze. Her mind wandered back to the time she'd first met Lucifer. She had gone with him and done whatever he told her to, simply because she could and she thought of it like a game. Life had always been a game to her. It was how she kept things interesting. As someone from a sheltered home with overprotective parents, she had become quite the thrill-seeker during periods of time when she'd thought she would die of boredom. Sometimes, she didn't know when to stop and this put her in some really difficult situations (she was almost certifiable at times). Even when she ran away from Lucifer and met the Winchesters, she was acting based on impulse, constantly running from one thing to another. It was what she did. She was good at running away. This seemed totally at odds with the image that Sam had of her and it brought tears to her eyes. "You're wrong, Sam," she declared in a low voice. "I'm not a good person."

She hurried to the stairs, tears streaming down her cheeks. "Wait, Zara, listen to me. Don't-" The lights switched off and the door shut behind her. Sam was left in darkness again.

Zara leaned with her back against the door as she slowly sunk to the ground. It was a harsh reality, coming face-to-face with the consequence of her decision to accept an archangel into her body. Still, she told herself that she did what was right for her, that she wanted this adventure, that she made this choice, though this became more of a way to convince herself than to reassure herself. She couldn't sleep that night. She tried, but the gory images of the festering wounds on Sam's body wouldn't let her. Eventually, however, exhaustion won, and she gave into sleep.

(Sophia POV)

The Void – Unspecified Time

"There's someone I want you to meet," Theta announced. He extended His arm, beckoning for this mystery person to come in. I waited patiently, as this person came before me. They were covered in a kind of armour I'd never seen before. They never said anything, and then as silent as they came, their hands moved up to their helmet and removed it. My words got stuck in my throat as I observed her, shaking her head to free her hair before she looked straight at me with her emerald green eyes. She was me. "Sophia, meet Sophia. Be nice, you two."

"Howdy," she greeted. I said nothing. I simply gaped, speechless. What was going on? "Well I've seen that look on my face several times."

I snapped out of it. This was me from another universe, right? But still me, nonetheless. I guess I could trust her. "Uh. Hi."

"Great, you've gotten acquainted!" Theta exclaimed. He turned to her and tilted his head towards me. "Show her."

She nodded and glanced in my direction. "Follow me." She took off in some unknowable direction and I obliged. We walked down a dark corridor. I hadn't even noticed that this place had extended regions. Then we entered an even longer corridor, which had glass windows. As we walked past them, I saw so many strange things. All of them had this feature in common – they both showed the veil, and on either side of it was matter and another was antimatter. Each window showed something different and from this I guessed that each window showed a different pair of universes. Finally, we stopped in front of one particular window. "This is where I come from." As I observed, I found that the veil connecting these universes had holes in them. How could that be? Wouldn't that be devastating?

"You may notice the gaps in the veil," she began with a tone too cordial for my comfort. "But that isn't the result of any fault whatsoever. It's quite the opposite. Those gaps are like highways between the two universes. You see, I've helped established a peace treaty between the two of them and that includes trade and travel. It was the only way to prevent war."

My palm rested on the glass as I looked on with awe. What she said sounded amazing. It was something totally unthinkable from my perspective. How did the circumstances for a war even arise? Did we even have the same childhood of running away from one universe to another? "How did you do it?" I asked earnestly.

"I had a little help. From Khaos." I studied her expression. Her eyes were soft, genuine, and her features slightly worn from what I assumed to be stresses of the job. She was probably far older than I. "There was a point where everything was absolutely horrible. Things had become so bad that I thought everything I cared about would be gone, just leaving me to mourn their loss for the rest of time. That was when I decided to listen to Khaos and do as He asked. Together, we fixed the two universes and put everything as it should be. He helped me through many tough times. Khaos is like the father I never had." That used to be God, for me. Still could be. I don't know. "He was there when God-" she looked away, pausing for a moment. "When God wasn't. And Amara wasn't even in the picture. I trust Him, and so should you."

I was inclined to believe her, since it was my own mouth speaking these words to me. But I had to be sceptical. I wouldn't be me if I wasn't. "Sophia, I don't know what you've been through. It's not my place to pass judgment about it. But what can you tell me about Khaos' true intentions?"

"Hm," she looked to her feet, inspecting her boots as she thought about what she would say. A small smile lit up her face as she did this. "There's no easy answer to that. I have to admit, some of his instructions were a bit absurd. I did things that people around me didn't approve of. I went to places I shouldn't have been to. But in every one of those instances, I found something meaningful that helped me do what I wanted. Doing what He wanted ultimately helped me to get what I wanted. What that says about Him, I don't know. All I know is that my friendship with Him has been nothing but beneficial to me."

I nodded, though not in agreement or understanding. It all sounded too vague and fancy but I wasn't sure if I was being too harsh on my alternate self. She seemed to read my intentions clearly and spoke again, "Let me tell you this. I've met other versions of us. They all come in here like you, cynical and unwilling to believe. But trust me when I say that the moment they do, their lives change for the better. I can get them to come and vouch for what I have to say if that is what you want, but I was chosen specifically to talk to you because we are the most alike. The others, they aren't comprised of both universes like us. They were created by either God or Amara, but never imbued with essence from both universes like us. We are two of a kind. And if our lives were anything alike, I think you would understand the feeling of isolation I felt when I was younger. The feeling of never belonging, of always being an outsider because of how you were made." That I did understand. There were remnants of this feeling everywhere I looked. In Raphael, in the Mark of Cain, in the fragments of light. "With Khaos, you are always accepted. What others see as your flaws, what others fear in you, are strengths as far as He is concerned. When you work with Him, you will see that you become the best version of yourself."

I looked into her eyes and I saw them glistening. She sought in me a semblance of understanding, of an intimate knowledge of her troubles. And I had that. "I understand," I told her as I took her hand. It was a nice moment, finding out that I had a friend in myself. "I'm ready to hear what Khaos wants."

(Zara POV)

Sophia's House, Illinois – 5 July 2011, 7.36am

"Wake up, Zara! Play with me!" Luc began jumping on the bed.

"Unghhhh…" she groaned as her eyelids laboured to open. For a moment, she was disoriented, thinking that she had somehow woken up in paradise where she had a soft bed, a scenic view from the bedroom and a beautiful kid who always put a smile on her face. It was only when she got up and felt the fatigue pulling at her muscles that she remembered her mission here: Take care of things until Sophia came back. Zara actually began craving for Sophia's return. How easy it was, simply leaving the control of your body and life in someone else's hands – someone who actually did things that were important and meaningful. No tough decisions there, like 'should I set the prisoner in my basement free', or 'am I doing the right thing'. As a vessel, whatever Sophia said goes, whatever Sophia did was right. That was the only thing she knew for sure. Being human was far too difficult.

Giving into Luc's contagious energy, she dragged herself out of bed and did what she was supposed to do. Take care of herself, keep things neat around the house, spend time with Luc, trim the garden. Quite routine stuff. As she was picking the fruits and vegetables, Luc came up to her with something in his palms. "Look at what I made!" He had cupped his palms together and in them, he held some soil from which a small sapling had sprung.

"Oh wow," she regarded him with amazement. "You… made this?" He nodded. "This is beautiful. Here, let's plant it." She dug a small hole in the ground where there was space away from the parts organised by Sophia. Gently receiving the sapling with the soil in her own palms, she placed it into the hole to plant it. She didn't know much about gardening, but if this archangel child made it, it would survive her limited expertise.

When she turned back to Luc, he simply knelt to the ground, picked up some more dirt and sprung another sapling from it. "Another one! It's for you!"

"Oh well, thank you," she received the sapling again and put it next to the first one. Again, Luc made another sapling. "How many are you gonna make, son?" she asked with a chuckle in her voice.

"Many," the child responded.

"Okay, that's enough," Zara finally said, after Luc made five more. "Momma's gonna be very proud of you when she gets back." Which I hope is soon.

The day passed by lazily. Zara actually liked the slow pace of life in this place. With all this time, she read some books, did some drawings and even tried cooking with the fruits and vegetables she'd picked. She liked the feeling of not caring about money, or a job, or what to do next. I could die here, she thought. That day, when she went to visit the guest in the basement, she said absolutely nothing. He awoke again, and tried talking to her, but she pretended he didn't exist. She made herself cold and it made the job easier.

A day passed. Then another. Her daily routine became more and more comforting, an escape from the realities of the world and of the basement. It was like she had become two people. One was the loving mother and caretaker of the house, who stopped to see the rainbows and sunsets and played hide-and-seek with Luc. The other was the dedicated vessel who forced herself to embrace the darkness in the basement as a necessary rite of passage in her journey to find liberation in an archangel who had chosen her. She soon found that being silent and not paying any heed to the human was the only way she could dissociate herself from the savagery of it. But every time she closed the door of the basement, she cried on the floor for what he was going through. It was truly a cruel fate to be strapped to a table, unable to move, with no human interaction and plenty of pain throughout one's body. She felt inhuman going down there and doing what she had to do.

One night, as she lay Luc down to sleep, he asked her to read him a bedtime story. She snuggled up with him, holding her favourite book in hand – Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Sophia had warned Zara that Luc was far more intelligent than a human child and so typical children's books would not suffice. Zara didn't complain, so long as she got to read some Nietzsche, being the nihilist as she was. "Mankind is a tightrope between the animal and the übermensch – a rope over an abyss," she read, and then found that Luc yawned and his eyes fluttered sleepily. She carefully laid him down and kissed him goodnight as she did every night, and went downstairs for her night-time business.

This time, Sam remained silent as she searched for his vein and injected the medium into him and changed his saline. "You not gonna say anything?" she found herself asking, suddenly confident in her own coldness to speak to him.

"Why bother?" he looked away, staring off at something on the ceiling. Without Sophia there to torture him and make him feel real pain in his body, he was regressing to his hallucinations. Now even Zara appeared to him as Lucifer, who he thought came to see him every day with the promise of freedom only to leave him trapped in the darkness of the cage. This became worse when Zara stopped talking to him, so her voice would be no indication that what he was seeing wasn't Lucifer. "You're not real, anyway."

"What?" This time Zara stared at Sam and really looked at him. The resigned expression on his face, his eyelids which had given up from not having anything worthy of hope to look at, his mouth which was tired of talking when nothing was inspired by his words. But all of that wasn't just on her, she realised. "Your hallucinations. You're seeing him now, aren't you?"

"Look at her, Sam," 'Lucifer' said, standing behind Zara now. "You remember the fun we had? Now imagine your hands around her neck... do you think she has a choking kink?" His hands were positioned around her neck just the way he'd described, but she simply stared at Sam with a curious gaze as though he wasn't there – because he wasn't. Sam tried his best not to think about it, despite wanting to hurt her on some level for this torture.

Every day of looking at Sam like this was wearing her down. On that specific day, a thought occurred to her. Why Sam? Why not someone else more willing? Just because he was the true vessel and he wouldn't explode immediately upon containing Lucifer, it didn't mean Lucifer couldn't settle for a more temporary vessel. He had before with that other guy, the one she'd met him in. And Sophia was capable of repairing his vessel every time it deteriorated, mostly anyway. It was not an ideal arrangement, for sure, but there was no needless suffering in that one. Unable to resist, Zara found herself pursuing this line of thought more and more, even thinking to what she could do about it. She couldn't just let him go, could she? What if he keeled over and died from his injuries the moment he stepped outside the house? She sighed and pulled a hand down her face, ready to give up, when she spotted the pile of his clothes on the floor.

Digging through his pockets, she pulled out a wallet and checked it for money. Surely enough, there was more than what she thought she needed. Am I really going to do this? Sophia's gonna kill me… Her thoughts drifted to Luc, who was sleeping peacefully upstairs. If that kid was smart enough to enjoy reading Nietzsche, he would understand what was going on here and Zara didn't want to be this kind of person in front of him. She wanted to be a good mother and a good role model for him, especially since his own purity and compassion was something so precious that she could not bear the thought of it being tainted by the evils of the world. For the sake of Luc, the risk of getting punished by Sophia was worth it.

She slowly got up and glanced at Sam again. This time, she didn't look at him with guilt weighing down on her. This time, it was determination. She was going to get him out of here.

(Sophia POV)

The Void – Unspecified Time

We stopped in front of a door that led back into the omniverse. "Before we go back in," she began. "I just want to remind you that whatever Khaos wants from you, however difficult it is for you, the result of your sacrifice will be ultimately good for you."

"Alright," I said passively. Frankly, I was getting tired of her constantly singing praises about Khaos. I just wanted to hear what His deal was. I remembered something that Khaos Delta had told me before that made me doubt this whole 'ultimate good' idea. "Have there been others who have rejected what Khaos offered?"

Her hand paused mid-air in front of the door handle and she turned back to me, a sullen expression on her face. "There were some who rejected Him not just once or twice, but till the very end. And when I say the end, I mean the end of everything. Their universes could have survived if they'd listened, but they still chose not to do what He says. You know how hard-headed we can be." This made it sound like Khaos had been the only saving grace for some universes and accepting Him was the only way out of whatever quagmire they were facing. Did this mean that ultimately I had no choice but to do what Khaos wanted? That made me uneasy. Yet this impossible choice was being disguised as some sort of huge decision on my part, with fanfare to make me go along with it willingly. "Shall we?"

I nodded, and we went back in. It wasn't like I was completely opposed to accepting whatever arrangement Khaos wanted. From what my alternate self had shown me, this deal was a lot bigger than me and bigger than anything I'd ever known. It seemed like an opportunity that only I could have – something only I could do. This was a place where every version of myself was accepted and found a way to be successful. I had felt so lost on Earth, ever since I'd been released. I had been running from one thing to another – from the apocalypse to my former apprentices, from Heaven to Hell – never staying in one place and doing many things at once in order to find direction. Here, I had the chance to do partake in what Khaos did – balance the forces of creation. This was something really important that literally no one else could do but Him and I. It was certainly more important than whatever work I'd done for God in Heaven and on Earth. I would be remiss to reject this opportunity. Staying optimistic, I came face-to-face with Theta again.

"Hope you enjoyed the tour," He greeted us once again.

"She's ready," Sophia informed Him.

"Very well, then," He turned to face me. "Here's the part I don't enjoy very much. First things first, let's talk about your debt. It's the first step to joining us. Just like your other self here, you'd been taken from your home universe into its sister universe. Or brother universe, I should say. And taking things from one universe to another… it creates an imbalance. This is why, everything you've done so far constitutes an aberration. I don't like that word – aberration – but that's what it is. Thing is, it won't be an aberration anymore if you restored the balance."

I nodded slowly. "So… I need to give something back to Amara's universe. Is that what you're saying?"

"Exactly."

I narrowed my eyes, waiting for a response. "Okay, what?"

Theta fidgeted, His stick fingers touching the back of His neck. "I hate being the one to bring bad news, and my counterparts have always left the job of telling people bad things to me, which I totally despise them for, by the way…" He paused. "Your son. We want your son."

A/N:

Oh shit, what will Sophia do? We'll find out in the chapters to come!

Also, the song that Zara sings to Luc is The Seven Sisters by Celldweller, which is a song I've always thought to be something you'd sing to a child. And if I was being honest with you, this minute detail will be very important to the story later.