19th June, 1113
Damon knelt down with his bow, behind the fallen log. The deer perked up, looking for any threats with its buck eyes. Damon smirked. He could have that doe smoked to eat just by thinking about it - but that was boring.
Hunting was fun.
Damon waited until the doe relaxed before standing up, pulling an arrow out from behind his back. He aimed his bow for the arrow to pierce the animal's head, when a woman's startling screams stopped him.
The doe took off running.
Damon turned to the left, his emerald green eyes widening. He put his arrow back and started running towards the screams. The louder they got, the more nervous he grew. Why would a woman be in the forest?
When he reached her, he nearly fell over. She was on the ground, leaning up against a tree. Her legs were spread open, and there was a baby covered in blood.
Damon stared in shock, until the woman begged, "Help..."
He dropped his bow and ran to her, kneeling down and wrapping an arm around her head. Damon was only thirteen years old. He had never really tested his strength...could he carry her?
To his surprise, she clutched his chest. "Take him..." she requested. "Make sure he lives..."
"What?" Damon panicked.
"Nephros...his name...Restless Sleep..." when she closed her eyes, Damon knew she was dead. He pulled away, and looked at the wailing baby. Damon took off his bear skin shirt that the Natives had given him, and wrapped it around the baby as he lifted him up. "Okay, Nephros," he soothed. "Let's wash you up."
The nearby stream was cold, so Nephros continued to wail as Damon rinsed the blood off him. "Hush!" Damon hissed. He wrapped Nephros back up and zapped them to the village. It wasn't Damon's village, but he stayed there occasionally, and all the young girls were smitten with him.
If anything, Damon was smitten with a woman named Rebekah. She took care of him when he was there. It reminded him of what a mother is. He has never met his own mother.
"Her name was Lilith or something, my father told me." Damon told Rebekah one time.
Damon emerged into her tent now, where she looked up from her deer skin bed with wide eyes. "Damon-?"
"His mother died in the forest where I was hunting. His name is Nephros. I have to take care of him."
"Shhh...let me see." Rebekah soothed. The blonde carefully took Nephros. "I will find him something to wear. You left your cotton top here from last time."
Panting, Damon reached for his cotton knit shirt and pulled it on. "Is he okay?" he asked worriedly.
"Yes, just cold and hungry," Rebekah decided. "Now outside you go so I can feed him." she wooed.
Damon dipped out of the tent, where immediately a group of kids approached.
"Damon!"
"Will you take us fishing?"
"I want to go hunting!"
"HEY!" Damon interrupted. "One at a time! It's too dark to go hunting. Let's go night fishing."
Damon remembered the first fishing poles. They were large sticks with a string tied at the tip, dangling a hook on the other end. He remembered helping the village kids dig up worms for bait, and then sticking the hooks in the water. And waited.
They spent half the night gathering fish to feed the village for the days to come. Damon was scolded at by the parents for keeping their children out so late...like usual.
Damon returned to Rebekah's tent, where he saw Nephros dressed in clothes, fast asleep. "What do I do with him? Father won't allow me to raise him." Damon said.
"I will take care of him." Rebekah promised. "Relax, Damon. Now, are you staying for the night?"
He shook his head. "I have been gone too long. I must return to Father."
...
...
...
Rebekah did take care of Nephros until she died. After taking him in the day he was born, she'd known he was different. He was like Damon, but Damon promised Nephros wasn't exactly like him.
"He is a Nephilim," Lucifer had said in complete shock. "I never imagined they would ever exist. What is his name? What does it mean?"
"It's Nephros," Damon told him. "His mother said 'Restless Sleep'."
"Then he is Nephros, Nephilim of Restless Sleep." Lucifer named.
And so it was. Nephros grew up almost normal, minus having the abilities he possessed, which caused his mother a lot of trouble at times. "You are a handful." She would tell him, patting his head.
The winter season of when he was five years old, Rebekah was horribly ill. Damon had to come everyday to tend to her and Nephros. "Is she going to be okay?" Nephros asked worriedly one night, as Damon was rinsing his blonde hair in the river, crunching in dried herbs Rebekah had Damon collect. Apparently it was supposed to clean your hair.
"Hold still," Damon scowled. "She will be fine. Humans get sick in the cold season."
"You said I'm half-human. I've never been sick."
"I don't have the answers to everything, Nephros," Damon sighed. "Now shut it, and let me finish you. This water freezes."
"Yes Damon."
When Nephros was aged seven years, Damon aged twenty, Damon took Nephros to an island that would no longer exist in the future. "They are dragons?" Nephros said. "They look like me and you."
"Just because we look human, doesn't mean we are." Damon reminded him, running a hand through his long, midnight hair.
"I'm half-"
"Nephros."
"Sorry Damon."
There were humans, dragons, and those who served the dragons…the dragon priests. Not even Damon knows how they came into existence, but Damon knew that the very first dragon priest lived here, and he was not to be messed with.
Nephros came across a girl about his age, with blonde hair that was a little longer than his; only hers was parted to both sides of her face. She had blue eyes as big as Nephros' yellow-green orbs. She was the most beautiful girl he'd ever seen.
"What's your name?" he asked her politely.
"Maya," she introduced. "Who are you?"
"Nephros," he announced.
"Nephros, want to see where I live? The island is big." Maya offered. Quickly, the pair took off running. Damon had let them play for around an hour or so, until he noticed something fishy.
Everywhere Maya and Nephros were, a man would be watching them from afar. Well, not both of them. Just Maya. He would watch her every move, and always looked angry when she took Nephros' hand or touched him in some way.
Damon could just feel the power growing off him. Then Damon realized who he was. The first dragon priest.
"Nephros," Damon alerted. "Say goodbye to Maya. We're leaving."
"Yes Damon," Nephros frowned. He gave Maya a hug, hoping he would see her again.
…
…
…
Safely back in Nephros' village, he asked, "Why did we leave?"
"The firstborn dragon priest was watching you too much. I didn't like it."
Three years later, a ten year old Nephros was taken to meet Laena. She was half his age, and lived in a place that would much later be known as Nicaragua. She had dark brown hair, tan skin, and bright, amber eyes.
"This means more angels are falling from Grace," Lucifer lurked around his son. He seemed pleased to hear this.
By the time Nephros was a young adult, and Laena a teenager, they had met more and more Nephilim. Alingon didn't always have white hair. When Damon met him, his hair was brown; but Sarapai has always had her gray hair.
Damon noticed Lucifer looking rather suspicious. "What is it?" he questioned.
"Something big is coming," he murmured. "For all of your friends."
When Laena was aged nineteen, she met someone she shouldn't have, and fell pregnant. She knew this child would be corrupt, even while in the womb. She'd attempted to kill him one time, but Nephros had stopped her.
"What are you doing?!" he screamed at the sight of the knife nearly plunged into her stomach.
"I can't…" Laena said weakly. "This child will be too powerful…too corrupt…"
"You do not know that for sure," Nephros argued. "Raise him well and he will not be corrupt, and will use his power for good."
Well, that was a lie.
With a little help from Damon, Laena named her son Teivel, which meant Devil. Damon was a little uncomfortable about the matter, but he never mentioned it. Teivel came out with black hair, tanned skin, and fiery orange eyes. Laena did as Nephros told her, and raised him as best as she could…
When Teivel was aged six years, Alingon and Sarapai went to where he and Laena lived, only to see the village up in flames.
They found Laena on her knees, sobbing into her palms. "Laena?!" Alingon said worriedly.
"What happened? Where is Teivel?" Sarapai demanded.
Laena shook her head and pointed ahead. Alingon and Sarapai looked to see Teivel by a pile of burning bodies.
"He slaughtered them all…" Laena shrieked.
Teivel turned around to see his mother on her knees, and the other two huddled over her. All he did was smile at them.
Teivel would never forgive his mother for abandoning him. When he was eight, she told him she was done with all his killing and all the misery and agony he caused everywhere they went.
She left him in the middle of the night.
Teivel always knew where she was, of course. He would get his revenge one day. He started by killing Nephros' mother, Rebekah. That was sure to strike close to home.
When he was eighteen, just ten years later, he went to the firstborn dragon priest, only to discover that he was put into a permanent sleep.
"Why?" Teivel asked.
"Because of Lady Maya," one dragon priest answered. "He was always in love with her, but they weren't allowed to be together because she was only human."
"Was? Is she deceased?" Teivel assumed.
"Yes. Her people punished her for romancing him."
"But he is not dead, but asleep? How?"
"The dragons had witches put a spell on him to sleep forever."
And with that knowledge, an idea grew in Teivel's mind.
…
…
…
Nephros put his palms on the large cave wall, his head drooped down and his eyes shut. "What is he doing now?" Alingon whispered.
"I am marking our names, and the names of the Nephilim who will be born in the future." Nephros answered. As he said that, the wall was suddenly plastered in bright Enochian writing.
It was perfect how the four of them were together in the underground cave. Teivel appeared with his loyal witches. Teivel unleashed pain onto his mother and her friends. He made them weak enough to hold them down, while Teivel made the wall split open in half. He blasted the Nephilim into the room that was made just for them.
"Teivel, please-!" Laena begged.
"Be quiet, Mother," Teivel ordered. "Your words mean nothing to me. Not since you left me."
Teivel made his witches begin the spell. Soon, his mother dropped to the ground. The others did, but Nephros still stood for a while longer, but eventually dropped to a near fatal condition.
By the time the witches were done, the original Nephilim were in a permanent sleep. Their eyes were shut. Their skin turned gray, their veins turned black. Teivel banished his witches, and then dragged the Nephilim over against the far wall, laying them next to each other.
When he finished, he knelt down to his mother. "Rest, Mother," he whispered. Just as he stood up, he heard it.
A horn.
It was as if the entire world could hear it, which Teivel assumed it was the case. For the longest time after the horn blew, the Nephilim War began. Gabriel came down to Earth and murdered as many Nephilim he could.
Damon always assumed Gabriel had killed Nephros, Alingon, Laena and Sarapai. But he learned the truth when he saw Teivel for the last time until their next meeting in the twenty-first century.
It was just before Damon would clash with Lucifer, somehow knocking them back in time to the dinosaurs. Their final battle wiped the dinosaurs out completely.
"Damon," Teivel said, bravely approaching him.
"Teivel?" he recognized.
"Do not blame Gabriel." Teivel told him. "Blame me. My mother, Nephros…the others…I sent them away, forever."
Teivel left as quickly as he came, so Damon had no time to lash out. But he knew Teivel spoke the truth.
Either way, Nephros…Damon's somewhat-in-a-way son, was gone, and would be for a very long time.
June, 2011
Present Time
"I'm so sorry," I said pitifully, specifically towards Laena.
"It is the past," she reminded me. "You have awoken us. It is a new start for us all."
So, I was wrong about Latino. My son is half Nicaraguan. No one's going to believe that one.
Nephros stands by the front door. "Are we resting here tonight?" he assumed.
"If you want to," I shrugged.
"What is for supper?" Alingon wondered.
"I'll order pizza," I decided, snapping my phone into my hand. "Don't worry. You guys will like it."
Serafina finds a purple and white bouncy ball, and rolls it over to Alingon. "Play."
Alingon kneels down. "Okay. Play."
Sera takes the ball back with her. She sits on the floor and pushes the ball, making sure it stops at Alingon. He pushes the ball back. She laughs.
Nephros surely got her mixed up with Adena. There is no darkness. Now or ever. I'll make sure of it.
…
…
…
Clifton cries himself awake at around two in the morning. I get up and make him a bottle, and feed him in Jackson's chair. "It's almost time, son," I whispered. "The Leviathans are going down."
He shows me Grandma's dying wish. "Yes," I confirmed. "This is for Grandma."
He shows me Colby putting his hands over my stomach in the underground cave. "For Colby too." I promised. I sniffled.
He shows me Laena. "Yes, she is your grandma." I said.
Clifton closes his eyes and sucks his bottle peacefully. I kiss his forehead. When he drained his bottle empty, and after I burped him, I laid him in his crib on his stomach and he was out.
I crawl back into bed, and I was out too.
"Murdock?"
"Lynn?"
"I'm so happy to see you,"
"Me too,"
I wrapped my arms around him, my palms burying into his soft purple vest he wore. I kissed him without guilt and he kissed me back. "I could get used to that." Murdock admitted.
"Me too," I agreed. "Um…I have to tell you something."
"You're breaking up with me?"
"What? No, never." I told him about the original Nephilim, and our soon coming attack of the Leviathans.
"Sounds dangerous," Murdock said. "Wish I could be there to protect you."
"I wish you were there too." I whispered. "Listen…if I don't make it…"
"Don't say that. You'll be fine."
"Shhh. If I don't make it…if you ever get out of this mansion…will you find my son? His name is Clifton Winchester."
…
"…okay." Murdock promised. "I'll find him if I have to. But I know you'll be okay."
"I hope so," I gave him a tight hug. "Goodbye, Murdock Leroy."
the chapter title is Latin, and I believe the translation is "from eternity"