"Where am I?" I demanded from the voice with a surprisingly strong register considering the freaky rollercoaster I just got off of.
"Little…unimaginative, don't you think?" said the male voice
The voice was soon accompanied by a body of a man who slowly stepped out of a shadow to tilt his head at me. He had blond hair with ice blue eyes and was significantly taller than me. His clothes were nothing out of the ordinary: a pair of jeans, a green shirt, and a blue over-shirt.
The man, who had paced to stand with his side facing me, swiveled around on one foot to face me. He clasped his hands with his index fingers steeped and placed them between his lips and then sliding them down under his chin as he raised his head and pursed his lips, all the while analyzing me with furrowed brows.
Who the hell-?
In an instant, I couldn't see again and the sight of the guy in front of me was blocked out.
A smaller version of the beam that had landed me down here appeared before me again. It started to move towards me quickly. I couldn't move fast enough and when the beam touched my foot I felt paralyzed. Rooted to one spot.
I looked to the blond man, when he came back into view, for some answer to what was happening and what the beam was but he just lightly raised an eyebrow as he stared, his gaze casually traveling up to the source of the beam He didn't seem all that concerned, just amused- like he had seen this before.
I squinted my eyes shut, tightly, as the pain began in my head. Images were flying past my closed eyes as well as a few snippets of information and some names that I and everyone else had grown up knowing about- infamous names that were now given to me in a confusing context.
I didn't like it. It hurt like hell and it was a bunch of shit that I didn't want in my head. Straining to get control, I willed my arms to push my body up and out of the light's control. The process was tough; it was as if I were a magnet being held to my place by a metal fridge. Slowly, I forced myself forward and when I had succeeded, I had a massive headache and was panting.
As I lay on the, now grassy, ground -heaving- I watched the beam pause, flicker twice, then disappear.
Rocking my head to the side, my eyes found the man again. He was looking down at me with a semi-impressed look while he bit at the tip of his thumb.
I winced at him and let out a breath at the throbbing. I blacked out from the sensory overload.
Footsteps rang by my ear as I started to come to. I didn't open my eyes; instead, just focusing on the arrogantly slow pace whomever was walking seemed to step at. I took the time to analyze the feel of floor on my back and the light breeze that ran over my cheeks. The thin layer of skin covering my eyes was the only barrier between me and whatever I was dealing me here. I was too tired of having to deal with big things like I knew this would be. Why couldn't be someone else's turn?
"I know you're not asleep," a voice said from my right.
I opened up, gazing up at the stalactite-ridden ceiling. I located the towering figure leaning against a tall rock. Quickly I got up, not trusting him for a second –especially since he didn't even bother to help me when I was being attacked. I rose to my feet, backed up a few steps and all the while, never left his eyes.
"Hello again," he said seeming cheery with his arms crossed.
After, whatever the hell that all was, I could now recognize the face that was before me; I had seen it in the flashing images during the…whatever that was.
The face he wore was one of pain, boredom, and curiosity which was all accentuated by the dark five o'clock shadow around his face and expressive brows that sat along the bottom of his forehead.
A name wanted to brush past my lips but I couldn't find it.
"Who are you?"
"You wouldn't believe me." He said playfully, scrunching up his face and looking down to nudge a small rock with his shoe.
"Who are you?" I repeated forcefully trying to show him that I wasn't afraid of him in the least.
My courage somewhat diminished when he quickly looked up at my tone and pushed himself off the rock with his shoulders and stood to tower over me with his head bent down. With me being a little over five feet tall- his height did make things very intimidating.
"I'm an angel." He said to me with a pause to check my reaction.
I looked up at him with a blank expression before grinning and letting out a breathy snort. The side of his mouth raised a hair while he cocked his head to the right.
"Okay. Anyway, so really, who are you?"
Then he smiled, but not in a happy way- more like a scary way and then made a movement of flexing his shoulders. My smile slowly faded away.
I was covered by the thin shadows of two boney, hooked, structures that appeared to be protruding from behind his back. After closer examination, I could see what seemed to look like the humerus, ulna, radius and metacarpals like what you would see in the skeletal structure of the human arm or a bird. Although, it didn't take me long to realize what those were or…what they used to be.
"A little bald, I know. They did used to have feathers on them." He said with a nonchalant façade.
"Why don't they have feathers now?" I asked very quietly- my disbelief seeping into my words.
"Well, that's what happens to angels that fall, honey." His expression was dead and cold and stark against the fake warmness of his tone.
I let that sink in.
Fallen angel. Who was the most famous fallen angel? The name that had been hiding in my brain dislodged itself from its hiding place when I analyzed the information.
I wanted to laugh at just how implausible this was. But, I couldn't deny the evidence. The realization that this wasn't some elaborate joke made saying the name harder. As if the final puzzle piece would be wedged into its spot if I said it.
"Lucifer…?" I let out weakly
I lowered my self to the floor, finding it hard to stand now, and sat there while he paced away from me smiling.
"What? No waterworks; no screaming; no begging?" he asked, disappointed, as he turned to me with a deep sigh.
I wasn't going to scream or beg because I wasn't afraid. What I felt was worse than that.
I felt betrayed.
"If you're real, then God is too, right?" I said, voice shaking, trying not to cry.
"Of course."
I couldn't hold it in any longer. I let out a deep sigh and put my face in my hands quietly letting out the first real tears I had cried in years.
I had abandoned all hopes of their being God because I didn't want to think that someone that was supposed to love his creation could be so cruel. As I grew up, I took notice of all the pain and suffering that not only I had felt when my parents had left but that everybody else felt too. Children dying in hospitals of cancer, rapists and murders getting off clean from a crime, the government running their people into the ground with taxes and fees, suicide rates of not only adults but young children on the rise, and war sprouting up all across the globe. What kind of loving deity could permit that?
I had repeated to myself for years that bullshit about how 'God works in mysterious ways'. I finally wisened up when it came to the last straw: Joe and Mary dying in that car wreck.
But, there I was –resting in a heap- in front of Lucifer, an archangel of God. I had completely come undone.
A fissure in my soul had been wedged apart by the weight of the knowledge. I didn't have the strength or emotional room to be afraid of even the Devil himself at this point.
"There's the tears," he seemed pleased until he paused, "You look angry. But…not at me…hm." Lucifer said interestedly from the distance, "That's a first."
I turned so that my back was to him.
"So that was God that put me down here?" I questioned, my voice sounding foreign due to the stuffy tears.
"Mhm. Don't know why. Especially since he knows what I did to my last playmate before he went and got himself rescued." He said in a way that made me think that he was now preoccupied with something else.
I rested my chin on my shoulder to see what he was doing behind me and I saw him drawing an image of a smiley face into the side of the rock wall with some dirt.
"Playmate?"
"Yeah. I have been pretty bored down here since Sammy left. He was a good torture buddy."
"So you're going to…what? Torture me too?" I asked, I tried to not to laugh at how my life kept turning out but the sarcasm leaked through my tone as I tamped down the sick feeling of fear; a cold lump in my stomach forming.
"Sure. Not physically though. 'Daddy' wouldn't want his human hurt. Why do you think he made this place…less," he paused to shrug his shoulders and bring his hands together as he sauntered towards me, "terrible the minute you landed down here?"
I turned my face forward, no longer craning to watch him as he was now standing to my left while I sat.
I paid him no mind as he looked down at me. If he was going to torture me he should just get on with it. God obviously hated me. Might as well give him what he wants.
