behindcloseddoors | CLOSED ♔ and who shall i blame for this sweet and heavy trouble

[ "If we win," Lucifer says calmly. "This belongs to everyone."

They stand in a doorway. Beyond appears vista upon vista and Des is vaguely sensible suddenly that over the nearby balustrade there lies below the world.

The world as he has never seen it in all its ages, with all its secrets of the past revealed. He has only to rush to the railing and he can peer down into the time of Eden or Ancient Mesopotamia, or a moment when Roman legions had marched through the woods of his earthly home. He would see the great eruption of Vesuvius spill its horrid deadly ash down upon the ancient living city of Pompeii.

Everything there to be known and finally comprehended, all questions settled, the smell of another time, the taste of it. The truth behind every mystery left unsolved.

There's a strange pull to it that he can't resist with his will save of 14, and he is drawn to it, but the distance to it seems impossible, and suddenly he becomes intensely aware that this vision of Earth will be mingled with smoke and fire and suffering, and that it might utterly demolish in him the overflowing sense of joy. He still has to see, however. He's not dead. He will not remain here.

Azrael reaches out for him, but his legs begun running faster than she can grab him.

An immense light rises suddenly, a direct source infinitely hotter and more illuminating than the splendid light that already falls without prejudice on everything he can see. This great gathering magnetic light grows larger and larger until the world down below, the great dim landscape of smoke and horror and suffering, is turned white by this light, and rendered like an abstraction of itself, on the verge of combusting.

Azrael pulls him back, throwing up her arms to cover his eyes. Des would realize she and Lucifer have bowed their heads, and that they are hiding their own eyes behind him. He hears them sigh, or is it a moan? He can't tell. For one second the sound fills the universe; all the cries and laughter and singing; and something mournful from the depths of Earth - all this sound - is caught in their sighs.

Suddenly, he feels Azrael's strong arms relax and release him.

Looking up, in the midst of the flood of light he sees again the balustrade, and against it stands a single form. Eyes are locked on to his, the gaze terrifying and powerful.

Des is overcome with the feelings he usually experiences only when on the verge of death.

The being draws him towards itself, a light flooding from it that mingles with the light behind him and all around him, so his face grows brighter yet more distinct and more detailed.

And then he speaks loudly, pleadingly to Des, in a heartbroken voice, a voice strong and masculine and perhaps even young. The voice overwhelms, fills him to the brim with every kind of emotion there is. It speaks his name, but it's not Desmond Descant that it says - Des would recognize suddenly an older name of his own, his once, when he was born to the world. ]

You would not do this, to your brethren on earth, to God himself, would you? This is not you, my Son. You are not of their ilk, no - not you!

[He can count some things he vaguely remembers from nightmares and half-formed memories when he peers down, but most of it is things he's only heard about in passing, but somehow still close to him- a heavy burden weighing on his heart driven by countless centuries of waiting and watching and trying to be rid of it. He knows the world as it is- all the suffering, the pain, the fact that it never changes.

But now he sees how little he really knows. How much his suffering and everyone else's has just been for... what? This agony.

When Azrael pulls him away, he tries to fight, but it's a feeble attempt and he sucks in a breath, composing himself. When she releases him and the new figure arrives, he swallows hard and slouches a bit, eyes narrowed, like a wary dog on its belly, unsure of what it's rolling over for. He tenses at the sound of a name he hasn't heard in millenniums and drops his eyes completely.]

No. [No snark. No quips. Des is suddenly a few thousand years younger and if he wasn't speaking plain, albeit heavily-accented English, he might have sworn he slipped back into that ancient language he used to call his.] No one deserves to suffer like that.

[He'd take a hammer to a Talisman because he wouldn't want anyone learning the hard way what the cost of immortality is. He sure as hell wouldn't stand by and let something like this happen. He's selfish, but he's not cruel.]

[ the voice rises in thunderous tones: "YOU WOULD NOT BE OUR ADVERSARY!" And ever so abruptly, des is torn out of the presence, in the whirlwind again and heaven is gone.

Azrael tightens her grip around him, straining with all her force to carry him downward, to force him to begin the descent.

the big comedown - nine inch nails

They plummet, an awful falling, terrifying, as the swift currents of souls all around them ascend, watch, descend, the darkness coming again, everything growing dark, until suddenly they travel through the moist air, full of familiar and natural scents, and come to a soft and soundless pause.

It's a garden again, still and beautiful. But it's no heavenly domain. The sun is shining down on the three of them, and Azrael and Lucifer look down at him, wings immense and then slowly fading until they are both more humanlike figures, though azrael's hair is a mane of gradually settling light. ]

[Des blinks in the disorientation and he's not quite as dignified or poised as he was in Heaven, reeling from the descent and the shock of being pulled away from something so beautiful. The disappointment and petulance is clear in his tone.]

That was a little much.

Of course it was. You glimpsed the full potential majesty of God's mere presence - you, who are unaccustomed to anything but the darkness of the earth.

I meant the shouting and the- [He waves a hand to indicate the drop. He trails off and looks around.] Where are we?

You would call it the Shadow World. Or a memory of it. We are far in the past, but outside Time.

Is this where you tell me how it all began? [outside of the overwhelming nature of heaven, he's all snark.] The whole twisted mess?

You know now more than millions ever glimpse in their lifetimes. You don't know what to do with that knowledge - you never wanted it to begin with. You don't know how to go on existing, or being who you are... but you have had your glimpse of Heaven. [ even as he mentions it, des would realize that his memories of the place are slipping away, his own mind unable to contain them. the details disappear. what i described above is all he can remember - but there was more. so much more. ] Do you want to hear how it all started, the entire true story of Creation and the Fall, to know why I need your help?

[Des hisses like an animal that's had their food taken away, as the memories slip from him, leaving him with only an image that he can now aspire towards. It's not enough, but nothing but the real deal would be.]

I'm still standing here. [He scrubs at his face, too drained to give anything more than a weak response.]

[ He stands there, looking at Des for a long moment before he speaks again. ]

Let's move through the forest as we talk. If you don't mind the walking.

[ He brushes a little grass from his garment, a fine spun garment that seems neutral and simple, a garment that might have been worn either yesterday or a million years ago. His entire form is slightly bigger all over than a normal human, somewhere halfway between the creatures filled with light they were in heaven and the way they appeared to him on the roof; they fulfill every mythic promise of an angel, except that the dark wings remain diaphanous, retaining their shape under some sort of cloak of invisibility, more it seems for convenience than anything else. ]

Don't worry about the men and the women in the forest. They can't see us. No one here can see us, and for that reason we can keep our present forms. Azrael and I don't have to resort to the dark devilish bodies which He thinks are appropriate for earthly maneuvers, or even to Ordinary Men, which is our own unobtrusive choice.

[ Des' own hair is badly tangled, his clothes full of tiny specks of dust, and some grass from the garden, but otherwise he's unharmed. His shirt is torn at the collar, as if he had ripped it open hastily in an effort to breathe.

Even a casual inspection indicates that this is no rain forest, but something considerably less dense, yet as primitive. ]

We are watchers here but we affect nothing. We can affect nothing. This time has passed. Come, I know this terrain by heart, and if you follow me, you'll see what an easy path through this wilderness. I have much to tell you. Things around us will begin to change. Angels are invisible, by nature. That is, we are immaterial in terms of earth material, or the material of the physical universe, or however you would like to describe matter for yourself. But we do have an essential body; and we can gather to ourselves sufficient matter from a whole variety of sources to create for ourselves a complete and functioning form , which we can later shatter and disperse as we see fit.

What I'm saying is that this isn't a borrowed body, nor is it strictly speaking a contrived body. It's my body when surrounded and permeated with matter. In other words, it's the logical result of my essence drawing to it all the various materials it needs. We look this way because we look this way. The Devilish bodies are a penance - the horns, and so on. The Ordinary Men are a subterfuge. But this is what we look like. There were angels like us throughout Heaven. Your focus was mainly on mortal souls in Heaven. But the angels were there.

Other angels, Michael, Gabriel, any of those can appear in their glorified form on earth if they want to. Again, it would be natural. Matter being drawn to them by their magnetic force shapes them to look their most beautiful, the way God created them. But most of the time they don't let this happen. They go about as Ordinary Men or Ordinary Women, because it's simply much easier to do so. [ he glances back at des, with a wry hint of humor in his eyes ] Continuously overwhelming human beings do not serve our purposes - neither our Lord's nor mine.

[If you think Des isn't vain enough to spend this Very Important conversation trying to get the tangles out of his hair while he's walking, you haven't met Des. He's still paying attention to Lucifer's words, but he's doing it while repeatedly tousling his own hair and sparing surreptitious glances at the scenery.]

Yeah, I can see where the gaping and the screaming might get really old. [He lets his hand fall away and keeps walking, giving up on his hair. He's not trying to impress anyone.] Not gonna lie- I'm still overwhelmed. And you haven't even gotten to the good part yet.

Let me start with the Creation. And let me tell you right now that I know nothing of where God comes from, or why, or how. No one knows this. The mystic writers, the prophets of Earth, Hindu, Zoroastrian, Hebrew, Egyptian - all recognized the impossibility of understanding the origin of God. That's not really the question for me and never has been, though I suspect that at the end of Time we will know. [ he pauses again, smiling ]

You know what? I don't think God knows. I think that's the whole purpose of the physical universe. He thinks through watching the universe evolve, He's going to find out. What He has set into motion, you see, is a giant Savage Garden, a giant experiment, to see if the end result produces beings like Himself. We are made in His image, all of us - He is anthropomorphic, without question, but again He is not material. That was His light you saw, but not his form. Who you saw was his Left Hand - Gabriel, who speaks with his Voice.

Now His essence has a shape, just as does mine. We, His first creations, were made in His image. He told us so. He had two legs, two arms, a head. He made us invisible images of the same. And then set the universe into motion to explore the development of that shape through matter, do you see?

And then you got people. [He tugs at the tangles in his hair again, for good measure. He's following, but all of this seems a bit surreal and inconsequential, while at the same time the most important thing ever. He's a mix of emotions about it all, but he's eager for the pay-off.]

Eventually. I believe God worked backwards from the blueprint of Himself. He created a physical universe whose laws would result in the evolution of creatures who resembled Him. They would be made of matter. Except for one striking and important difference. [ a grim smirk climbs his cheek as he shakes his head ] Oh, but then there were so many surprises. I imagine you know my opinion already. I think God's plan went horribly wrong.

I think He did it originally to find out what it would have been like had He been matter. And I think He was looking for a clue as to how He got where He is. And why He is shaped like He is, which is shaped like me or you. In watching man evolve, He hopes to understand His own evolution, if such a thing occurred. And whether this has worked or not to His satisfaction, well, only you can judge that for yourself.

So what gave him the idea for matter in the first place, you may ask. Ah, now that is the cosmic mystery. In my opinion, His imagination created Matter, or foresaw it, or longed for it. And I think the longing for it was a most important aspect of His mind. You see, Descant, if He Himself did originate in Matter... then all this is an experiment to see when Matter can evolve into God again.

If he didn't originate in Matter, if He proceeded and it is something He imagined and desired and longed for, well, the effects upon Him are basically the same. He wanted Matter. He wasn't satisfied without it. Or He wouldn't have made it. It was no accident, I can assure it.

[ he stops, turning to face Des, holding up a hand ] But let me caution you, not all the angels agree on this interpretation, some feel the need for no interpretation, and some have completely different theories. This is my theory, and since I am the Devil, and have been for so very long, since I am the Adversary, the Prince of Darkness, the Ruler of the World of Men and of Hell, I think my opinion is worth stating. I think it's worth believing in. [ he lofts an eyebrow ] So you have my article of faith.

[ with that he turns, walking again down the path as azrael continues silently at des' side, listening ] The design of the universe is immense, to use a feeble word, but the whole process of evolution was His calculated experiment, and we, the angels, were created long before it began.

I can't tell you what it was like, before Matter began. I know, but I don't, strictly speaking, remember. The reason for this is simple. When Matter was created, so was Time. All angels began to exist not only in heavenly perfection with God but to witness and be drawn into Time.

Now we can step out of it, and I can to some extent recall when there was no lure of Matter or Time; but I can't really tell you what that early stage was like anymore. Matter and Time changed everything totally. They obliterated not only the pure state that preceded them, they upstaged it; they overshadowed it; they how shall I say... eclipsed it. Matter and Time eclipsed the Time before Time.

Now, were we happy in this Time before Time? Interesting to think on. Dare I say this? Dare I say, I remember the longing, the incompleteness, more than I remember complete happiness? Dare I say there was less to understand?

You cannot underestimate the effect upon us of the creation of the physical universe. Think for one moment, if you can, what Time means, and how miserable you might be without it. I know you think it's been the source of your misery, but just think: without Time you could not be conscious of yourself, either in terms of failure or achievement, or in terms of any motion backwards or forwards, or any effect.

Rather like the old people who've lost so much intelligence that they have no memory moment to moment. They're vegetative, wide-eyed, but no longer human with the rest of the race, having lost their sense of anything... themselves or anyone else.

A perfect analogy. [ he nods smoothly ] Though let me assure you such aged and wounded individuals still have souls, which will at some point cease to be dependent upon their crippled brains.

He likes to hear himself talk, doesn't he? [Des says under his breath, pointedly at Azrael. He snaps back to attention when he feels he's being addressed and snickers.]

So here we are, slaves to Time, but willingly, because the alternative is worse, all while God tries to see if He can create a sandwich that He, Himself, cannot eat, and so on and so forth.

[He waves a hand. He said he'd hear the story. He didn't say he'd completely give up on snarky commentary.]

[ azrael murmurs back ] I told you it was a long story. You've only the tip of the iceberg.

[ slowly: ] ...I'm not sure... He knew, then, what Matter was, even. He took that seed, that egg, that essence and He cast it in a form which became Matter! But I don't know how truly He foresaw what that would mean. You see, that's our big dispute. I don't think He sees the consequences of His actions! I don't think He pays attention! That's what the big fight is about!

[ He pauses again, collecting himself. ]

So He created Matter, perhaps by discovering what it was as He did it - Matter and energy, which are interchangeable as you may have surmised. He created them, and I suspect that the key to Him lies within that word 'energy', that if human anatomy ever reaches the point where angels and God can be satisfactorily explained in human language, energy will be the key.

He was energy, and in making the universe, He caused some of that energy to be changed into Matter, and to create a circular interchange independent of Himself. But of course nobody said all this to us at the beginning. He didn't say it. I don't think He knew it. We certainly didn't know it. All we knew was that we were dazzled by His creations. We were absolutely astonished by the feel and taste and heat and solidity and gravitational pull of Matter in its battle with energy. We knew only what we saw.

We saw the Universe come into existence; we saw everything set into motion, as it were. And we were overawed! That's why almost every early religion on earth celebrates the majesty, the grandeur, and greatness and genius of the Creator; why the earliest anthems ever put into words by people sing the glories of God. We were impressed, just as humans later would come to be impressed, and in our angelic minds, God was Almighty and Wondrous and Beyond Comprehension, before man came into being.

But let me remind you, especially as we walk through the magnificent garden, that we witnessed millions of explosions and chemical transformations, upheavals, all of which involved nonorganic molecules before 'life' as we call it ever came to exist. The mountain ranges were here. And the rains, torrents upon torrents of rain. Volcanoes erupted. Continuously. You can't conceive of how enthralled we were. We watched the atmosphere thicken and develop, watching it change in composition.

And then, and then, came what I will call for you the Thirteen Revelations of Physical Evolution. And by revelation, I mean what was revealed in the process to the angels, to those of us who Watched, to us.

So there was God, and we were with Him. We had anthropomorphic shapes but we didn't call them that because we had never seen our shapes in material form. We knew our limbs, our heads, our faces, our forms, and a species of movement which is purely celestial, but which organizes all parts of us in concert, fluidly. But we knew nothing of Matter or material form. Then God created the Universe and Time.

Well, we were astonished, and we were also enthralled! Absolutely enthralled.

God said to us, 'Watch this, because this will be beautiful and will exceed your conceptions and expectations, as it will Mine.'

God said this. To me, and the other angels. Watch. And if you go back to scripture in various forms, you will find that one of the earliest terms used for us, the angels, is the Watchers. In Enoch, and in many Hebrew texts. And look to other religions of the world, whose symbols and language are less familiar to you, and you will see a cosmology or similar beings, an early race of godlike creatures, who looked over or preceded human beings. It's all garbled, but in a way- it's all there. We were the witnesses of God's Creation. We precede it, and therefore did not witness our own. But we were there when He made the stars!

It's all garbled, in countless texts throughout the world. There are texts which are irretrievable now which contained amazingly accurate information about cosmology; and there are texts that men know; and there are texts that have been forgotten but which can be rediscovered in time.

It's all essentially the same story. But listen to the my point of view on it and you will have no difficulty reconciling it with your own points of reference, and the symbology which speaks more clearly to the world you live in.

[ By now they've come out of the forest and stand on what seems the edge of a veldt. For the first time he catches sight of the humans Lucifer mentioned - a very distant band of scantily clothed nomads moving steadily through the grass. There must be thirty of them, perhaps less. ]

Look carefully at the human beings. Look. [ He points across ] What do you see?

I can relate. [The irony that he's explaining this to a guy who has routinely made a habit of doing dumb things on impulse with little regard for the consequences says a lot, but Des continues to listen, all while wishing that God in his Infinite Wisdom had thought to make a Sparknotes version of this out of Matter.

He steps forward, arms crossed over his chest and watches.] Looks like a tribe. A family. [He points at the one lagging behind the rest.] And that guy looks like he really wishes he stayed home today.

[ the comment prompts a short laugh, from lucifer, who moves back into the forest without ever explaining why he asked des the question in the first place. des would also notice that lucifer's promise has come true - the scenery has changed. the veldt vanished, the air now thick and moist and fragrant around them.

Towering over them are immense conifers and ferns. Never has he seen ferns of this size, their monstrous fronds bigger by far than the blades of banana trees, and as for the conifers, one could only compare them to the great, barbaric redwoods of the western California forests, trees which have a tendency to make people feel alone and afraid.

He continues to lead them, oblivious to this swarming tropical jungle through which they make their way. Things slither past them; there are muted roars in the distance. The earth itself is layered over with green growth, velvety, ruckled, and sometimes seemingly with living rocks.

He's aware of a rather cool breeze suddenly,the shadowy ferns rising so thickly behind them that it takes him a moment to realize that rain is falling from the sky, high above, striking the topmost greenery and only touching them with its soft, soothing sound. ]

Now, [ lucifer easily moves aside the dense foliage with his right arm as they continue to walk. ] Let me go to the specifics, or what I have organized into the Thirteen Revelations of Evolution as the angels perceived them and discussed them with God.

As I told you, we witnessed complex geological processes; we saw the mountains rise, we saw the seas created, we saw the continents shift. Our anthems of praise and wonder were endless. You cannot imagine the singing in Heaven; you heard a mere taste of it in a Heaven filled with mortal souls. Then we were only the celestial choirs, and each new development prompted its psalms and canticles. The sound was different. Not better, no, but not the same.

Meantime, we were very busy, descending into the atmosphere of earth, oblivious to its composition, and losing ourselves in a contemplation of various details. The minutiae of life involved a demand on our focus which did not exist in the celestial realm.

Everything there was always large and clear, precisely and fully illuminated, the Love of God was in no way enhanced or enlarged or complicated by any question of tiny details.

[ They come to a waterfall, thin, fierce, and descending into a bubbling pool. Lucifer seems to enjoy the mist of water on his face and hands. For the first time Des would realize that Lucifer and Azrael's feet are bare. Azrael lets her foot slip into the water itself, and watches the water swirl around her toes. Her nails are ivory, perfectly trimmed. As she looks down into the churning, bubbling water, her wings became visible, rising straight up suddenly to great peaks above her, and he can see the moisture glittering as it coats the feathers. There's a commotion; the wings appear to close, exactly like those of a bird, and to fold back behind her, and then to disappear. ]

Imagine now, the legion of angels, the multitudes of all ranks - and there are ranks - coming down to this earth to fall in love with something as simple as the bubbling water we see before us or the changing color of sunlight as it pierces the gases surrounding the planet itself.

Was it more interesting than Heaven? Yes. One has to say yes. Of course, on reentry, one feels complete satisfaction in Heaven, especially if God is pleased; but the longing returns, the innate curiosity, thoughts seemed to collect inside our minds. We became aware of having a mind in this fashion, but let me move on to the Thirteen Revelations.

The First Revelation was the change of inorganic molecules to organic molecules... from rock to tiny living molecule, so to speak. Forget this forest. It didn't exist then. But look to the pool. It was in pools such as this, caught in the hands of the mountain, warm, and busy, and full of gases from the furnaces of the earth, that such things started - the first organic molecules appeared.

A clamor rose to Heaven. 'Lord, look what Matter has done.' And the Almighty gave His usual beaming smile of approval. 'Wait and Watch.' He said again, and as we watched, there came the Second Revelation: Molecules commenced to organize themselves into three forms of Material: cells, enzymes, and genes. Indeed, no sooner had the one-celled form of such things appeared than the multicellular forms began to appear; and what we had divined with the first organic molecules was now fully apparent; some spark of life animated these things; they had a crude form of purpose; and it was as if we could see that spark of life and recognize it as a tiny, tiny evidence of life which we in abundance possessed!

In sum, the world was full of commotion of a new kind altogether, and as we watched these tiny multicelled beings drift through water, collecting to form the most primitive algae, or fungi, we saw these green living things then take hold upon the land itself! Out of the water climbed the slime which had clung for millions of years to its shores. And from these creeping green things sprang the ferns and the conifers, which you see around us, rising finally until they attained massive size.

Now angels have size. We could walk beneath these things on the green-covered world. Again, listen, if you will, in your imagination, to the anthems of praise that rose to heaven; listen if you will to the joy of God, perceiving all this through His own Intellect and through the choruses and tales and prayers of his angels!

Angels began to spread out all over the earth; they began to delight in certain places; some preferred the mountains; others the deep valleys, some the waters, some the forest of green shadow and shade. And these became like the water spirits or the dryads - all the spirits that mortals later came to worship.... but this jumps way ahead!

[Des observes Azrael for a few moments, tilting his head in an awestruck stupor, BECAUSE HE CRITFAILED HIS WILL SAVE TO NOT STARE AT HER. He blinks himself out of it when her wings vanish and decides his best bet is to kneel in front of the pool and let his fingers play across the water. Nothing happened. Nothing at all.]

Uh-huh.

[Yep. Keep going, Lucy. He's listening. Sort of.]

My response to these very first Two Revelations was like that of many of my legions; as quickly as we sensed a spark of life emanating from these multicelled plant organisms, we also began to sense the death of that spark, as one organism devoured another, or overran it and took its food from it; indeed we saw multiplicity and destruction!

What had been mere change before - exchange of energy and matter - now look on a new dimension. We began to see the beginning of the Third Revelation. Only it did not come home to us until the first animal organisms distinguished themselves from plants.

As we watched their sharp, determined movement, with their seemingly greater variety of choices, we sensed that the spark of life they evinced was indeed very similar to the life inside ourselves. And what was happening to these creatures? To these tiny animals and to plants?

They died, that's what was happening. They were born, lived and died, and began to decay. And that was the Third Revelation of Evolution: Death and Decay.

[ Lucifer's face became the darkest he's seen it. It retains the innocence, and the wonder, but it's clouded with something terrible that seems a mixture of fear and disappointment; maybe it's only the naive wonder that perceives a horrible conclusion. ]

The Third Revelation was Death and Decay. And I found myself... not repelled, as you may expect. I just assumed it had to be a mistake! I went soaring to heaven! 'Look!' I said to God, 'these tiny things can cease to live, the spark can go out - as it could never go out of You or us, and then what is left behind them in matter rots.' I wasn't the only angel who went flying into the face of God with this great cry.

But I think my anthems of wonder were more colored by suspicion and fear. Fear had been born in my heart. I didn't know it, but it had come to me with the perception of decay and death; and the perception felt punitive to my mind.

[ he looks to des ] Remember, we are angels. Until this time, there had been nothing punitive to our minds; nothing that made suffering in our thoughts! You grasp? And I suffered; and fear was a tiny component of it.

And what do you think God said? ... That it was all a part of the plan.

'Watch. Watch, and look, and you will see that essentially nothing new is happening; there is the same interchange of energy and matter.'

'But what about the spark?' I cried.

'You are living creatures,' said God. 'It is a credit to your fine intellect that you perceive such a thing. Now watch. More is to come.'

But suffering... the punitive quality.... It was all resolved in a Great Discussion. Discussion with God involves not only coherent words but immense love of God, the light you saw, surrounding us and permeating us all. What God gave us was reassurance, and perhaps the reassurance that this inkling of suffering in me required - that there was Nothing To Fear.

[Des chortles, fingers still tracing lines on the surface of the water.] Without death, there is no joy. You can't appreciate anything until you accept that you're going to lose it, but it ain't fair when it's not mutual. Time's not my enemy, Lucifer. That is.

[The utter unfairness of living and breathing and surviving, while everything around him fades- yes, he knows that agony well.] That's why it's a curse.

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1/2 I GUESS I CAN ACTUALLY NUMBER THINGS TO BE LESS CONFUSING can't you read my mind

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