Hell had fallen to the Damned.
Lucifer was slain. Cain, burning with rage at humanity’s suffering, led them, promising the downfall of the gods and a new age for all.
And thus, the invasion of Heaven began.
I never thought that’s where I’d be.
The war machine bombarded the pearly gates with explosive force. The sound of the attack reverberating through the land as a growing blackness, thick with smoke and ash, darkened the sky. High above, on the gleaming white pillars of heaven, a radiant angel, its voice a trumpet call, shouted: “Send the flying battalions high and disrupt their formations!”
“Yes, Commander!” the angel Timious said as he drew a flaming blue blade from its sheath. “Protectors of Heaven and the Almighty, with me!” He launched himself into the air with a mighty shout, the sound of a thousand wings beating in unison with him as an angelic army, clad in gleaming golden armor, took flight.
Cain had united the forces of hell. Turned the bowels of hell upon itself, provoked them with hope, and rallied them with dreams of revenge.
In his upheaval, he had rescued me from a forgotten corner of the underworld, a pit of endless torment and despair. I was nothing. A demon slave girl entombed in an eternity of unspeakable torment. A creature brought to existence for the amusement of the lower ranks. He pulled me up and asked my name, but I had none.
He named me Asha and showed me compassion.
How could I not love him?
That was his strength. His will.
Cain, using Lucifer’s own blade, had destroyed him. Then ascended the throne of the underworld, declaring himself ruler of all realms, both above and below. A chilling silence followed his proclamation, broken only by the applause started by mine own hand.
“I am the liberator,” Cain said to his horde. “I am the just God! Follow me.”
Demons swarmed at his command.
Cain was ready. And I took my place at his side.
The Wyrd Interlude:
This is a tale of heavens undone, where men forged into monsters tear down the thrones of gods. The old order falters, upended by Cain’s wrath, and the divine proves no more eternal than the white smoke swirling over fallen angels. People think the eternal is fixed, but here we witness gods dethroned by men forged into monsters. Fate is indeed a tangled, wyrd web, and this—is wyrd fiction.
The horde raged towards the gates as the ground buckled and collapsed under the relentless catapult fire.
“We vanish or we win here!” Cain roared from atop a monstrous four-headed hydra-hound, its colossal equine body dwarfing a horse tenfold, with each serpentine head spitting magma with a deafening roar and pungent smell of sulfur.
Overhead, fire clashed with fire, and flaming swords of angels swatted the onslaught. The deflected volley returned to the charging hordes and they erupted in glory.
“Now!” Cain shouted. A group of filthy men, once criminals and murderers in their mortal life, broke the chains of wild creatures and let loose the crazed beasts of war. Horrendous locust-like creatures twice the size of a man took flight. Their clicking chirps and screeching cries gave me flashbacks of my time in the pits.
A terrifying wave of insects, a thick, black cloud with a sickening smell, enveloped the flying angels before they could react. A chilling silence filled the sky, broken only by the piercing, desperate screams that echoed before the final, sickening crunch of their wing-stripped bodies striking the ground.
“Dive!” Timious yelled, the sound echoing through the air as his second battalion scattered in a flurry of movement to take evasive action. The swarm consumed them all.
Flames of black rained upon the pearly gates. The archers on the walls fired freely and the front line of hell drove on, stampeding over their own dead.
“There are too many!” an angel atop the gates called to his commander as they looked down at the ten thousand strong army hell had brought.
Many of those angels, accustomed to celestial serenity, experienced fear for the very first time. I could see it in their eyes. A bone-deep icy terror took them. And I felt proud.
It’s unknown what waits beyond the vanish—that is the true destruction of a soul. Some believed existence was like a mirror. Your reflection in it may change as you pass through the ages and cycles of life, but to meet an ultimate destruction would be the mirror shattering.
Giants emerged from the ranks of hell. Demons and beasts from the darkest places of existence. These creatures were not fighting for hell, they were beasts of destruction.
We unshackled them, and aimed.
Undeterred by the storm of light arrows felling our soldiers, Cain and I charged, convinced of our triumph.
“Focus on the beasts!” the commander shouted and all the archers redirected, firing volley after volley at the thick black hide. But nothing could stop the beasts. The first collided with the pearly gates and a white energy rejected his body and shot the creature back, skidding through the horde.
One after another did this, and with each smash, the gates wavered.
Cain softly said to himself, “We can break this.” His feigned confidence reinforced in that moment. He leaped from his mount and unsheathed Lucifer’s sword, thrusting it skywards as he commanded all: “Protect me!”
A throng of men and demons enveloped him, ten ranks deep on either flank, his airborne black-winged forces above. I tried to stay by his side, but in the chaos, ravenous demons knocked me aside.
I found myself at the back, observing the finale.
“Break that line!” the angel commander screamed. Continuously, light arrows mowed down the black force protecting Cain, which seemed endless. Angels above, in a final desperate act, dive-bombed Cain’s protective shell, sacrificing themselves.
They met their end in a puff of white smoke, taking only a few demons with them to the void beyond.
High above the wall, the angels were nearly at an end. The archers were failing in hand-to-hand combat as the swarm washed over them, and I could hear the clarion call of their commander. “The gate is falling!”
Bursting from his black shell, Cain swung Lucifer’s blade high and struck down. The pearly gates imploded in a flash of heavenly light that, for a single moment, relit the burning fields and the demonic horde in a flash of peace and forgiveness and showed all beings the best parts of themselves.
I saw myself not as a demon slave girl. I was a mother once. A human. Long ago. I had a life. A real life. I saw my children’s faces and felt my husband’s love. I had forgotten it all.
And just as fast, the light receded and was swallowed by darkness.
I clung to the memories as they seemed to pull from my mind, being ripped away by the dwindling light.
I kept them. I stood alone in the darkness, in the distance, the horde I had led was snuffing out the light.
…and I cried.
The angel commander stood atop the wall. “How can this be?”
A demon cut his throat and another ripped his head off and unceremoniously sent his body over the wall as they continued to the next victim.
With hell’s might behind him, Cain breached Heaven’s gate, the hallowed ground echoing an angelic bell’s toll as the unholy hooves blackened the golden roads.
The rest was easy.
The almighty felt himself a necessary balance, as did Lucifer. They didn’t believe existence could endure without them. The ruler of heaven fell far easier than Lucifer. He had grown weak in his long-lasting peace. He was no match for our new leader and unifier.
Cain, lord of all and protector of the first life, took the throne of both realms that encircle men.
I stood at his side in the kingdom of heaven as he sat upon the almighty throne. The once great golden halls in ruins. I clung to the memories of my children’s faces and kept emotion secret.
“This is victory, my lord,” I said. “I am honored to be a part of it.”
Keeping his eyes fixed forward, he never looked at me.
“We can do better.”
“Better, my lord?”
Finally, he turned to me, and our eyes met for the first time since the battle had begun. “Better.”
The fire in his eyes sent a shiver of fear down my spine, a terrifying echo of the inferno he’d saved me from. His hand brushed my face, but there was no compassion in his touch.
“Asha,” he said. “We will take all that is owed.” Then he turned to the horde and thrust the sword of Lucifer at them. “A new age begins now!” It was a declaration.
Time seemed to slow as I watched the monsters we unleashed.
They reveled and chanted for more while fresh ashes from the ruined city of heaven still fell all around us.
As the swarm screamed overhead and Cain’s blade rose, I remembered another life: a small, warm home, my daughter’s laugh echoing against sun-washed walls. I remembered the lullaby I hummed each night, her tiny hand wrapped around my finger.
Now, standing in the ruins of heaven, that memory tasted like ash. When the gates broke and all light collapsed into Cain’s shadow, I whispered: “What have we done?” The echo of my child’s laughter seemed to fade, lost in the blackened corridors of a stolen paradise.
The Wyrd Curtain:
We stand on the ashes of gods, where victory tastes more like hollow wind than glory. Cain, enthroned, stares into a future that demands more—always more. The cycle grinds on, each conqueror another link in a chain of endless unrest. The wyrd path twists and knots, and what was once holy ground is now just another battlefield. Perhaps we learn that in time, even the grandest thrones rest on shifting sands.