BOOK -2 ATHENA

As I rot away in the deepest shadows of Nirvana, my name trod the sands of history, rode the wind in its whispers and to this day I am remembered. The goddess of war, the true form of beauty, or the symbol of love. My name carries these titles across different cultures all over the world.

What I truly am though, has been lost in the sands time. That name is not who I am. During the war of exodus, at the dawn of time, I was a Seraphim, a member of the holy quire. I was enchanting, made of fire, mighty, afraid of nothing, and devouring anything unfortunate enough to so much as steal a gaze at my glory.

I remember the first day I descended from heaven, I shone so bright, the sun became but a tiny star. Called upon by the archangel Michael himself, I was a beacon of hope to all of humanity. My power freed them of sin and showed them peace, in my presence, their thunder ceased and from my light they found stability. Yes, I had the power to cleanse sin.

They raised their hands at my blazing form to praise me with their heads down, for whoever saw me would never live to tell the tale. My presence demanded it because the human mind was also my domain.

Archangel Michael was the angel of war with a power akin to that of the Morningstar. When humans started contracting with demons, he called upon me, one with the power to cleanse souls and free them of the darkness as he purged the demons. Such was my role as his Archeiai, and from these legends, Athena was born. It's a name given to me by humans who were never told my name.

And then one day, it all disappeared. My only task was erasing malice from mortal souls and cleansing their life force, until one day, I found my power fading. My fire burned dimly as my wings shed their feathers. Before I knew it, my celestial form had completely disappeared. I had fallen, though reasons unknown.

No angel in heaven or earth could explain what had happened to me, not even Micheal, the one closest to my father. I couldn't understand what had happened, I'd never committed a single sin in my immortal life. My condition became too much to deal with as the war on earth waged ever more fierce, thus I was advised to dread the earth and locate the apple of Eden as it may be the only way to my redemption.

"Perhaps Father sees more to you than what meets the eye," Micheal told me

Powerless and alone, traveling a world of which I had little knowledge of, living as a human proved far more difficult than I had anticipated. Demons could sniff me out from a mile away and all I could do was run and hide like an animal. I've lost count of the times I almost died

When I remembered the days of my glory, I felt weak, pathetic, and abandoned. With each passing day, I asked "Why me?" to the Father who never spoke to me. I'd stop and pray once or twice every day to be spared from this fate but each day it felt like I was drifting further and further away from his embrace, though the thought of my redemption as I brought home the apple kept me from breaking.

After 3 years of searching for a relic no one had ever seen, I was met by a man. He walked up to me as I enjoyed breakfast in a bakery while marking all the places on earth I had searched. When he stopped at my table he called me by my true name and introduced himself as Nicholas Harrison.

"I think I may have something that belongs to you," He said

"I very much doubt that, I own nothing of value in this world" I replied.

"Believe me, this is very much not from this world"

With a snap of his fingers, a fierce flame bloomed in his hand. It was both wrathful and yet strangely calming, one could get lost staring at it dance. It's warmth, I recognized, what this man held in the palm of his hand was every ounce of former glory.

How was a human able to steal my power? Was it magic? The story he told me, I couldn't believe. He had died at my hand after somehow breaking free from my control and raising his head towards my light, thus seeing me in my true form. He was just one of the many humans who worshipped me and he died doing so.

How he broke free from my domain was the least of my worries, the fact that humans could somehow obtain celestial power from dying at the hands of an angel was something completely new to me. Why would Father make such a rule? it didn't make any sense.

At the time, getting my power back was more important, he told me he was kicked out of heaven and ordered to aid me in restoring my former self, that was his only way to find salvation but he was never told how and since then he had been roaming this world for the past 3 years searching for me. Hadraniel had done me a favor.

I had created a druid, a human with the power of grace, incapable of fatigue, aging, or death. That was my sin.

I told him of my quest to find the apple of Eden, and he gladly joined in hopes of finding a way to break free from me and I from him. But finding the apple would take centuries, a time not given to humans, I would die long before then. So I taught him how to properly wield my power and curse my newfound soul with the cycle of rebirth.

Each time I died, I would be reborn, he'd find me and our quest would continue. We repeated this cycle over and over for more than 300 years as we naturally grew closer. During the years, I died and was reborn a total of 900 times and each time, he was always there to find me, no matter which corner of the world I was born in. He'd remind me of who I was over and over again without ever asking for anything in return.

After those hellish years, we finally found what we were searching for. Deep in the ocean, there is a place known as the Bermuda Triangle. Far at its depth, however, is the gateway to the center of the earth where the garden of Eden laid dormant, and where the story of man first began. To enter, one must answer a riddle, too simple a task for a being such as myself.

After passing the trial, we were swallowed by a wave so large, it turned our ship to nothing but scrap. We fell into the deepest depths of the ocean and were pulled 9000+ feet below the surface by a vacuum. Nicholas kept me breathing by repelling the water around us and creating a bubble.

The power of an angel comes with complete dominion over creation. We can create, destroy, form, and reshape whatever we wished. Unbound by science or logic, and ability humans later labeled magic.

When we finally reached the bottom of the vacuum, we splashed out of the water and started falling over a land so beautiful that just for a moment, I thought I was back home. The air was fresh, the land below was covered in beautiful green fields and a forest that stretched out as far as the eye could see. There was no sun yet it was bright as day, maybe because of the field of crystal-like stones that stretched out across the ceiling.

With the power of Nicholas' grace (holy power), we were able to glide through the sky and land at the very center of the garden, right in Infront of the tree of Eden. A tree so big it felt like we had entered a building when stepped beneath its shade. Its leaves were a beautiful rainbow-coated green that made it look like it was glowing as it was swarmed by magical fireflies. We had made it so far together, now all that remained was to obtain the fruit and I would be back in heaven...or at least, that was the initial plan.