Chapter Twenty Seven: Azazel

I decided to do every reckless thing I could think of and then do them repeatedly. Only, I needed it to be more reckless and destructive than anything I've ever done before. The problem was that I have already done every reckless thing I could think of. That was my job. My job was to destroy everything the Creator ever made. This time, I wanted to do it so spectacularly that it was beyond recognition. I knew what the issue was: the issue was me.

I was limited by my own imagination. I was limited my the boundaries of my personality. If I really wanted God's attention, I needed to do something I hadn't done before. I needed to look outside myself for inspiration.

I could be like Shemyaza. Shemyaza was my brother that took a wife. Shemyaza was the reason for the Nephilim. Shemyaza was the reason there was a flood. Shemyaza nearly broke the world the best that anyone had ever broken it-- next to the time I broke it, first.

Only I couldn't talk to her. Shemyaza-- (who now simply goes by Azza and she/her pronouns), was somewhere I couldn't talk to her. She was the first brother to cut contact with me, in an attempt to never become eaten by me. She absolutely refused to become one with me. She wouldn't even share information,-- none of any kind. Anything she discovered was her knowledge alone. She was the one that started the trend of other fallen angels from cutting contact. It was like they became fallen angels all over again, except this time falling away from me instead of God.

A lot of the fallen brothers began some 'identity' campaign against me. Once they realized their consciousness could become consumed- they started this militia to never allow that to happen again. I mean, to be honest, I understand. The idea of becoming consumed by the Creator absolutely repulses me, too. Only, it isn't my problem because the Creator won't even speak to me let alone attempt to nibble on my toes. So, I get it. I get the threat of not wanting to be eaten. I couldn't really blame Azza from doing what she did. However, I can't say that I like it very much, either. It's just... being the Devil is very lonely and I often miss her.

Even now, even now as I cried out to her-- I could only feel the cold, white, emptiness. Shemyaza was not, could not hear me. She refused to speak to me or interact with me in any way. I could not get her input. I could not feel her thoughts. I couldn't have her help me break everything. We could not shred the universe together in order to get the Creator's notice. I could only think of the memories we once shared, long long ago, for inspiration.

It was the last time we fallen angels made God very, very mad. Then, he changed the rules and made it impossible for it to ever happen again. We have been trying to figure out a way around it ever since (Rosemary and her baby) and never ever succeeded.

Maybe what Meresin was doing was not unlike that sin Azza committed. Meresin, after all, seemed to be in love with a human. That union resulted in the offspring of angels and humans, the Nephilim.

The big difference was the flesh. Meresin wasn't in his own transubstantiated body. He was borrowing someone else's. And due to biology, the rented human suit could not breed with Wendy. So, technically, he wasn't breaking any rules. Physically, they could not make a baby. I couldn't see how Meresin benefited from his relationship with Wendy in any way. This was the eternal question.

The only way to get answers was God. I knew she wouldn't see me and wouldn't talk to me. That was the point. Just like everyone else, I was sent downwards towards Hell and Earth to discover my purpose. I was almost as clueless as every human ever born-- given no instruction or meaning. However, humans had the ability to pray. They could sometimes get answers-- or at least hints. That wasn't true in my case. I was always out of the sight of the Creator.

I have only had conversations with God on a handful of occasions. Usually in the utmost dire of circumstances. I felt like this was one of them. I felt like we were getting there. The Veil was unusually thin, the Void was breaking through and consuming entire dimensions, the Earth's climate was looking like an inferno. War, poverty, and famine were on the rise. I haven't heard or spoken to God in ages. Now... now was the time. The Creator had to listen to me. She has to do something. Was she ever listening?

I needed something on the scale of Azza's transgression to get the level of attention I wanted. I wanted a flood level event to shake things up. Never mind Meresin and his human girlfriend, that was just a catalyst. Although, I couldn't stop thinking about him and I couldn't stop thinking about what Azza did so long ago. Azza taking a wife caused a flood which wiped out the giants. I also couldn't get Lilith out of my mind. Why did Raum have to give me that message? Lilith was supposed to be at my side in the end. Lillith was supposed to be my one true love, my Meresin level girlfriend. We were supposed to be in love.

But we weren't and we never would be. The miasma of misery whorled through my mind. What could I do? What action could I take?

Then, it came to me as if the Creator herself spoke to me. Destroy it. Destroy it all. Help the Veil collapse in on itself. Destroy what the humans call 'Purgatory,' --what we call the Low Places. The unstable, temporary dimensions between Earth and Hell. They are connected to human dreamworlds, ephemeral and ever changing anyway. I could start by destroying Lilith's realm, the-- fairylands.

Since we Devils had domain over these places, I was the ultimate authority over them, anyway. Sure, it was a huge undertaking, a massive construction project-- but I felt I was already on it. I could destroy and rebuild the Low Places entirely at my will. I was God over them, and not even the largest of my brothers could stop me.

I would just take everything apart. All of it.

I knew my time-traveling abilities were causing the Low Places to become unstable, so I just thought I would begin by punching as many holes in the Veil as possible. I would time-travel as far back as consciousness would allow me. Maybe I would go back and ride a dinosaur. Maybe I would go back and carve a mustache on the Sphinx in Egypt. I could go back and impersonate George Washington or Jesus. I wanted to make it all unstable so the universe would collapse.

As fast as I conceived of it-- I made it happen. I used my massive consciousness and concentrated all of my abilities. I could be at a thousand places on a thousand timelines at once. It just required focus, effort, and some planning. I didn't want to waste any time, even though that was an infinite resource. I could feel the tendrils of my inner-being stretch out, like a hundred train-tracks looping and clicking throughout the galaxy. I knew what I wanted so I narrowed all of my focus on it. I wanted total destruction. I could feel my will ripping apart the Veil in places that it was thin. I could feel myself putting bullet holes throughout the fabric of space and time. I wanted it to look like Swiss cheese. Currently, it was held together with just threads and netting.

I ripped it in places. I could feel entire dimensions begin to shake and groan, then collapse. It was a lot quieter than what I expected. I remembered when I left my brother Adremelech in his lower domain. The chamber where he kept his money machine simply collapsed after I opened a portal through time and entire Hell dimension caved in. I wanted it like that. I wanted everything to crumble away into infinity. Let it all get eaten by the Void, I say.

The Fairylands were a little more stable. It was a subset dimension of the dreamworld, a place I could not collapse. The dreamworld wasn't quite a Low Place and I knew it couldn't be touched. In theory, then humans couldn't sleep without it. That was too close to Earth for me to ruin, but if I wanted God's attention then I needed to try. I counted on the Creator not caring if I ruined the Low Places-- they were mine to wreck, anyway. If I really wanted her attention, then I needed to destroy something she truly cared about. I decided to destroy the Fairylands, because it was the closest to something God could probably feel.

I couldn't help but feel Lilith's wrath, too. But, fuck her, I thought. I concentrated my consciousness like a wrecking ball and began to go to town. Fuck her for giving that message to Raum, I thought as I began to rip and shred. I could feel the fairies flee like little ants between my fingers. Fuck her for not loving me the way I wanted, I thought. Why did Meresin get to have a love life? We were the damned. She never loved me because she couldn't love anything. I found myself weeping as I shredded everything I could. I splintered every tree and burned every village. I couldn't yet feel anything. I certainly didn't feel God's attention, so I continued to destroy everything I touched.

Since the land of the Fae was a bit more solid than most of Purgatory, it took more time and more energy. It didn't feel like wet tissue paper the way the other Low Places did. Destroying parts of the universe was also a lot easier to do than I anticipated. I didn't expect things to crumble so easily, so fast. It worried me a little that it didn't offer up more resistance. I just felt it all fall, tumbling off like brittle food down my shirt. One after another, the dimensions decayed and fell away into the cold black nothing.

I was also surprised and disappointed that no one and nothing came to stop me. Nothing offered up even the token resistance? Where was Lilith, I wondered? I didn't feel her energy signature anywhere. I could feel thousands, perhaps millions of fairy personalities fleeing. They scattered to higher lands to escape the Void-- to escape me and the disintegrating grounds. I could feel their fear and absolute terror. I could feel the Void closing in to consume all that I ruined. I was surprised at my cold and distant detachment as I completely obliterated necessary scaffolding of the universe. What was left was looked lopsided and chewed upon, shreds of the Veil and shattered dimensions fluttered in the darkness.

Was this how God felt, I wondered? I looked at what was left and felt a sort of melancholy. There was only a chunk of fairyland left. Lilith had to be in there, somewhere. This small section of what was left was all there was for all the fairies in the universe, including the hybrid humans like Wendy. If I destroyed that then... there would be hole like none other. I didn't really want to do it. I didn't really want to destroy more load bearing dimensions like Fairyland. I wasn't even sure I had the strength to do it. Already I was feeling depleted. It was catching up to me. As I rested, I could feel tiny consciousnesses flee Fairyland, seeking higher ground away from the dissolving dimension as the Void gnawed through.

Admittedly, I began to hesitate. I also began to really feel the drain of energy destroying the universe was causing me. I wasn't sure if destroying what was left of the Fairylands would cause a massive collapse of something else, even parts of the Earth. It was the most stable half of the Fairylands, connected to the dreamworld and other more solid dimensions. I wasn't sure if it would hurt Lilith, maybe even kill her. I wasn't sure if it would wreck Wendy's dream cottage, as well as millions of other humans that traveled between worlds in their sleep. I didn't know... and the only way to know was to do it. This deep understanding of knowing nothing was truly how God must have felt.

I took a deep breath and began to crack small pieces of the edges. I could feel the dimension begin to disintegrate beneath my fingers. It was like snapping a cracker, or a fine piece of porcelain. It pained me to do it, too. Fairyland was beautiful, perhaps the most beautiful place that the Creator ever made.

I gathered my strength. If I were to strike, then it needed to be precise and strong. I just spent an un-time amount of time destroying several thick, massive layers of the universe. Just like God—poof--

I made most of the Low Places gone. I fed them to the Void. Purgatory will never be the same. All that was left untouched was the dreamworld, an old, solid chunk of Fairyland, and some of the Gray Spaces that were difficult to touch (because they were so ephemeral).

But because I had nothing yet, I was left with no choice. I destroyed so much of God's creation, and yet she still wasn't talking to me. As I was destroying the universe, I was also punching holes into timespace. I was going throughout the main timeline, confusing humanity just to stir things up. I made an illusion of a UFO crashing into Africa. Then, I sputtered the stock market in China by manipulating the electronics. I caused mayhem, just to cause mayhem, at the maximum of my talents and abilities. Then, to collapse other sides of the universe, I simply stopped escorting people to their place of death.

I had to concentrate my energy, so I just quit being the angel of death without finding a replacement. I mean, who cares?? Humans have free will. Let them sort themselves out.

This ended up being a problem in Purgatory. Since I wasn't helping people cross-over the Rainbow Bridge, humans ended up getting stuck in Purgatory-- in the Low Place dimensions. Since I collapsed most of those, a lot of humans wound up in the Void. Oops.

This all sort of happened at once. As soon as I made the decision to be an ever crappier Devil than I already was, a proverbial train-wreck happened. A feedback loop of awful. It was just what I wanted to happen, except it wasn't what I could have predicted happen... and I am an entity that can travel throughout most of the timelines in the cosmos.

I am the angel of death... for most people. Not all of humanity, just most of it. Each human/personality is assigned a key and a buddy. When a human dies and their soul is meant to 'move on', they can end up in a number of places. Some get moved over in their timeline. Some get returned and recycled through the Creator. Each human is assigned a 'key' which contains the unique coded information of where their soul should go based on their personality and unique destiny. I personally hold the key to the majority of humanity grandfathered to me by the angel, Azrael. I am their Death, their buddy--their escort. The Grim Reaper. I use their unique key to open a portal on their behalf. The Greeks called it a psychopomp. The angel of Death.

When I decided to destroy the Low Places... I just decided to skip out on the job of escorting people to the 'other side' entirely, too.

In conclusion, I realized I became responsible for losing a huge amount of humanity's consciousness to the Void, and I am not sure what the consequence of that is. Because, once I began to contemplate what I had done, I felt someone had punched me in the face.

It was more than that. It was just so sudden, so sharp, that I did not have a moment to realize what happened. I felt a harsh, white, burning Light. Then, I heard the drums. The drumming was so profound and loud that I felt it into my bones. If I had a heart, I could feel it syncing to my heart. Ba-bum-ba-bum-ba-bum. The drumming stopped me from doing what I was doing. The booming thrumming made it so I couldn't even think. It became a pulsing rhythm. I could hear drums of all kinds, snapping snare drums and reverberating kettledrums. The drumming was both beautiful and musical, it was an orchestra of sound. It was also foreboding and strong. It felt like an army was approaching, announcing itself with the sound of war drums.

I had no recourse. I was absolutely frozen. I knew it wasn't God. I knew it. Why didn't I think of it? It was Michael. The archangel Michael.*~Saint~*Michael the archangel. I was pummeled left and right. I was blinded by his white, scorching, burning Light. I was dazzled by his halos of gold and rainbows. I was overwhelmed by his towering, soaring splendor. He stood thousands of feet tall. He was surrounded by sun rays, storm clouds, and pillars of gold. I could see he was dressed for battle. He wore a suit of armor that somehow both shined and gleamed. It was indescribable, and nothing about him looked human. He wasn't coming to talk. He was coming to smite.

I felt wrapped in my own binds. I felt like I was held down by snakes and ropes. He dominated me. He made it so I couldn't move. Was this the end? He had done this to me before. But, because Michael wasn't ever open to talk, I couldn't negotiate. He was the Lord's right hand man. He was the Space-cop. The universe's lap dog. God's instrument of smite.

I turned my head aside as I was pinned to the ground. I didn't want to look Michael in the face. I felt ambushed. I felt betrayed. I wanted God's attention... but not like this. If Michael had a foot, I felt like it was pressed down upon my face. I could scarcely breathe. I felt like a kid on a playground getting roughed up by the biggest bully in school. He didn't care. There was no remorse. He moved like a well-trained soldier. A perfect instrument of oppression and control. I could only feel the heat of his scorn, his hate. I felt like I was getting the brunt of his might, designed perfectly just to counter me and my every move. The weight of his consciousness continued to press me downward. I felt desperate, as if drowning.

I wasn't sure what went next. The Creator has my key-card. I didn't know if I was being recycled or obliterated. God has used Michael on me once or twice before, and every time I felt the weight of destiny was being decided, and Michael held the scales. I don't know why I didn't count on God using Michael again. I guess I just never ever take her seriously.

I was suspended in nothing. I was nowhere. I could feel the presence of God's cop around me, like a jailer. I couldn't see Saint Michael, but I could feel him hold the scales of destiny, as if weighing my fate. I knew this was bullshit. Michael was just the police. He didn't get to decide my fate. He didn't decide anything, so it was hard to take him seriously.

"I answer to the Creator only," I said out loud, as if crying out for a lawyer. Michael didn't respond. He never spoke to me directly. Perhaps he knew better. I tried to reorient myself. I wanted to figure out where in the universe I was in jail.

It felt like somewhere in the Gray Spaces, an area of the universe that buffered all of reality against the Void. It was like the wetlands of the universe. A thick fog of gray nothingness that seemed impervious to the Void. The great black darkness just bounced off the Gray Spaces, like the sea lapping against the shores. No one knew why. It was just a neutral no-man's-land in the universe.

Then I felt free. Michael was gone. The restraints were removed. I felt his presence lift off my face. The drumming in my head receded. He just faded away. I was left alone, alone in the Gray Spaces. I was left entirely alone.