Prologue

~the following excerpt is taken from a badly burned

and waterlogged journal dated January–March of 1881, the exact date along with the author's name, are illegible due to damage~

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I have found that very few things in life are actually, in fact, eternal. Everything must come to an end—even stars die. But to me, it always seemed that fleeting life is what made those things so tragically beautiful.

A majority of us that were truly immortal, we had some flaw—something in our very nature that would always and will always keep us in check.

I would've thought it'd be my inability to forget, or my stubborn pride, but in hindsight, my downfall has always been love, a capacity for which I have found I am almost unique in as far as those with true immortality go. I honestly believe that if I weren't capable of that particular emotion, then I wouldn't have gone through half the suffering I have, but then, where would be the point?

A very long time ago, before the world was anything more than a molten rock and a relatively short while after I'd first opened my eyes, I was in love. Looking back, I believe what I thought was love was in truth an instinctual soft spot for him seeing as I was given life by his loneliness, but in the end, it doesn't matter, because, in the end, the fact remained: I had loved Lucifer the same way he seemed to love me. I was born with a power that could rival that of the gods and his own, but I'd never before considered wielding it against him. I had, on many occasions, however, wielded it for him. I didn't know about his desire for a war with The Caretaker until Adam and Eve had grown comfortable in the Garden where He walked with them. I remember the day well: the day mankind would fall.

I don't know if—or don't want to believe—Lucifer intended to make everything fall apart the way it did when he asked me for that particular favor, but it doesn't matter now; I granted it without question and planted the seed of temptation in Eve's mind so, of course, the Caretaker's wrath befell my head as well as his. He took my wings from me that day, and, in a moment of sardonic providence, the Caretaker planted in me the seed of madness in the form of the mercury that now runs with the hellfire through my veins. The curse was what sparked the fighting; suddenly my home in Hell, where I'd never wanted for anything before, began to feel more like a gilded cage. And I blamed him for it, though truth be told it was my own fault for blindly following him in his war on the Caretaker. And of course, he defended himself, because to him, this particular end would always justify the means. So we went around and around fighting and the madness grew healthy in my head until the day I finally left.

I didn't stop to think about who or what I was leaving behind.

I didn't think at all.

I just ran.

I became his biggest mistake.

But you see, Lucifer doesn't make mistakes and I was no more meant to escape Hell than any of the tortured souls in its depths.

So for eternity, I ran.