Heaven and Hellfire
I was still a small child when the demon first came to me. He terrified me then; the stories* I had been told of their fall from grace echoed in my mind as I took in his crippled form. I was engulfed in the hate radiating from him - drowning in it - and, though it was for but a moment that I saw him, from that day my nightmares always held his face.
He haunted me; never coming close, but always there. I saw him and trembled: for who can stand brave in the face of what they believe to be pure, unadulterated evil? Even so, I pitied the battered, scarred, twisted remains of a being once so beautiful. It seemed to my very much human mind that he – ancient of ancients that he was – looked unutterably weary; but angels cannot sleep, for to sleep you must have a soul, and they have none. Perhaps that is why the demons send us nightmares; they envy us the oblivions of sleep and death, as we envy them their eternity.
I did not know, then, why he watched me; but slowly, slowly I came to realize that although he hated me – and hate me he did – with a passion, he did not loathe me any more than he loathed every other human under the sun (and the sun itself – it was Heaven he wanted, and there is no sun in heaven). In the end it was I that approached him. The stench of sulphur was overwhelming; the instinct screaming at me to run, run, run in the other direction even more so, but I kept going. I crept right up to him, until I could reach out and touch the haggard, twisted remains of the face that had once been so exquisitely beautiful. In all this time he had not so much as breathed; he simply observed my approach as one might that of an insect you haven’t yet decided to crush under your heel. It was difficult – almost impossible – to look upon him, but I did, and in his one remaining eye I could see nothing but unutterable weariness and hate. Up until that very moment I had not believed the tales that demons hated us, but now I do. As another of the wiser humans once said: seeing is believing.
How can a human child comprehend such knowledge? In doing absolutely nothing the demon had shown me everything humans were not meant to see, should not have to see. Having seen inside his eye the faintest glimmer of Heaven, this world’s food turned to dust in my mouth. I could not eat, could not sleep, could hardly bear to inhale every tainted breath. He hated me, and his hate was a glorious madness: for a demon cannot have emotion, yet he did. As much as I attempted to forget him, I could never drive him from my mind. I was drowned in his madness, and he drank my pain like wine. No other would he permit to touch me, and so we remained: I his plaything, he my tormentor and my idol.
I grew tall, the humans shunning me for fear of something they could not name except in their darkest of nightmares. It may seem strange to you that, until I was seventeen, I had never stared into a looking-glass. I suppose I never had reason to, but when I did – oh, when I did – it was the face of a broken angel glaring back at me, her face - that should have been beautiful - scarred with the marks of the beast. Her eyes were darkened hollows, and she was painfully thin. The glass told me many things, not least that the demon was a liar; but that I already knew: as he knew just how fiercely I both loathed and craved him. He roared with laughter at my anger as I screamed at him to leave me and begged him not to go. Still, we would take the City, and then I would be free.
Pain and rapture gave us wings; we flew away to the Golden City and stormed the gates. A mortal and her lone demon against the might of the entire Host, but there was no fear in me. Perhaps I was a little mad, who knows? The entrance was unguarded, and hand in hand we entered Heaven; we who had seen so much of Hell. For a mortal to look upon the God is forbidden, but I did, for what more had I to fear? What more could he possibly do to me than had been done already? The whispering beauty of His city enchanted me, even as it broke my heart. The God was enthroned at the heart of the City, but until we reached him we hadn’t seen a single being. The City had seemed completely deserted, and even when we found the God the angels remained absent. The demon kept his eyes on his target, but I craned my head to take in every wonder of the place I had dreamed of for so long. The Creator did not turn as we approached; it was as if He had known all along. I felt lighter than air in his presence, even as I trembled for fear of His simmering anger. He did not speak, yet I could hear Him inside my head as he acknowledged us.
What brings you to my city, unclean thing? You should know you will never take the Golden City; you are a weak, fickle, and broken creation. I should have destroyed you when first you disobeyed. Surprisingly, this entire speech had been directed to me alone. The question was rhetorical, for before a God I seemed a simple and meagre creation. Everything I had ever done crawled from the depths of my mind for His scrutiny, and I knew I fell a long way short.
And you, Demon, you should not have been able to breach the gates at all. You are unclean, how dare you return after I cast you out? You are my creation, and you will leave. Now.
The demon made no reply, but slowly raised his eye from the floor and looked at the God. He – like I – was no longer afraid of punishment, for what was there left He could take from us? There was only oblivion for the demon, and that would come as a relief. For me there would be no peace of oblivion, for a soul – once created – cannot be unmade. Fearless, the crazed demon looked his God straight in the eye and laughed. “I’ll do as I please. You cast me aside to wither in the Outer Darkness, and wither I did. What more can you do?” He threw his head back in a burst of manic giggles, “Fear me, oh Great One, for I have something you and all your Host never shall. Kill me, King of Kings, and watch me rise again.” He gave a shark-like smile “I am beyond your power, freer than air. Old fool.” Pausing for effect, he leaned forward until his face almost touched the God “ I. Have. Gained. A. Soul.”
Have you ever seen a God tremble? My body lay, lifeless, on the ground below – but I wasn’t looking down any more. The God feared us, for even He had no power over a soul. A philosopher once said that ‘God is dead’. Well, He is now. He gave the demons freedom, and created for them – albeit accidentally – a soul, the like of which no angel could possess.
The old world is ended. The Golden City shall fall, and I shall be Queen of Hell.
*The old legends say that a demon does not have a soul and therefore cannot love, cannot laugh, cannot die. Cast out by their God, their screams shatter the void of Outer Darkness as they wait for the end of their unbearable eternity. Where life unending had once seemed but another joy in the ecstasy of the Golden City, they now longed for the easy end their creator had gifted upon the man. When He cast them out they fell so far and so fast that most mercifully forgot the beauty of all they had lost: the exquisite dances and singing of the Host; the caressing, perfumed breeze that whispered through the vast orchards of the Golden City; but they never forgot Him, their Creator, for angels are born to serve and serve they must.
Demons were an unknown quantity; their minds unravelled by the absence of the God whom, as angels, they still needed. They were crafty and sly, with all the power of the angels they once had been, but without control. Without their God they served no-one but themselves.
No?
they are AWESOME
so we'll see how well that goes. I dont really do trains at the best of times (as in, when I have a bunch of people with me telling me where to go 
