The Great Fall

Chapter Ten

They spoke through the night, Julius unwilling to leave a single question unanswered. All mysteries, save for that of Julius's demonic nature, were explained in great detail. Curator was reluctant to answer, but he decided that if the ghosts knew as much as they had told the boy, they knew everything that he had to tell. The meddlesome humans had been a thorn in his side for many eons, often coming close to destroying the world he had been tasked with protecting. He was still in awe of the time they had raised an army of giants from the Other Side. It was like they existed to annoy him.

"How many doomsday prophecies does the Creator need," Julius asked. Curator sighed and shook his head. "As many as it takes for your kind to defeat the demons. Do you have any idea how long he has been providing you with the answers to all of your problems, only for you to fall behind a wall and cower? You are not the first of the anointed, and you will probably not be the last. Every time, he sends a solution, and every time, he just hides fromhis duty. Countless men, women, and children have suffered immeasurably, all because your kind is weak." Julius cast his eyes downwards. He wanted to argue with Curator, but somewhere deep down, he knew that the angel was right. He had done nothing but cry when his father had died, he had done nothing but run when he was pursued by the demons, and the only person he had stood up to had been dead for years before the encounter. Demons were probably pillaging the empire looking for him, killing innocent people, and he was hiding in the house of a dead man, in a dead town.

He sighed and buried those thoughts. He would hide no longer, and he could not think of the past. He needed to do what he could to end this, regardless of whether he died in the process. A single name ran through his head. Malhechor, a dark god, one of many, was the source of the problem. The Creator was not the first of the divine, nor was he the strongest. A much more powerful god had been jealous of the one advantage the Creator had over him, which was, by name, creation. He brought life to the near empty void, and Malhechor had hated him for it. He had hated the Creator enough to follow him to the first world he had crafted, hated him enough to curse the world, and hated him enough to stay and keep the Creator away from the world he loved, for eternity, if need be. Demons destroyed everything he had worked so hard to create, and Malhechor sat on a throne of skulls, working to end the one thing that had escaped him. The humans.

Age followed age, and the Creator worked endlessly to free his children, merging man with every divine being he could to create a being that could do what he could not, and end Malhechor's reign. Julius's train of thought broke there. He had questioned Curator about that. Julius wondered what he had been mixed with, hoping for a tale of some valiant hero god come to aid the Creator, though he was told that he was the first pure human to be given the task. In fact, he was dead wrong on his assumption, for it was revealed that the Creator had called upon god from other realms, but none would dare stand against Malhechor, and all seemed lost. Yet, despite their mortality, they fought to build the walls that kept them alive, and succeeded. And they hid. They hid until the beginning of the Great Fall, the fourteenth of prophecies that would free humanity. They hid until now, until Julius was ready to fight for them. And Julius was ready. Or at the very least, ready to try. "I suppose it is high time to end the cycle, then. What is it that must pass for me to meet with Malhechor?" Curator raised an eyebrow and Haxa's lips pulled back into a smile. "And what exactly makes you think you could take on a god greater than the one who created you? Just because the Creator gave you a purpose does not mean that you are capable of achieving your goal. Did you forget that there have been thirteen before you who were given this task?" Julius was confused. Curator was against hiding, and pessimistic about not. There were not any other options. "I must take my leave, Malum. Try to do nothing of immense stupidity until I return." And with that, Haxa fell to the floor, devoid of the glow that had clung to her earlier.