God's Gone AWOL

[5] The Two Catastrophes

Ironically, Bentley wasn't actually all that far away.

She was standing on the top of the Notre-Dame Cathedral, about six blocks from the Cupboard. Her eyes were unfocused, her gaze hovering blankly on the Paris skyline without truly seeing any of it. The natural wind current swooping above the main city passed straight through her as though she were a statue, causing her red clothing to whip boundlessly about her body. She couldn't move. She couldn't speak. She couldn't even conjure up a fake smile.

Throughout the duration of her entire life, Bentley had struggled with the concept of angels.

Once upon a time, she had lived under the identity of an angel. Back then, she had a different name, a different level of power, a different life... but now that angel was a long-dead fragment of her identity. She had been killed the moment Lucifer first descended from the upper ranks of Heaven baring a message of change, of disruption, and most importantly, of hope. It had been so long ago, Bentley barely even considered that foolish little angel to be part of her history anymore. It was a forgotten memory, destined to be forgotten the moment it was made. And Bentley had never wanted to be associated with it ever again.

After the Fall, there was enough polarization, enough "black and white", enough "good and bad", and enough "angels and demons" to go around. The controversy was so great back then that both sides were willing to kill in order to defend their one-sided beliefs. Many of Bentley's demon comrades were killed at the hands of angels. But at the same time, those demons killed many angels whom she had gotten along with back in Heaven. Every time she tried to stop the fighting, things only got worse. But she never backed down.

As Bentley's frustration grew, so did the magnitude of her actions. From disrupting the happenings of Earth, to directly throwing herself in the way of various angel-on-demon conflicts, she had done everything she could to keep at least some balance of decency amidst the fighting. But in the end, the only thing it ever did was give her the reputation of a notorious troublemaker. It grew to the point where nobody could tolerate her. Neither angels nor demons.

Despite all that trouble, Bentley never actually hated angels for the majority of her life. She found their culture to be annoying, stuck up, self-absorbed, violent, and just overall quite dumb, but she didn't wish the angels themselves any harm. In her opinion, it was more of a personality clash than it was a deeply rooted grudge. The angels had all chosen to stay in Heaven because that's where they belonged. She didn't belong in Heaven, so she left. It was that simple. Her (chaotic) methods of peacekeeping were always impartial, and she never targeted anyone intentionally.

But then came the death of Lilith. Everything shifted after that.

Though she tried her best to suppress her own physical memories, Bentley couldn't forget the facts. Lilith was killed very quickly and brutally, right on the banks of the Dead Sea. She had survived for thousands of years, becoming a famous figure across all four realms. Then one completely random day, the three Hellbournes were caught off guard by a group of ill-intentioned angels and suddenly it was all over. Lilith had died in the blink of an eye, without even bidding a proper farewell to her own family.

Neither Bentley nor Xander ever recovered. Although he was already a dedicated fighter, Xander became violently obsessed with avenging their late sister. Perhaps that was what affected Bentley the most. She had her own share of trauma from watching helplessly as Lilith's eyes were burned out of her skull. But the change in Xander's personality was the most frightening aspect. Overnight, her playful, rowdy little brother became a vicious and vengeful warrior, hellbent on destroying any angel he encountered. He was cold, deadly, corrupted by hatred. Things changed, and the two drifted apart.

It was all because of this stupid war. The endless need to kill kill kill. The endless struggle to prove which side was superior, neither one caring at all about those who lost their lives in the process. The problem was the apathy, the rage, and the hatred. The pre-set feeling of "us versus them" with no true desire to gain anything out of it other than the right to say "I win so I'm clearly the best". It was because nobody cared about anything. No matter how hard Bentley tried, nothing would ever be the same. They would never achieve peace again.