~~Young~~

Chapter Three

   With elbows out, wings tucked just about perfectly beneath him and arms braced behind his head as he leaned against his headboard, Gage took in the sight before him with dispassionate eyes.

   He was bored.

   Even the picture of two perfectly proportioned women, with their bare breasts pressed against his torso as they slept draped over his equally naked body couldn’t stir anything but a lackluster sigh from him. And when sex had lost its appeal then he knew it had been far too long since he had any real work to do.

   The soul found form in the afterlife, flesh, bone, hair, the same shape as it had in life which was the only reason Gage was able to participate in such a physical activity with these two beauties. He himself was born in flesh and would die in such. There was nothing more of him, no existential character that was bound for another plain of existence. If the eternity he faced could at all be considered life, well, then there was nothing of him to move on in death.

   And what did it matter really? He could already travel between all realms, between the living and the dead at will, his form staying true in both. Well, mostly. On earth he looked the same as he did here, only the pull of hell making his physical form heavier, and he had the option of showing off his wings or not when in that realm. Here, at home, they were always out, which wasn’t such a bad thing. He preferred it that way, to be as he was and not have to hide his self for the sake of not making a scene.

   Once upon a time he could walk around wings out there, on earth, too. And though it still drew eyes, he was revered for them and not treated as an abomination. Of course that was in a time when demons, angels and gods still walked amongst man, when humans not only believed in what they could not see, but feared it. But then came the heretics and the skeptics, claiming from up high that what humans had been led to believe was wrong, sacrilege against the one true God, blah, blah, blah.

   It was just God in his own boredom looking to reinvent himself and his persona to the population. He was getting tired of sharing the spotlight with lesser deities when in his mind he was doing most of the work. No longer wanting to be associated with them he lost the Zeus and adopted the God almighty bullshit.

   And who was the one to pass this message along, but God Himself.  A little show of strength and humans would believe anything you told them, and taking advantage of this God used his “new” followers to spread the word that they would all burn in eternal damnation if they chose otherwise. At least it was a threat he followed through with, Gage could give him that much.

   But once the “good word” spread any being that didn’t fit God’s cookie cutter mold of human was hunted and destroyed. Lucky for Gage, and a few others, at least he had the option of appearing human even though it still left them highly outnumbered. God had managed to put quite the fear in those humans so any chance of revival was quite a many years off. Just the thought of participating in any of those debaucheries that they loved so much sent shivers up their spines when faced with an eternity of pain and suffering. They played good for a really long time too. Doing exactly what they were told to do via that crock of shit they called the Bible…or the Torah, or the Quran, or the Tao-Te-Ching...

   Really, it wasn’t worth being on earth at that time, no one was having any fun.

   But it was funny because it was his idea to give the humans free will, but yet given the chance to express themselves he took it away, forced them into conformity. Or at least tried, because there were always those who refused to obey the rules, who wouldn’t believe what they were told just because everyone else did.

   Those were Gage’s kind of people, and Lucifer’s too for that matter.

   He too adopted a new moniker when God began his one man show, no longer Hates. But the whole thing kind of backfired on God. Because before the exile the two of them got along, but once God decided he wasn’t going to share the glory anymore Lucifer decided he should live up to God’s new concept of what the devil should be…and then some.