Raised in Hell

TWO

A VERY SMALL TIME AGO

The burning hot flames of the fire grabs at my bear feet. A singular blue streak of lighting hits my chest directly colliding with my bare cold heart. I let a groan of pain escape my lips as I reach for my burning chest and fall to the ground of red hot ashes. I could feel the outstretched glow of my deep purple eyes as the pain inflicted on my back grew stronger. Jabbing dark red-purple feathers emerge from the deep wounds on my back. I feel the thick coating of blood weigh down on each of my newly born feathers. The pain seems as though it will never end. Then a stiff end of the trail sprouts covered in fresh bright blood and it ends. I come up from my crouched fetal position on the ground and my arms fling out. My spine bends back. The entangled feathers from the wings spread out and evenly lay in a sharp pattern. They fling back with a gathered force as my arms meet them. They flap back and forth once. A strong wave of wind erupts from their force. A piercing scream escapes my pale dry mouth. A purple aura binds to my body and the flames raise higher. My rebirth that has lasted an eternity is done.

I emerge from a rain of embers in a blinding aura of light. My hands fly to my face to cover my eyes, but even they become bright with light. I seem to be millions of feet tall. I only see myself as a sparkling blur though and then I fall. The murky hard wood of the abandoned factory I'd first met Lucifer in lingers at my finger tips. I lay bear and bleeding on the cold floor. Crusted blood from my new born wings falls to the floor as my fingernails scratch at the wood. I clench my teeth and a solemn tear escapes my shining eyes. Another strays. Then my cheeks are covered in streaks of clear liquid. Continuous screams erupt from my vocal chords. I need to die. I want to die. But my body has different plans. My hands scrape against the floor. Boiling blood sizzles on the floor as I drag myself to the corner of the room. The soft deteriorating walls give way against my forceful bloody wings as I try to rest, and I'm thrown into a pile of musky wood and tall yellow grass. I flip my body over on the ground so my face meets the grass. The pain on my back seems as though it will linger there forever. My tears stream to the ground and my face wrinkles in ways I never knew it could.

Then a voice echos in my ears. It's unclear from the clotting of blood in my ears. Then it becomes more clear as it gets closer. I recognize the voice but I can't place it. Who is it.

"...Jesus, you're gonna blind someone like that. Mind turning off the light?"

Lucifer. He walks to my head and grabs my shoulders. I shriek from the intense pain. He makes a small hiss like noise that seems to imply pity.

"Eesh, Sorry." Did the devil just tell me sorry? He lightly grabs under my arms and pulls me up to face him. I turn from his stare. My impending purple light blinds even my own eyes. I expect him to say some sarcastic point or make fun of my pain. Instead he lays me in his arms. His wretched bloody arms. My wings begin to curl back onto my back. I cringe from the pain. My body bends up from the pain in the wings. I can still feel their deep rooted stems moving within my body as they curl. I furrow my brows. Not from the pain but from the intentions of Lucifer. His cold body cools the heat of my own and his arm wraps around my waist. I continue to whimper and shake like a frightened animal.

"Shhh... Shhh... It'll be okay." He whispers. Confusion over takes my mind and I mutter a barely audible word. 'Why?' I suddenly feel his rough forehead against my own. A white light takes over my vision again. I struggle in his arms. My arms thrash and my wings beat. 'No more! No more!' I scream through clenched teeth. One of his bloody hands meet my face in the midst of the white light.

"No, no more. It's okay just watch." He says in a soothing yet rough voice. I stop thrashing for a moment and close my eyes. The light becomes brighter. But it's not a burning light like before. It's a cool luminous light. It's silent sound some how echos through my head. Colors begin to mix with it. In some transmission of thoughts I suddenly see a memory. An angel. Blue eyes. A demon. Red eyes. They stare to each other. Not a hateful stare. A. A... loving stare. Then I realize the angel. His red and yellow wings are spread out. The same red as mine. Lucifer. Lucifer fell in love with his own creation. Or rather his own corruption of creation. Suddenly the two were interlaced. Two souls gathered, they became one.

Their colors of red and blue seemed to mix and the color became a purple. The last thing I saw with both of them was the sudden existence of a baby. It's purple eyes shone in the black of the vision. Then chaos returned. The demon was portrayed in a pool of blood. A knife that looked like a bone laid on the floor and beckoned to me in anger. Lucifer was suddenly gone, too. A cage was now surrounding him. Then darkness prevailed. I awoke from the vision and began to stare at Lucifer. His now soft embrace began to quiet me. The bright light of my form began to dull and I now laid bear and naked. My pain still stabbed at my back and my tears still fell like daggers of rain onto lucifer's skin, but I became some version of calm. I began to bury my head into the crook of his arm, but then I thought about the vision. The child. The purple. The nephalem. In the vision, I became the new and only nephalem. I became lucifer's daughter.