The Light when all is Dark

Chapter 7

The first two people in the world were Adam and Eve. They lived in paradise. They had the fruits of all the trees, except one. God didn't allow them to eat the apples that grew from that tree. But the devil, disguised as a serpent, convinced them to eat the apples. Because of that, God banished us humans from the garden of Eden. However, the Bible never said what happened to the snake. Nobody knows but God and the devil, and maybe a few chosen ones.

But the devil, everyone knows what happened to him. He was banished to Hell. But he could still possess people in our world. And knowing that destroyed me, as there was a serpent. Looking straight into Lily's eyes, whispering some sort of chant. The thing that scared me wasn't the fact that it was a snake that could potentially kill us; it was the fact that it looked just like the serpent I'd imagined when I was told the story of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden.

It had many scales, and an arrow-shaped tail. But unlike other snakes, it had a nose. It had teeth. And it spoke.
"Not everyone gets to live a good life," the serpent said to Lily. The same voice that had possessed the dead hostage earlier.
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"I know what happens," the devil said. "I know how you react when the sun flares return; I know which of you live," he said looking at Jack, "and which of you die." His eyes focused on Emma and I, then Lily. "There's no way you petty humans didn't see this coming; you all know that some of you will die once my wrath is unleashed," he said. He stared at Emma. "And that some of you will die unleashing my wrath." He stared back into Lily's eyes. "And some of you will die under the torment of those who died for them." After a long pause, the devil continued talking. "Let me just warn you; some people will join you. One, you have already met, and will meet again after I finish talking. Some you will like, some you will dislike. However, that is not important. Well, you see, out of your future rather-large group of people, most will fall. Some deaths, painful, some for you to live. But only three will survive my wrath; and two will die under the pressure of saving the rest. As for the third; he will become my disciple." The devil started to slither away. Before he faded away from sight, he turned. "And just remember," he said, "the future is written. There's absolutely nothing you can do to stop it." He slithered away.

I looked at the rest, all of us extremely terrified. But before some of us could break the silence, there was an ear-pitching scream from about a mile away. Lily ran with Jack and Emma to find out who it was, and if they needed help. It was my turn to guard the house; and alone, that would be extremely hard, considering I was guarding against the devil, someone who had been living for much longer than I, despite him being a former angel.

After half an hour, they had still not come back. I was worried for everyone, including Jack, whom I had become close friends with recently. I decided to run after them, to make sure everything was okay. I arrived there to see one of the most terrifying sights I'd ever seen.

It was Jack, on the ground, unconscious. Bleeding his life out. I immediately ran back, and brought the fabrication box. I first checked for a pulse, then after I found it, I healed him up, then identified the wound; a stab mark. Someone was here, with a knife, and seemingly didn't have good intentions. Waking Jack up enough so that he could fend for himself, I walked further into the distance that Jack had pointed me towards. I continued until I found a broken down house. I walked inside, to see Emma holding a knife to the neck of a man I recognized instantly; Kronos.

"How is he-?" I stopped when I realized that Lily was holding a gun at Emma's head. I saw no other option but to walk in on them and figure out what was going on. When Lily saw me, she gestured to Emma.
"Help me talk some sense into her," she said. "She completely lost it when she saw him, even stabbing Jack when he tried to stop her." That confused me. Emma stabbed Jack? I expected that it would have been Kronos.

I didn't respond to her, I just went on with my job.
"Emma," I said, trying to get her attention. It worked.
"What?!" she asked, furiously. "Are you going to tell me to stop trying to kill this guy, who tried to kill Jack?"
"Yes, because we could get lots of useful information from him," I replied, as calmly as I could, trying to imitate Emma's kind, gentle tone.

She dropped the knife, and Lily lowered her gun. Emma looked at me with tears in her eyes, and she ran to embrace me. Lily, clearly disturbed by the sight, went over and pulled Kronos, forcing him to follow us. Then, I saw his left arm clearly; and I knew where the scream came from. There was a giant burn mark on his arm. It probably came from some airship. But I decided not to think about it, in case it gave me nightmares.

We passed by for Jack, then made our way back to the house. We came back to see the serpent waiting for us at the door.
"I see, you've met him," he said. "Such a strong fellow, it's a shame he wouldn't join my side." He shook his head, then said, "nobody's meant to know too much about their future. Sorry for confirming your death sentence," he said, although he was clearly not sorry. Actually, he seemed quite amused by Kronos's reaction.
"How is he even alive?" I asked. The reply was extremely unexpected.
"The only one you've met was from the future," he said. He laughed as best his snake form could. "You didn't know? How about 'I did this for you?'"

The snake laughed, then left the house. We all walked in, and noticed that nothing had changed. The devil, or Satan, seemingly didn't do anything to get us annoyed except for the stupid shit-talks. At least we wouldn't be up all night fixing our stuff.

We gave Kronos his own bed. It had turned out that his name was Owen, and that his future self just wanted an alias. Time travel was the only way this was possible, however as far as I knew, it wasn't possible. This just confused me more, and I was up all night thinking about it. I couldn't sleep, despite Emma sleeping next to me that night. Maybe we were all thinking about the same thing, but Emma fell asleep. Maybe she was just different to me. Then again, that was why I liked her.

I took part of the night to admire her looks; only then did I realize that she took off her laser glasses. She definitely looked better without them, although they looked more like those of Cyclops from the X-Men. (Yes, I watched those stuff in the three months of peace with Emma. She was amazed that I hadn't watched any of them, and that day we watched each and every reboot of each and every Marvel, Disney and DC movie/tv show. Many more as well. They were amazing.)

The next day, we had bacon and eggs for breakfast. It was rather peaceful in the house, considering that we had just found Owen with a burn mark on his arm and thought he'd tried to kill Jack. Not to mention a lot of talks with Satan.

Everything was extremely peaceful until a girl, also about our age, fell over into the house. We ran over to her, and carried her into Emma's bed (she had said that she'd just sleep on mine with me, and I had no problems with it). After a while, she regained consciousness. She sat up and looked at us. Emma, Jack and Lily seemed to recognize her. All three attempted to give her a hug, but were stopped when I introduced both myself and Owen. She introduced herself to us non-Valhalla people.

"My name is Artemis," she said, "and you guys are going to be getting a few more people coming, the exact way I did."
"How do you know?" Jack asked.
"Because I've seen them," she said, "and i know who sent them. She also sent me."