The Descent of the Gods

Ascent

The surface beneath Enoch's fingertips was as smooth as glass. Gone were the jagged stones of Cain's altar. The din pounding in his ears had been replaced by a gentle blending of sounds he did not recognize.  

He opened his eyes. He lay on a crystal surface, reflective yet also translucent. Underneath its surface, fire pulsed and stars twinkled in an undulating darkness. He was transfixed. His fingers seemed separated from the whole universe only by a thin flat plane. 

He looked up, but found himself surrounded by a dense fog. It was not gray, it was golden, almost white, the color of a dark cloud suddenly illumined by the red flames of a setting sun.

Where was he? He sat up, and only after he performed the movement, he remembered his wounds. He saw that his body was torn in many places. His blood was spilling out onto the crystal floor. But he felt no pain. He felt nothing but warmth.

He remembered when the dragon had crushed his body. He shouldn't be able to move, which told him he must be hallucinating. The only other explanation could be that he was... dead.

Was this Sheol? The holding place of both the righteous and wicked dead spirits that Seth believed lay below the earth's crust? 

Where could he be?

The murmuring sounds filling the air suddenly went silent. They had been so gentle that Enoch had almost forgotten they were there until they were gone. All was perfect stillness now.

For what seemed an eternity, Enoch remained still, waiting for something to give him a clue where he was, or what he should do.

He didn't hear anything, but at long last, he sensed movement in the cloud. Something was traveling across the plain. It must have passed him by, because the golden mists wavered noticeably for a moment, and then stilled again. 

Something or someone was out there. Enoch stood gingerly. Ignoring the blood draining from him all over the floor at an alarming rate, he took a few steps forward in the direction he guessed the movement had gone.

Then the noise hit him. The impact emptied his lungs of breath. He stumbled back, cowering in his bloody pool. But the sound thundered on all around him. 

It took a few moments before he realized that the sound was a voice. The thunderings were words! He strained to understand them through his abject terror.

"...Your.... will stand....  ages, and...  name holy.... glorious and.... all..."

At first he only caught some of the words. It sounded as if the thunder was...... praying! 

Whatever was speaking was a powerful, sentient being. And it was speaking the same words that Enoch had uttered in his humble hut or on the grassy hillside looking after his sheep. Words of supplication to a higher power.

The same God worshiped and wondered at by a lowly shepherd was being adored by something no mortal mind could fathom. The power of that realization was almost to great to bear. He - a minute combination of dust particles - had dared to doubt that which the greatest creatures in the universe subjected themselves to with absolute awe and devotion.

As his tears mingled with his blood, his mind was opened. He could understand, and the words no longer hurt him as their power reverberated around him and through him.

"All things are naked and open in Your sight, and You see all things. Nothing can hide from Your face." 

These thunderings were different. They seemed to come from a second individual. Who could it be?

"You know what Azazel has done," the second voice continued.

 Enoch froze.

"And Semjaza, to whom You gave authority to bear rule over the watchers. They have gone to the daughters of men upon the earth, and have slept with the women, and have defiled themselves, and spilled the blood of mankind in their rage."