Original Sin

Chapter 8

Noah's Ark, Genesis chapters 7 & 8

Dinah was utterly sick. The longer she stayed on this boat, the sicker she became. But she did not expect to be discovered so quickly.

"Leave my boat and my family, temptress! God shall smite your wicked ways!"

It hurt, the hands of men grabbing her arms and dragging her outside the boat. Were they really going to drown her? What wrong had she done for trying to survive the flood? They threw her down upon the deck. 

Finally! Dinah breathed in the fresh saltwater air...and sunshine! 

"Have the waters receded back into the earth?" she asked, frantically trying to make her decimated limbs stand upright. She was immediately pushed to the deck again.

"You do not deserve to live upon God's good earth, and I'll make sure you don't live a moment longer."

Noah was a cruel and fierce leader. He wielded his ax as though it were an extension of his wrath toward humanity. Dinah understood why God chose this family to repopulate the new land: Noah was so much stronger than a normal man in both body and spirit. 

Is this the end? Such a short life.

She had failed Lucifer as a wife. She promised to always be there when he needed her, to comfort him from the burden he carried because of her. Now Dinah would never get the chance to do that. She had failed and bent her head low, ready for swift and certain death.

But the blow never came. Instead, Dina saw Noah's family cower at the sight of a brilliant flash of orange and white. Looking up, she saw him, Lucifer, wielding a sword enveloped in orange flames and larger than Dinah herself. She had seen him before, as a human, but in this angelic state he was truly fearsome. She had never seen this power before.

This was Lucifer's angel fury, the true power of an arch angel of the Lord. 

Dinah was still in shock as Lucifer carried her away. He set her on the ground of Mount Ararat. She was banished from the Ark, but it would've been a far worse fate if he hadn't appeared at that exact moment. Dinah realized that she depended on him far more than a typical wife; she depended on Lucifer for life.

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"If you're finished going down memory lane, shall we proceed?" Michael's voice broke the deafening silence. Hailey shook her head, trying to forget the memory of her lesser self. She continued on, putting one foot in front of the other, so lost in thoughts about the past. Hadn't she already moved-on from Dinah? 

Michael rambled on beside her, not even breaking a sweat. His chocolate colored hair didn't even move as the wind blew up a gust from the mountain peak. Anyone else would have said he used too much hair gel. How she envied angels sometimes! Even in human form they were far superior beings.

"As you may know, several of Alex's followers were immediately cast out of Heaven for their unfailing loyalty to him. Humans call them fallen angels." Hailey hoped Michael was going somewhere with his Bible history lesson. As interested as she was about the Rock of Ages, she already knew this information. "Anyway, the rock said fallen angels landed in fused with some of the divine aura angels give off as they fly. The fallen gathered up this material into the one Rock of Ages."

"But even angels can't technically send a soul into the afterlife. God has to impart divine judgement upon a soul first. Angels are just the messengers."

"True, but..." Michael paused, staring into Hailey's blue eyes. Those eyes had all the color and emotion of an icicle. Shivers ran down her spine. "Imagine the power and capabilities of thousands of fallen angels, pushed and pounded together into one singular item?" 

She felt the air around them shift and stir. Michael's statement was a threat, Hailey was sure of it. She just didn't know what for or to whom it was directed. "How much farther?" She needed to change the topic. They were getting closer to the summit of Mount Ararat. The wind was picking up. It was colder and the air was thinner. Hailey was having a much more difficult time trying to breathe.

"There's the cave." Michael pointed to what seemed like a mere outcropping of rock in the mountainside. As they drew closer however, Hailey saw that is was in fact a deep, old looking cave. She glanced back down the mountain. The town below had disappeared in the clouds. A storm was brewing, and they were far worse than the ones from those days on the Ark. There were probably few people who dared come here, which protected whatever was inside this cavern. 

She stepped inside the cave, relieved to be out of the wind but cautious about letting Michael take the lead. She didn't trust him. Why should she? He was so happy she chose to separate herself from Alex for the sake of all humanity. Michael's persona was one of outward aristocratic giddiness and internal villainy. However, he was her means to the end in this case, so she needed to move forward and stick to the status-quo, for now.

"I don't suppose you have a light, do you?" Hailey looked over at Michael, who let his bright angel aura shine. The cave was deep enough that they couldn't even see the end of it.

"This is the entrance, where I first felt its presence. However..." Michael's voice trailed off as he stepped forward a few yards. Hailey followed and spied a large door, far enough away from the surface view of the mountain. It was made of iron and bronze, embellished with Pagan, Christian, Islamic, and Jewish symbols. There was no window, no iron bars either. 

"This was a far as I could tread," Michael stated. "The door is warded against angels. See?"

Michael's hand shook as he pointed and made eye contact with a Pagan symbol for Earth and mud. He withdrew it quickly, slightly wincing with obvious pain from the warding. Hailey's hand traced the intricate carving. Such a masterpiece must have taken decades to construct. Add that to the cave, which must have been man-made, the structure was centuries old.

Her hand stopped at the lock. It was a skull-key lock situated at the center of a carving of the Byzantine flag. It was a deceased empire, now separated into pieces of Turkey, Iran, Greece, and other parts of the Middle East. It contained four crosses and was traditionally painted red, white, and gold. The most famous emperor of this empire was Constantine, the one who united Christianity under the First Council of Nicaea. This door was rooted in ancient Christianity, but it mixed other religions enough that Hailey would need more than just a glance to decipher meaning.

"Based on this carving, the assembly of the door, and the sacredness of this place, the key required for entry must have a keeper, someone sworn to secrecy and would rather die than let anyone open this gate. The keeper's roots probably originate from Byzantium. If we tried to remove the gate by force, it would be futile. These things are built to last forever under the harshest of conditions."

"Yes, I feared that. But since the gate is real enough, wouldn't you agree that the rock is real as well?" Michael's voice echoes from somewhere within the cavern. Hailey's head spun in circles. Her heartbeat raced. She shouldn't have lost sight of him! 

A sudden gust of wind and Hailey could feel his body behind her, close enough to touch. He wasn't warm and emotional like Alex. Michael was cold and calculating. Hailey remained stone-faced in spite of the chill traveling slowly down her spine. She felt his cold breath on her shoulder, his fingers combing through her hair. He pulled a lock up to his face and inhaled sharply. Hailey's insides twisted.

"I helped you get this far, Hailey. You do the rest now. You're more than capable, I think." Then he vanished, leaving only a small floating orb of light, barely enough to light her way back to the surface of the mountain.