Prologue
Kalima
“Michael, move immediately!" Archangel Gabriel snarled as he gathered his gigantic white wings about him and descended from the heavens, closing in behind me like a shooting star.
"Confiscate her! She cannot escape!" A swarm of Archangels, Heaven’s Elite combat force of angels took shape above me. Their eyes lighted with the anger of the sun; resolve spurred them to stop the hands of what I believed to be destiny.
I leaped over a chasm and fired another blast of my black rage at the two archangels who sought to obstruct my way. I’d had enough. For what reason was I created to merely be secreted away, to become nothing more than a dead prophesy just because mankind has demonstrated that there may be another path? This was my fate. I smashed my feet into the ground causing the earth to rumble before it broke apart.
Archangel Gabriel snarled as he gathered his gigantic white wings about him and descended from the heavens, closing in behind me like a shooting star. "Confiscate her! She cannot escape!"
Another throng of Archangels, Heaven’s Elite combat force of angels took shape above me. Their eyes ignited with the fury of the sun; resolve spurred them to stop the hands of what I believed to be destiny.
This was my fate.
I smashed my feet into the ground and the earth rumbled before it broke apart as I tore my way across the gorge. Humans were nothing more than wastes of flesh and bone. They killed for pleasure just as much as they fucked for pleasure; the damned tended to rule the weak while the meek and mild perished from suffering. Summoning my Scythe into my grip, I spun it, fueling it with my dark rage. For centuries I had slept, trapped in my own dreamworld of paradise, under the spell of the Creator who knew that the day of my awakening would come. Over time, the desperate cries from the humans would filter their way into my dreamscape. There were days that I would lay on the lush green grass of the fields and gaze at the sun. There were also nights when I would sit naked and alone under the light of the moon, wondering if the other gods and lords of the darker realms knew that I existed. I yearned for contact, for touch, for a word… But even during those moments when I felt most alone, I was still at peace.
And then the piercing scream of a human child cut through the silence of the sun.
I began to observe the race of humans by stepping out into the creek where I could see from behind the Veil and connect with those beings who resided beyond the dreamscape. Curious creatures they were…I spent many a night studying them, often focusing on a single group and observing them well beyond their life spans. I grew to empathize with their struggles and often petitioned the heavens on their behalf. From my dreamscape world, I often would send guides and messengers in the form of my favorite winged creature – the crow- to assist when needed. In time humans soon recognized my presence and some had learned from their masters how to harness their own power and communicate with those of us hidden in the worlds between.
I’ve been called many names throughout the ages, but on this eve, only the angels will remember me as the Great Cleanser. I can taste the sin that hangs in the air. No more. No more murder. No more tears. And no more worshipping of gods who despised men. The latter is what all these fools fail to understand. They overlooked the fact that there was something greater than all of them that was coming. HE was coming. THEY would follow.
“You cannot stop me Michael nor you Gabriel!” I shouted as the wind began to pick up in speed.
“Kalima…” The deep velvety voice of a soul that even in my blackened rage, could never ever hurt. “Please don’t do this…”
I could feel him behind me, my Asir. My dear sweet Asir. The only male who understood my depths and watered my spirit with his love. He was neither human nor god, but somehow existed in both the flesh and spirit.
“Asir… once my Scythe begins to spin, this cycle of earth, this realm, and all that must come to an end,” I remind him softly. “You must go. Go to The Veil and stay there until my return. I do not want you harmed here.”
You cannot harm me,” he told me, placing his warm hand on my shoulder. “But the angels and the lords… the masters have spoken. You are not to execute the prophecy before its time. It is not your destiny to do so Kalima.”
“I possess a fate that you could never understand…They knew what I was when I was created. They knew me before I knew of my power, and they cast me into a deep slumber only for me to awaken to my fury when the time came. How can I not be fulfilling a prophecy that they knew would happen?”
I could sense Michael and his band of loyalists closing in on me from above and with a twist of my wrist I sent another shockwave of power that blew them out of the sky.
“I’m so sorry my love,” I heard Asir whisper to me. “But I cannot let you do this…” The sharpness of a cursed l obsidian dagger pierced straight through the muscles and tendons of my back and into my heart.
The pain of both his actions and the actual betrayal itself could not be matched. I felt my power drain from my hands just as my blood dripped from my wound. My Scythe slowly came to a stop only to collapse on the ground in front of me. Clutching my chest, I dropped to my knees and studied my blood-soaked hands. Asir’s mournful wails wrapped around me. His pain became mine and mine his. He wanted to protect the world from me, from my power… but his gentle heart could never fathom that the world didn’t need protection, it needed my help.
“I love you Kalima. I will love you in this life and the next and so forth… but right now, you cannot exist here…”
Death is a rebirth; and it is in death where I am reborn. Asir sent me back to the dreamscape, where my spirit could be one with the sun and moon. But he never returned to me. He left me alone, seemingly content with us to be separated by the Veil… that is, until my spirit was once again called forth to be born in the flesh. Yet, my spirit would remain sleeping, resting peacefully in the physical form of a human in a world where gods no longer walked among men but were men. And these men would soon learn what it would mean to bow before a greater god.
©2022 Delizhia Jenkins All Rights Reserved
Visuals created using Artist.ai