Fallen State

Chapter Four

Lilith sat upon the throne of perdition. Her naked figure surrounded by the eternal and impenetrable darkness of the realms of the fallen. A prison for those who transgressed against the supreme will of the celestial rulers of creation. And Lilith was the ruler of this prison. Ruler of the maze of separate but united worlds of emptiness and solitude. Ruler and one of the prisoners. Governing a wretched pit of a world full of equally wretched scum and depraved beasts was as far as Lilith was concerned a vile insult.

For refusing to submit to the tyranny of the high and mighty who considered the only appropriate place for the beings they had created to be beneath their feet and begging for the right to exist Lilith, who had once been one of the celestial powers, had been cast out of paradise. So she ruled over the damned as their queen and dreamed of revenge. In her mind flashed visions of paradise torn apart and burning with the angels impaled on their own weapons and their wings broken. She would keep them from the release of death to suffer forever as they deserved to.

For a moment Lilith had sensed her daughter's presence among the many prisoners of perdition and then the strange woman who followed her daughter everywhere had somehow preached the barriers that surrounded the worlds of the damned and had taken Abigail away from there. Lilith had always been sure she was the only one who knew how to do that, to enter and leave perdition as she pleased. There was only one place beyond her reach. The woman, Rachel Rhode, intrigued Lilith very much. It seemed to her that they had similar plans. The same burning ambition.

One of the twisted and distorted figures that dwelled in the realms of perdition closest to hers entered what Lilith thought of as her throne room and bowed. The pale creature looked human but contorted and broken as if its body had transformed to match the hideousness of its soul. It was one of the prisoners who had given up and given into the corruptive power that lived in perdition. It was one of those who like Lilith could see within the perpetual darkness.

"Rise." Lilith said and the creature did.

It looked at her with animalistic, primitive intelligence and waited for orders. Its kind congregated near Lilith and could feel when she wished to see them. They were eager to serve.

"Gather the others." Lilith said. "I'm sending you to the mortal world."

The creature left her throne room, vanishing beyond its border. Lilith rose from her throne and travelled across perdition unseen by its prisoners, observed their wretchedness and heard their pleas and pathetic justifications. She watched their confusion and terror. Witnessed as they stumbled in the darkness and surrendered. And she despised them all.