Eve. The human soul

Welcome back, Eve.

“Luke, be quiet. You don’t want to wake her up,” I heard voice of a girl. It sounded like an angel. Am I in heaven already?

“Fine, fine,” Luke answered. “But I guess three days is enough of sleep even for an ogre”.

“Stop it,” the girl laughed. I tried to open my eyes. I saw a blurry figure of a girl washing my window. The guy stood nearby holding a bucket with water.

“Kiara, she’s waking up,” the guy said as he poked her. Kiara jumped off the windowsill landing down holding her dress and ran to my bed. The room looked oddly familiar, but I couldn’t figure out why. Kiara looked at me with her solemn, light blue eyes and grabbed my hand.

“How are you? Are you feeling fine? What’s your name?” she rushed.

“Where… where am I?” I whispered. My throat was so dry I could hardly speak.

“Don’t you worry. You are all right.” she smiled. She had long, curly, light ginger hair, and a bright clear face. She was the most beautiful girl I have ever seen.

“I got lost…” I said silently. I saw how Luke’s face made a ridiculous grimace.

“Yeah, yeah. Another lost one. You all so dumb” he spitted. Kiara’s faced frowned.

“What’s your name? I’m Kiara and that’s Luke.” she ignored him.

I wanted to lie about my name, but I felt like I didn’t have enough energy to come up with a cover on the spot.

“Eve.” I answered. She then smiled at me. “Nice to meet you Eve. Now get up. We are going to show you around.” She proclaimed. “I’ll be down the stairs if you need me”.

She jumped up and dragged Luke out by his sleeve. He gave me  a look of pity. “Something is not right here.” I thought to myself, “Also, where the hell am I?”

As I got down to the base of the stairs, I soon realized this was the castle. I glanced through the windows noting never ending dark trees outside t as well as a lingering feeling clinging to the back of my head. I looked away.

The walls were covered by thousands of paintings framed in gold. I thought they are typical renaissance paintings ,but as I drew closer, I saw devils, dark naked creatures with horns, black giant wings and red eyes. They all seemed to be performing the same acts in all the pictures: killing and torturing humankind.

I walked down and I saw that the doors were wide open. It seemed puzzling that they do not lock the doors if they wanted to keep me and probably other prisoners inside. I rushed down the stairs to the exit, but Kiara blocked my way. She smirked, but it was easy to tell that it was most forced smile in world:

“You can stay anywhere you want, but you can never leave.” she whispered directly into my ear. She then looked around acting all scared and suspicious as if the walls could hear her.

She quickly scurried away with a bucket and cloth. I decided to give myself a tour.

As I walked through the halls, I couldn’t shake the feeling that somebody was constantly watching me.  Someone was reading my mind. Someone is putting their thoughts in my head and making me believe they were my own. I could tell Kiara knew something, but she would never tell me. I had to find that other guy with the black hair, Luke. It felt as if he was more willing to speak.

As I developed my plan, I noticed some large rosewood doors in front of me. They were cracked a  tiny bit open. I noticed there was fireplace inside because I saw shapes shadow dancing  through the glow of the flame on the floor. I slowly opened the doors and poked my head inside. The room was enormous, but it was somehow dark in there, in lieu of the six giant windows draped with velvet curtains. The only light was coming from that black marble fireplace. I saw an elongated red rug, a large circular table with a dozen seats and a desk behind it. There was a man sitting by it.

He was facing window, so I took a second to look at him. He had dark hair and strong jawline. His face was so symmetrical and perfect, you could think he was carved from marble by god himself.

I decided his presence was too pressuring and I had to vanish. The moment my foot left the ground, the man turned his face to me. His black eyes turned a deep scarlet red for a brief moment as he looked towards me.. His glance felt as if it could pierce through my soul. I was frozen.

“Please, come in.” he said. His clear voice bounced off the walls. I did as I was told. Just then, I realized who he was.  

“Welcome back, Eve.” he said.

“Nice to see you too, Lucifer.” I tried to make my voice sound as confident as possible even if I was still trembling inside. He slowly stood up and walked towards me.

“It’s been decades and yet, you are as young and beautiful as ever.” he stopped by the fireplace for a second then turned to me. “Immortality is a wonderful invention isn’t it, my dear?”

“How did you know it was me?” I asked.

“I could never forget that face of yours.“ His face moved up and down as he examined me. “Besides, no other human being has ever resisted the power of this forest. Even if for a moment.”

He started pacing around the room admiring the paintings. “You see, God has betrayed us. Maybe you don’t realize this yet, my dear, but we are the good characters here. God sent Jesus to imprison me. And finally, after all those years…” He looked at me and smiled. “Now that you are here, we along with Adam can get our revenge and send God where he deserves to be – hell.”  I almost chocked when I heard this. Everything flashed through my mind. The gun I tossed in the river, my old dress covered in the wetness of grass and webs along with my and Adam’s blood.

I stood up and stepped back. My hands were shaking. I felt the cold wall behind me. I suddenly realized where I had seen this castle before.

I took another look at the paintings. I could have sworn they had changed their figure. All I could see was the same face in every single piece of artwork, looking right at me. Finally, he turned to me as well. Lucifer’s eyes were crackling with fire. His face became red. I could see the horns growing on his forehead.

I felt how hard he was trying to read my mind. I tried to block his advances, , but just as in the forest, the voice had gotten to my head too easily. When he discovered what I was trying to hide from him, the walls started to shake. Paintings began to fall down on the floor with their gold frames shattering. I felt the room heat up from the pure rage Lucifer had. He soared up in the air aided by his giant dark wings and yelled so loud the walls began to crumble.:

“You killed Adam?!” His scream echoed through the empty halls of the castle and echoed in circles around me.

I was speechless. Choking on my own fear. My necklace got scorching hot searing the skin on my chest. The carmine color dress I found in my room matched my heated skin. I grabbed something behind me. It was a silver candlestick. I held it in front of me as a weapon.

“He tried to force me into it. I had to protect myself!” I yelled back.

“You ruined it all Eve!” He screamed. “All women are mistakes created by God when he was drunk!”

“Shut the f**k up!” I heard a brave voice behind me. There was young blonde man standing by the doors. He appeared fearless.

“Don’t you dare to talk to her like that”. He repeated. Lucifer laughed. Despite his  blond hair, he and Lucifer looked as similar as two water drops.

“Stop protecting her. Your mother was mad.” Lucifer said As he turned to face me. “All women are mad.”

“You can come up with other plan, father” blondie exclaimed heroically. He then looked back at me “Let Eve rest.”

They stared at each other for a while. Both unwilling to be the first to back down. Finally, Lucifer chuckled and landed on the ground. His devil horns and wings were gone immediately. The blistering heat mysteriously vanished. I started to regain my breath.

Lucifer looked down upon me again with a sullen look in his face: “Why in the world would you kill your own husband?”