Chapter
2 – Resisting as Fighting
More days pass, and nothing
changes. I keep praying and struggling with my desire to do something. I go out
for food and water and feel more overwhelmed by temptations every time. Caiaphas
keeps giving me the same advice, and I can feel myself growing spiritually and
physically weaker as time goes on. I find myself praying for strength,
patience, and wisdom more than the world and others. I’ve lived as a
penitential nomad more than in relaxation and luxury in my hundreds of years of
living, and yet, this current saga of my life is more testing than any other.
I feel a bit of comfort, and
thinking it’s God, I let my guard down and thank God for it. Then, I feel and
see warm arms of light wrap around me, and my head begins to feel numb. Looking
behind me, I see one of the residents of Lux Mane phasing through the wall like
a ghost. Her appearance is like the rest of the people from Lux Mane, as her
body is made of a dull but bright golden light, dressed in golden robes, has
finger-like wings, and has her eyes closed with a permanent smile on her face.
“Uriel!” Caiaphas says as I’m
whisked away through the ground by the woman and into the sky.
Forced to look into the sky for a
moment, I see hundreds, if not thousands, of eyes looking at me and the same
number of fingers reaching out from the light that touch my head and body and
soul, making it more numb. I try to get out of the woman’s grasp, but my
strength leaves me, and her firm grasp on my weak body makes it impossible for
me to slip out.
“Relax,” she loudly whispers in my
ear, her voice gripping my mind as if it were a hand. “You’ll be free and happy
soon.”
The grip on my mind makes me faint.
Everything around me seems to spiral inward until my vision clears and I see
that I’m flying over one of the cities controlled by Lux Mane, its tall
buildings all white, like the buildings on their planet are said to be,
reflecting the light of the shining planet. The woman carrying me sets me down
on a roof where a party is underway. Everyone stops drinking and partying to
look at me. The woman bows before a man in white and gold robes and announces
who I am and where she found me.
“Heh, looks like you didn’t need to
restrain him because he’s done that to himself in more ways than one,” the man
in white and gold says. “So, you’re Uriel, the last descendant of the honored
Emundatio family? What’s a man like you hiding in a dark hole? You deserve to
be in one of the luxurious penthouses, enjoying all the pleasures of life.”
“I don’t need it…I don’t need it…”
I say, wanting to say I only want to serve God, but find myself unable to
because a large majority of myself is pulling me to want relaxation and
pleasures.
“I know what you want. Don’t worry,
you’ll get it, my friend. We from and of the Lux Mane don’t punish our enemies.
Instead, by the power of the god of Light, we give them what they want.”
“Stop…I’d rather die…”
“No, you wouldn’t. Don’t lie to
yourself. It’s a sin, isn’t it?”
With the remainder of my strength,
I get up, punch the man in the face, and throw myself over the edge of the
building, only to be caught and have my vision blurred and everything become
spirals again. Once my vision settles, I see that I’m in some kind of luxurious
apartment room with a kitchen, bedroom, couch, TV, computer, and many little
decorations. At the entrance of this room is the man in white and gold robes
that I punched and three robed women behind him.
“Where am I? I don’t want this,” I
say as I get up, still weak, and feeling the effects of the cursed light.
“This is your temporary apartment.
We’ll find or build you a proper place to live. A man like you deserves it, so
we’ll have it for you soon. Until then, please enjoy it as best you can and
enjoy the company,” the man says before backing away and allowing the women to
enter.
One woman has a face similar to my
mother, another has a face that looks like a woman from hundreds of years ago,
and the third looks like another family member. I turn my head as they take off
their clothes and approach me.
“Get away from me! This isn’t what
I want,” I say.
“Yes, it is,” the man says. “Our
god has told us of your tastes. Your temptations gave you a liking to your
mother, a young relative, and a nun. Your mother was perverted for allowing her
stress to get to her and give in to her rapists; thus, you were also given a
similar burden to hers.”
As the women touch me and try to
drag me to the bed, the man’s words and what’s suggested make me lose my
patience and throw a punch at the face of the woman who looks like my mother,
caving her skull in, and killing her in an instant.
“Don’t talk about my mother like
that!” I yell.
The man and the two women laugh,
and the woman, whom I thought I killed, has her face restored by the light from
the outside, comes back to life, and laughs with them.
“Oh, and yes, you have an itch for
violence too,” one of the women says. “Your tastes involve sex and violence,
the two things all men and women crave the most.”
“Don’t act like you need to prove
your strength to anyone. We know you’re better than most men,” the other woman
says.
“Yes, most men just give in when
given the comfort you have now. Yes, you prove it with your continued
struggling against us. That means we should give you something as a reward
right now. Come on, let’s go find it for you,” the man says.
An intense light shines from the
outside, turning everything I see into spirals yet again. No matter how much I
try to pray and fight against it, I can’t help but allow myself to be taken and
go along with whatever is happening. My vision settles, and I see that I’m in
some beachfront mansion with a nudist beach in front of me. Turning away from
the sight, I look at the house, which is also blinding to look at because of
how it reflects the light from Lux Mane.
“What do you think, Uriel?” the man
in white and gold robes asks. “It’s one of the best in the area. Come on,
girls. Help him in. He can’t enjoy the best parts of it outside.”
Three floating women grab my arms
and legs, and carry me through the house as the man explains each room and all
the decorations. It all looks too familiar.
The man says, “It does look
familiar, doesn’t it? We’ve modeled it off your original home and the many
other homes you’ve been in and admired. Look, it’s your original room with all
your favorite statues and superhero figures, including your mother, father,
their mentor, and others. We’ve even filled it with all kinds of familiar
faces.”
I shake off the women who are carrying
me, and say, “I don’t care what they look like or even if they look like people
I’ve loved. Those people are in Heaven. You people are from Hell.”
“How could we be from Hell when we
give so much to those who are needy and in need of comfort in their suffering,
such as you?”
“You use comfort as a way to manipulate
people to fall into sin. Your gifts are tainted with poison, and I will not
accept them,” I say while tearing down everything in the house, especially the
awards with my name on them and statues of myself.
The three women push me through the
ground with the man flying behind them.
“If violence is what you want, then
you’ll get more than your fill of it,” the man says.
With a snap of his finger, I’m
blinded by a flash of light. A second after, I see myself in some kind of
underground fight club and bar where, after the victors win, they have their
way with those that they defeated in front of the crowds, take them kicking and
screaming away, or let the crowds do what they want with them. Everyone is in
their own cage, and in mine, there are many men and women with similar faces to
those of people I’ve disliked, to say the least, such as family members who
were oppressing the people of Aushalten and got what they deserved.
“Fight and kill them all. After you
can do whatever you like to them, or if you don’t, they’ll do whatever they
want to you,” the man in white and gold robes says from over my shoulder before
disappearing in a flash of light.
Before I can see what’s going on, I’m
punched in the face by the brawl that’s been started by everyone.
“Come on, weakling. Can you fight?
You can’t do anything but pray and be on your knees all day, can you?” the woman
in front of me says as she attacks me.
She throws punch after punch at me
that I dodge, losing my temper with each passing second I’m in here.
“Everyone, stop fighting! This is
what they want us to do! This is what these sick freaks get off to,” I say.
No one listens to me as they keep
fighting. Some of them even say they’re the same sick freaks and want this
wholeheartedly. I try running to the sides of the cage, but can’t find a door
or break it open, so with no other choice, I defend myself. I kill the woman
who’s going after me by clapping my hands around her head, crushing her skull.
Picking up her dead body, I use it as a weapon against the others, a tactic I
picked up from St. John Elio and his sister saint, killing a few of the others
in the process. Five of the fighters in the cage gang up on me all at once, and
I counter their attack by allowing the horns on my body to jut out, stabbing
them through their arms, legs, and heads.
The crowd is going wild since I’ve
so quickly and ruthlessly killed every combatant in the cage. Three robed women
present to me a trophy and themselves as the reward.
When I say, “Let the glory be God’s,
not mine.” The crowd goes completely quiet.
They seem disgusted by me now. The
women try pushing themselves and the trophy on me, saying that they are mine,
and God had nothing to do with my victory, but I push them away and crush the
trophy into pieces by stepping on it. Angry that I won’t accept them, the women
fly at me and threaten to rape me, but I use my extending horns again to kill
them before they can touch me.
“Come on. Stop playing hard to get,”
the man in white and gold robes says as he descends from the ceiling lights. “This
is what you want. We both know it. I can read your mind, heart, and feelings. I
know your deepest sins and brightest virtues. You, Uriel, are a violent and
lustful man, repressed from getting what you wanted for years, and with the opportunity
to finally embrace it, why won’t you take it?”
The people that I killed are touched
by the man’s light and brought back to life.
“What you’re sensing is what the
weak part of me wants. I refuse to embrace that part of me. Instead, I’ll only
embrace the true part of me that God only knows,” I say.
I extend my horns to pierce the man
several times in the face, body, legs, and arms. My horns go back into stubs as
the crowd gasps and watches the man try to continue flying and keep his smile
on his face, even as it wavers.
“If that’s how it’s going to be,
then let me introduce you to a happiness beyond comprehension,” the man says
before grabbing me and flying me into the light.
“Uriel!” I hear Caiaphas say.
Below, I see Caiaphas tearing through
the crowds with barbed wire that comes out of his empty face, his back, and his
arms. Usually, he fights people within a half-second, where he also tests them.
I’m not sure if he’s doing that or is simply tearing through them as I’m
seeing. I try to break out of the man’s grasp, but since we’re going through
the ground and are back outside, I feel weakened by the cursed light.
“You’ll thank me for this, Uriel,”
the man says. “Prepare yourself to get exactly what you’ve always wanted.”
I no longer feel the strength to do
anything with my body as the man takes me into the sky and toward the shining
planet of Lux Mane. Looking up at it as I fall unconscious, I see the thousands
of eyes in the sky looking at me as their many hands reach for me.
“This is it. The end,” is the last
thing I hear a voice say as unconsciousness takes me.
