Bloodless

by Roberto Vecchi

  He saw God’s actions as entirely selfish existing only to service His own Will and not as the result of God’s Loving nature. He reasoned the judgement and punishment carried out by The Five was a means to prevent God’s worship from being divided or challenged, or quite possibly surpassed, instead of the natural consequence of existing in a state without faith by deviating from His Love driven intent. And from that treason induced betrayal grew emotions that were never meant to exist; such is the power of the mind that, through its own logical deductions (if left unguarded by the objective presence of God) it can create that which never was, and never should have been. So, Satan dwelt in the torments of a mentally imposed betrayal which fueled his pride birthed anger and lead him into hate. For this is the consequence of pride - the loss of faith. And with that loss of faith comes the deviation from God’s intent into the realm of sin. And so, it was that Lucifer’s initial sin, the losing of his faith, propelled him into an existence void of all love and its benevolence.

  Of all his constructed and subjective reasons for devolving into a state of absent faith, the one most devastating was his belief that The Five had stripped him of all the abilities God had granted him when he was breathed into existence. And none hurt so much as not being able to create. This desire to create did not end with his casting into the void, rather it exponentially increased because of the very nature of the void within which he now dwelt. However, without the power of God to create through him, he was shackled with a burning and growing force to do what he was unable to do. And so, his hate was further fueled by his resentment toward both The Five and God.

  Over the ages of isolated existence, Satan experienced a torture and torment that drove him to the very point of his finite end, for all things except God are finite. As such, when his pain, hate, rage, pride, and resentment could grow no more, when it was at the very brink of all Satan could contain, it exploded into a thought previously as foreign as it was unthinkable. It exploded into revenge. But the desire for revenge was not the most impactful revelation he had in that moment, rather, it was that he had called forth something completely apart from God. In a manner of speaking, he had become his own genesis for creating. He had become his own god, a god whose intent had changed from obedience to revenge.

  If he could create something apart from God, even a thought, what else could he create? He looked within him, to the very core of his motivation for revenge and saw not the shining light God had instilled within him, but a dark, twisted, molten blackness that was as formless as the void within which he lived. And much like God, he shaped this mucosa, this grotesque viscosity into a flowing river of dark liquid pouring from his very center outward until it burst forth as the first entity, other than himself, to exist. There it floated, beckoning him to use it, to shape it into the objects of his desire. But those objects could not be formed before the substance within which they would exist could be solidified. And while God had created The Five to fulfill this need within His creation, Satan would create four portents, each symbolizing different aspects of what he had become.

  First came rage, the uncontrolled, unrelenting manifestation of cascading anger, unchecked and free to embody all the chaos that had developed within him throughout the horrible ages. It assumed the shape of a large, disfigured humanoid creature, not unlike the first God had created, for it was upon them his rage would be unleashed. “I shall call you Baguul, and you shall destroy.”

  The second was born from the inherent lack he felt when God had chosen man to receive dominion over all of creation. Satan’s inherent insecurity did not erupt like his rage, but rather, leaked out insidiously and slowly, taking time to develop into the limbless serpent with jaws and eyes able to penetrate even the most formidable barriers. “You will be called Yosinith, and you will deceive.”

  The third emanated from the very beginning of his unholy transformation and core of his former God’s perceived betrayal. As it flowed from him, he saw the echo of his beautifully perfect shape and momentarily questioned if he had replicated himself. “You, I will name Rhalose, and you will steal.”

  The fourth and final seeped and flowed with something the others did not possess, motivation. For inside his revenge driven actions, Satan was nothing if not resolved to purpose. Therefore, this last and final aspect of all he had become, birthed almost entirely from its own accord as a replication of the only purpose within his twisted intent, revenge. “You I shall name Gogoziel, and you shall reap.”

  Thus, the four aspects of Satan, each representing the degeneration of existence without faith in God, were called into existence. Anger became rage, confidence became insecurity, trust became betrayal, and forgiveness became revenge. He looked upon them and smiled, not from joy, but because he now had the four cornerstones upon which he would build His empire of the fallen, an empire solely bent upon rising and replacing all that God had once created.

  Motivated by revenge born from the natural progressions when faith is weighed and found wanting, Satan was left with a singular, driving insistence propelling his actions. And now that his unholy canvas had been set, he searched within himself to find the same power that allowed him to paint for God. And fine it, he did. But it was no longer the brilliant reflection of all that was good and perfect shining forth as a shimmering, radiant light directly connected to God Himself. Instead, it was replaced with a liquid goo as thick as chilled blood spilling forth from a lethal wound biting deep into the evils of mortality and as dark as his twisted mind after endless eons of uncontrolled and unchecked cascading thoughts striking deep into the center of who he was rendering him nothing of what he had been. So, it followed that he could and would create nothing of what he had created before.

  Thus, in the beginning, he did not create light, for he had grown to despise it. Instead, he used the blackened, viscous liquid within him and formed darkness; but not the darkness of night for that required there to be light, and there was no light within his realm. Instead it was a darkness of mind and emotions, and he allowed it to seep into and twist everything that came next. The ground, the seas, the air, and indeed the very subjects he would create would all be inherently imbued with darkness as their source of power. And their existence would be for one reason and one reason only just as God’s creation existed for one reason only. But it would not be the result of His diffuse and fleeting love, rather, it would be set to a purpose of inherent truth. Though Satan’s truth was nothing more than the result of his dissolved faith, it held just as much profound influence for him as when he stood in God’s presence and stroked the stars into being. Thus, everything in his creation would reflect a purpose echoing this truth: he had been forsaken, and he wanted revenge.

  He created the sky but it would not rain water as an expression of life’s circle, rather it would discharge drops of acid from clouds of poison. The clarity of its cover was not a reflection of truest blue but a yellowish, putrid green as if bile had been vomited from the gut and spread across the expanse. The land would not be filled with rolling hills and plush, green grasses and other plants. Instead, it would reflect the hardness surrounding his mind, and his mind was harder than granite. Deep fishers bellowing with hot, noxious gasses littered the landscape. The mountains erupting from his rage were not the grandiose giants standing singularly as a beautiful illustration of God’s magnificence. Instead, they jutted narrowly and sharply resembling the maw of a ravenous dog. The seas used to house his serpents held no life-giving waters but reeked of the same acid dropped from the clouds. When collected in great pools, its color was a deeper shade of green than the sky, but still resonated death and sickness. Lastly and most proudly, he created the sun. Though it was not the brilliant golden orb shining brightly enough to light the whole of his world, it was nevertheless as powerful to behold. But it did not resonate brilliance. The dark violet, flaming disc sang a song, a lonely ballad of promised malice. And though he was pleased with his creation, it was still lacking what he would ultimately need to solid
ify his vengeful intent.

  So, he reached again into the depth of his hate fueled river of dark liquid and created life, or at least a state of life he could use to accomplish his mission. And though these beings would all possess bodies and minds, they would not possess souls, for one cannot create what one does not possess himself. Instead of calling them “man”, he would call them “demons” for even Satan realized God’s men and women possessed something his children never would and never could. But he did not create just one or two, nor did he grant them dominion over that which he created. Instead, he created legions and legions, for without souls, they could not create on their own. Instead of free will, a consequence of love, he bonded them to him by implanting within them the dark fountain of his dark liquid. As such, they were controlled as a consequence of hate.

  When he judged their numbers were sufficient, he attacked. Waves and waves of his hideous children poured through the gates of hell and into the realm of Heaven. And though his numbers were vastly superior to God’s Angels, his demons found only lack and dust. The power and influence of God himself was simply too great for the Legions of Satan to overcome. Even his four greatest terrors, the Portents of Evil, could not best the power of the Archangels. Yet, even in loss, he found his reward. He had witnessed God’s angels and army, studied their battle strategies, and learned their strengths and weaknesses. With that knowledge, he retreated into his realm and began again. This time, he took more time with his creations, crafting them specifically to counter his adversaries’ strengths and take advantage of their weaknesses. And though he penetrated more deeply into the realm of Heaven, he nevertheless was forced to retreat before spilling into the mortal plane of earth.

  Yet again he descended back into his unholy realm of Hell with only his four portents of evil. As powerful as they were, having punished Michael and his legions beyond what the angels had thought possible, he was still falling grossly short of his vengeful plans. With is second defeat, it was becoming clearer to him that he would never be able to twist God’s creation into his version of it. Standing between Hell and Earth was the realm of Heaven, a holy, hallowed, perfect place of harmony and unity containing every aspect of God that He was. Faith reigned, hope lived, and Love abounded in such vast quantities, no matter how dark and powerful his legions of demons would become, they simply would never be enough. For regardless of Satan’s desires, Light always ruled over darkness. If only there was another way to bypass Heaven and gain entrance into and influence Earth directly, then his plans might gain a foot hold of success and manifest as more than wishful thinking.

  He was second only to The Five in outright power; however, it was not as it was before. The Five were created to embody everything God was on vastly larger scales than the mortality He would eventually create. Through their very existences, the operation of creation was guaranteed, and as long as they were, so it would be. Immortality, Time, Space, Mortal Order, and Expressions were constants that reflected God because God created them; and no matter how powerful Satan became, he would never be able to usurp the rulership of Heaven and its five God based constancies. This left him no hope for revenge; no hope, that is, until he found a chink in their armor. Sitting, if a being of his enormity could be considered to sit, with his knees crossed and his impressive mind focused, he found the key to unlocking the success of his revenge. He found it, and it was him.

  Although his meditative trance was not the harmonious, peaceful state of being attained by focusing on the objective love and peace of God, it was nevertheless extremely effective. He delved deeply into himself, the same way he did when God bid him to paint with His awesome power and reached his authentic state of being allowing his knowledge and abilities to flow openly and freely. He revisited every stroke, every marvelous color he painted in an attempt to find anything, even the smallest thing, he could utilize to his advantage. Because if his revenge was going to be successful, he would need an advantage greater than God Himself, if such a thing were possible. Every single event of his life, he played back scrutinizing it, examining it, reliving it. And then, in the very moment of his greatest pain, when he was cast out of creation by The Five, when he should have been brought to tears while remembering the transition from existing with God to existing without Him, and the excruciating pain and loneliness that followed, he smiled.

  When the process of him being cast out was actually occurring, he was too focused on the crippling feeling of being away from God to allow him to correctly see what was objectively happening. So, what he perceived as the active event of being cast out, was nothing more than a consequence of what he failed to perceive. In reality, The Five had cast him nowhere. What they did was remove God from all aspects of him leaving nothing of God within him resulting in the consequence of his removal from Heaven. But why was he not sent to earth? Why did he fall into the desolation of complete nothingness instead?

  What Satan knew, while he was being used by God was this: there were two places, one representing mortality and the other immortality. And though he was not actively involved in their forming, he nevertheless existed under this primary construct and innately knew it. Everything in each of them, though very much different in their governing dynamics, was a reflection of God, and when completely summed together, they represented the totality of God’s perfect intent. But God, having knowledge of all time and all space surely knew Satan would fall; and surely, he would have created this realm understanding it would become a home for the fallen. And yet, Satan still had no knowledge of this place and its existence.

  And then he saw it.

  Deep in the considerations when meditation reaches an objective level of authentic intent, he saw the key, the final piece to the puzzling vengeance he so desperately sought. Satan had always considered both realms, that of mortality and immortality, as separate entities meaning one could not influence the other. But what he did not realize until now, is when he was instructed to create the soul within man, he had consequently created a link between the two. For man was both mortal, possessing a body and mind, and immortal possessing a soul and will. While all of creation was a reflection of God, only man possessed His personal likeness meaning only man possessed all three aspects of his Creator – a mind, body, and will (soul). And because of that, man was the link binding both together. Man existed both mortally and immortally at the same time. Man was the key because man possessed something no other entity in creation did - choice.

  The liquid goo, the ever-present, viscous fluid pulsing with a completely evil intent seemed to sense that things were about to change. It was excited and eager. Satan reached for it, connected with it, and enabled it once again. But, unlike every time before, he did not use it to create. He used it to search. However, searching for the immortal soul of a single being so woefully infinitesimal when compared to the total awesome brilliance of Heaven was like trying to find the moon as it sat right next to the most brilliant of stars in all of creation. So powerful was the immortal existence of Heaven that it completely outshone any and all other points of immortality, but that did not mean the other points were not there and could not be found. And after a period of time long enough that even Satan deemed it extended, he found it.

  Sitting under the Tree of Life, inside the greatest of gardens that ever would be created, indeed, the very representation of God’s heart manifest into a mortally perfect oasis of complete harmony wherein all objects blended into the bountifully beautiful expression of just how perfect He was, sat the woman named Eve. She had been named such because the only thing in creation rivaling her beauty was that of the evening sun as it descended into the horizon of the first day and first night. God named Adam because he was the first, the singularity through which His dominion would be continued through a mortal expression, and as such, it was only fitting that he would be named after that which formed all material substances. But Eve’s name He gave to him. And he could think of nothing more visually stunning, for that is what she was, than the pic
turesque visage of melded colors into a seamless continuity of His love expressed though His will.

  He remembered what he felt when God used him to reach into Adam and pull out every complimenting essence forming it into a second polarity of a single expression. He had felt the perfection of God’s awesome power flowing through him each and every time he was used and never questioned the mastery of His creating; but seeing her, the supple and subtle beauty she carried as a mortal existence proved more moving than even the galactic stars swirling in and ever-expanding universe. And maybe, just maybe, for just one fraction of a second, he felt sorry for her because she would be the vessel through which his vengeance would bear fruit, but it was a fleeting compassion.

  “It is such a splendid day is it not,” he said as he approached her in the guise of an animal.

  Startled, she looked around.

  “Down here,” said Satan as he laughed. It took her a few more seconds to locate him, but when she did, he saw that she was not quite believing what she had just heard. “Yes, it was me, the serpent. I speak.”

  “Oh my!” she exclaimed.

  “Do not be alarmed. I mean you no harm. I simply wish to speak with you,” said Satan.

  “Oh, of course. I apologize for my reaction. I am not used to animals speaking. You are the only one,” she said.