The Wrath of Jeremy

by Stephen Andrew Salamon

  This is my destiny…. This is who I am, what I am, the whole time….

  Jeremy was lost, fragmented into cultivating enigmas that sliced through his brain with their venomous riddles, holding him upright and alone, so deeply that he could barely inhale the murky, smoky air that stung at his lungs. He was challenged by his own heart of kindness, soul of blackness, eyes of nausea, and mind of ambiguity, still crying blood that surfaced over his image and broke into separate trails that ended at his mouth, making his teeth look like they were bleeding for days. And still, the roars were heard, the only sound that made Jeremy know he was still alive, still breathing, still yearning to be in a different position than he was.

  I deserve this…. I am the dark one, for that I deserve pain….

  Suddenly, breaking through his thoughts of guilt, Jeremy saw a large silhouette far from him, a black shadow that was three times his size. Abruptly, the shadow grew nearer to his eyes, and there in front of him, twenty feet away, was the beast in the distance, a large reptile-like man with horns on every inch of his body and head. “Jastian,” Jeremy whispered.

  Jastian quickened his speed, running toward Jeremy and portraying his eminence by standing high and mightily in front of his petrified eyes. There, with only his breath and Jastian’s growls hidden behind his evil gasp, they stood eye to eye, creator to creation, evil to evil, looking over each other’s faces like seeing a memory full of dust.

  “Thank you, Creator, for not killing me,” Jastian laughed out in a condescending way. “Though you didn’t warn me about these powers turning my body into this repugnant creature I’ve become. I still must recognize your will, Father. How do the humans quote it? ‘What goes around comes around’?” Jastian laughed. “But isn’t it strange how God is praying to the heavens that you triumph over me? Or maybe, as he sits on the boulder, he prays that we both die together.” Jastian laughed on and on, looking at God, then peering back at Jeremy. “Now I must slay you, Father, and take your sinister throne that is rightfully mine. Oh, yes, I hear your thoughts, your prayers, and I laugh, never foreseeing that evil could pray. But first, before we battle, I want to fight my real creator, not this human semblance that exhibits nothing but limitation and weakness to its flesh.” Jastian walked up even closer to Jeremy and reached out his reptilian hand, rubbing Jeremy’s brown hair as if he was petting him. “I can still remember the day when you laughed at Jesus being crucified. Remember that, Father?”

  “No! No, I don’t. And don’t call me ‘Father’: my name is ‘Jeremy’!”

  “Oh yes, I know it’s in there somewhere. You thought it was brilliant that God was behind his death, but little did you know that he had an arrangement for Jesus to open the gates of Heaven. I believe it was a sunny day, you were in Hell and I, of course, was behind Heaven’s soul, taking control slowly, and we met that day, right in front of the cross.”

  “Stop it! I wasn’t there!”

  Suddenly, through Jeremy’s voice of antagonism and dismay, he saw a hallucination, a past prophecy of that day, piercing nails being stabbed into a man’s forearms and feet, with blood falling onto Jeremy’s face, pouring down on his smile.

  Then Jeremy snapped out of it, and threw Jastian’s hand away from his head. “You do remember, don’t you?” Jastian giggled. “That was you laughing at Christ’s execution, but for some reason you’re fighting more memories that yearn to come to you. So, in order for me to fight the true creator I’ve waited for, there’s only one thing to do.”

  Jastian walked away from Jeremy’s traumatized figure, leaving Jeremy there alone, trying to block out the memory of Christ’s demise, his bloody death. He then looked down at his hands and saw blood pouring out from his forearms, his head, like his mind was manifesting that sunny day when he laughed at the King’s crucifixion. Swiftly, Jeremy looked away from the blood and over to where Jastian was. Jastian, still with a smirk on his revolting face, trod up to Sam’s sleeping body and started to rub her graceful hair and face. Jeremy first faltered on running, hesitated like he trusted Jastian for some reason. But then Jeremy saw him pulling out one of his horns from his arm. Jastian held the sharp horn high in the air, while Michael, David and Gabriel did nothing but stare and stabbed Sam in the heart, validating Jeremy’s torment to scream in pain. God, who still sat on the boulder, looked away from Sam’s death and Jeremy’s hasty bereavement; he knew that it was inevitable for Jeremy’s love to be lost.

  Jeremy ran over to her with his heart aching from rage, hugged Sam tightly, and saw her eyes looking at his, while Jastian just stood over them with a long grin on his reptilian face. “I remember now, Lucifer,” Sam cried out. “I waited for you. I waited for you, Lucifer. I like the name ‘Jeremy’ better, don’t you?” she asked, coughing penetratingly; she wept hard with her inflexible teardrops. “I love you, Jeremy. I loved you long ago, our distant life, and I love our new one. I waited for you so long. Why did you defy God for the first time? I wanted so much for you to be great, in Heaven, not in Hell. Goodbye, my dark prince.” She sealed her eyes.

  Jeremy’s tears of blood dripped onto her beauty and she died in his arms. He kissed her forehead, and grasping her flesh tightly; he was now truly lost. Jeremy placed her head in a comfortable position, delicately laying it on the black ground, and stood up with rage in his tears and fury in his eyes, gaping his cavernous eyes at Jastian’s smile.

  “You killed her,” Jeremy howled. Astoundingly, through his words that echoed for infinity, horns shot out from Jeremy’s head, and his chest, arms and legs grew superior, larger, with a red and black tint to his tissue that sweated out spikes with blood on their tips. His eyes turned black as night, and his hair tainted from brown to red, revealing blades hanging from every other strand. Michael, David and Gabriel just watched in fright as Jeremy formed into a creature of darkness, holding rage that caused Jastian’s smile to appear more radically.

  “Now I will kill you.” Jeremy turned into Lucifer, losing his memory of integrity, goodness, of his heart-filled life, creating his own menace that dangled from his flesh; he had evolved into the creature he was already.

  “Are you ready, Jeremy?” Jastian asked with a sigh.

  “Yes. But first, my name is ‘Lucifer,’ you feeble!” Lucifer, with the blades hanging from his hair, pulled out a handful, and tossed them toward Jastian, hitting him in the chest, causing blood of blue to pour out from his reptile-like skin. New blades, razor-sharp, materialized, grew themselves where Lucifer pulled them from, and he pulled out more, hurling them toward Jastian’s wounded body without the existence of mercy in his toss.

  Jastian’s wounds mended quickly, and, staring at Lucifer, Jastian laughed. “Is that all you got? Or better yet, maybe you now grasp that your creation has grown to be more powerful than you ever will be!”

  Jastian pulled out sharp horns from his body, speeded toward Lucifer, and started to stab him in the feet and forearms with their sharpness, penetrating and drilling them into Lucifer. A cross suddenly appeared behind Jastian, and he took Lucifer, shoved him against it, and embarked on nailing him to the wood, laughing at Lucifer’s blood that sprayed over his reptile face. “Ohh, memories,” Jastian sarcastically remarked. Then he took out some of Lucifer’s own blades from his hair and pounded them into Lucifer’s head, creating a crown-like resemblance that forced Lucifer to scream with wrath. Without any time, Lucifer pulled himself off the cross that Jastian’s powers created, ripping his arms and feet off it, yanking out the horns from his body, and stabbed Jastian in the face with them, pounding them in deeper and deeper with his fists that started to bleed from the sharpness. Jastian shouted, “Why can’t you admit we are the same?”

  “Because we are not!”

  Jastian pushed Lucifer away with his foot, pulled the horns out from his face and yelled, “But we are. We are both evil. You created me, and so you are evil, too!”

  “There’s a difference between us. I want to be forgiven and exonerated, and you don’t!” shouted Lucifer
, flying in the air with Jastian and continuing the fight in the clouds.

  “God doesn’t forgive things like us. He never has and never will, Lucifer!”

  “He forgives all, anything that wants to be forgiven!”

  “So, did you get tired of being on your own, or are you just a little too weak to realize that you tried to kick his ass!”

  “I hate you!”

  “You created me!”

  “It was a mistake!”

  “I thought a God didn’t make mistakes? Therefore you, Lucifer, are not a God, and never will be!”

  The fight continued, powers and swords, lightning and storms, blood and rage all came from Lucifer and Jastian, whirling around with their powers of greatness, using them against one another in the battle for Jastian’s death. Twirling through the sky, scarring the bruised clouds with their blood that dripped from them like raindrops, became a downpour, the stormy weather being jealous of their rage. Blooming anger drifted from their darkened souls, and God still sat on his boulder-like throne, watching them, with Gabriel, Michael and David wondering which side God was on.

  Since Jastian’s soul lived in the earth, being preserved throughout Mother Earth’s existence, Lucifer knew he had to obliterate him in order to free God from Jastian’s grip, to free the Universe from Jastian’s orders, commands of evil, sin and fury that Lucifer gave to him without knowing the consequences. The authenticity of Lucifer’s will, fortitude, and potency was now sorted and known to God’s eyes, as he looked intently at the blood that poured out from each beast that desired to be a God. The power of evil was gargantuan, fighting each other to the death without any thought to their wounds. God closed his eyes for a moment, and said a prayer to the heavens, feeling the blood pouring down from the skies, due to their wounds, like raindrops plummeting to their death, as if the heavens were saddened over the chaos within. And as their blood soared to the ground, it began melting any part of the earth it hit, like acid, decaying the land with its evil mixture. Yet, when they fell on God, it didn’t harm him, as well as the others, it only debilitated the earth.

  Jastian and Lucifer headed toward the terrain and continued their sinister battle on the ground. Rolling around on the blackened earth, Jastian and Lucifer clouted, punched, whacked, stabbed each other hard with knives and blades and their powers causing Jastian to yell, “I am the Universe and you shall bow to me!”

  “Never!”

  To conclude, each of them stabbed each other in the stomachs with their own blades of sharpness, nourishing their appetite to demolish one another with the momentum of their throws. Their toss was so infinite, they fell to the ground in an instant and strived to catch their breaths and heal their old wounds. That’s when God got up from his boulder-like throne and walked over to Lucifer’s wounded and lesion-filled body, watching Jastian vigilantly as he walked, making sure Jastian was still down on the ground and not seeing God entering the battlefield. Lucifer saw his wise eyes, and cried out to him, “Father, I should’ve never defied you twice. If only I didn’t break the circle, Jastian would be lifeless, instead of comatose that won’t last very long. I don’t know how to slay him the way I intended his soul to die. I don’t remember, Father! Why don’t I remember?”

  God patted Lucifer on the horns of blood and cried toward his pain. “Yes you do, Lucifer. And only you know. Remember, Lucifer. You have the powers. I should know, I gave them to thee.”

  Bearing in mind that Jastian was resting on the ground, trying to heal his wounds for the next round of blows, Lucifer closed his eyes, trying to remember the moment he created Jastian, molded this life that turned out to be a beast. Sealing his sinister eyes shut, he entered into light, perceiving it, a luminosity filled with the aroma of roses, seeing a room of crystal-like glass, and in view of himself, with Jeremy’s image, in the middle of it. His beautifulness he saw, standing next to Jastian’s newly made body in the room, combing Jastian’s brown hair; it looked just like him. His flashback instigated interest in Lucifer’s mind to see strongly what his memory was trying to show him. He stood in silence and just listened in on this flashback.

  “Now, Jastian, you are going to make Father so proud,” Lucifer said in enthusiasm, smiling toward Jastian’s grin. “But first, according to the power, I must give a destiny of death in order for you to live. Only a God doesn’t have one, but I shall give you an impossible destiny of death, so you will be closer to a God than anyone. You share my powers, hence we are closer to a God than any creature in existence.” Tiny, little, fairy-like creatures flew up, about and around Lucifer and Jastian, bothering them, so Lucifer took his hand and tried swatting them away from his face and Jastian’s. “No, don’t get too close, my little friends, he’s still drying off,” Lucifer commanded, making the tiny creatures fly away by the swatting motion of his hands.

  Another flash of light appeared, commencing another flashback, and when the energy ceased, the beastly Lucifer saw himself outside in the heavenly realm, kissing young Sam with wings on her back. “Why did you create him, Lucifer?” Sam questioned, pulling away from Lucifer’s lips and facing her back to him.

  “Just because. Now will you do it?”

  She gazed at the clouds of blue and the sky of white, pivoting her emotions in a hiding formation by crossing her arms and attempting to hold back her sad tears of worry. Sam turned around to face him. “Those boys? Is that why? Lucifer, they just want to be like you, and they know they can’t, so they tease you. They are only jealous of you, my love.”

  “No, they are not the only reason why.” Lucifer then sat on the grassy ground and pointed his sincere eyes toward the mountainous distance, seeing angels flying about, across the heavenly land and frolicking in the sky with laughter to their wake. “These powers he gave to me are becoming too much for one to handle, but I am learning to perfect this craft, these powers, and I want to prove to Father, that I, too, can handle them. The moment he blessed me with these gifts I envisioned Jastian’s life, as if it was destiny for me to create him.”

  “My love, what happens if something goes wrong? You are not wise enough to handle this great project. To Father, we are just children, our souls are sparrows to him that he loves and adores. We are free, Lucifer, and if this goes wrong, he may place your sparrow-like soul in a cage,” she elucidated, embracing his trembling hands into hers.

  “I promise you, darling, none of what you speak will come to be. I need this, Sam. I need this. Please, you are my soul that lives, you are my love that gives, my eyes that see beauty only, and my power that I would be forlorn and miserable with if you didn’t adore me. Please, will you do this for me?”

  Sam’s eyes shifted to the skies, and then back to him. She was terrified of what she felt would come of this, but her soul’s love for him was too great, and it blinded her intellect and third eye from fighting him any longer, never wanting to see him unhappy. “Yes, I will.”

  She held out her hand and handsome Lucifer poked her finger with a sharp pin, and her blood trickled onto the pin’s metal. “With this blood, it will be Jastian’s demise, his death, the only death. And this blood will never shed, I promise you, my love.” Lucifer then kissed her on the lips and the blood started to shine a tint of blue to its color. “Thank you, Sam.”

  Another flash of light began again, and when the light died, the sight of Lucifer and Jastian standing in the crystal-like room appeared.

  Lucifer put the pin up to Jastian’s mouth and he opened his jaws up wide. A single drop of Sam’s blood hung from the pin and dropped into Jastian’s lips. “With this blood, it is your enemy, for your soul will expire if it touches your flesh,” Lucifer spoke in decibels, watching the drop of blood pour into Jastian’s mouth; he swallowed it.

  Jastian’s body started to gleam an aura of blue around him, frightening the tiny, fairy-like creatures, which were flying about in the air so greatly that they all swarmed together and flew out of the room through a large opening that led to the outside. Then, once the light
vanished, Jastian stared in bewilderment, asking, “Master, whose blood is it?”

  “I shall never tell you. Only I shall know, Jastian.” Suddenly, before Lucifer was about to begin talking again, he stopped himself and looked at Jastian in uncertainty. “I just gave your eyes birth, my creation. It seems like you are getting smarter, for your question hides a mysterious intention to its tone,” whispered Lucifer in an inquisitive voice.

  “Master, I sense your powers, but I feel a new genius, a fresh, new type of power coming to me.”

  Massive concern took over Lucifer’s eyes, his hearing, his mind, wanting to know what power Jastian spoke of. Without time to think, Lucifer went up to Jastian’s eyes and urged, “Just promise me this, Jastian, through your advancement, you shall always protect me!”

  Jastian crossed his fingers behind his back and answered, “I promise.”

  “You promise, what?”

  “I promise, Master!” Jastian grinned a bit, and added, “What about Sam, your love, the one that makes you content? Did you also want me to protect her?”

  Lucifer gazed into Jastian’s eyes again with concern. “How did you know about her?”

  “Everything you know, I know. Yet I don’t know my destiny of death, not yet.”

  “You listen to me. Yes, I want you to protect her, and I want you to stay away from her as well. Remember, I made you, and I know how to destroy you.”

  Another flash of light occurred, and beastly Lucifer opened his eyes and saw himself again, with beauty to his image, falling from the skies of Heaven during the great fight between him and God. He saw Sam crying in the distance and himself, plummeting into the unknown. Looking closer, Jastian came into his view, standing on a ledge of one of the many mountains in the distance, and his flashback forced his eyes to travel toward the mountain. Up close, Jastian was sadistically laughing. “Now you can’t kill me.”