“Your punishment is sealed, Judas. Now the true scope of your atonement begins.”
God was not heard again and the damned cried louder than before for the relief of His voice to return. Satan, whom Judas could not sense the presence of in the slightest while within the presence of God, is again close, but dismayed over the sealed fate of his adopted son.
“You could've done something; said something.” Judas snarls to Satan.
“No. No I could not.”
“YOU COULD HAVE SAID SOMETHING!!!” Judas roars at Satan, and then his resolve saps and he calms.
“You could have said something.”
Satan retracts and in moments Judas can't feel him at all. Satan has left the interior of Hell, for the moment at least.
Judas looks to Leila as he takes his seat on the throne without stopping to think. He watches as his last creation, the Book of the Damned, vanishes before their eyes like smoldering ambers turning to ash in Leila’s hands.
Judas took the throne and in doing so he lost the book to another demon. As decried by God the book will be invisible to all but the one it’s presented to, at random, once the previous holder of the book uses it in even the most minuscule way to betray the Devil on the throne and take the chair. Judas’s legacy is betrayal of every Devil on the throne by a subordinate demon.
Judas looks to the crowd of demons before him trying to see if the one to receive the book would give away its presence. No such self-betrayal came to pass. Judas, Leila, the Thorn General and even Satan could now only wait.
Chapter Two
~
New Innocence
Journal entry VII
Since Judas’s legacy was instituted there have been numerous Devils on the throne. The last Devil I was in servitude to was one who simply called himself, “Malus.” He was unlike any of the other demons I was associated with previously for he had an unquenchable appetite for sin. He was a demon who had embraced sin so deeply and passionately compared to any other; so much so that his form had turned black and seemingly glassy, literally like you would expect it to break with just a minor amount of effort. But Malus was deceptively strong both physically — despite his thin and lithe body structure — and mentally, as he seemed to understand silence is a virtue, and even more so in Hell. Unlike prior Devils, Malus never wanted the throne to rule Hell, even though from what little I know of him, he most likely could’ve achieved taking it without the use of the Book of the Damned. But like all those who had faced the choice previously, Malus fell victim to the legacy and accepted the book, though not at first. Malus took his time. He contemplated possessing it meticulously. No one before Malus had actually stopped to consider accepting the book. Demons in general are just not that disciplined. Not that thoughtful.
At this point I will refrain from going any further into the little bit of knowledge I have concerning Malus. Though I am enjoying immensely the simple pleasure of writing about things I have never so much as been able to have conversations about, the subject of Malus is one I simply do not wish to call up into our shared memories, nor one any of us wishes to investigate. It can be easily said that in all of Hell and throughout the spectrum of horrors we’ve seen, Malus is the one aspect of Hell which literally sent chills up our collective spine.
Once I disembarked from the company of Malus, upon his taking of the throne, we appeared before my next master-to-be at random just as we always have since God imposed the legacy. She was a demon of incredible hideousness due to her coffer being filled with the acts of not only pleasuring herself with the flesh of the dead, but the flesh of the dead which was sometimes days or even weeks old. Her flesh was putrid and several spots of her rotting skin sloughed off her body revealing raw and sticky tissue which was infested with the grubs of insects. Some parts of her had rotted to the point that I could see through her. I was a bit relieved that I was only before her for a brief moment because it was when I appeared before her the path of the Book of the Damned changed dramatically.
Journal entry VIII
The female demon I was presented to had just opened a tear between the mortal world and the netherworld of Hell. These tears are one of the very few things from the Book of the Damned which is shared among all demons. They are created by swirling together the fire of rage with the blood of sinners; two things Hell has in great abundance, and a simple passage comprised of principal angelic is whispered. This twisting mix of fiery hate and bloody sin tears a gateway between the realms and allows for demons to pass through, though only one at a time. From that point they go off to find suitable mortals to begin influencing to commit all manner of transgressions. The mortals whose souls are consigned to Hell successfully are offered the choice of being woven into the landscape of Hell or becoming demonic and serving the one who captured their soul. This is one of the ways demons bolster their numbers since very few ever elect being stitched into Hell’s landscape.
I’m not fully aware of how the angels accomplish the creation of these gateways, but it's been rumored they’re considerably more patient and more disciplined. Supposedly they are able to open these passageways in the exact place in the mortal realm they wish to be. The demons of Hell have no such patience or the discipline. They’re self-entitled because they believe their pain and suffering makes them so. It does not. On more than one occasion a demon has found itself in one of the very few places in the mortal world where the forces are powerful enough to cause significant pain and damage, or their destruction. Their gates have led them to the deepest and coldest parts of the oceans, the hearts of active volcanoes, and the centers of the worst tornadoes where several have been torn and twisted into so many tiny parts within the mortal realm they’re never able to recover. Yes there are those forces in the mortal realm even souls can be damaged or destroyed by. But rare are those circumstances which put them in such predicaments.
The aforementioned necrotic demon I was presented to had just opened one such gateway, though fortunately not to such a dangerous place as also described previously. Because only one can pass into the gravitational grip of these tears, and because I was closer to the mouth of it than she, I was caught in it and taken from Hell.
She never physically laid her hands on the book.
She never took possession.
A fucking demon fucked up a possession of all things! Stupid demon cunt.
The look on her rotting face was one I’ll remember forever — literally — as she realized what she had just lost. She had the keys to the kingdom within her grasp and she let them slip away. In my existence this was the first time I was not taken into the service of the one to whom I presented. Albeit an accident, I was lost to her nonetheless. She had not the skill to open a gateway in the same place I had been transported, nor did she know to where she had opened that door to in the first place.
Journal entry IX
The swirling fire and blood scar leading to the new destination closed as soon as I finished passing through. Suddenly my face — the cover of the book — was considerably more intimate with a particular part of the female anatomy than I really ever wanted to be. I was only a babe’s whisper from the head of a baby as it crowned from the groin of a mother I had not previously ever known. Hands clad in something like an extra skin reached from behind me to assist in this whelping as I turned and saw a man in a blue cloth mask and blue covering on his head and body. Looking around the room there were other people adorned in the same coverings, though in light green; several were female while just a couple were male judging from the few features I could immediately see and the tones of their voices.
I pulled back a bit further and feel the same weight of the leash I’ve felt so many times when assigned to a demon for more than a few moments. Obviously that connection wasn’t yet established before I entered this realm. To whom I was connected was still a mystery to me with all these people here. I didn't even know if among these mortals there was one who could see me.
The room was unlike the
dirt mortar I remember from my life. Pale green tiles with a stark white mortar between them. The floor is made up of larger white tiles all uniform and laid out perfectly flat. Everything was very clean, even the smell of the air, and there is a single door leading to another corridor rather than the outdoors. The surroundings were unlike any I’d known in life. This is not the world I left, or it is, but so much has changed in the time since I left. How long have we all been there …?
The child’s head is almost clear as its just moments from being disrobed of its mother’s warm safety and exposed to the elements.
Suddenly, to add to our frazzled confusion, everything slows as if Time has been reined back, not to a stop, but definitely an abrupt crawl. No one else in the room seemed to notice as there was no panic or wonder of what was transpiring. They just kept going about their duties, so I surmised they were completely unaware of the slowed time. We within the book seemed the only ones aware of this shift. Perhaps we were about to be pulled back to Hell? We had no idea … at first.
A glow begins forming in the room, and then a sphere. It’s within arm’s length of the new child who is now past the shoulders and its belly is half exposed. The glow gains intensity and we realize we know what’s happening.
This event, common as it is to all humans, was described to Judas by Satan in details not meant for mortals, but was included into the Book of the Damned nonetheless. In all of our existence as the Book of the Damned we’ve never been with a demon who attempted to take advantage of this moment. They were too afraid of the repercussions of damaging the ever so frail body of an infant; so they’d tell themselves. Truth be told this is a delicate circumstance to take advantage of successfully, as mentioned previously; demons have little to no discipline, so they’d fuck this up to no end. It’s actually easier adhering to influence only, and only of mortals in their teens or older.
Mortal births create a massive concentration of mental and emotional energy by those close to the birthing. As explained in the Book of the Damned; emotions are as physical to the soul as steel is to the flesh. The minds and hearts of those in attendance are so focused on the event at hand that demons don’t have any real access through which to start influencing the mortal mind and heart. Because of this, generally, demons haven’t bothered with these moments despite the empty vessel being pushed, pulled, or otherwise vacated from the mother’s body. The event of pregnancy and birth however, is something the demons have used to great benefit in the mortal world. They’ve used unborn children against mortals’ own emotions, separating them from one another, lessoning their unity and dividing them from the innate cohesiveness of family. Even their own spiritual leaders have been influenced into causing the human race to splinter, even fracture, over this simple biological event.
Along with the inhalation of that first breath of air, the soul is the last ingredient. The first gasp of dry air the newborn’s lungs grasps for helps to usher in the soul readied for that infant. Before that moment it’s just a mass of underdeveloped flesh and bone equipped with the innate functions of a heartbeat, breathing, hunger, and shitting.
A mortal is not “alive” until the soul installs itself in that first breath. That is life. That is a mortal’s beginning. But just before the soul enters, a great vacuum is created which is powerful enough to bubble this moment and give the soul the advantage it needs to force its way into the empty little vessel. This vacuum, and the forced entry, pulls in with it parts and entireties of any essences which may be around from the deaths of insects, animals, and other even other mortals. It’s these fragments of essence from other entities, which also contribute to determining the personality of the person being born, along with numerous other factors, as the child matures. The nurturing a child receives, along with the slivers of essence released by other dying creatures within a given vicinity when the child is born, help to determine so much, but ultimately one or the other dominates, just like being right or left dominant.
The soul’s entry into the fresh little body creates massive pain and discomfort within the young flesh. Its head is the most susceptible to this pain and the soul needs to occupy it first, and then spread via the nervous system while also anchoring itself within the marrow of the bones throughout the body. Very often this invasion of the new flesh is painful enough to all the new nerves to wake the newborn’s senses all at once and cause it cry on its own, but more often than not the trauma of all of this is a bit too much and someone needs to slap the little whelp into consciousness. From time to time though, the new body can’t handle the entry of the soul and simply doesn’t survive.
A beautiful moment, yes, but a violent one just as much so. It's taken millions of years to get the success rate mortalkind has with surviving birth, and now here we are faced with this moment so many call a miracle; more like an invasion. The infant we may have been drawn to is a female and is now out in the open with the man in strange garb taking her up in the air by her ankles and drawing up his free hand open and ready to strike. The soul’s intensity is incredible and such a pure white that we’re barely able to look as it rushes the body of the baby girl and crashes into her quite literally. The infant’s body reacts to the impact with a slight shudder, though obviously it’s unperceivable to the others in the room due to Time being out of its normal pace. Parts of the soul reach out and grasp the tiny body for leverage as bit by bit it makes its way into the slimy little infant, and with each increment of advancement inside of her, Time regains its normal pace until …
The man’s gloved hand smacks into the newborn’s little ass and the infant girl cries out. A woman takes the tender-skinned babe and wraps her in a blanket before laying her gently on her mother’s chest. The father moves in close and … and … cuddles?! The dad is cuddling with them as they smile with pride and love at one another?! No talk of another child to soon be doing chores inside and out of the domicile?! Why are they so happy about the child being female?! Why is the father here and not out tending whatever flocks or business he conducts is leaving us confused and mouths agape … figuratively! But there’s something else … something we saw, but which hasn’t caught up with us yet consciously. What are we missing here …?
For whatever the reason it was at this time that I realized I had acquired a new freedom, the very one that allows me to scribe this journal. I remember thinking I didn’t desire to be face to face with the birthing canal of this or any other wailing woman. All of us within the book had this thought in one form or another, and I believe it was because of that we were able to make the transformation which followed.
The components of the book had twisted, contorted, and lashed about wildly, and this transpired without disturbing the others in the room. Many of the pages quickly detached — for the most part but not completely — from the connective edges at the spine of the book and in a sense wriggled and crawled all over each other as they found new positions to take up and roll like scrolls, contort or even fold or tear themselves into new positions or configurations. This old woman’s face was even elevated to the top of this new form, just as any face should be, but the stretching and flattening Judas inflicted on my face released and I could feel its form return to its pre-Judas shape and size.
I looked down with my empty eyes and saw the tips of the ribs from the spine allowing a gaping chest cavity in the front with no heart, lungs, even the muscles, or other tissues as in a normal mortal body. Below that was the belly skin of Leila; soft and supple and seemingly relaxed. The pages had tied, torn and folded unto and over one another; reconnecting themselves to the ribs, my face, and the belly skin in such a way as to give form that hadn’t previously existed since our mortal lives.
I rushed about the tiny room seeking out any reflective surface I could find to see exactly what I had become. I inadvertently passed through a wall and made no notice of the next room accept that there was a long mirror on the back of a door. As I slowly walked towards it I saw in living detail the macabre but exciting new form the
Book of the Damned had taken. We were, at least in shape and form, a representation of a mortal with arms, hands, fingers, legs with feet and even toes, a torso, an ass and finally the face of this weathered old woman above the spiraled pages taking the form of clavicles and the neck tendons … and … and …
… And an empty chest, just the veins on the backsides of the pages pulsing in rhythm, but otherwise … Hollow …
… Nothing behind my eyelids …
… Hollow …
It’s a body, but not a body. It’s a form but not the form; not what we had individually prior to our deaths. Hell is suffering and no suffering goes wasted. This is a morbid reminder of the lives we wasted filling our coffers with misdeeds and transgressions. Even this form’s skin is a powerful reminder; blatantly displaying the fruits our mortal lives as well as those of hundreds of others, as a tattooed patchwork of the dark secrets of the mortals’ minds, bodies and souls, and stained in the sin-filled blood of Judas the deceiver. On the underside of every page lay the semi-exposed veins pumping blood through the pages and keeping them alive without the assistance of a heart. Only steady rhythm to be heard or felt without origin.
I wondered if this form can fart. I really miss farting …
I had apparently taken more time gawking at our new form than I realized. Suddenly we were pulled back through the wall I had previously passed through. I found myself by the side of this crying baby girl as she was taken to the other side of the room she was whelped in. Now that the tether had snapped me back to her side it was confirmed that should she simply grab a hold of the book, for the first time, a mortal could be the next possessor of the Book of the Damned...
Legacy of Judas - Book One Page 5