by J Niessen
Chapter Four: Desertion
The heavy thump-thump of propeller blades beating through the night air from in the distance draws close. Criley hesitates to face the newly formed opposition standing here before him as he and the gargoyle-like creature Zephurah focus on the incoming challengers. Combat forces are in route, dispatched to resolve the unruly discord in this generally peaceful hideaway after being notified of the situation by the local sheriff (having relayed his alarm to defense agencies). It settles Criley’s concerns of having to confront Ashura before facing this latest regulator of death.
A mutual connection exists between Criley and each creature. He bears their anguish, their suffering, their unrest, and wonders: “Why would any being strive to continue in such utter misery?” Through divine correlation God answers: “This selfish determination reflects a hardening of the heart. It manifests when detained resentment and discord befall such augmentation that an individual’s rationality and sound judgment are ruled by deceit. This is a model of man’s heart, his dedication to rebel, his inability to see impending dangers involved with his path, and his blind determination to resist what is pure and noble.”
A unique orb forms from Zephurah’s side. Criley notices, tempting the notion to attack. The illumination separates, then becomes a being, brightly glowing, like that which came to Nathaniel before his arrival at the open tabernacle atop the highest mountain. The towering gargoyle refined and reduced to complete scorn and misery. The birthed star lifts to the sky, shoots through outer space, and then twinkles once finding a place in the dark heavens to glimmer and sing from. The creature of death (Zephurah) takes flight to intercept the incoming helicopter carrying attack troops, leaving Criley to direct his focus on his primary competitor.
The atmosphere in the lodge (where the varsity high school football team resides) reeks of disemboweled bodies when Criley enters. Sizing up Ashura she appears in her true and hideous form, erect as a massive medusa like creature. Though she lacks the power to destroy him, she holds the potential to capture his glorified body and enslave Criley inside her mind…
In the meantime, Karen’s husband Ash slips into the camp determined to locate his wife, confront her, and insist she come back home with him. If his ploys are disregarded, then Ash is prepared to take more decisive actions. Normally he would use this opportunity to slip into bed beside her, to take advantage of her through forced intercourse. However that part of him is absent. Instead is the prominent urge to disrupt her sleep. Waking his wife from her evocative dream Ash lets loose with anxious demands, those plotted in her absence and simmering since his departure from home. His narcissistic demeanor is at a dangerous high, inflated by his pompous ego. Sure of his potential, Ash has blindly entered a disaster area where his fallible qualities will be tested by harvesters of demise prowling this camp with supreme abilities.
“What are you doing here, Ash, and where are my babies?” Karen sadly responds.
“They’ll never be your babies again if you don’t return home with me right now. You’ve abandoned them. And the courts will know about all this if you resist me. The legal papers are filled out. I plan on filing for divorce if you don’t come back. You’re a loser, Karen, a deadbeat mom, and now the entire family will know what a piece of trash you really are.”
“You coward,” Karen confronts with the blanket held tight, sitting up in bed, feeling naked without her spirit of protection that would (in such a time) rise up…granting bolstered confidence to challenge pivotal confrontation. Cornered and vulnerable, apprehension urges Karen to spit in Ash’s face as he approaches. Ash’s forwardness is bolstered by the cowering weakness forming in her eyes; staring down at his wife in a superior fashion he responds…
“I’m done putting up with these rebellious antics. What made you think I would go along with this?” The accusation hits Karen with striking fright, her husband’s behavior alluding that they never agreed to, or sat down, and discussed these plans.
Release develops. A manifestation inside Karen awakens from this bitter game Ash is toying with. Tyler used a similar tact against her! Ash will bear the brunt of this focused rage and animosity; he shall be the sacrificial offering to negate the atrocities of her past, those which invoke daily, unrelenting mental torment, provoked by the sight of her youngest, Kayla.
The growing aspect (awake inside Karen) feeds on her fixation, and it is hungry for control. It conjures memories of Ash’s sheer disrespect and ingratitude that he’s poisoned Karen’s life with, forcing agonizing stresses that have crippled her. Rising evil procreates from the deepest trenches of her heart, gathering its support from the very day Ash and Karen first met. It initiates detest by pointing out her naïve blindness, having foolishly given in to the hope of love. This rising evil inside her is named Mara, for Karen arrived at this place full of powerful guardians. Once this presence is unconfined she’ll be depleted of all dark entities.
Bitter hate stems in Karen from her husband’s failure as a noteworthy head of household. Overlooking his shortcomings when they were courting, it was apparent to all but Karen that Ash’s utter lack of respect for women was revealed by how he treated his own mother and soon to be mother-in-law. It was frightening, seeing once they were married the hidden truth, how his persona altered. Just days after they were wed he slipped out of his false character (worn tediously in her presence) then to let loose with balled anticipation his grotesque chauvinism.
Appalled by the ugliness he hid so well (latched to her by marital promise) Karen puts up with Ash’s utter failure to provide as a supportive father figure and his inadequacies as an honorable husband; she tolerates his lack of direction and inability to be a fundamental leader. He’s a breaker of promises; he’s never been a man of his word; she falls for his crafty manipulation every time. Hindsight reflects that he’s unworthy of human classification. He’s a self-serving sub creature, a monster that breeds deceit and sorrow. And if she returns, as he’s instructing her to, the miserable dwelling place she’ll go back to will capture her in a binding capsule of enslavement and worrisome submission; she will be cursed to an all-consuming cesspool of vile muck and stagnate waste where she’ll slowly suffocate and perish.
Perplexing Karen with certain relief is that Ash hasn’t tried to molest and rape her, like he so often does back home. As her husband is approaching the camp there’s another sinister presence known as Asmodeus, which is birthed. It falls from the heavens along with the shining one (who visits Nathaniel). The preyed upon essence, drawn from Ash, lurks now in its physical form, lacking the ability of sight, monitoring using its senses, and perplexed by Nate’s absence when he vanishes and relocates to the Temple of Holies. Asmodeus faintly senses distant traits when Criley returns atop the mountain, overlooking the campgrounds, due to Criley’s nature to link with each creature. From the point of Nathaniel’s heavenly purification (renewed in mind, body, and spirit) he is reflective of his Christ’s image, redesigned with angelic composition, free of human weaknesses which make most men recognizable by prowling tempters of sin.
Asmodeus is a practitioner in the influences of lust. It seeks to enter Nathaniel’s heart. Once established it would invite a multitude of cohorts to possess Nathaniel, overtake his focus, cloud the Lord’s instructions, and plunge Nate deep into a mental wasteland of immoral despair. Divine instruction warns Criley not to capture this loose predator with the promise halo; the creature is to be used for other means; it must be allowed reunion with Ash, then cast into the realm of Outer Darkness, as Karen’s wicked husband plots to destroy his own person.
A series of battles are fought at this time. Asmodeus vs. the Sheriff, Criley confronts Ashura, Zephurah battles military forces, Karen rejects Ash, another star falls and Mara is born.
The advancement of involvements in our lives is strange and questionable when gauging the time we dedicate to insignificant projects which ultimately become detrimental devices, trans
itioning into inadvertently harmful weapons which threaten the participant’s wellbeing.
Ash reveals a gadget from the canvas bag he now carries. It magnetically attaches to the back of a metal folding chair which he’s returned to the room with. Strapping to his head a metal dish and sea sponge freshly soaked with a liquid solution, Ash boasts “I created this on my own.”
A swell of concerns squash the supportive approach Karen may have taken. In a split second she considers their tainted history, and questions the core of his integrity: So rather than working on our marriage, my spouse has been wasting his time and efforts on this side project? How could I condone this, seeing squandered potential by this selfish scheme? Does he have no regard for the blatant neglect of not spending time with our kids? And rather than using this wonderful opportunity, even now, to bond and grow closer with our children, as a dedicated and concerned father would do…he once again proves his inadequacies and unconcern through his shortcomings, revealing his dominant and utterly worthless qualities! Disregarding what we’ve discussed, always agreeing to work on his personal issues, making promises inside and outside of counseling sessions, proving that he’ll never stand by those dedications. Heard, accepted, implemented, executed. Actions I have waited to find him practicing. It is crushingly evident my failure of a husband regards me as worthless. This is the cause of our decaying marriage.
Karen asks with dismay “I don’t even know what it’s for. Why don’t you just tell me what’s so special about it?” Based on his disturbed mentality, having shown and expressed suicidal thoughts in the past, Karen senses a plot devised to serve self-destructive consequences.
Strapping his wrists to the chair’s armrests, maintaining hold over a remote control, he answers. “Karen. You’re my drug. I need you to live. If I can’t have you then life is nothing. I’m giving you the option to save me by saving our marriage. Otherwise this will kill me.”
Shocked that her sinking intuitions are materializing, any grain of respect floating about in her heart is flushed away by disgust, admitting, “You used to make me feel wanted, but now you’re taking all that away. There’s no point for us to prolong this painful misery. I misinterpreted your longing toward me; it has nothing to do with care or concern for my well being. You’re too selfish to even get what I was trying to tell you when we first started seeing each other. I repeat myself over and over and you never listen! I didn’t want us to rush into things because I knew we needed to develop our lives together. It’s always been about what you want, what you can get out of it. We never had a proper foundation for our marriage to build upon. The surface of what we have is brittle, it breaks as we try and work on things. This happens every time, you force me to make the marriage work by keeping me captive. You have no intentions to ever change. People value and respect me, and truly they hate you!”
Karen’s passions turn to anger, fully seeing Ash’s preparations to desert her and the kids. She longs to see the device in action as she finishes “You are a weak, immature boy who lives in the shell of a grown adult. You’re reckless, having wasted away my hopes along with all the things I’ve worked so hard for in my life. You’ve passed up so many chances to work on things, your heart will never conform, and now there is no concern left in you for anyone, not even for your own safety!” Karen is beyond pity or forgiveness; her eyes wide and anxious for him to push the button, hoping to see his life zapped from this world.
Just before Ash is about to flip the switch, the woman of his fantasies enters the room…
Despite the dishonorable and egotistic traits that Ashura, Zephurah, and Mara share (guiding their unrepentant hearts), these three must remain true to a vow of honoring any other fallen angel’s cry for cooperation. If this agreement were to be mishandled, each guilty perpetrator would be sentenced to banishment by the principalities governing their spirit realm.
Ash, strapped into the chair, is awestruck seeing Mara seductively disguised as Angelina Jolie dressed in a scantly clothed gown when entering the upper room. She approaches, exercising the newfound potential this body offers; the two captivated by hopes of forbidden sensuality, while Karen slips away from the room.
A beckoning invitation transmits as Ash gives in, signaling to occupy the body of the host Asmodeus came from, promising indulgent sexual pleasures…for these three to partake in. Ingrained determination triggers, prompting Asmodeus to signal the other fallen stars to ally.
Karen, aware of what’s going on using her connection with Mara, hurries to collect framed mirrors from the adjacent rooms of the lodge, arranging them once she’s returned. The link she has with Criley aids their final stand. Mara and Ash at this time are so consumed by selfish desires that they completely ignore Karen’s intent preparations.
Each creature rushes to the room, arriving as Mara uses her translucent ability to enter Ash (who’s given in to her entrapment, still strapped to the fabricated execution device).
Saying a blessing over the mirrors Karen has set up, Criley ends the prayer with a request that the promise halo (taken from around his forehead) be consecrated and then flings it at a shining mirror in the high school football team’s lodge, after Ashura abruptly departs.
The granted power the mirrors are blessed with causes the halo to divide into three separate rings that pass into the room where the called-upon demons have arrived. They stand there questioning if it is pertinent to give up their physical superiority to inhabit this pathetic, weak-minded worm of a human. In that split second, Criley, knowing the risk he is taking with Ash’s life, instantly transports to the room using his technique to strike as lightning. The three halos (once they’ve emerged out of the placed mirrors) cut through Ashura, Zephurah, and Mara…imprisoning them and claiming their abilities for Criley to utilize later. The tri-band returns to him, joined together, as the electrical bolt he has become strikes through the metal skullcap Ash wears. In a split second all five evil spirits are sentenced to Outer Darkness, a banishment realm within Hell. As Criley’s energy charges through Ash, Karen’s husband is given the choice to pull through the struggle of overcoming death, and fight against his body being vaporized, or to give in to Criley’s destructive power.
Despite all the chances to turn his life around, Ash sadly chooses death and separation over Salvation and Christ. Criley escapes the realm of imprisonment, while Ash’s soul is locked into the darkness he has chosen to occupy until the time of final judgment.
“The Lord has appointed me further tasks,” Criley humbly explains to Karen once he returns. “You have always desired your independence. Know that I will be your everyday protector. Though I will phase from sight and dwell behind the scenes in the spiritual realm, still know and remember that I am always looking out for you and your babies.”
“Oh, Nathaniel,” Karen lovingly expresses as she reaches up and places a tender hand on Criley’s radiantly glowing face, giving in to the blessed feeling of his powerful wings reaching down to blanket her with heavenly security. Karen then admits, “You have to know I’ve always wanted things to work out between us.” With tears that spill and break Criley’s heart, knowing they can never be together in the physical sense that she longs for, Karen turns to the concept of giving up on this life so that the two of them can be forever as one by entering the life to come. That notion lasts a moment before her phone rings and she finds that her older sister is calling. Reluctant to answer Karen is flushed by panic when Naomi exclaims…
“I just got here to the camp. Where are you guys?”
Nervously Karen replies “Naomi. What are you doing here?”
“Come on, Karen. You know mom is worried,” Karen’s sister responds, referring to their stepmom. “She sent me up. You should see things outside. There’s all these stars falling…”
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