Post by Bene Elohim on Feb 8, 2024 15:14:30 GMT -8
The last thing he saw was her face.
There was the shattering of a glass window, and suddenly, he was falling, plummeting toward the parked car driven by Danielle Anderson. The impact was so immediate and violent, he never even felt it. He didn’t even feel the bloody splat of his body hitting the concrete.
“Mike?”
A voice called out in concern, so soft and so far away. When he looked up, the last thing he saw was the youthful face of Danni. However, to his damaged and traumatized mind…
He saw Pénélope.
And then unexpectedly, he was falling again, this time through darkness and fire.
The world was a thousand different shades of black and red as he fell through the rings of searing fire. Looking down, he could see the angelic face of the daughter of Xaria Linette, Penny, falling with him. But it was only for the briefest of seconds until he hit something solid.
Painstakingly, Michael pushed himself off of the rocky warm ground and found himself on the edge of a platform overlooking a sea of flames. There were bodies of men and women writhing in the flames far beneath him, each of them reaching out for some kind of salvation and finding none.
Hell.
He was in Hell.
Two days now with no change.
Michael Rivers was lying in a hospital bed, monitors attached to various parts of him. Xaria had arrived the early morning after the incident, frantic to see him. She nearly collapsed to her knees when she saw the condition he was in.
She barely remembered speaking to the doctors, relieved that Michael had listed her as a person they could give information too. He had extensive injuries to his right shoulder and right collar bone from the impact with the ground and extremely extensive trauma to his spine.
All of the damage had reached the spinal cord and the nerves in his spine.
So she sat beside the bed with his limp, motionless hand in her own and her forehead rested on the top of his palm.
Xaria Linette: “Please… Please wake up….”
**
Hell
**
Michael pushed himself up off the rocky ground and turned his back on the screaming and crying masses lost to the hellfire behind him, turning his gaze instead to the small island he was on. He was standing on a gravel path lined with beautiful pine trees.
He knew this place. This was his home.
Not the home he shared with Dahlia, but the walkway leading to where he grew up. The home of Pastor Johnathan Rivers and his wife Sharon. The place where it all began.
As Michael began to make his way up this familiar path, figures began to appear out of the misty shadows on each side of the walkway. All of them were dressed as mourners in black suits, women in black gowns with veils over their faces.
And all of them were Demons of the Children of Nephilim.
None of them spoke to him. They just watched as he walked up the path.
The house at the end of the walkway was a simple one-story Victorian home with bars on the windows and a thick security door. Sharon and the Pastor had overcompensated when one of their children had disappeared at the age of eight.
Michael stood at the mouth of the walkway and stared at the house he never thought he’d see again. His eyes turned, almost of their own accord, to the window of the room he had shared with his twin sister.
What had Lucifer told him all those months ago now?
“You keep on talking to me like a stranger, like Dahlia started this, but we have been together since you were a kid.”
Deep down, he knew this was it. This was the place where he was born.
Lord Lucifer was born in the pain and hatred of the mind of a child who had lost his twin sister. The murder of Dahlia all those years later just… released him.
As he stood staring at the window, he found himself looking into a pair of eyes staring back at him.
Someone was in his room.
Crossing the final part of the walkway, Michael pulled the thick security door open and entered into a simple living room. A brown-haired woman was sitting on the floor with a pair of children playing with little square blocks. Sitting on the couch beside them was a man in his early twenties, smoking from a long pipe while he watched the trio with a smile on his face.
The Rivers Family. Back when they were happy. Back when they were a family.
Michael passed them without even giving them a second glance. That wasn’t a family he had been a part of in many, many years now.
Turning around the back of the couch, Michael continued on until he came to a short hallway with doors on both sides. He grabbed the doorknob for the first door on the left and slowly eased the door open.
The room on the other side of the door was different than the rest of the house. Even the wallpaper was different. The room was decorated with black and purple with various pieces of gothic art, but his eyes were focused on the corner near the window.
A woman stood in front of a full-length mirror. Her hair was jet black and down over her face. She wore a simple white nightgown that hung to mid-thigh. He knew who she was without even needing to see her face.
Dahlia.
Slowly, he approached the woman and reached out a hand for her. Just as his fingertips were about to touch her skin, she spun around, her face covered in blood, the white nightgown ripped and torn from knife strikes and stained red. She let out a shrieking scream that hit him with the force of a car, throwing him back into the wall. When he hit it, he went clean through it and landed on the rocky ground outside, rolling toward the edge of the island.
Stopping himself just short of the edge, his head snapped back the way he had come but saw only the endless lake of fire that was this Hell he found himself in. The house was gone and only Dahlia’s screamed words lingered in the air.
“LET GO!”
Xaria had drifted off from exhaustion. She had no idea how long she had been out. It was the sound of the door easing open that snapped her back into the world of the living from the horrible nightmare she was having.
Turning her gaze to the opened door, she found Sariel standing in the doorway. The Asian woman’s beautiful face was battered and bruised and her right arm was in a sling for a bit of extra protection. The bangs above her forehead were singed by fire, showing how close she had been to the blast.
Xaria Linette: “Sara!”
The Harbinger rushed across the room and embraced Sara, who wrapped one arm around her shoulder. She was relieved to see her, but it was strange. She was alone.
Xaria Linette: “Naani? Rami? Ani?”
Sara slowly shook her head, tears welling up in her eyes as she whispered.
Sara: “They didn’t make it…”
Xaria Linette: “Oh honey…”
Xaria held the woman close, while Sara held onto her and wept on her shoulder. After giving her a moment to let it all out, Xaria whispered.
Xaria Linette: “What happened?”
Sara: “We stayed. We knew what he was doing and we weren’t going to let him do it alone. Harbinger… there is something you should know…”
Xaria Linette: “Hmm?”
Sara: “Lucifer never came back, Xaria. He has always been Michael pretending to be Lucifer all this time. He did it to protect Maiko, your children, and the rest of us.”
Xaria placed her hand over her mouth and turned to look back at the body lying on the bed behind the pair of women. He had kept the secret for so long, knowing that the only weapon he had was Valdemar and Anthony’s apprehension that they were facing Lucifer. They had no reason to fear Michael, so he lied.
The only sound in the room was the rhythmic beeping of the heart monitor.
He wandered aimlessly for what felt like months through the barren wasteland of hellfire and lava. He knew, however, that simple hours had passed. Time was weird here. When he came to a small crevice of a rock, he squeezed through, and on the other side was something he never thought he’d ever see.
Sitting behind the desk of an office was Valdemar Johansen, the self-appointed Lord Apollyon.
Although the office was different than the actual office that had once existed in Philadelphia, as Michael had never actually seen it, it was fairly close. At least in the shape and overall design, but that was where the similarities ended.
The walls of this office were solid gold with priceless objects covering them. There were million-dollar paintings and statues sitting in the corners. The whole place was a testament to greed and excess. The man behind the desk was dressed in the finest silk suit with his hair made of pure flamed gold.
Standing on each side of the desk was a black and white-clad Demon. When Valdemar and Michael locked eyes, Valdemar motioned with his head for the demons to go after him. However, they merely stood, staring at their master.
Disgusted he screamed.
Lord Apollyon: “GET HIM!”
Michael turned and sprinted back the way he had come, looking to get through the crack in the rock again only to find the crack replaced by a tunnel of black obsidian rock and dirt. With no other choice and an army of Demons behind him, he went into the tunnel.
Rushing through the darkness, he found the Demons were coming out from every turn. They dropped from above and came from other side tunnels until he was left with nowhere to run. The sheer numbers overwhelmed him.
The black and white-clad demons grabbed him and dragged him back through the tunnels and into the half an office that seemed to be built into the very wall. As they held Michael down and Valdemar rose from his chair, a sick smirk on his face, Michael saw the estate in Malibu explode.
Saw the face of Penny as he held her tight and jumped through the window.
Felt the red hot surge of white hate.
Lashing out, he drove his head into the side of the face of the Demon holding his right arm. He then turned and drove a knee into the stomach of the one holding his left. Taking him by the head, Michael twisted quickly with an audible SNAP and the Demon’s head snapped to the side as his body went limp.
Valdemar only smiled and stared at him with a pair of burning red eyes. Letting out a loud, mocking, laughter, the whole room began to shake. The wall on the far side of the room opened to reveal the inside of a golden elevator.
Inside were Ananiel, Ramiel, and Aniel.
Michael threw his hands out, screaming for them to get out as the whole room exploded. All Michael could do was cry out as he heard the Twins and Aniel screaming in agony and Valdemar laughing.
In Lucifer’s voice.
Rubbing the sleep from her eyes, Sara sat up in the chair and glanced around the room. Penny was curled up asleep with Michael and Xaria was standing near the door, talking to the doctor. Staying silent, she heard Xaria whispering about the next steps and the doctor revealing that they needed to operate as soon as possible or they’d risk permanent paralysis.
And even then it would be a risk.
His body was simply so broken. So weak. It was as if something inside him was taking all his strength and his body was fading.
Michael Rivers: “NAANI! RAMI! ANI! NO! NOOO!!!”
The whole world was an explosion. Everything was shades of white and red. The flames were so angry, licking at his arms and face while he heard his own voice laughing so loudly in his ears. And then it was simply gone.
Michael slowly lowered his hands that had once shielded his face in an attempt to protect his eyes from the heat and light. He found himself standing in front of another house he knew all too well from northern Florida. The moss had grown over the edges of the roof, but he’d know the house anywhere.
Dahlia’s family home. Where he learned the true depths of human depravity.
Approaching the door, he pushed it open with an eerie creak, revealing the hallway beyond. As he began into the hallway, he noticed the pictures on the walls, each of them of an extreme close up of a gothic face. Some of the pictures showed a tear-streaked face, others of the same face lost in the throes of passion. All of them showed the blank eyes, the empty vessel being used.
Each of them designed to get the same reaction from Michael. To trigger that white-hot rage.
At the end of the hallway, he pressed a hand to the door leading to the stairs. Slowly making his way into the basement revealed two figures sitting at a table in the center of the room. Anthony Crawford and Penny Linette.
Penny was laughing and smiling, while Anthony was staring at her, and Michael felt the hate welling up inside him. As it did, the walls around them began to weep. Blood seeping from the ceiling and running in small lines down the wall.
As he reached out for Anthony, Michael could feel the blood pumping in his ears. Turning him around by the shoulder changed Anthony into Dahlia’s father and a soft voice whispered from all around him.
Dahlia’s voice.
“Let go… or…”
The old man who had abused his wife for so long slowly dissolved. Before Michael’s eyes, the face of Penny began to as well. It was then that Michael understood her message. He needed to let go or the girl would suffer. She would disappear only to be changed as so many had.
Turning his back on the dissolving pair, Michael screamed.
Michael Rivers: “NO! I won’t be that person again!”
A sudden scream broke the silence that followed Michael’s announcement. A scream of rage and blind hate. The walls of the house shook as the blood that had once been simply seeping down began to run like a river. The blood mixed with the dirt of the basement floor to make a thick, soupy-like substance.
He looked down in disgust at the substance, and when he looked up, he was no longer in the basement. The fires of Hell burned all around him, the black obsidian mountains standing in the distance.
A figure was trapped against the black shimmering rock. A figure who was one person and many people at the same time. A body constantly changing, face shifting between Penny, Dahlia, Xaria, Sara, Sela, Danika, and Maiko.
And between them and Michael... walking in the ankle-deep sludge was… another version of him. A version covered in dirt and burns that scarred his cheeks and one arm. A twisted and vile look on his emotionless face and a burning rage in his cold eyes.
Lord Lucifer.
According to the doctors, the surgery had been a success. The bone chips had been removed and the spine had been stabilized, but there was no way to know exactly how he would react or how much mobility had been saved.
Xaria, Penny, and Sara were joined by Zachary, Christian, Jacques, Martin, Maricela, Johnny, and Chelsea.
While they were all relaxing in the room, the monitor on the right side of the bed suddenly went crazy. One second it was fine and the next it was complete pandemonium. Blood pressure rose to 195/150, heart rate jumped to 135 BPM.
Xaria jumped up from her chair as the nurses came into the room. The nurses did their best to restrain Michael as he began to convulse to protect the repairs done to the spine. All Xaria and Sara could do were stand by with their hands over their mouths, while the others corralled the kids and hurried them from the room.
Michael went for the strange amalgam of people trapped against the shining stone, only to get caught with a right hand from Lucifer. It was quickly followed by a left to the stomach and finally a right to the face that sent Michael down into the muck.
When Michael pushed himself up and exposed his face, Lucifer threw an uppercut that caught him clean in the face, sending him crashing back into the sludge. Pulling him back up, Lucifer launched Michael in the direction of the strange mixture of people, trapped and helplessly watching.
It then became like a sick game of Whack-A-Mole. Michael would pop up, only for Lucifer to brutalize him with a series of blows to send him back in the muck again. Every time Michael looked up at the person, it was someone different. Each of them was reaching out for his help, but no matter how much he reached for them, Lucifer would pull him away.
“Let go, Pure…”
The voice whispered and finally Michael understood.
It was his need to save her that had started all this. His need to protect Maiko that had continued it. He needed to let go. To realize he couldn't protect everyone. If he couldn’t let go and focus on himself, he would lose this fight to Lucifer and somehow he knew.
The more Lucifer pushed him aside, the weaker his body became.
He was dying.
Lucifer grabbed Michael by the ankle. Covered in the blood and filth, Michael rolled to his back and used his other foot to block the attempted blow Lucifer threw down at him and then darted it to the side, driving it into his face. The force of the blow sent Lucifer down into the muck. Quickly, Michael looked back at the constantly shifting figure and then back at him.
He needed to let them go.
He needed to let the Guardian Angel… go.
So Michael turned his attention to Lucifer, crawling through the filth and the sludge to him and straddled his back. He shoved both of his hands into the back of his head, forcing Lucifer’s face down into the liquid. Lucifer struggled, fought and clawed, but Michael held on, letting it all out in one long scream.
All the regrets.
All the self-doubts.
All the guilt he had carried all these years.
All released into one final attempt to kill Lucifer.
Lucifer forced his head up from the muck and Michael planted his forearm behind his neck.
Lord Lucifer: “YOU CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT ME!”
Michael Rivers: “The hell I can’t!”
Lord Lucifer: “YOU NEED ME!”
Michael Rivers: “I never needed you! I need THEM!”
Michael screamed, thinking of Xaria and Penny, her sons and his own daughters. He had the one thing he had been hunting for his whole life.
He had a family.
With one final twists and a loud CRACK from Lucifer’s neck, the man beneath him stopped struggling and went limp.
Michael leaned back, panting, and looked over at the figure trapped against the mountain only to find it was gone. Suddenly, the red hot flames of hell were replaced by the warmest white light he could have ever felt and he found himself in an endless void of white.
A voice whispered.
“It’s okay, Pure. I’m safe now. You can let go.”
Michael looked down at his feet, tears running down his cheeks, and whispered the two words he had avoided saying all these years. The one thing he couldn't bring himself to say.
Michael Rivers: “...Goodbye, Dollie.”
One second, the doctors were rushing in and trying to yell for everyone to leave the room. The next… the room was silent. The monitors stopped screaming and everyone’s eyes turned to the bed.
BP was 110/60 and his heart rate was down to 85BPM and stabilized.
And then slowly his finger twitched.
Xaria gasped and began to cry, holding Penny in her arms, while the nurses and doctors all closed in.
Michael opened his eyes ever so slowly.
There was the shattering of a glass window, and suddenly, he was falling, plummeting toward the parked car driven by Danielle Anderson. The impact was so immediate and violent, he never even felt it. He didn’t even feel the bloody splat of his body hitting the concrete.
“Mike?”
A voice called out in concern, so soft and so far away. When he looked up, the last thing he saw was the youthful face of Danni. However, to his damaged and traumatized mind…
He saw Pénélope.
And then unexpectedly, he was falling again, this time through darkness and fire.
The world was a thousand different shades of black and red as he fell through the rings of searing fire. Looking down, he could see the angelic face of the daughter of Xaria Linette, Penny, falling with him. But it was only for the briefest of seconds until he hit something solid.
Painstakingly, Michael pushed himself off of the rocky warm ground and found himself on the edge of a platform overlooking a sea of flames. There were bodies of men and women writhing in the flames far beneath him, each of them reaching out for some kind of salvation and finding none.
Hell.
He was in Hell.
**
Duke University Hospital
1/18/2020
**
Duke University Hospital
1/18/2020
**
Two days now with no change.
Michael Rivers was lying in a hospital bed, monitors attached to various parts of him. Xaria had arrived the early morning after the incident, frantic to see him. She nearly collapsed to her knees when she saw the condition he was in.
She barely remembered speaking to the doctors, relieved that Michael had listed her as a person they could give information too. He had extensive injuries to his right shoulder and right collar bone from the impact with the ground and extremely extensive trauma to his spine.
All of the damage had reached the spinal cord and the nerves in his spine.
So she sat beside the bed with his limp, motionless hand in her own and her forehead rested on the top of his palm.
Xaria Linette: “Please… Please wake up….”
**
Hell
**
Michael pushed himself up off the rocky ground and turned his back on the screaming and crying masses lost to the hellfire behind him, turning his gaze instead to the small island he was on. He was standing on a gravel path lined with beautiful pine trees.
He knew this place. This was his home.
Not the home he shared with Dahlia, but the walkway leading to where he grew up. The home of Pastor Johnathan Rivers and his wife Sharon. The place where it all began.
As Michael began to make his way up this familiar path, figures began to appear out of the misty shadows on each side of the walkway. All of them were dressed as mourners in black suits, women in black gowns with veils over their faces.
And all of them were Demons of the Children of Nephilim.
None of them spoke to him. They just watched as he walked up the path.
The house at the end of the walkway was a simple one-story Victorian home with bars on the windows and a thick security door. Sharon and the Pastor had overcompensated when one of their children had disappeared at the age of eight.
Michael stood at the mouth of the walkway and stared at the house he never thought he’d see again. His eyes turned, almost of their own accord, to the window of the room he had shared with his twin sister.
What had Lucifer told him all those months ago now?
“You keep on talking to me like a stranger, like Dahlia started this, but we have been together since you were a kid.”
Deep down, he knew this was it. This was the place where he was born.
Lord Lucifer was born in the pain and hatred of the mind of a child who had lost his twin sister. The murder of Dahlia all those years later just… released him.
As he stood staring at the window, he found himself looking into a pair of eyes staring back at him.
Someone was in his room.
Crossing the final part of the walkway, Michael pulled the thick security door open and entered into a simple living room. A brown-haired woman was sitting on the floor with a pair of children playing with little square blocks. Sitting on the couch beside them was a man in his early twenties, smoking from a long pipe while he watched the trio with a smile on his face.
The Rivers Family. Back when they were happy. Back when they were a family.
Michael passed them without even giving them a second glance. That wasn’t a family he had been a part of in many, many years now.
Turning around the back of the couch, Michael continued on until he came to a short hallway with doors on both sides. He grabbed the doorknob for the first door on the left and slowly eased the door open.
The room on the other side of the door was different than the rest of the house. Even the wallpaper was different. The room was decorated with black and purple with various pieces of gothic art, but his eyes were focused on the corner near the window.
A woman stood in front of a full-length mirror. Her hair was jet black and down over her face. She wore a simple white nightgown that hung to mid-thigh. He knew who she was without even needing to see her face.
Dahlia.
Slowly, he approached the woman and reached out a hand for her. Just as his fingertips were about to touch her skin, she spun around, her face covered in blood, the white nightgown ripped and torn from knife strikes and stained red. She let out a shrieking scream that hit him with the force of a car, throwing him back into the wall. When he hit it, he went clean through it and landed on the rocky ground outside, rolling toward the edge of the island.
Stopping himself just short of the edge, his head snapped back the way he had come but saw only the endless lake of fire that was this Hell he found himself in. The house was gone and only Dahlia’s screamed words lingered in the air.
“LET GO!”
**
Duke University Hospital
1/18/2020
**
Duke University Hospital
1/18/2020
**
Xaria had drifted off from exhaustion. She had no idea how long she had been out. It was the sound of the door easing open that snapped her back into the world of the living from the horrible nightmare she was having.
Turning her gaze to the opened door, she found Sariel standing in the doorway. The Asian woman’s beautiful face was battered and bruised and her right arm was in a sling for a bit of extra protection. The bangs above her forehead were singed by fire, showing how close she had been to the blast.
Xaria Linette: “Sara!”
The Harbinger rushed across the room and embraced Sara, who wrapped one arm around her shoulder. She was relieved to see her, but it was strange. She was alone.
Xaria Linette: “Naani? Rami? Ani?”
Sara slowly shook her head, tears welling up in her eyes as she whispered.
Sara: “They didn’t make it…”
Xaria Linette: “Oh honey…”
Xaria held the woman close, while Sara held onto her and wept on her shoulder. After giving her a moment to let it all out, Xaria whispered.
Xaria Linette: “What happened?”
Sara: “We stayed. We knew what he was doing and we weren’t going to let him do it alone. Harbinger… there is something you should know…”
Xaria Linette: “Hmm?”
Sara: “Lucifer never came back, Xaria. He has always been Michael pretending to be Lucifer all this time. He did it to protect Maiko, your children, and the rest of us.”
Xaria placed her hand over her mouth and turned to look back at the body lying on the bed behind the pair of women. He had kept the secret for so long, knowing that the only weapon he had was Valdemar and Anthony’s apprehension that they were facing Lucifer. They had no reason to fear Michael, so he lied.
The only sound in the room was the rhythmic beeping of the heart monitor.
**
Hell
**
Hell
**
He wandered aimlessly for what felt like months through the barren wasteland of hellfire and lava. He knew, however, that simple hours had passed. Time was weird here. When he came to a small crevice of a rock, he squeezed through, and on the other side was something he never thought he’d ever see.
Sitting behind the desk of an office was Valdemar Johansen, the self-appointed Lord Apollyon.
Although the office was different than the actual office that had once existed in Philadelphia, as Michael had never actually seen it, it was fairly close. At least in the shape and overall design, but that was where the similarities ended.
The walls of this office were solid gold with priceless objects covering them. There were million-dollar paintings and statues sitting in the corners. The whole place was a testament to greed and excess. The man behind the desk was dressed in the finest silk suit with his hair made of pure flamed gold.
Standing on each side of the desk was a black and white-clad Demon. When Valdemar and Michael locked eyes, Valdemar motioned with his head for the demons to go after him. However, they merely stood, staring at their master.
Disgusted he screamed.
Lord Apollyon: “GET HIM!”
Michael turned and sprinted back the way he had come, looking to get through the crack in the rock again only to find the crack replaced by a tunnel of black obsidian rock and dirt. With no other choice and an army of Demons behind him, he went into the tunnel.
Rushing through the darkness, he found the Demons were coming out from every turn. They dropped from above and came from other side tunnels until he was left with nowhere to run. The sheer numbers overwhelmed him.
The black and white-clad demons grabbed him and dragged him back through the tunnels and into the half an office that seemed to be built into the very wall. As they held Michael down and Valdemar rose from his chair, a sick smirk on his face, Michael saw the estate in Malibu explode.
Saw the face of Penny as he held her tight and jumped through the window.
Felt the red hot surge of white hate.
Lashing out, he drove his head into the side of the face of the Demon holding his right arm. He then turned and drove a knee into the stomach of the one holding his left. Taking him by the head, Michael twisted quickly with an audible SNAP and the Demon’s head snapped to the side as his body went limp.
Valdemar only smiled and stared at him with a pair of burning red eyes. Letting out a loud, mocking, laughter, the whole room began to shake. The wall on the far side of the room opened to reveal the inside of a golden elevator.
Inside were Ananiel, Ramiel, and Aniel.
Michael threw his hands out, screaming for them to get out as the whole room exploded. All Michael could do was cry out as he heard the Twins and Aniel screaming in agony and Valdemar laughing.
In Lucifer’s voice.
**
Duke University Hospital
1/19/2020
**
Duke University Hospital
1/19/2020
**
Rubbing the sleep from her eyes, Sara sat up in the chair and glanced around the room. Penny was curled up asleep with Michael and Xaria was standing near the door, talking to the doctor. Staying silent, she heard Xaria whispering about the next steps and the doctor revealing that they needed to operate as soon as possible or they’d risk permanent paralysis.
And even then it would be a risk.
His body was simply so broken. So weak. It was as if something inside him was taking all his strength and his body was fading.
**
Hell
**
Hell
**
Michael Rivers: “NAANI! RAMI! ANI! NO! NOOO!!!”
The whole world was an explosion. Everything was shades of white and red. The flames were so angry, licking at his arms and face while he heard his own voice laughing so loudly in his ears. And then it was simply gone.
Michael slowly lowered his hands that had once shielded his face in an attempt to protect his eyes from the heat and light. He found himself standing in front of another house he knew all too well from northern Florida. The moss had grown over the edges of the roof, but he’d know the house anywhere.
Dahlia’s family home. Where he learned the true depths of human depravity.
Approaching the door, he pushed it open with an eerie creak, revealing the hallway beyond. As he began into the hallway, he noticed the pictures on the walls, each of them of an extreme close up of a gothic face. Some of the pictures showed a tear-streaked face, others of the same face lost in the throes of passion. All of them showed the blank eyes, the empty vessel being used.
Each of them designed to get the same reaction from Michael. To trigger that white-hot rage.
At the end of the hallway, he pressed a hand to the door leading to the stairs. Slowly making his way into the basement revealed two figures sitting at a table in the center of the room. Anthony Crawford and Penny Linette.
Penny was laughing and smiling, while Anthony was staring at her, and Michael felt the hate welling up inside him. As it did, the walls around them began to weep. Blood seeping from the ceiling and running in small lines down the wall.
As he reached out for Anthony, Michael could feel the blood pumping in his ears. Turning him around by the shoulder changed Anthony into Dahlia’s father and a soft voice whispered from all around him.
Dahlia’s voice.
“Let go… or…”
The old man who had abused his wife for so long slowly dissolved. Before Michael’s eyes, the face of Penny began to as well. It was then that Michael understood her message. He needed to let go or the girl would suffer. She would disappear only to be changed as so many had.
Turning his back on the dissolving pair, Michael screamed.
Michael Rivers: “NO! I won’t be that person again!”
A sudden scream broke the silence that followed Michael’s announcement. A scream of rage and blind hate. The walls of the house shook as the blood that had once been simply seeping down began to run like a river. The blood mixed with the dirt of the basement floor to make a thick, soupy-like substance.
He looked down in disgust at the substance, and when he looked up, he was no longer in the basement. The fires of Hell burned all around him, the black obsidian mountains standing in the distance.
A figure was trapped against the black shimmering rock. A figure who was one person and many people at the same time. A body constantly changing, face shifting between Penny, Dahlia, Xaria, Sara, Sela, Danika, and Maiko.
And between them and Michael... walking in the ankle-deep sludge was… another version of him. A version covered in dirt and burns that scarred his cheeks and one arm. A twisted and vile look on his emotionless face and a burning rage in his cold eyes.
Lord Lucifer.
**
Duke University Hospital
1/20/2020
**
Duke University Hospital
1/20/2020
**
According to the doctors, the surgery had been a success. The bone chips had been removed and the spine had been stabilized, but there was no way to know exactly how he would react or how much mobility had been saved.
Xaria, Penny, and Sara were joined by Zachary, Christian, Jacques, Martin, Maricela, Johnny, and Chelsea.
While they were all relaxing in the room, the monitor on the right side of the bed suddenly went crazy. One second it was fine and the next it was complete pandemonium. Blood pressure rose to 195/150, heart rate jumped to 135 BPM.
Xaria jumped up from her chair as the nurses came into the room. The nurses did their best to restrain Michael as he began to convulse to protect the repairs done to the spine. All Xaria and Sara could do were stand by with their hands over their mouths, while the others corralled the kids and hurried them from the room.
**
Hell
**
Hell
**
Michael went for the strange amalgam of people trapped against the shining stone, only to get caught with a right hand from Lucifer. It was quickly followed by a left to the stomach and finally a right to the face that sent Michael down into the muck.
When Michael pushed himself up and exposed his face, Lucifer threw an uppercut that caught him clean in the face, sending him crashing back into the sludge. Pulling him back up, Lucifer launched Michael in the direction of the strange mixture of people, trapped and helplessly watching.
It then became like a sick game of Whack-A-Mole. Michael would pop up, only for Lucifer to brutalize him with a series of blows to send him back in the muck again. Every time Michael looked up at the person, it was someone different. Each of them was reaching out for his help, but no matter how much he reached for them, Lucifer would pull him away.
“Let go, Pure…”
The voice whispered and finally Michael understood.
It was his need to save her that had started all this. His need to protect Maiko that had continued it. He needed to let go. To realize he couldn't protect everyone. If he couldn’t let go and focus on himself, he would lose this fight to Lucifer and somehow he knew.
The more Lucifer pushed him aside, the weaker his body became.
He was dying.
Lucifer grabbed Michael by the ankle. Covered in the blood and filth, Michael rolled to his back and used his other foot to block the attempted blow Lucifer threw down at him and then darted it to the side, driving it into his face. The force of the blow sent Lucifer down into the muck. Quickly, Michael looked back at the constantly shifting figure and then back at him.
He needed to let them go.
He needed to let the Guardian Angel… go.
So Michael turned his attention to Lucifer, crawling through the filth and the sludge to him and straddled his back. He shoved both of his hands into the back of his head, forcing Lucifer’s face down into the liquid. Lucifer struggled, fought and clawed, but Michael held on, letting it all out in one long scream.
All the regrets.
All the self-doubts.
All the guilt he had carried all these years.
All released into one final attempt to kill Lucifer.
Lucifer forced his head up from the muck and Michael planted his forearm behind his neck.
Lord Lucifer: “YOU CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT ME!”
Michael Rivers: “The hell I can’t!”
Lord Lucifer: “YOU NEED ME!”
Michael Rivers: “I never needed you! I need THEM!”
Michael screamed, thinking of Xaria and Penny, her sons and his own daughters. He had the one thing he had been hunting for his whole life.
He had a family.
With one final twists and a loud CRACK from Lucifer’s neck, the man beneath him stopped struggling and went limp.
Michael leaned back, panting, and looked over at the figure trapped against the mountain only to find it was gone. Suddenly, the red hot flames of hell were replaced by the warmest white light he could have ever felt and he found himself in an endless void of white.
A voice whispered.
“It’s okay, Pure. I’m safe now. You can let go.”
Michael looked down at his feet, tears running down his cheeks, and whispered the two words he had avoided saying all these years. The one thing he couldn't bring himself to say.
Michael Rivers: “...Goodbye, Dollie.”
**
Duke University Hospital
1/20/2020
**
Duke University Hospital
1/20/2020
**
One second, the doctors were rushing in and trying to yell for everyone to leave the room. The next… the room was silent. The monitors stopped screaming and everyone’s eyes turned to the bed.
BP was 110/60 and his heart rate was down to 85BPM and stabilized.
And then slowly his finger twitched.
Xaria gasped and began to cry, holding Penny in her arms, while the nurses and doctors all closed in.
Michael opened his eyes ever so slowly.
