Chapter 43
Year: 3665 BC
“Only in the darkness can you see the stars.”
— MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.
“ S o, what was it like?” Shem asked eagerly upon my arrival. I shook my head, unable to put into words what I had just experienced. It had been so different from what I was accustomed to. Lilith was nothing like what I had expected her to be, and I found that she had successfully planted a small seed of doubt within me.
Surely Yahweh had just not spent much time with her. He couldn’t truly think that little creature with her whip-smart mind and library full of knowledge was evil, could He?
“It was like nothing I have ever seen,” I breathed, and Shem laughed.
“Well, Ram, seeing as you have only existed for a year, I’m not sure that’s saying much.”
I grinned and punched him in the shoulder, shaking my head.
“Trust me, Hazai. Hell is not what Yahweh has described. It is like an eternal night. There are so many stars and Lilith… Lilith is…”
Shem was hanging on to every word I said, and there was a fire burning in his eyes like I had never seen before. “Lilith is like what?” he breathed, and I looked at him, hoping he could see on my face what I thought of Lilith because I was afraid to say it out loud.
“Oh,” he murmured, and I nodded.
“Yeah.”
“Well,” he said, grinning. “I’m looking forward to hearing about your next trip down there.” I frowned, feeling a flutter of anxiety in my chest.
“I fear I have angered her. She seemed upset with me when I left.”
Shem shrugged, sliding his hands into his pockets as we approached Yahweh’s Sorter of Souls. We were due to meet Him to give our daily reports.
“So, find a way to make it up to her. You’re her emissary to Heaven; you two will have an eternity together. It would be in both of your best interests to get along.”
I frowned. “Yahweh warned me against getting too close to her,” I said hesitantly. Shem scowled, glancing around furtively before leaning into my ear.
“Don’t you ever get sick of doing whatever Yahweh says?” he asked, and my stomach flipped. Those words were sacrilege. Angels had been put into purgatory for less. Shemhazai must really trust me to say something like that with such conviction. I thought about it, and although I had only existed for a year, I was already beginning to understand why Shemhazai always seemed so bored, especially after returning from Hell to the endless white abyss that was Heaven. I wanted what Lilith had. I wanted room to experiment, books to read, and stars to gaze upon.
I looked at Shem, who was watching me expectantly, his eyes shining. I nodded.
“Yes, I get tired of it,” I agreed, and he grinned at me.
“I knew we were going to be friends the moment I met you, Ramel,” he purred, just as Yahweh appeared to collect our reports.
Lilith was cold to me on my next visit. I missed the warm smiles and the kind looks she’d given me on my first visit to Hell. She walked ahead of me, leading me across the bridge. Though her inky hands made me nervous, I worked up the courage to reach out and touch her shoulder.
The moment my fingers brushed against her skin, a spark of electricity shot up my arm and directly to my heart. She froze, and my breath caught in my chest. Slowly, she turned to face me, her mossy eyes burning with indignation.
“What is it, Ramel?” she asked, her tone flat.
“I wanted to apologize again. I am relatively new to the world and have no experience outside of what I am exposed to in Heaven. ”
She glared at me for another moment before she finally softened. Her little pink lips quirked up at the side. “You have much to learn then,” she murmured, and I nodded eagerly.
“Yes. Teach me,” I breathed, hoping she would agree. My mind was racing with exhilaration. Shem would be so excited to hear about all the things I might learn from Lilith, the Queen of Hell.
“Alright, Ramel. I will teach you.” She smiled, and my heart soared. I was thrilled that I had been able to find a way back into her good graces. Instead of taking me to the manor, she turned at the edge of the bridge, and we walked down the black sands of the beach that surrounded her island. Glowing green specks of soul dust mixed with the sand, making it feel like we were walking across the night sky.
“Everything is so dark here,” I murmured in awe, taking in how the black sand met with the ebony sea. “In Heaven, everything is so bright. Yahweh tells us that the dark is synonymous with sin. Do you think that is true?” I asked her, genuinely curious as to what she thought of Yahweh’s lessons in sin.
Lilith glanced at me, shrugging. “I believe in balance,” she explained, and I frowned.
Balance?
“You cannot have light if there is no dark, Ramel. Did you even know that Heaven was so bright until you came down here into the dark with me?”
I suddenly understood. She was right. I had just simply thought that was what existing was — endless light. I had nothing to compare it to, and so I had not appreciated it for what it was. Though, if I was being honest with myself, I still wasn’t sure I appreciated it. It was too bright. I much preferred it down here with Lilith. However, I didn’t think I could ever tell Yahweh that.
She looked down at her ink-black hands and gave me a sly smile.
“Let’s go on a little trip to the mortal realm,” she said, and my eyes widened in shock.
“Yahweh might not like that,” I cautioned, and she rolled her eyes.
“Fuck Yahweh. He does not rule me. I am a ruler unto myself.”
I was startled at her crassness but felt a smile curl across my lips despite myself. I had a feeling Shem would like her as much as I did.
She held out a death-ridden hand to me, and I hesitated. She laughed softly. “It is okay, Ramel. I cannot kill you; you are immortal,” she reassured me, and I nodded, finally putting my hand in hers.
Her hand did not feel wet. It was warm and dry, and the contact sent little shockwaves of pleasure directly to my heart. She took us to a leafy green forest, and I marveled at this new and foreign environment.
Everything was lush and loamy. I could smell a wet, earthy musk and reveled in how the sunlight filtered through the leaves, casting us in a green-gold glow. This was much better than endless blinding white as well. I frowned. With so many beautiful places to live, why did Yahweh insist we live in an endless abyss filled with nothing?
“This is called a rainforest,” Lilith explained to me, and I nodded, willing my mind to sponge up every word that came out of her perfect mouth.
“This is one of the best examples I can think of to demonstrate balance.”
With a wave of her hand, she brought us before a large jungle cat that seemed to have caught a wild boar. The crimson of the boar’s shredded corpse stood in sharp contrast with the earthy greens that surrounded it. The cat’s yellow and black coat shone in the dappled light, and it snarled as it tore into its prey.
“Do you feel bad for the boar?” Lilith asked. I looked at the poor, dead animal and nodded.
“Yes. It is dead now,” I whispered, and Lilith smiled at me.
“That is true. However, if it did not die, what would become of the beautiful jungle cat? She has cubs to feed, you know. If she had not killed this boar, her cubs would perish.”
I frowned. I had not thought of that.
With a wave of her hand, she fast-forwarded through time to when the jungle cat’s life ended. The cat’s body lay in the underbrush of the forest, and Lilith stepped forward, laying her black hands on the cat’s fur and stroking it softly.
“Shh,” she whispered to the corpse, “walk in peace.”
I watched in awe as decay began to spread from Lilith’s inky fingers, and the cat’s body decomposed at an accelerated rate before my very eyes. Once the cat had melted into the earth, I marveled as fungi grew over the mound of decayed flesh. Soon, the enriched spot on the jungle floor erupted into new life. Green shoots grew, and before I knew it, a little family of wild boars appeared to eat the shoots, and I smiled.
Lilith turned to me. She came forward, and I watched the sensual sway of her hips, finding myself unable to look away. A strange twinge of feeling grew low in my abdomen, and my throat felt tight. She smiled at me knowingly and placed her decay-ridden hands on either side of my face.
She smelled of death and carnations, and I had never smelled anything so lovely.
Suddenly, we were back on the sandy beaches of Hell, and I found my hands had fallen to her hips. I was lost in the earthy green of her eyes. They were reminiscent of the lush rainforest she had just transported me from.
“Just as you cannot have light without darkness, you cannot have life without death. Without decay, nothing would grow.” Her voice was quiet, and I found myself staring at her lips. Why couldn’t I look away from that little pink mouth?
“They call this place Hell, Ramel, but a world without death would be the true tragedy. ”
She leaned forward, and I held my breath, unsure what she was about to do. She brushed her inky thumb against my forehead and pressed a vision into my mind. The wind left my lungs, and the strength sapped from my limbs.
Lilith showed me what a world without death, natural disaster, or disease would be, and the sight of it horrified me. Too many mouths and not enough food or space. Mortals piled on top of each other, unable to find rest. They writhed against one another in a living ball of eternal torment and pain.
When the vision faded, and I found myself back in Lilith’s arms, I felt I had been given some forbidden knowledge and a layer of Yahweh’s lies had been peeled away.
Yahweh had said that Lilith was a disgrace. He said because she was the Queen of Disease and Decay and the Goddess of Death and Destruction that she was evil… sin incarnate. He had implied her only role was to torment the souls of the wicked. However, what she had just shown me was the opposite of those things. Without Lilith, there would be no balance.
Why had Yahweh lied? Why did He want us to hate and fear her? We needed her just as much as we needed His power of creation.
“You have given me much to think about, Lilith,” I whispered, and she smiled.
“You asked me to teach you, Ramel. I hope that I have delivered.”
“You have,” I breathed, my mind racing. I couldn’t wait to return to Heaven to tell Shemhazai what I had learned.
She winked at me and stroked a dark finger down the side of my face, making me shiver. I suddenly felt myself grow hard in a way that I had been told was only meant for Yahweh. I frowned, and she glanced down at my hardness. I felt my cheeks flame with shame, but she only smiled at me kindly.
“Next time you visit, we will have a different type of lesson.” She assured me, though I wasn’t sure what that meant.
“Until next time, Ramel,” she said, and I felt a blooming sense of loss as I turned to leave the endless night of Hell to return to the blinding abyss that I was forced to call home.