I wasn’t sure if I was excited or annoyed. Now, at first figurative glance, those to states tend to seem rather separate, but it is actually a state I often find myself in. After all, it only really requires two conditions. First, I have to be about to flick some part or another of the cosmic order so that someone I don’t like will, eventually, find themselves standing in the broken remains of their oh so infallible plans. Second, there as to be something around that I can’t, at the moment, improve. Considering that both those things are virtually constant for me, I find myself both excited and annoyed very often.
At this particular moment, the thing that was annoying me was the scenery I was striding through. Normally, it just wouldn’t have been acceptable, but I couldn’t do much of anything about it. It wasn’t the actual appearance per say, or even the uneven terrain. I am, in truth, quite fond of battle fields, I do create quite a lot of them after all, and I frankly quite liked the light, but constant, rain of blood from the empty blackness that served as a sky. Even the aforementioned uneven terrain wasn’t much of a problem. I have extremely good reflexes, even in my admittedly sorry state.
No, the annoying thing was the stagnancy, the changelessness. As far as I could see, which was quite a ways, nothing moved, and nothing changed. Sure, the rain was falling, and every once in a little while a long golden feather would drift down from the not exactly heavens above. But, it was a constant and perfectly even effect. I have a quite exact sense for these things, and I was positive that the rain had exactly the same pattern and intensity when I started as it did now.
That wouldn’t have been quite as irritating if I hadn’t been walking for such a long time. I couldn’t be sure, mostly because there wasn’t any guarantee that this place had true time, but I was very close to sure I had been walking for a little over 17 hundred thousand days, so somewhere between four to five thousand years. I was basing that off my internal time sense, due to the complete lack of change around me. Unfortunately, I have always had the worst internal clock of all my siblings, except the youngest, of course.
Regardless of the exact time, it had been long enough to become quite frustrating. But, that had all changed a few minutes ago, when I spotted her. Thanks to the rather flat nature of my surroundings, I had actually been able to see her from quite a way away, despite the admittedly sparse rain. As soon as I realized who I was looking at, my excitement surged to far overtake my previously dominant annoyance. This was both because I suspected she would be at my destination and because I would need her to get back to the physical world.
Technically, I had a number of other ways back, many of which were figuratively certain to work, but none of the others would get me what I wanted. Simply, they were paths of failure. If I returned through one of the other paths, I would live again. Through many I would even be far stronger than I had been in life, but I still wouldn’t have what I wanted. I don’t tend to settle for less than my true goal, a family trait that has likely caused more strife than any other single force in existence. Though, unlike my siblings, my goals aren’t often what they appear.
At my now significantly increased speed, I was soon beside the most distinct figure I had seen yet. This place was full of figures frozen like not exactly living statues. Some of them were in combat, frozen in what looked to be heated battle with each other, but most were in less regal positions. Some hid behind rubble, some fled to apparently nonexistent safety and some lay wounded and likely dying on the ground. The only thing they all had in common was their indistinct forms. Most of them, especially those from when I started, lacked any sort of distinguishing features, in a way the physical world never would have allowed. Rather than just being of forms and features that lacked distinction, the figures were truly impossible to categorize. Whenever I tried to internalize any particular characteristic that distinguished them, I simply couldn’t.
This wasn’t actually that surprising. I had seen a similar effect from unfinished portions of the Celestial Kingdom. It was the effect created by trying to observe an object that hadn’t been given certain parts of its existence. Interesting, and rather telling, the figures had become gradually more distinct as I moved forwards. When I started, I could barely tell that they were humanoids, but the figures surrounding her had features that I could actually recognize. In fact, I started to be able to recognize who the figures were.
I stepped passed the ring of familiar faces, ignoring them. While I could strictly use them for this, it wouldn’t achieve my true goal. And there she was. Unlike every other figure, she was as distinct as me. Her form a sharp perfection that made the rest of this world seem even less real in comparison. She was frozen in something close to a crouch, muscles tensed for an explosion of movement that didn’t appear to be coming. Blood landed on her, rolling off without leaving any mark. That appeared to apply to everything except me, not that I particularly minded. The blood never seemed to rot or coagulate and soaked into the ground without a trace, despite it falling constantly.
I waved my hand in front of her eyes, with about as much reaction as I had expected. Well, that showed, or at least indicated, one thing, she wasn’t consciously here any more than the others. I’d have to fix that. Now, if I was right about how this place worked… I crouched on the balls of my feet, bringing myself to her level. I cracked my jaw, running my tongue over my teeth. I didn’t have any reflective surfaces available at the moment, but the sharp cut of… well, my tongue being cut, and the taste of my own blood told me my teeth likely had more in common with razor blades than anything biological. Perfect.
Without any hesitation, I lunged. My teeth dug into her neck with the precision born of having to devise instincts for countless vampiric entities. I had considered going for the larger veins in the legs, but that would have been both farther from my target and difficult from an angle standpoint. But, most of all, it just wouldn’t have looked as dramatic. I have to find my entertainment wherever I can. Strangely, I couldn’t taste anything. It wasn’t that she didn’t have blood, I just couldn’t taste it. I had several theories why that might be, but none of them mattered for the moment. However, it did mean I needed to go farther, which I had pretty much expected.
I bit down and twisted my head back, ripping out the intervening flesh. Golden ichor flew in the moment before I latched back on, my tongue pushing into the wound and forcing open a vein not intended to allow it through. It extended far beyond human biology, following the carotid to its source. It was impossible to miss the moment I reached the heart. Suddenly, I could taste it, power. Her substance rushed into me, in a crashing current that had nothing to do with her flesh or blood. It wasn’t magic, exactly. At least, I didn’t think so. This was something deeper, more fundamental. It was pure in a way that made me sure that I hadn’t been intended to ever touch it.
I had no way to tell how long it took, but I suspected it was actually only an instant before the last of it was consumed. To me, it felt like an eternity that was over far too fast. As the last of it left her, what was beyond was revealed, emptiness. My awareness gazed into the abyss that remains when existence ends. It seemed endless, and endlessly hungry. I knew instinctively that there was no limit to its depths. This wasn’t just the hole lest behind by her substance. No, this was what it had been hiding. Something far vaster and infinitely more fundamental. The corner of my lips turned upwards as my tongue slid back into my mouth.
I felt her muscles shift against me, losing their frozen form. I pulled away, bringing her face into view. My gaze met the place her eyes had been. When I had arrived, her eyes had been as I remembered them, faceted red orbs with vertically slit pupils. But now, they were gone. In their place were endless voids. I gazed into the same abyss that I had felt within her. I smiled. “Morning, Lilith.” Her lips split to reflect my own, revealing teeth like needles. My back slammed into the ground as her teeth latched into my throat. Well, good to know the first part worked.
I could feel her drawing from the place inside me where a soul should rest, attempting to consume the abyss inside. Interestingly, the wound itself didn’t really hurt, likely an effect of this place’s unworldly rules. I could feel her teeth tearing my flesh to get to my blood, a task made both harder by my lack of a heartbeat and easier by the massive amount of damage she was willing to inflict. However, it didn’t hurt even slightly. I suspected this also had something to do with the less than physical nature of my current state. This body, like everything else around me, wasn’t as it appeared. It was real, in a sense, but not the way it seemed to be. Her drinking my blood was… well, not exactly metaphorical, but it wasn’t actually the consumption of physical blood.
What I could feel was the ribbon of something being drawn out of my internal void and into her. It wasn’t what I had taken from her. That had been blindingly bright, an almost pure light. This wasn’t light, it didn’t seem to be anything. I could sense it, but I couldn’t discern anything to relate it to. It was like the abyss, but somehow functioned as a substance, despite not being one. The other key difference was that, while her substance was finite, I felt like this was infinite. She could have drawn it out of me forever, and I would never have run out. Of course, that didn’t mean she could take an infinite amount of it. I wasn’t quite sure what would happen when she was full, especially considering exactly how much I suspected that would take, but I was pretty sure I would have to stop her when it happened.
I gently stroked the back of her head, waiting for my non-substance to reach her end. Strictly, her once reservoir had been filled many times over, but she was connected to more than just herself. My non-substance flowed through her and emptied into those she was connected to, that was what I was relying on. The space she was trying to fill was immense, but it wasn’t endless. In fact, the larger it was, the better for me. I felt it reach the edge and begin to fill back towards me. I needed them to be as saturated as possible, but they couldn’t be allowed to overflow. In fact, overflow could be a lot worse than not having enough. If there wasn’t enough, it would only slow everything down, but too much…
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
The hand that had been stroking her hair stopped. I flexed my fingers, fingernails melting as black ichor flowed out and into equally black glassy talons. I clamped down on the back of her head, claws digging into her skull. She ignored me, being far too focused to pay any mind to something as inconsequential as a punctured brain. Even if this had been the world of the living, she would probably still have ignored me. The brain hadn’t been a necessary part of her biology for a long time. She stopped ignoring me when I pulled her head out of my neck, which, honestly, was the best description of her current position. If her strength was anything like it was in the physical world, she should have been virtually impossible to get off for almost anyone.
I had once seen her beat my best enemy in a wrestling match, an outcome that resulted in them attempting to summon their weapon and discovering three interesting things. First, that undead are shockingly difficult to electrocute, pun intended. Second, it’s really hard to use a bludgeoning weapon with your arms locked in a pin. And finally, having your arms ripped off really hurts, even if they will grow back. My most morally enthusiastic sibling isn’t nearly as stupid as most assume, but they do certainly have their utterly bone headed moments. I can’t consistently, if ever, beat them in a fair fight, not that many can. That is why I don’t ever let myself end up in a fair fight, especially with them.
Despite her rather incredible strength, I pealed Lilith off my throat, once again proving that the rules here didn’t follow the ones I was used to. She looked confused and, if anything, irritated. Apparently, I tasted at least as good as I had in life. Though, pulling Lilith off a meal had never been an easy task. That was why I was going to make the interruption a bit more... noticeable. I had peeled her back until there was enough separation between us, then struck over her celiac plexus with the palm of my free hand. She ripped off me, leaving claw marks where she had been latched on.
I must have been stronger in this place than I had realized, because she was propelled up into the air and a couple dozen feet back. As expected, she twisted like a cat in mid air, landing feet first on the side of one of the frozen figures. The not exactly statue was completely unaffected, despite what must have been an incredible amount of force. Before what passed for gravity here could notice just how unsustainable her angle was, she leapt strait at me. I stood up, stepped to the side faster than physical laws could allow and backhanded her to the ground as she passed.
Her flight, if not her inertia, was arrested, leaving her to slide another few feet before somehow managing to roll flip her body over her head and landing upright. She still slid a couple more feet before stopping, but she had, once again, landed in a position ready for attack. I would have to remedy that. I did the one thing I knew would at least get her attention, I said my name. She stopped, briefly shocked. Then, she was right in front of me. Well, it seemed like she had figured out we weren’t in the material world, there went some of my speed edge.
“How do you know that name?” Her face had gone into the utterly blank state she only used when she wanted to scare the shit out of some one, her empty eyes making it far more effective than it had ever been before. I wasn’t entirely sure why she bothered with it, since she only used it when she was about to do something utterly horrifying to someone who probably wouldn’t live to learn to fear it. I smiled, not remotely intimidated.
“Well, I’m not likely to forget my own name.” Before she had time to refute my claim, I did exactly what only I would do, and survive, in this situation. I grabbed her and pulled her into a kiss.
Quite a long time later, we both lay on the ground, returned to human form. “Fuck, I could have sworn you were dead.” She said, apparently to the void of a sky above.
“Understandable, I am dead after all.” She propped herself up on her elbow, bringing her face into my line of sight.
“Really, like how dead?” She didn’t seem remotely worried about me being dead, just generally interested.
“Well, you know how there is mortal dead, which is only mildly irritating for us, right?” She nodded, a comically somber expression on her face.
“Yeah, the small stuff, like being atomized.” I nodded back.
“Exactly.” She seemed to consider.
“I didn’t think that was the type of dead you were.”
“Well, no. I am more the other type. The one where your soul was devoured and utterly obliterated, completely destroying your existence and preventing any form of known resurrection.” She grabbed my arm, pulling me against her rather than moving closer herself. Considering that I wasn’t bothering to be heavier than I appeared, it was probably easier.
“Yeah, that does sound more like what I thought.” She dragged a finger down my abdomen, an action made somewhat less classically sensual by the trail of my inky black ichor it left in its wake. “So, what are we going to do about it?” I smiled at her question. She didn’t even seem to consider that I might not have a plan. I mean, she was right, but it was quite the ego boost to know she automatically assumed I did. Admittedly, my ego is already pretty massive, so it wasn’t strictly necessary, but still welcome.
I less rose than simply was standing upright, not bothering with the intervening space. I glanced down at the woman shaped entity who had returned to her back, arms crossed behind her head. She waved a yes, go on gesture with her hand before returning it to its partner holding her head up. “Let me ask you, how do mortals come back from the heavens?” She considered for an instant, which meant she had considered countless possible answers before deciding on her favorite.
“They have to get an immortal with the right and/or skill to bring them back as some sort of undead. You could get a nephil to do it, but the undead they make look ridiculous. Though, they are good for a laugh.” I smiled, I could work with that answer.
“Exactly, but why can’t elohim become undead?” She sat up at that one, clearly ready to show interest.
“Because you are native to the heavens, dying just sends you back home. You’re basically already undead, except you started that way. You can just leave the heavens whenever you want.” I could tell by the massive smile that had spread across her face that she already suspected where I was going with this.
“So, in short, I cannot become undead because, functionally, I’m already a spiritual being. I’m already what mortals consider dead, I just wasn’t ever what they consider alive.” She became standing in the same unnatural manner I had.
“But now, you are dead in both heaven and earth.” She spun in a circle, taking in our surroundings. “Not to interrupt your ego stroking monologue, but where the fuck are we?” I crossed my arms, mock frowning.
“I’m not monologuing. I’m just explaining, so we are on the same page.” She looked back at me, one skeptical eyebrow raised.
“Yeah, so that’s why you were practically jerking off to your own brilliance.” I decided letting that one go was the wise course of action, then continued anyway.
“Well, if I’m that amazing, how could I not? Regardless, I was cast into outer darkness, and I pulled you in with me. So… you have one guess.” She spun back to me.
“You did what?” It was hard to tell if she was actually angry, fucking with me or some combination. Based on the fact almost everything she did was at least slightly to fuck with someone, I could eliminate the first. So, I just had to solve both the second and third, which mostly meant solving the second. That could likely be achieved by moving directly on to the next thing.
“That was only so we could both get back to the physical world.” She crossed her arms and squinted her eyes.
“So, your plan isn’t just to fuck in your weird pseudo-real sex dungeon for the rest of eternity?” I sighed.
“No, it’s slightly more elaborate than that.” She looked thoughtful, stroking her chin as if she had facial hair.
“Can it be?” I crossed my arms.
“No.” She started to lick the blood rain off her hand, the thoughtful expression still worryingly present. The blood had started sticking to her as soon as she unfroze.
“Why not, there is blood everywhere, even if it tastes weird, and the creepy statues are actually kind of hot. Plus, I’m really liking the empty void eyes, it’s definitely a turn on.” Well, that verified what I had already suspected, my eyes were like hers.
“There are several reasons why not.” I started listing off reasons on my fingers. “First, you would get bored. Beyond the two of us, it’s nearly impossible to affect anything here. No matter how entertaining the two of us can be, that would get boring eventually. Second, there are things both of us want to do. Just imagine how fucked up a world without us would be. And last, but not least, what about my asshole of a sibling who destroyed me?” Her near ever present smile widened to a terrifying level, revealing truly inhuman teeth.
“Destroy your arrogant dickless dick of a brother, I can definitely get behind that. Well, I’ll bite, by what excessively illogical plan do you intend to get us out of here.” I smiled just as widely, showing teeth likely even more unnatural.
Rather than answering directly, I snatched one of the occasional falling feathers from the air. It shimmered with that strange not quite reflective glimmer of gold, but otherwise looked and felt exactly like a feather. I dragged its edge across my palm, drawing a line of black ichor despite its apparent softness. We watched my ichor stain the metallic feather, flowing across it in a way that was distinctly wrong for both metal and feathers. The blackness flowed over the entire thing, leaving it entirely covered. Strangely, it didn’t look exactly black. Instead, it seemed to be a feather shaped hole cut in the world, not unlike Lilith’s eyes. The feather shaped absence gradually faded back into existence as my not quite blood sank into it.
I razed the now silvery feather to my eye level. With a flick of my wrist, I sent the transfigured feather up into the empty blood-filled sky. Yes, I realized that was an oxymoron, but it was arguably correct, at least in a figurative sense. Rather than obeying what appeared to be the local gravity, it continued upwards, seeming to reverse fall far faster than it had initially fallen. In a scattering of moments, it had vanished into the once again arguably empty sky. I smiled wider than humanly possible, showing teeth that glistened metallic like razors. “Don’t worry, it’s already started.”