The Harvester
Page 14
They collided with the solid walls.
Their wings scraped against the rocky terrain,
But still they flew.
They advanced through the labyrinth,
Pleading with God to lead the way.
Some flew in circles trying to understand,
Others wept uncontrollably with howling screams.
Those who lingered were pushed aside
To allow for the stronger ones to continue.
My enemies piled over the river
And were met with high, cresting waves.
Every scream prompted the others to fly higher,
Far from the reach of the troubled current.
Into Hell they went, landing upon my walls.
Their disgusting feet perched upon my gates.
They glided through my city,
Encircling the buildings like vultures.
They searched every cell within the cavern,
But found nothing.
They searched every structure within the city,
But found nothing.
Lucifer waited within the palace,
Kneeling in the entrance room.
Upon the floor were two double bladed scythes,
Sharpened as only he could achieve.
He removed his cloak, revealing a bare chest.
The wings gifted from God for his past endeavors
Stretched to either side in a white glory.
His long yellow hair blending with his beard.
The angels pounded and shook the doors.
Lucifer extracted two golden daggers
And allowed the doors to open.
Many angels poured in before the doors shut again,
Entrapping those inside.
Their bodies were abused by his blades and gutted.
The frightened souls clamored for release,
But were clenched and swallowed by the demon.
Lucifer welcomed all who arrived
By butchering their bodies and claiming their wings.
Those who entered through the doors were devastated
With a death so troubling, even their souls were terrified.
God heard their pleas and split the land.
A vast trench tore through the ceiling of the cavern
As the sun battled with the darkness.
The river boiled with annoyance.
A ceiling trench grew directly above the palace
Where the hands of God entered
And grasped the crumbled walls.
The roof of the palace was ripped from the foundation.
Lucifer stood drenched in blood.
His wings, crimson from the onslaught.
At his feet, piles of angel corpses.
His hair dripping with blood,
He used the edge of his blade
To carve seven slices within his forearm.
His wings stretched as he grabbed his weapons.
Instead of waiting for his enemies, he took flight.
An angel corpse fell with every swing of his blades.
Holy blood rained down upon the city.
The cavern walls were painted a red hue.
The prison cells drenched in crimson.
The lifeless angels fell into the awaiting river.
Their confused souls rose through the crevice.
The continuing mass of angels
Were able to grab a hold of Lucifer,
Dampen his wing movement.
Falling to the field, Lucifer quickly arose to his feet.
The blades easily sliced through the angels.
Legs were severed, but still the angels took flight.
The cavern walls shook under the frustration of God.
Lucifer took to the cavern heights again.
Flying close to the high crevice,
An unknown force grabbed Lucifer
And suspended him in the air without movement.
The attack of the angels halted as they encircled him.
The two weapons, beyond his control,
Fell from his clutches.
Within moments, Lucifer unleashed an angered scream
As his wings were torn from his body.
The feathered limbs fell alongside their owner.
The angels watched as the demon fell into the river.
Not being permitted to sink,
The current brought Lucifer to the surface.
A wave washed him toward the shoreline.
Without weapons and an unimaginable wound,
He stood as the angels descended.
Lucifer, weakened and upon one knee,
Could offer no more defiance to the intruders.
Every portion of his body was held
As he drifted to the skies.
VII. REDEMPTION
This cave has served me well.
It has hidden me from the eyes of Heaven
Long enough to allow for my tale to be written.
My realm has been reduced to ruins.
My palace crumbled by the hand of God.
My fields destroyed with the shifting earth.
My city, savaged with no stone or skull left unturned.
My corridors, my tunnels, my caverns all devastated.
My demons, enslaved and taken to the skies.
All that crossed my threshold
Will not make the journey home.
They have willingly flown down into their graves.
I will have no mercy upon them when I steal their wings
And swallow each of their souls.
They long to obey God and serve him well,
But their eyes will never gaze upon him again.
As my goats once walked toward an unknown slaughter
So have the angels sent by their shepherd.
Those that captured my demons will be hunted.
They will not find safe haven within the clouds.
They will not find sanctuary
Within the kingdom of Heaven.
I will walk upon the land with the scars of my past.
God will not be able to help those in my way.
God will not hear the screams of those I come upon.
God will not look over them as I stand near.
My presence will be well known within every shadow.
Every human will hear my whispers;
Every human will heed to my temptations.
My demons had served me well.
Sin was altered and blindly accepted by civilization.
I will seek their salvation in due time.
I have no more tolerance for the mortals;
I have even less for those who repent.
After I cleanse my realm of every winged intruder,
I will venture upon the land,
Finding those seeking to repent.
I will walk upon every path toward God
And befriend those seeking salvation.
Those true to the path shall be ignored;
Those who have sinned will be questioned.
If repent spills from their mouths,
I will reap them where they stride.
God will not be able to help them.
I will have no mercy upon their souls
And will use their spines to shackle the corpses.
Much like the Lamb,
I too will sacrifice myself for the sins of mankind.
I too will meet my demise;
To allow for my religion to continue upon the land.
And I too will rise again, to acquire what is mine;
The sinners, the damned souls, the realm, the city.
How long will God allow me to reap the humans?
How long before his anger will shatter the planet?
How long before his hand pries apart the sky?
How much damage will he tolerate?
How much blood will be allowed to spill?
I was bred to test the limitations of sin.
Now, I will test the boundaries of God.
The preachers will not speak of me as a man.
They will not speak of me as a farmer.
Instead, I will be the demon who despised God.
I will be the demon who plagued God’s land.
I will be the demon who cursed God’s name.
I will be the demon who fell from God’s grace.
I will serve as the scapegoat for God’s evils.
I will serve as the darkness to God’s light.
I will serve as the death upon humanity.
I will extend my hand when God offers no guidance.
When your prayers go unanswered,
I will lend you my ear and comfort your mind.
When your dreams are troubled,
I will be there to calm your beating heart.
God will destroy in order to maintain order and peace.
The humans will thrive to seek his glory,
But with every thought lingers an option,
A choice between good and evil.
Every mortal mind will have the crossroads;
Every mortal mind will have difficult decisions.
The wind will carry my whispers;
The shadows will conceal my identity,
But I will be there upon the paths while you tread.
When your prayers go unanswered,
You will summon me.
When your dreams became shattered,
You will summon me.
When your life becomes unbearable,
You will summon me.
I will come to you in your time of need.
I will listen to you when your eyes are clouded.
I will be there when you cannot make a decision.
Your doubts will be my intention.
Your emotions will be my measure.
Your actions will be my success.
God had taught me sin and the weakness of man.
He gave me the resource of temptation
And the understanding of how the mind functions.
He gave me the holes within their hearts
And the confusion within their minds.
He gave me the power of sin.
He allowed my realm and the city of the dead.
He allowed it all,
Only if it did not interfere with his master plan.
I believed in him when I should have questioned.
I entrusted in him when I should have doubted.
I gave myself for his vision, for his plan.
I gave my life for his path, for his demands.
I gave everything for his task.
I was born much like the Son
With a predetermined plan for life and death.
To fulfill the demands of the task.
A symbol to be used by humanity based upon choice.
The choice, to sin or not.
God knew mankind would sin.
He knew the downfall of the civilized world
Would be destroyed without a symbol of good.
If left alone within my hands,
The mortals would all enter through my realm.
The Lamb needed to rise and fall
To give a new hope and life to the land
Otherwise, the beloved humans would perish.
My mind began to question.
My thoughts were troubling,
My understanding of all that I had sought after
Encircled my visions and haunted my eyes.
I saw my farmland upon the dirt floor,
My cottage, my crops, my livestock all before me.
The sway of the elongated stalks,
The birds soaring within the sky.
The branches of the trees bending within the wind.
Loose leaves floated gracefully.
Beyond the mountains and seas of the horizons
Were lands so beautiful to behold
With oceans of golden wheat and abundant orchards.
So close, but yet unattainable from my cottage.
My anger subsided and concealed itself
As my heart bled for more visions.
My mouth moistened with my watering eyes.
I saw the destruction of my farm;
I witnessed its demise.
Why were the visions teasing my soul?
My mind cautioned me to not dwell,
But my emotions were denying the warning.
God knew my weakness;
He knew the hole in my heart.
It served as my only temptation, my only hesitation.
The same weakness I searched for within every man.
My memories were tangled with emotions.
All that constructed me as a man had reinvented itself.
The feelings and the way my skin felt against the sun,
All remnants of my farm.
My longing to rejoin my past before I was chosen,
Before I became who I am, before the sin,
Before the sorrow.
I had been granted the visions for a reason I am unsure of.
Were they to subdue my anger, to tempt me to repent?
I dwelled deeper within the visions
Where I saw details I had never seen before.
The horizons were blurred not from haze, but from existence.
The mountains and oceans were distorted, but made real.
A landscape of confusion engulfed my farm and cottage.
A landscape isolated from any other civilization.
My eyes teased my mind with what I envisioned next.
Small glimmers of light sparkling against the sunlight.
Light reflecting off of concealed guards.
Their armor returned the rays back into the sky.
Concealed by the trees and mountains.
They were the same guards used to protect the scrolls.
The same used behind the manger.
The servants of God, tasked to protect the plan.
But why my farm?
My land was not sacred; my land was not holy.
I was nothing prior to being chosen,
My life was peaceful and meaningless.
My wheat fields were like all the others.
The guards never shifted, they never swayed.
They merely stood within their burden to protect.
The forests ended abruptly with a natural line
Separating the vegetation from a vast meadow.
The mountains were cracked in half with the same line.
The seas edged against the same with no shoreline.
They just ended.
My farm was not a part of human land.
The scenery was not that of what serves man.
The beauty was not to be shared by mortal eyes.
My land was a part of God’s kingdom,
Far from the gates, far from where the angels soar.
The meadows that bordered my land
Were unlike anything seen upon the planet.
The golden fields were that of the human dreams.
All the faith, all the religion, all the belief.
The golden waves of the meadows,
Home to God’s own collection of livestock.
The vision of the creatures clouded my judgment.
My mind blocked all rational thought.
My head would not stop spinning from doubt.
I shielded my eyes, but the visions became stronger.
They were unavoidable, unable to deny them.
The goats and lambs ran through the meadows
With a peaceful feeling of serenity and calm.
I lost all control over my mind.
The visions cannot be true, they cannot be real.
My farm within Heaven, the goats, the lambs.
I tried to deny the visions by halting my writing
And hiding within the shadows of the cave,
But the images became brighter;
They became inescapable.
I was like him.
I was lik
e the Son.
He was the Lamb and I was the Goat.
My birth was similar to his.
The farm served as my manger.
The goats were my kings;
The lambs were my shepherds.
The guards did not protect the land,
They protected me.
I did not have the glory of his birth.
I was born in isolation within my farm,
Hidden from man until my task began.
I was not to be the savior;
I was to be the sin of the human race,
The catalyst to begin the process.
When God deemed me able,
I began my life of sin within the cave.
I was the beginning of temptation,
The beginning of hesitation.
I served as the pawn to become the first sinner.
All that I learned
Would become the foundation for evil.
All that I encountered
Would be the knowledge
To unleash his sins upon mankind.
I was not the first to doubt,
As God had doubted man’s faith.
His doubt created the plan, created my existence.
The writings of my past forged sin.
The temptations were tested,
The acknowledgment was understood.
I had a choice.
A mortal life with death
Or immortal life releasing sin.
The crossroad that altered my being.
The lack of understanding was the hesitation.
God tempted me with my own sins.
He had foreseen my choice upon my birth
But unlike the Lamb,
He would not allow me the understanding.
He made me mortal within the sins.
My decisions were of man;
The reactions to sin would be that of man.
He gifted me nothing that I did not already have.
Left to my own confusion,
He sent banshees to guide me along the path.
Pain carried me further.
He needed an evil to raise the good of the other.
He desired a sorrow to increase the glory.
A disturbing fear that would tempt more glorification.
He wanted a stronger faith; a stronger belief.
Both of which were lessening amongst civilization.
The truth hidden deep within the tale,
Beyond the understanding of the mind.
A tale not told within the bright religion,
Not told within the book of sermons,
But masked within the distorted visions.
There was a relief to the understanding,
A sense of tranquility that was cast upon me.
An enlightenment that was welcomed,
But I am not the chosen one, I am not the savior.
I am the death, the reaper of souls within the plan.
I am the unwanted Goat used for a purpose