The Omega Existence

Chapter 30

Ben slowly opened his eyes to a renewed nightmare. His blurred vision saw clouds of milky darkness floating before him and he felt the piercing gaze of thousands of raven’s eyes bearing down on him. His arms were stretched out to either side, chains locked around his wrists, and biting deep into the skin. Ben could feel the trail of dried blood down his arms as his body hung against the chains.

He was surrounded by thousands of dead trees for as far as he could see. The ever present red haze that he had begun to get used to was gone, replaced by cold, crisp air and the cover of darkness. Ben slowly rolled his shoulders in an attempt to ease the tight ache in his back and gritted his teeth against the pain the movement brought to his wrists. He heard the rattling of chains as the ends of the chains that hung loosely from the trees to either side of him swung from his sudden movement.

“Ahhh our guest has finally woken up!” A croaking voice echoed around him. Ben cringed as the voice added to his pounding headache.

“What do you want?” He muttered, trying not to reveal how much pain he was in.

“I have what I want priest. You just hang in there, and all will be well.” The demon replied as ravens cawed above him.

“I’m not as valuable a prize as you may think,” Ben sputtered.

“Quiet!” The demon squawked. A raven flying from outside of his vision dived at him, its beak driving into his back before its claws ripped itself back off him and flew off. A fresh stream of blood began dripping from the new puncture wound. Ben glanced around trying to find where the demon hid, but he could see nothing beyond the trees and the evil flock of ravens perched in them. This was beyond grim. He knew what the demon was waiting for. It was only a matter of time before Elijah appeared, or his true form, the Devil. He would be tortured, and driven insane, constantly asked the one question he didn’t have an answer for. Bowing his head, Ben did the one thing he could do, pray.

 “I see. You still think that’s going to help you? Your God abandoned you years ago priest.” The demon mocked. Ben heard the whipping of hundreds of wings as the croaking laughter of thousands of ravens echoed all around him. He felt claws digging into his skin once more, piercing his back and his chest. Ben opened his eyes to gaze into the glassy black, obsidian coloured eyes of a large raven. Its head cocked, peering up at him as its claws dug into his skin, clawing through layers of skin. Ben screamed in pain as he felt his skin being ripped away on both his chest and back.

Struggling to keep his voice from turning into a jumble of sobs, he continued muttering his prayers to the Lord. It served only to incite the birds as they dug deeper into his flesh, but Ben refused to stop, desperately clinging onto the slimmer of hope as he recalled over and over again driving that demon from the church away only weeks earlier.

The raucous and mocking laughter of thousands of ravens croaking at him flooded his brain as he struggled to refrain from breaking down into desperate pleas for them to stop. He could feel warm blood trailing down his back and running down his pants, the warmth made it seem like his body was growing cold as if life spilled out from the thin layer of raw skin that was now revealed. He looked down to see a thick bloodied cross staring up at him. He felt the same covering his back, and for a moment, he remained staring at it, wondering why they had carved cross’s into him. Then he realised he was looking at it upside down. The cross ran from the top of his chest to below where his belly button had once been. The horizontal line had crossed over the lower part of his stomach, each scratch had tore at his skin as blood outlined the entire cross clearly and trailed down from the edge of the new engravings.

Ben screamed out in rage and emptied what was left of it from his heart until he was nothing left. He simply existed now, tired and weary of life, acknowledging nothing beyond the next painful breath. His wrists were numb, his shoulders ached from holding him up constantly. His back and chest felt as if they were on fire, and beyond that, his heart was torn apart, God had abandoned him, look at him. Everyone had been saved, everyone, except for him, an excommunicated priest with delusions of saving the world, pathetic.

***

Aamon could see his children fleeing another demon approached. They shuddered at the pure darkness that emanated from his presence. Aamon himself shuddered as he felt the attention of his newly arrived guest.

As the demon walked through the cover of the dead forest, Aamon was shocked to see him in a man’s body. A beautiful man, but a man none the less. Deciding it best to greet him similarly Aamon changed once again to his humanoid form, his head changing to match his annoying children’s faces as his otherwise wolf like body elongated into a man’s, the fur falling off him as if he were moulting to a new skin.

“My Lord,” Aamon said as he bowed low before the blonde haired, blue eyed man.

“Father,” Satanael corrected him, and he flinched at the reply.

“Father,” Aamon repeated quickly.

“When I am God, all shall call me Father, leave the title of Lord for my Kings,” he revealed.

“Yes Father. I wasn’t expecting you. Not that I’m displeased at your presence. It’s just that I thought Astaroth would be coming.” Aamon fidgeted under the great fallen one’s gaze. He was in the presence of a future God right now. The thought sent a shiver through an otherwise fearless heart.

“Yes, your King will be here eventually. Right now he is busy organising his armies for the march, unless of course, you want to endure the old man’s plagues that are soon to cover the world.” Aamon’s ravens head flicked from side to side.

“I didn’t think so. Now show me this priest you think you have caught.” Satanael said as he gestured Aamon to lead.

Aamon walked past the remaining few trees to reveal his nest. A small clearing surrounded by a wall of large dead trees filled with his children. To the side a large broken trunk had been carved into a chair, and beside it lay a cauldron filled with human blood. Aamon noticed Satanael linger over it, but he said nothing as they approached the far end of the clearing. Before a smoking bonfire two large trees stood about five meters apart, and chained between them, hanging by his wrists, shirtless, and displaying the inverted cross down his chest, was the priest.

“Interesting additions you’ve made.” Satanael noted with a hint of amusement.

“So he is the one you were after?” Aamon asked hesitantly and had to stop himself from cawing in delight as Satanael nodded slowly as he began a closer inspection.

“He is alive isn’t he?” Satanael asked.

Aamon nodded quickly, “Oh yes, he’s very much alive, but not too alive to cause any trouble.”

“There is nothing this creature can do to trouble me any longer,” Satanael chastised.

“Of course Father, I was referring to myself, of course, of course.” Aamon trailed off before he said anything else stupid.

“This is just too easy!” Satanael declared laughing to himself. Aamon croaked out a laugh quickly silenced by Satanael’s sudden attention.

“Here I was contemplating other plans, and then after discovering an utterly ridiculous rumour to be true, I get gifted the Prophet, straight into my hands. You Aamon,” he pointed at him, causing Aamon to freeze as if he had somehow wronged him.

“Yes father?” He stuttered.

“I will make sure you’re well rewarded for this, mark my words.” The words were like a human’s gurgling death cry to Aamon’s ears, he couldn’t refrain from croaking in joy.

“Thank you Father, you are so generous,” he replied, and Satanael nodded in agreement.

“When you see Astaroth, tell him his armies are required at the gates.” Satanael commanded before resting a hand on the priest’s dangling foot.

“Yes father,” Aamon answered before the future God shimmered in a cloud of darkness, carrying the priest with him. The chains that once held the human in place swung to clang against the dead trees that they had been tied to. Raven’s croaked in surprise at the sudden shimmer, and the sudden relief of pressure that even Aamon hadn’t realised had fallen over his nest until it was gone. Aamon smiled as he made his way to his dead tree stump of a throne as he recalled his Father’s words, ‘you will be rewarded,’ Aamon couldn’t wait to discover how.