EMPYREAN [ re-writing ]

01. A SECOND CHANCE

       It was raining hard in Brooklyn. The dripping water from the sky pounded the pavement and road as if it was mad at the ground for being so dirty. Lucifer leaned against the wall in a narrow alleyway between two large buildings. It was eight o'clock in the evening. He heard the blaring sound of congested traffic down over on the highway.

The nearby flickering streetlamps barely lit his surrounding, and Lucifer had to use his seventh sense to gain his bearing. The sounds of the human world flooded his system, their aura mingled and thickened in the atmosphere.

Good, the angels won't find him if he blends well into the crowd.

He took a ragged breath, feeling an intense pain sparked between his diaphragm and he crumbled under the agony. Sliding down, Lucifer sat on the slimy ground, trying to disperse the blinking stars behind his eyes. He had exuded an extraordinary amount of power to escape from the Lost Sea. Who knew that draining a sea dry cost so much power and force? At that moment, his body was paying the price of freedom.

The storm blew harder, sending heaps of trash that peeked out from the large dumpster hurtling towards the ground. Lucifer smiled. This kind of storm and rain seemed so insignificant now that he had witnessed and lived through the violent weather in the Lost Sea. Compared to the raging, one thousand meter tall waterspouts that frequented Lucifer's prison yard, this was a nice little breeze. It didn't matter that a fat rat next to Lucifer was actually got ripped from the garbage bin by the wind and flew away into the night.

All that matters was; he was free, and he was here in the human world. If he pretended to be a human and stayed low, the angels won't get to him.

Lucifer tenderly rose from his spot, he'd gotten one thing left to do before he went to hiding. He had promised Celestine something before he escaped from his watery hellhole. She visited him, even though only as a memory, as his ghost of the past. And she motivated him to escape, lending her beautiful inner strength. She'd forgave him for all that he had done to her and helped him even in death.

That's who Celestine was. Fair and beautiful, full of forgiveness and kindness.

Steeling himself, Lucifer walked out of the alleyway, bracing the harsh rain that had whipped out an innocent newspaper. Lucifer glimpsed at the date the newspaper was issued off with his inhuman blue eyes; June 2018.

Time really passed without him. He had lost so much time. The world was indeed different from the last time he visited. The only thing that stopped Lucifer from gaping and acting like a fool at everything new that his eyes landed upon was his ability to prescience. He had seen all of this before, the human technology, how humanity would evolve and continue. It wasn't an exaggerated truth that Lucifer was as omniscient as other supreme beings.

Lucifer continued on, stepping over a pile of debris. The streets were void of people, considering everyone else that had their sanity intact had taken shelter from the onslaught of rain. Good thing he was loony enough that he actually got kicked out of heaven.

Dozen of cars drove past him. It was the rush hour, people were getting off from work and since it was raining, they would be eager to get home. Lucifer needed to hurry. He had a vague clue of what would happen next, but Celestine had filled him in. He'd promised to help her.

In the distance, even with the thick rain in the view, Lucifer could make out the Brooklyn Bridge and its twinkling lights. Cars were lining on the road, barely moving, and a stoplight glowed red at the junction. He maneuvered his way, following the flow of the road. He walked along with the slow-progressing traffic, then remembered he'd moved with a speed with no ordinary human could do and slowed down.

A car honked his way. A man in his early forties grinned at Lucifer lewdly from his window. "Oh, my bad, I thought you were a young woman." A tuft of grey hair decorated his wrinkled head.