Aside - The State of Things

Man, I really shit the bed on the last one, didn't I? There was a time when I could pound story chapters for the whole month and still have loads left in the tank at the end of the month. Now, I started the last story sometime around March 2017 and I finished it in Feb 2018. That's almost a full year and not enough posts.

I don't have any excuses for this. That's just what happens when life decides to stick its dick in your business. As it does. Always. There was work and more work to do and somewhere the story, even though finished somewhere around November last year, did not get posted till Feb.

I have been really really busy. It's not easy trying to make your bread and butter with words when every second fucker thinks he is the best shit since Shakespeare. But it's not that difficult either. You put in the work, you put in the time, you grind your fingertips to stumps and you reap beautiful, succulent rewards, too.

I am a firm believer in progress. I will take clawing, biting, howling progress of minuscule proportions over standing still in one place. Even if you move an inch in the right direction, you are still moving, you are not standing still and rotting. And if you are moving, maybe one day you will grow wings and fly. You have to keep hammering at your rocks because you never know when you will break through to the other side. Eyes on the prize, as they say.

Of course, it might sound like all goody goody motivational bullshit but so what if it is? Take what works for you, discard the rest, build your own code. And stick to it.

The world that we live in these days is strange and it's going to get even stranger. There is an edge to every word, every gesture is loaded with hidden agendas and people wear masks beneath their masks, so what is the hope of finding anything pure and simple now? None.

We take what is given and we work with it. We make the best of what we have and we keep our eyes firmly fixed on the goal.

So, where do we go from here?

I wish I fucking knew. But we are going somewhere that's not here.

We are not standing still.

Chapter Twelve - Afterdeath

She was not herself anymore.

The body she once owned, it was gone. She drifted through time, space, and matter itself with the aimlessness of a wandering feather taken by the winds. There were things she needed to remember and things she needed to do, but she had no form and no substance.

She was nothing.

Floating, floating on the currents of an endless light, in search of nothing. There was no beginning or end to all this. And somewhere in the void, a voice called out her name.

She knew the voice. She knew what it wanted. There was an urgency to the voice. A need that she could not ignore. She watched as timstreams slipped by her and focused on the voice. She had to get to the voice.

Detritus of time floated by her as she grabbed on to what she could and formed herself anew. The scrap and junk that was washed out of the time stream stuck to her and slowly her new form came to be.

And with the new form, she gained a new power.

A slow trickling of her will into her new ragtag body that gave her even more motivation to seek out the voice. In the darkness of her mind, the voice called out a single word on repeat.

“Mother, Mother, Mother…”

In a rush of energy and power, she was there. Back where it had all begun. She saw herself walking towards the door to answer the knock and she knew she had to be fast. She turned away and walked into the bedroom where Jorah and her husband were sleeping. She bent over Jorah. Her beautiful son. Sleeping so peacefully. He had no idea of the war that was about to come and the role he was going to play in it. She had to separate him from this place so that he could come back here once she’d trained him. Right to this moment of time. She looked behind her and saw her own form rushing to crash into her.

Sybil willed Jorah with her and vanished into a cloud of black energy. What she left behind her was just a facsimile of sleeping Jorah while she cradled her son right next to her in her arms as she moved through timestreams once again to look for a safe place...for where there is one time stop, there has got to be another.

She will raise him as a warrior, as someone who will face the thirteen when the right time came and he might even save her in the process. Jorah stirred in his sleep and she shushed him calmly. There was going to be a new day for the boy.

A new life. A new purpose. He was going to be the key. The thirteen were right in many aspects. They were right because they feared the boy.

And they were right to do so.

She was going to make sure of that.

----

And thank you very much. This should be it. 

Anyone confused can look for clues here.

Open to answering any questions anyone might have. Ask away CRD ;)

Chapter Eleven - In The Belly Of The Beast

There was no joy in using a sword that was not her own.

But she could not give up that easily. She had to put up a fight. Life, for her, didn’t need to last the night, only the coming few hours and she might just get out of the time loop without too much damage.

The words spoken by Lucifer still swam in her ears. What he’d told her to do was so insane it was borderline genius. The things that had happened so far slowly started to make sense to her. Pieces that seemed disjoined fell into place once she changed her point of view of looking at it all. She just needed distance from the time loop, and her father’s talk had given her just that.

Still, she had to get through The Thirteen who had probably decided what to throw at her next. The Nephilim didn’t return. Except, in its place, a globe of darkness descended towards Sybil.

She raised her blade to meet it and quelled the rising terror in her heart at what she was about to attempt. Tendrils of smoke and darkness erupted from the globe as it rushed at Sybil. She sliced and chopped at the oncoming darkness, leaving shreds of black floating in the air but the dark tentacles kept on coming for her.

The sword seemed to glow hotter in her hands as she gripped it tighter.

The tentacles of darkness enveloped her as she sliced, chopped and stabbed the black appendages but she could not make any progress. The more tentacles she cut, others appeared in their place.

In the distance, she heard Jorah scream for her. But he was far away, and there was little he could do to save her. He had shown his fighting mettle this night, but try as he might, he was no match for the dark creature that was not even interested in him.

The tentacles enveloped her body. Gripping her sword arm in a tight and away from her body. Her bones popped under the pressure that was applied to her by the darkness.

Sybil felt her body float up from the ground and rise towards the light of the platform that made up The Thirteen. Life drained from her as she struggled to draw breath.

Black spots swam in front of her eyes and through the growing fog of unconsciousness, she remembered what she had to do. Her teeth closed around the tip of her tongue, and she bit as hard as she could. Blood spurted from her lips, and she spat a chunk of her tongue into the darkness that surrounded her.

The piece of flesh started to sputter and burn. It expanded as it fed on the darkness and burst into flames as a small black hole opened up around Sybil. She remembered to take a deep breath as the black hole sucked in the darkness, leaving her lying on the cold platform and the combined form of The Thirteen staring back at her. She wiped the blood from her mouth and stood up. The sword had fallen from her hand over the platform into the darkness of the night below her. Above her, the time loop’s surface burned with colors of the night. Blues, purples, greens, and reds fought with each other to gain dominance. Like watching the inside of a bubble about to burst.

“Let’s get this over with,” she managed to speak.

The behemoth of a figure didn’t say anything. It just stared back at her like she was an insect not worth bothering with.

“If you’re going to kill me, now is the time. If I get my hands on a weapon, I will not leave you alive to regret your decision.”

The force of The Thirteen slammed her back into the ground. The combined anger and hate pressed into her and her ribs cracked under pressure, piercing her heart and slamming into her spine. She coughed blood from her mouth and suddenly taking even a single breath was impossible.

Sybil’s body ravaged under the onslaught of the force that pressed into her with the weight of a planet behind it. She tried to take another breath, realized she could not.

This was the end.

She closed her eyes and smiled. In the end, she had won.

--


Major props to CRD for reading. Cheers, man!

Chapter Ten - Daddy's Lil' Demon

Need to read from the beginning? Click here for Chapter ZERO.
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Sybil had not seen him in all the years since she'd left that place and even today he struck a strange obeisance in her heart that she wanted to fall to her knees at once. An impulse forged by years of training kept her knees above the ground and she stood facing the man who'd made her into what she was.

"I need your help, father."

Lucifer smiled at her and it curdled her blood. "Of course you do, my darling. It's been so many years and you chose to call upon me now? In your time of need?"

"It's about blood. Your blood. And The Thirteen have dared to defy it."

"Now, now, are you trying to emotionally blackmail your old man? Talking of blood? What about all the years that I missed your company? The joy I missed of watching my seed flourish?"

"You will no longer have a flourishing seed if I don't make it out of this time loop tonight. There are greater forces in motion and the fate of the world might be in danger."

Satan sighed. "Understand this, sweetheart. The fate of the world is always in danger. But what matters is what you can do in the here and now. So, tell me what do you have to offer in return for my help?"

Sybil's eyes narrowed. "Are you trying to bargain with your named daughter?"

"What else did you expect when you called Hell's ruler to this devil forsaken place? A time loop, of all things? I should take you back just to teach you a lesson for this kind of transgression on my time."

"Father, I don't want to lose my son. I need your help."

Lucifer laughed. A sound that shriveled the grass at his feet. "Oh, I'd help you. I'd love to do that. But can you help me too?"

"You want another year, don't you? I agree if that's the case."

"A year in my company. In hell and without the company of your usual retinue. Is it agreed?"

Sybil said nothing. It was too much. But she didn’t see any other way out without Morningstar’s help.

"I agree. Now tell me how to get out of this jam."

A smug expression shrouded Lucifer's face. "Now listen closely my dearest, for I will tell this only once and after that, once you've decoded my meaning, you will be on your own. This is your fight and even though every denizen of hell would be watching, we don't want to spoon feed your victories to you. Earn them."

And so he told her. He sat down and spoke of angels, a story that was more song than was words. Who knew the ruler of Hell could be so poetic. Lucifer pulled an ancient desire, a tune, a song, a memory from the recesses of his mind corrupted by years of loneliness. He spoke, he whispered, and he sang.

Once he was done, tears were streaming down Sybil's eyes.

For the first time this night, she knew what she had to do.

---

I hope everyone is liking it so far. 

Chapter Nine - The Hell Gate

There are a few things as beautiful and as insane as fire. Fire has no master. It serves no one. It goes where it wants to, where it finds fuel, where it finds something, anything that would sustain it for as long as possible. The gate of hell was open in the time loop and hell poured forth inside that domain.

Sybil finally felt at home.

A force rushed out of the hell gate. Impossible heat, bathing her through and through. For a few moments, Sybil was a dark silhouette in the red light that poured out of the gate to hell that she had opened. A pressure filled the area and the Nephilim screeched in terror as it glimpsed upon the horrors that lay beyond the hole to hell.

“What the fuck have you done, you stupid fucking bitch?!”

“I told your masters, all hell will follow me. And now, it’s here.”

“Close it! Close the gate! You have no idea the kind of forces you are fucking with here!”

“I know exactly the kind of forces I am fucking with here. The gate will stay open till you tell them to fuck off from here. I want to be back in my bed and I don’t want to remember any of this.”

The Nephilim grinned. He raised his arm and power gathered around his upraised fist. Sybil stared at him. “Really? Don’t you know what I’ve done here? You think your puny antics can now hurt me?”

“Who said anything about hurting you?”

The Nephilim turned and the bolt of light shot towards her house where Jorah was still standing, trying to figure out how his mother had separated his sword into two useless pieces with just a twist and a pull. He looked up to see the bolt fill his frame of vision.

Time slowed down as figures rushed from the hell gate and crowded around Jorah. Claws, armored skin, stinking fetid breaths, a smell of brimstone and charred flesh filled the air. The bolt struck true and the once the smoke cleared. Jorah was still standing there, surrounded by demons of all shapes and sizes. They seemed to move and shift out of focus if you looked at any of them for too long. One of the demons took the blade and the pommel from Jorah’s hands.

“Your mother needs a blade, kiddo.” It grinned at Jorah, displaying sharp canines that criss-crossed its mouth and made it slur its words.

It grabbed the pieces of the sword and put them together. With a tiny pinging sound, the sword was whole again.

“How did you do that!” Jorah yelled at the demon. The demon simply bowed and said, “Touched by hell.”

It tossed the blade towards Sybil who had not moved from her place near the hell gate that had opened in the ground. She waited for the one whose arrival will decide if she will live through the night or not.

The Nephilim still floated in the air, a cross expression writ on his face. “Go, and tell your masters that this house is under hell’s protection,” she lied. “Tell them to take off the time loop and return things to as they were.”

“As if,” the Nephilim snorted.

“Go. Before I lose my patience with you.”

As the Nephilim slowly floated away, up towards the circle of thirteen. Sybil braced herself for the sound that was coming from the hell gate. She knew she’d be safe, but it had been years since she’d last seen him and opening the hell gate in a time loop was sure to invite his rage. This was her last option and she knew that sooner or later she’d have to pay the price for it.

The sound coming from the hell hole slowly increased in its pitch. Sybil held her breath, trying to stop the hammering of her heart in her chest. The world swam out of focus as a cloud of steam and fire gushed out of the hell gate. A tongue of flame shot out, high as a tower, almost reaching the periphery of the sky and as soon as it rose, it was gone.

In its place stood a man who was once an angel. He wore a curious expression on his face as he sniffed the air. His hair stood out in a tangled mess of blonde curls on his head and his face still had an angelic look except for the scars he had picked along the way. He wore a coat of white and gold, immaculate and pristine. A smile played along on his face like a scared rabbit running in a minefield.

He turned and looked straight at Sybil.

“Hello, dearest,” said Lucifer Morningstar, lord of hell, prince of lies, and fallen angel, lightbringer, satan. But for Sybil, he was just daddy.