Inside Lucifer's War (2 page)

“Great kings and queens, powerful men, fragile women, and even famous writers such as you . . . it makes no difference to me. You are all weak and unworthy, a wasted creation. They have all wept in the spot you find yourself. They have soiled themselves and vomited out any pride they once had. They are all humble and weak before me, until I replace their weakness with hate.”

As quickly as the voice appears, it disappears. I know other creatures are around, still making noises and moving in the darkness, but I also know for certain that the most evil of things has left. I manage to get up and sprint to an opening in the cavern wall. I run wildly, not knowing where the tunnel will lead. I only know I can’t stay in that room. As I run, I hear nothing but my heavy breathing and the pounding of my feet on the hard ground. My feet hurt, but a primal urge drives me on. If the creatures are following me, I am not aware of them.

The passage breaks off into more passages. Are there even more passages off of these? I blindly try different avenues, but they lead me to more passageways. It is a labyrinth of tunnels in the darkness. I can see no more than a meter in front of me, and I find myself bumping against walls as I search for a way out. Soon my wild sprinting turns into a hurried walk. My hurried walk becomes a stumble. Finally, I sit against a wall and begin to cry again. When I look up, I find myself in the original room in which I awakened, and the voice has returned.

The voice speaks again, “Welcome home. You might want to get used to it.”

With those words and without physically touching me, the voice throws me against a boulder. A powerful blast of air or a sound wave thumps against my chest. It takes me a few seconds to recover my breath and sit up. Then I see a wretched, hideous creature sitting atop the boulder. Its face is almost human, but the body is that of a ragged dog, with the tail of a rat. The eyes remind me of a wolf. Protruding from the body is a face straining to get through the skin. It opens its mouth and a long forked tongue shoots out at me, creating a horrible hissing sound. I stumble backward to the raucous sounds of other creatures.

It is then that I utter words that have never crossed my lips before: “God, help me.”

“Ah, yes, the final call for help. I’ve heard it many times. If only you had heeded the words, ‘Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my Father in heaven. But whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my Father in heaven.’ You call for him now? For forty years you have ignored him, even outwardly campaigned against his existence. You were on my side. You did my bidding without so much as a nudge from me or my disciples. Now, you call his name for help. Yet, deep down, you still do not believe. You scream in the dark like a child, hoping that someone answers. Why not call on me for your salvation?”

The voice is silent for a moment, but it seems to be carrying on a conversation with someone or something, though not in a language I have ever heard. For that brief moment, I feel a sense of peace. I am strangely aware of a lamb and the protection it is providing in this moment. It makes no sense to me. But when the voice turns back to me and speaks, the peace is shattered.

“Under different circumstances, I would not have allowed you to utter such words. The pain I would have inflicted on you would have lasted an eternity. Don’t fret, though. Even in this darkest of places, you are protected. I am simply sifting you. That is my agreement with the Lamb . . . for now.”

The voice turns away from me and says, “His love for you humans makes me sick, but it will be his demise and my ascension.”

The thought of a lamb brought me peace, and I find comfort in knowing that for now I have some sort of protection. The hope that was completely absent a moment ago has now crept into my heart and mind. I begin to think more clearly, though my brain is filled with questions.

Why would this creature not want me to speak God’s name? What is this beast before me? How does he know me? Who is the Lamb, and how or why would it protect me? How is it all connected?

Calmer now, I am finally able to look at the voice. It is difficult to see, not only because of the darkness, but because its bodily form does not hold steady. It is as if I am watching a blurry television. It seems solid for an instant, but in the next moment it is as if it were a ghost in that spot and a solid shape a few inches over. I have a hard time concentrating on it. It seems masculine to me, so I apply that gender to it, not knowing for sure.

“Who are you and what do you want with me?” I ask him.

“Who am I?” His voice pierces my head. The pitch and frequency of his words cause me to squint in pain. “You have known me your whole life, and now you ask, ‘Who are you?’ His pitch settles such that it no longer hurts to listen. “Didn’t you see me at the bottom of the bottles of bourbon you drank? Wasn’t I with you when you destroyed those girls who looked up to you? Who do you think laid the groundwork for your fame and fortune and drove you to that treasure without regard for anyone or anything? Have you forgotten our most beautiful moment—when you told your father you were ashamed of him?”

“You know nothing about my father or our relationship,” I yell in anger.

As soon as I say this, he moves over and around me. He seems to be all around me at once. His face is no more than a few inches from mine. Though I try to recoil from it, I can tell that he is smiling at me. I find it hard to breathe, as if something is crushing my chest.

“Oh, yes, child. I do know all about it. I know more than you could ever imagine. Let me take you where you are afraid to dwell. Let me answer what has preyed upon your conscience. Yes, child. You killed your father with those words. The cancer that ate his life those last fifteen months began on the day you told him those cherished words. No, you didn’t cause the cancer, but you destroyed his will. His body and spirit had no strength left to fight off the disease, thanks to his loving son ripping his heart out. After that day, he longed to die.”

I lower my head.

“Yes! You know what I speak is the truth. You should be proud of that moment. You took what was rightfully yours—your destiny. I found him shameful as well, but we will revisit your father later. I do enjoy it so. You asked a question, though, and I fear I didn’t answer it properly.”

He moves back as he says those words.

“Who am I? I go by many names. I am Lucifer, Satan, the Prince of Darkness, the Accuser, the Wanderer, the Destroyer, the Deceiver, the Evil One, Beelzebub, and the Dragon. For our time together, you may address me as Prince, Teacher, or Master.”

C
HAPTER 2

Seeing Myself

I’m not sure what response he hopes to elicit from me by telling me that he is Satan. My reaction probably is not what he expects, though. At least, in my mind, my reaction is not what he expects, and that gives me a moment of satisfaction. This creature, this thing, has dictated our entire meeting and all of my responses. At least this once, I offer my own controlled response.

He may as well have told me he is Zeus or Hercules. I have long considered God, Satan, angels, and the stories of the Bible to be fiction, make-believe. They are just stories that have been passed from generation to generation. I am too educated, too intelligent to believe such nonsense. I am more inclined to believe this is a government conspiracy than a spiritual conflict.

Ah, yes, my brain begins to churn from his miscalculation. I have written a number of scathing articles recently about the insidious nature of the CIA and the Pentagon. The government has infiltrated our lives. The NSA’s reach is beyond our imaginations. Even the news stories of late don’t come close to the full extent of their spying. We are all enemies of the state. They will stop at nothing to subvert any ideological rebellion from the intellectual community. They are trying to stop me. They must have slipped me an experimental drug. They are desperate for me to stop challenging them. That is why I am naked. Embarrassment is one of their key tools in coercion and torture. I must be close to exposing some great truth. But the drug must be wearing off, which is why I am starting to think more clearly. The drug probably made me see that creature and feel sadness upon the presence of the voice. I have to be careful, though. Even though I have a strong following and am connected in high places, the government has a way of making a person’s life disappear.

“If you want me to stop writing the articles, I will. Look, nobody believes that conspiracy nonsense I write. You have nothing to worry about. I won’t pursue it. I promise. Just let me go home,” I respond.

“Fool!” His voice booms throughout the cavern. Immediately I see hundreds of hideous creatures move from the darkness toward me. Some fly, others slither, many hop from one spot to another. Still others crawl along the walls and ceiling. None of them are recognizable as any creature on earth. They are as monstrous and grotesque as the first creature I saw. They make horrible sounds as they move about me. They are all around me. I have no place to run. The flying creatures pull at the hair on my head. Several slither up my leg, causing me to fall back to the ground. Soon I am covered in them, including my face and head. I feel disgusting tongues going into my ears and on my eyes and mouth. I try to yank them off, but as soon as one is off, another takes its place. I think this is how I will die. It crosses my mind that I am already dead and I will soon be one of these creatures.

As quickly as they are on me, they are off. They scurry back to the black holes from which they came. Lucifer, as he calls himself, stands over me again.

“Do not ever make the mistake of associating me with human trash,” he tells me over and over in my head until my nose bleeds.

“Please,” I say. “I don’t deserve this. Why are you doing this to me?”

Lucifer responds, “What do you think you deserve? From where I sit, you deserve much more than this, and I will certainly make that accusation when the time comes. Do you smell that stench? That is you. That is how we angels see and smell you. Rotten from the day you were born. Why God pours out his love on you is beyond me. Come, look at yourself, and see what I see.”

With that, he creates a pool of water in the middle of the room. Pinching me by the neck muscles, he holds me over the water. “This is what you really look like. This is who you really are,” he says.

The ripples in the water stop, and I see my reflection. Vomit spews out of my mouth and I try to turn away.

“Look at yourself!” he commands, piercing his fingers into my neck.

I see myself, but I am horribly disfigured. In my left cheek is a hole about half its size; maggots, roaches, and flies crawl out of it. My lips are dried, swollen blubber, and when I open my mouth, I see my tongue, which is forked, swollen and covered with large sores, where bugs also crawl. My eyes are black as night, and my skin is covered in disease. My ears are no more than charred flesh, and my head is covered with scabs.

“So I am dead,” I say.

“Yes, but not in the way you understand it,” he replies. “As you know it, you are as alive as you have ever been.” He then quotes a verse from the Bible: “‘For the wages of sin is death.’” When he speaks the passage, a hideous roar rises up from the creatures and from him, as if these spoken words hurt them.

“You are being eaten away from the inside. The nature of sin is born into you from the day you are conceived. The rottenness you see is the sin that leads to your death, which leads to me. I own the sting of death. Yes, your physical body will someday rot as well, but that is not what I relish. I relish seeing your very nature cause you to decompose from within. I enjoy accusing you in front of him in your full shamefulness. His love for you is unbearable.”

The pool of water disappears and his hold on me releases. I fall flat against the hard rock. I scream out as I feel a shock of pain shoot through my left forearm and into my shoulder. During the fall, my left arm curled under my body, and it absorbed the blow against the ground. I quickly grasp it with my right hand and pull it close to me. I can tell that it is broken. Instead of having a straight line from my elbow to my wrist, my arm has an
L
curve in it. It makes me weak in my legs, so I drop to one knee.

“Hold it out to me,” he says.

I reluctantly hold out my broken arm to him, supporting it with my right hand. It is too weak and painful to hold it up by itself. He grabs it, yet it doesn’t hurt. When he removes his hand, it is healed.

“I, too, can perform miracles,” he says, smiling, moments before he disappears again.

I am left in the room with my thoughts and the hideous creatures. Every few moments, I hear one of them whisper or see one shoot across the room. For the moment, they leave me alone. Thinking on the last few moments, I realize my government conspiracy idea was a desperate thought from a desperate man. I have no way of making sense of this place. I realize at that moment that my intellectual theories and philosophical proclamations are shells. No amount of logic is going to save me. They offer me no comfort or understanding in this dark place. I have no faith, and what principles I had at one time, do not apply.

Once again darkness fills my heart, and the hope I felt moments ago is completely gone. I realize I have to throw away what I thought I knew. I have to be prepared to open my mind to something on a different level. I have been through and seen too much to hold tight to my beliefs that nothing exists outside of our earthly lives. I begin to cry again, believing this may be my prison.