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At the Bottom of the Universe
(the beginning of all ends)
The bottom of the universe is a lot more red than Lilith would have assumed.
It’s not even blood-red, like you’d think. Oh, there are veins of it throughout the not-really-stone of the place; and by veins, she means it literally, there are places where pumping arteries and working ventricles can be seen, all with rich, red blood.
But the general tone of the walls is not that scarlet hue. It’s more like… a ripe red delicious apple.
She remember her past, Lilith thinks, as she walks down the endless staircase. This place winds endlessly, counterclockwise mostly, but sometimes stopping at wide platforms and starting again going the opposite way, a dizzying, ever-descending whirlwind of spiraling stone stairs, which slowly become the not-really-stone of everything else as she goes, with veins of deep red in the candy-apple surface.
(It reminds her of her husband, who had taken the apple as a symbol of his greatest triumph, attempting to reclaim the thing that had damned him as a badge of honor. It hadn’t worked, as his slow descent into useless abandon proved… though Lilith wasn’t sure why it made her heart ache, looking at these colors now. The fire was gone.)
There are no lights here. No torches. No signposts. No one is supposed to be here, ever, the route only left open because to close it would be to leave the Elders without access to their third prisoner, after Lucifer and Lilith herself.
But despite this, Lilith is not unaccompanied as she travels.
No, instead she has the eyes.
Eyes- always eyes- bud from the rock and give her a once-over, expressions conveying many thoughts. Some glare, some widen in surprise, some narrow as if calculating. More than a few start crying.
(A few crinkle like they belong to a smiling face… and a few start to cry, but in the helpless-tears way of one who is laughing, and that bothers Lilith in ways she does not have words for.)
Down, down, down, she goes, with the eyes and the stairs, to the vast door that leads to the punishment chamber at the heart of Hell. It is the hidden place, the most secure of all securities, the most secret of all things. There is nothing more disguised than this. The eternal abode of the first human sinner, the first to become a demon, the first to be tainted by Lucifer’s sweet gift among the humans who can die.
Lilith, built immortal on purpose, cannot truly claim to be human, and she dodged the punishment of Adam and Eve by being subjected to banishment to Hell beforehand; they hadn’t stripped her immortality from her because they wanted her to live with it, to suffer.
And live to suffer, she had.
(She lived to see her husband broken, all his glorious promise undone by his own weakness; she lived to see all their efforts to save their marriage, including giving birth to little Charlie, fail. She lived long enough to realize that if she wanted what she craves most, she must undo all things, abuse the powers they gave her- for they intended her to be mother of a species, and so made a font of creation inside her, without thinking of the consequences… but they’d find out, soon enough.)
But the thing she was going to see had lived, once, then died. Died back before the Elders had really understood what Hell was- not that they truly knew, even now, too frightened of the chaos it represented to study it as they should have- and was sent down here, the first person sent to Hell, dying even before her son Cain.
Sent, and locked away in the lowest floor of the lowest place in the lowest part of the universe.
And she was… different, now.
(Lilith was not afraid. Fear was irrational. Lilith was careful, because that was what a sensible person would be.)
She walked down, down, down, unto the final point of all things, where the bottom of the barrel was dug through and even worse was found lurking underneath. Down, down, down.
And finally, she came to the end of the steps, and the door that awaited there…
But to her surprise, it was open.
(Her hackles rose. This wasn’t- this should be shut…)
The door was a vast construct of angelic steel, covered in six chains that now lay uselessly in a heap to the side. The locks lay next to them, appearing to have been beaten into submission, literally- they were dented and burst open, as of great force slamming into them, again and again.
The room inside was dark, but she could see roots emerging from the sides of the door, and hear slow breathing inside.
(She wasn’t scared. She wasn’t scared. She wasn’t scared.)
“Oh, don’t be afraid!’ came a chipper voice from inside. It was soprano-sweet, high-pitched, giggly and girly. It was a voice one might hear from a highschool sweetheart, that cute girl next door, a love interest in a romantic comedy.
It should not be coming from this door.
“I did not know you could break your own chains,” Lilith replied in her halting contralto. She had been built strong, and rough, meant to be the primal forerunner of a nation of primate hunters, and her voice reflected that with its deep huskiness.
Laughter, high-pitched counterpoint, lilted out of the darkness.
“Oh, I can’t!” the voice said. “But I’ve got friends in all kinds of places. Like you! Or is the new Horseman not your doing?”
“…You know of that,” Lilith answered neutrally. Lute had done nothing yet with her new status as War- it would take time for her to heal, to recover, to begin again- but it was only a matter of days now before the political war in Heaven became an actual war, with violence and death.
“Of course!” the happy voice said back. “I’m impressed! Even I didn’t know where the Horsemen were! But you’ve always been good at getting people to do things for you, Lilith. Not like me. I’m terrible at it!”
Lilith glanced at the chains, and more giggling from the dark answered her obvious disbelief.
“Oh, that doesn’t count!” the voice giggled. “You would have gotten someone else to open those locks in such a way that they could be put back so you could pretend to still be trapped if you needed to. You’re smart! I had to have help to brute-force it. After all, I’m not clever… but I am goddamn strong.”
The world pulsed, for a second, as that strength was flexed, just for a moment.
“That’s why you’re here, right?” the voice said. “Why you had Alastor lead you to the staircase. Clever of the Elders, to hide it from you and Lucifer that way- so that only a chained demonic soul could find it for you. They bet you and Lucifer would never chain a soul… but forever’s a long time for never, isn’t it? Just like it’s a long time for love…”
“Don’t talk about Lucifer and me,” Lilith commanded.
More giggling.
“As you wish!” the voice answered. “Though I do like to reminisce on our past in the Garden, from time to time. Such days of pleasure! I never could go back to Adam, you know. He was terrible in bed- not like you or sweet Lucy.”
“Enough,” Lilith said. “You know what I’m here to talk about.”
(Lilith did not like to remember those days, when they were together, when she had- naively- believed it could make her happy, that the burning fire in her soul that said be in command or you will be commanded yourself could be quenched not with power but with love…)
“I do,” the voice said. “Come on in!”
Lights inside, red lights- eyes, more eyes, lighting up the central figure, a bound human form with its head thrown back, and its tongue- now a set of roots- dangling out, climbing up to the ceiling, digging its way through the soil to other realms, drawing strength from them.
And for a moment, Lilith… hesitated.
(But she had been born to be a slave, to be commanded, and she will never be controlled again, she cannot be controlled again, she can’t she can’t she can’t)
I have to do this, she reminded herself. If I’m to be the new God, of the new Heaven, the new Earth, the new Hell…
(A voice in her head, like Lucifer’s, and another, like Charlie’s- don’t do this.)
But Lilith only hesitated for a moment.
She stepped inside the room.
“Ah, yes,” the abomination inside said, through one of its many mouths that had grown on its tongue over the years, that swallowed up her eyes to speak. “Looking good as ever, Lily!”
“…Eve,” Lilith said, but was met only with laughter.
“Oh, that’s an old name!” the thing said. “Call me Roo.”