The sun peaked its head above the horizon as Joshua snaked up the grassy hill, following a procession of his fellow villagers. Their shared destination, a small wooden temple atop the hill, forbade any parking near it, so every one had to climb the hill along a winding ramp. Normally, only around half the town regularly attended services, held every two days. But today was Yeshrel, one of the holiest days in their faith. The town barber hated going to temple, a bias he developed from age five, but it was imperative that every able-bodied person attend at least the dawn ceremony. Yeshrel was really a full-day event: service is held for 24 hours, beginning in three minutes for Joshua and ending at daybreak the following morning. Every temple in the world participates, and every town in the nation has a temple. The religious order which ruled the nation, the Keepers of the Flock, mandated it. The time is filled with sacrifices, songs, fasting, and endless prayer. The same fifteen prayers. Over and over and over and over… Joshua hated prayer the most: the primary one for Yeshrel is requesting blessings from each angel with a name that mortals can pronounce, one by one. That amounts to 500 names! And no prayer of mine was ever answered. Why do they deserve my respect?

Joshua summitted the hill and approached the doors to the temple. Outside stood a battalion of temple attendants, dressed in their traditional flowing tan robes, a white sash worn across their chests marking them as at the very bottom of the temple hierarchy. An attendant handed a piece of paper to Joshua. “Write the worst thing you did since last Yeshrel here, please. Then hand it off to Anna.” One of the attendants (Anna, presumably) was holding a box, motioning to each person to put their papers in. Joshua knew the procedure, wrote what he normally wrote (“Your Dad”), and placed the paper in Anna’s box. He entered the temple, noting the simple podium adorned with a red and purple cloth banner. On the banner was stitched the words: “Grace, Order, Obedience”, the so called “Three Virtues”, the main conceptual tenets of the faith. Behind the podium sat a carving of an angel, wings lay just behind her braided hair, sculpted out of pure black stone. Her eyes seemed to watch Joshua as he sat at the far back pew. The rest of the village filled up the temple, some needing to stand as they exceeded the seating capacity of the little building, when their town Shepard came out. The leader of their congregation, a short, thin woman with long brown hair, bowed to the statue before taking the podium and beginning the dawn ceremony,

“Blessed day to us all. I hope you all liked the workout getting up here!” The temple was silent, her poor attempts at levity had become infamous since she was assigned here, “Erm, this Yeshrel will be the 60th and I want to emphasize two things with this fact: one, that’s symbolically important, since there are 60 angels who make up the Council of Angels. Since most of you don’t attend services much,” She paused to let the snide comment sink in, “I’ll remind you that those 60 angels are the Seraphim, the executors of the will of our creator. They make the rules we must follow, so to speak. But beyond its connection to the heavenly order of things, Yeshrel is still for many a time of grief for the lives lost. From the ascension of the holy cities of Peshrim and Celioth, so many of us or our parents lost friends, family, and loved ones. Well, as I have said before, it is right to remember them, to grieve them. But we must celebrate, also! For they were the first to experience enlightenment! The angels, exacting the eternal love of the Great Mother, brought the souls lost in wake of the demonic invasion to the heavens themselves, to bask in the fruit of salvation. Indeed, so long that we keep the Three Virtues in ourselves and in each other, we too shall taste that fruit!”

She continued, “I want to emphasize the symbolism embodied in the events of the first Yeshrel. A demon, whose name you are not permitted to know, tried to corrupt the people of Peshrim. But the people there were brave, faithful servants of the Great Mother and her angels! And they refused to bow to the demon. So in its fury, the demon destroyed Peshrim, then Celioth for good measure! And seeing our suffering, the Great Mother sent down her angels to do battle with the foul monster, and they slew it! And the Great Mother did take the souls of the lost faithful and brought the worthy to her domain in heaven, a reward for their sacrifice! In her infinite foresight, she saw that the old way of worship was outdated, and that all humanity may achieve the blessings of the worthy through a new way, with a strong, guiding hand, and so she sent the great Seraphim Sophia to find 50 faithful, worthy mortals. The angel Sophia guided them, teaching them the Three Virtues, and sent them to the ruins of Celioth. There, they found The Great Temple, made for them by the mighty and industrious angels, and they heard Sophia command them to spread the Three Virtues to all the peoples of the world, a mission the Keepers of the Flock continue to this day! Yes, can you see it? You all live this day through your entire lives. For you were born as basal humans, prideful and sinful, corrupted by the influences of the demons of Earth. You are turned away from the sight of heaven. And you face great struggles and tribulations from it. But the angels are here to guide you to the proper path. Through the tenets, through your faith, you may achieve elevation from your primitive, debacherous selves. Grace, Order, Obedience!”

“Grace, Order, Obedience,” the entire congregation dispassionately replied as a group.

She stepped back from the podium, motioning to an attendant to help her move it to the side. Behind the podium was a cauldron, filled with a grey powder. Underneath the supports of the cauldron sat a trough of water, to stop the powder from burning down the temple. The Shepard spoke, “Now, for the ceremony to invoke the blessing of our great patroness Sophia. This shall fulfill your obligations for keeping Obedience, today. Be sure to meet Order and Grace by sunrise tomorrow, whether by yourself or with us. Remember, the consequences of sinning today will be dire, for you and the rest of us,” her voice went low, “We will know if you keep the faith.” She glanced toward the back, staring right at Joshua. Yeah, if inquisitors come around, they’re starting interrogations with me. The Shepard knew Joshua was not the most faithful man, but even he understood that at least looking like you’re obeying was important, to the Keepers of the Flock as well as to the angels, if the Keepers’s teachings are to be believed. Joshua was certain angels did exist, he just didn’t really care about worshiping them. His life has so far been alright with them and with the Keepers at a far distance.

FWOOSH. The Shepard ignited the cauldron, and a brilliant blue flame emerged, sparks danced around and landed in the water below. She took the box of sins, now full, and spoke to the congregants, “With this flame, I beseech Sophia to burn our sins away. And from the ashes, may she raise us anew, pure and holy!”

She dumped the papers into the fire, causing the flames to leap up at her. Some of the papers fell into the trough, so the entire village got to see the attendant and their faith-enforcing Shepard on their knees fishing soggy confessions out to toss into the “cleansing flame.” The Shepard, her face red with embarrassment, straightened her ceremonial robes and spoke again, “You are purified. Now let’s all begin the Call of the Angels. Please open your prayer books to page 567…”

Hours of relentless prayer followed, the only breaks from the incantations being prayers made in song form rather than simple speech. Finally, at midday, the Shepard dismissed the congregation from the mandatory service. Joshua had recited to the congregation an obscure story about a demon who inhabited a nearby mountain and how an angel named Breonna slew it, which fulfilled his obligation for Order. Now, just Grace, though usually this required some more effort. He could just participate in one of the optional ceremonies, but they were all quite strange, and typically painful. One of them, for instance, involved having a person take a sedative and then having temple attendants throw rocks at them while they tried to dodge being struck. The idea is that being able to successfully dodge rocks while drugged meant the angels worked through you, which was the idea behind Grace. Joshua instead took the more personal route for Grace: meditation. This one was easy, just go to the library and sit along with an inquisitor or attendant and a smattering of other villagers to serve as witnesses. Then just… exist! After eight hours of meditation, he would fulfill his obligations and would be spared from the fate of all heretics: to be strung up by the feet and have your throat cut open.

Joshua took a position cross-legged on the floor, neither uncomfortable nor comfortable. The blinds drawn, the only light source was from the partially cracked open door behind him. He closed his eyes and focused on his breathing, drowning out the other people in the room. Inhale. One, two, three, four. Exhale. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Inhale. One, two, three, four. Exhale. One, two--

Joshua felt his stomach drop, and heard wind moving around his body. Wind moving upward. I’m falling! His eyes shot open and he realized he was no longer in a dark room in the library. Now, he was tumbling down in a void of red haze. The mist surrounded him, but he could see shadows in the distance. Terrifying shapes morphed into different configurations, some recognizable such as a bird, others alien and unknown. He tried to scream, but found his lungs didn’t move as he abruptly stopped falling. He just stayed there frozen for a few seconds, then suddenly fell a foot more to hit an invisible floor. His lungs now working, he took a second to catch his breath. He looked up and screamed at the figure towering over him.

A woman. Nearly 3 times his height. She had dark, smooth skin. Intricate, long braids, adorned with gold caps at the ends, ran down her head to her back. He realized she was completely nude, causing Joshua to reflexively look away from her svelte body toward her face. That turned out to be a mistake as he was paralyzed with yet more terror from meeting her gaze. Her eyes were a dark brown, the pupils shaped vertical like that of a serpent. But it was the way they glimmered that transfixed him. Little specks of golden light shone out from the brown background in a mesmerizing pattern. While he processed her presence, she spoke, her silky voice echoing with authority and power,

“Hello Joshua. Is Yeshrel going well for you?”

Joshua’s throat refused to work, “I-I-who-”

“Let me answer all those silly questions mortals start with. You are safe, your body is still on Earth. Your mind, however is not. Where specifically we are is not your concern. I am Ylagog. I am a Luminary. I won’t ask if you know what that is since I already know you don’t. I am an angel tasked with revealing divine knowledge to you little mortals.”

Joshua just blinked a few times, his brain refusing to process anything. After a second, he finally found the ability to talk, “It’s… good to meet you?”

Ylagog chuckled, “I do love meeting new mortals. They never know what to say!”

“So… angels are real? And I’m guessing you have something for me?” Suddenly, worry hit Joshua like a truck, “Oh no, am I in trouble!? I promise, I’ll attend temple more often! And I’ll start paying taxes! Please, I just-”

“SHH,” the angel held a finger to her lips. The golden spots in her eyes flared, “Quiet. I’m not going to smite you. I just want to talk. You’re an interesting person to me, and quite frankly I’m bored. I think you would appreciate some of the things I know,” She grinned, the smile causing Joshua to relax just a little. She smiles like my ex, he thought. That smile always made me feel better. “Yes, that’s why I made that face,” Ylagog said, prompting a look of shock on Joshua’s face. Her grin became a smirk, “I can read your mind, little one. I see and know just about everything, in fact.” Suddenly she vanished, reappearing behind him, now nearly ten times his size. She held out her hand, her soft palm extended flat. “Climb on. Let me show you something.”

Figuring she wasn’t really offering, Joshua gently got on her hand, feeling her skin squish in a little as he stood. Slowly, she floated away into the mist, Joshua barely able to see her face as they traversed this realm. He spoke, shouting a little from the distance, “You said I’m interesting. Why?”

“You’re a doubter who knows he shouldn’t doubt. Now many of you mortals are doubters, too, but few are descendants of the ‘Great Saints’ as your little cult calls them. The grandson of Saint Amelia, a skeptic? With your bloodline you could have been immensely powerful in the hierarchy of the Keepers. But you decide to hide your lineage, abandon your family, and be a barber? And only 60 years after the religion is founded? Now that’s interesting!”

He was surprised at her badmouthing the Keepers, “Cult? I figured you all liked our fervent overlords. Don’t you gals get more respect now?”

Her face dropped to a scowl, causing Joshua’s avatar’s heart to skip a beat, “Some of us do. Sophia and the rest of the council do. Us foot soldiers and ‘lesser angels’ don’t. As usual.”

“Well, yeah I guess I’ve never heard of you, or Luminaries, before, so that checks out. They’re nutjobs, anyway; their attention isn’t worth it, I promise!”

She chuckled at that a bit, “I suppose so. You know, your animosity towards the Keepers is part of why I wanted to take you along for a bit. What do you know about the first Yeshrel?”

“Well, my Shepard says demons destroyed Peshrim and Celioth and the angels slew all the demons and let us be saved, so long as we are obedient.”

“All of that is wrong,” She stopped suddenly, turning her body to her left. “Look ahead. Tell me what you see.”

Joshua looked, his eyes adjusting from the wind suddenly stopping. Some figure lay in front of his vision. He jumped back when he realized it was a naked mutilated body, nearly a mile wide!

It was a woman. Slender like Ylagog, with dim freckles beside her nose likely only noticeable due to her massive size. They were the only markings on her otherwise uniformly pale skin. Her eyes, big enough to encompass his entire village in its diameter, were open. Red irises peered into Joshua, glowing as though some kind of energy still rushed through them, despite the gashes in her throat clearly demonstrating her being dead. Her hair lay flat on some invisible floor, what looked like straight jet-black hair that went down to her ears. Were she not a mile tall, and dead, and almost certainly a being of incalculable power when she lived, Joshua would have been quite taken with her. He wondered if Ylagog would take offense to that, given she absolutely knew that was his reaction to seeing the body.

“Who is that!?” Was all he asked the giant who carried him.

“The ‘demon’ who destroyed Peshrim. Her name was Jessamine. She was my friend.”

Joshua was filled with a mixture of dread and confusion. “Hang on, demons aren’t humanoids, I thought. The only celestials that are human-like are--”

“Angels,” The giant woman said bluntly.

The man’s eyes widened. “An angel destroyed the cities?” That changed everything. The doctrine held that angels were fundamentally perfect, physically incapable of sin or disobeying the Great Mother. This discovery meant his entire faith is a lie!

Ylagog stared out at the body, sorrow creeping along her face, “Yes, angels destroyed your puny little cities. But it wasn’t for power, or because Jessamine hated mortals. She loved you all so dearly, in her own way.”

Joshua turned to face the Luminary, “The events of Yeshrel built the foundation of our beliefs. How much of the story is untrue?”

She looked right at the man, the gold in her eyes gone in a sea of brown, “Why tell, when I can show?”

Another whoosh of air surrounded Joshua as they flew away from Jessamine. They stopped at a clearing of sorts, a little patch of dark rock, the same stone as the angel statue back home. At the center of this island sat a vertical slab, a thick, silvery liquid swished about up and down the slab, as though it wasn’t affected by gravity. “Go to the mirror and await my instruction. You will see the truth of your faith, from trustworthy sources,” Ylagog gently placed Joshua on the stone and floated around it, now facing the small man as he walked up to the bowl. Ylagog whispered something in the ancient language of angels, and the liquid began to shimmer and become less viscous. “Put your head in,” she commanded. Taking a deep breath, Joshua obeyed, his field of view a sheet of bright white light as his vision began...

The moon was the color of blood the night the fat man arrived in the little village of Ul Beval. A blood moon was a bad omen for the superstitious, but the man never believed in that sort of thing. All it meant to him was a good opportunity to take pretty pictures, that’s it. He drove into the parking lot of a hotel and went to check in. “Good evening, sir,” the receptionist greeted the fat man with cheery enthusiasm. “Evening,” he responded with the gusto of a dead cat. “Reservation under Bartes.” The receptionist looked at her computer and nodded, working to activate his room key. “So, what brings you out here? Hiking?” The man shook his head, “Mining. I’m one of the engineers for the lithium mine they’re building out west.” The receptionist lost her excitement suddenly, “Oh. That mine is on holy land, sir. I don’t know if you should be--”

“Sweetheart, just give me the keys. You’re not a priest.”

The woman frowned, handing the card over with a bit of attitude. “You’re in 215. Good night, sir.”

The engineer took his coat off and fell onto the bed, letting his tense muscles relax after ten hours of driving. He contemplated how quickly the receptionist lost respect for him once she found out his purpose for coming to this little backwater town. Fucking locals. Always thinking they know best. He was certainly understanding of people’s religious customs, but at the end of the day, money is money, and lithium needs to be mined up. He told himself many different things to prevent feeling guilty for any potential complicity in the destruction of sacred land, and he reckoned he was rather persuasive so it was working. If the angels wanted us to stop they would tell us somehow!

His self-comforting was interrupted by some shouting from the bar across the street. Opening the window, he instantly saw the reason for the commotion. A ball of fire streaked across the sky. Headed right for the mine! The meteorite left the window’s field of view, but mere moments later the engineer heard a loud bang. Throwing his coat back on he got in his car and sped over to the site. Men rushed from the small construction site as the meteorite had collided right on the planned initial dig area. Getting out of his car, the fat man ran towards the fire. There’s expensive survey equipment there! That’ll come out of my bonus! He scrambled up to the site, climbing a mound of hot dirt to overlook the impact. When he came to the top, he stopped cold.

There was no meteorite. Standing among the fire and annihilated equipment was a woman. She was around 5 and a half feet tall with curly blonde hair that fell to her waist. Most strange was the fact that she was clothed in a black business suit. It was undamaged, looked tailored and fit her well. She was just standing there, as though she didn’t notice the fires around her. The man called out, “Hey! Lady! Get up here, or you’ll get burned!”

The woman just glanced up… and waved. Slowly, she sauntered up the hill to the engineer, now completely at a loss for words. The woman spoke with a low, slightly smoky voice, “Hello. Where am I?”

The engineer stammered, “Are you alright? By the stars it looked like that meteor hit you!”

The woman chuckled, “No, I’m fine. I just need to know where I am.”

The man wouldn’t give up his concern, “We need an ambulance, you’ve obviously got some kind of injury! Come with me, I can-”

“SIR. Tell me where I am.” Her voice rang in his mind as if she spoke from inside his body. He froze in fear. Slowly, he gained control back, “Y-you’re in Imlai Field. About 45 miles from Peshrim.” The woman smiled, “Thank you,” and she began to walk away. After a few steps, she stopped and turned to the fat man, “Sir, what is going on in this field? What are these… machines for?”

“We’re mining, ma’am. There’s lithium a few miles underground here.”

The woman’s face dropped, the engineer nearly wet his pants, and she spoke with flat authority, “This is holy land. You will leave it alone.”

He began to shake, fearing whatever this woman was, “Of course, ma’am. I’ll tell my boss.”

“Thank you, little one!” The woman flashed a smile at the engineer, and then turned back around and walked into the night, leaving the man by the flames, confused and scared.

- Meanwhile...

Home.

Amelia’s mind sluggishly registered her whereabouts. Her childhood home was right in front of her, and she was standing in the middle of the street. She didn’t know why she was there. She just… appeared. It was a cloudless day, the grass a saturated green indicating the height of summer. Amelia heard children playing behind her, lawn mowers running to her right, sprinklers running to her left. The quintessential summer afternoon. Curiously, when she looked around no one was outside. It was just Amelia.

She tried to walk to her home, perhaps to bask in the nostalgia. But her legs didn’t respond. She tried and tried but she seemed stuck in place. Suddenly, the noises stopped. The entire neighborhood was utterly silent save for the strained struggling of Amelia. She joined the choir of silence when she saw something flash from the house. Eyes.

They stared at her and she stared back. Large, blue eyes with no person or head attached to them peered from the front window. Fear beginning to take over, Amelia redoubled her efforts to move, but to no avail. She looked down to see she had no legs.

Work.

She was on the bus now. No longer in her home village, she was thousands of miles away from her family and her old friends on her daily bus route to her job at the central bank. The bus hummed along quickly, evidently the city was free of the traffic it is infamous for.

Amelia noticed that in addition to there being no cars outside, there was no one on the bus. She was completely alone. Scanning the entire vehicle, she noticed even the driver was missing. When she turned around, her heart leaped from her chest as she saw a man in a coat sitting in a front facing seat at the back of the bus. He did not speak, but he stared at Amelia, blue eyes pierced unblinking at her. Shuffling her feet, now having use of her legs, she tried to walk back from the man. Turning to the front again, she saw another man at a side seat, also staring at her. She yelped, feeling both sets of eyes gawk at her, assessing her, sampling her visage. A third turn, another man, another set of emotionless, unblinking eyes. Each time her head turned, each new angle to view the interior, another man spawned with open eyes staring right at the woman. She turned one last time to jump out of the bus from the front door, but as she turned a man stood in her path, towering over her, his eyes burned into her from an inch away. As she fell to the floor, the men all got up and stood over her, breathlessly staring. She covered her head with her arms in sheer terror.

Hell.

She was in darkness. She let her arms down, not able to see them at her sides. She felt some comfort here after what transpired on the bus. No light, no eyes to stare, no one to size her up, no one to remind her they can hurt her. She took a step forward and felt a disgusting, slimy squish. She looked down in shock knowing what she was standing on as light poured in from the sky.

She was in a… sea of eyes. The sea was still as she stood, but the moment she walked, the eyes all turned to face her. She crouched down, trying to ignore the orbs piercing her once again, when she used her own eyes to notice movement in the distance. An arm emerged from the ocean surface. An arm waving frantically at Amelia. Rushing over, doing her best to tolerate the sound of crushed eyeballs under her feet, she grabbed the hand and pulled, hoping to rescue whoever the arm belonged to. It easily came up, revealing a bloody stump at the shoulder. It went limp and motionless in Amelia’s hand.

Hearing more squishing from behind, she turned to see the man in a coat, eyes open, rushing at her. He shoved her before she could react and she fell into the eyes. She began to sink into the sea, the man who pushed her standing over her, blue orbs gazing as she was fully enveloped in eyes. She let out a blood-curdling scream.

“AAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!” Amelia shot up out of bed, her pyjamas drenched in cold sweat. She darted her head across the room, wiggled her toes, then pinched herself at different parts on her body. All to make sure she was awake. Fucking nightmares. So tired! This was the fifth nightmare this week. Amelia made note that they were getting weirder and far more vivid. This wasn’t a phenomenon unique to her. Everyone in this province was reporting increased frequency of sleep paralysis episodes; lucid, detailed dreams; and frantic nightmares. Numerous government officials assured the populace that it was being looked into, but Amelia had her doubts. Their government was incompetent on a good day. Dealing with anomalous dreams affecting millions of people? There’s a better chance it’d be solved by the priests of the Gaian Temples. Maybe it is demons. We can’t know for sure! Amelia was proudly superstitious: She believed in angels, demons, fairies, mole-people, all of it. She has the best attendance of anyone at her local temple, and would get away with running the place, she knows so much. Not that she could, as priests leading the worship of the Great Mother had to be male. Women were explicitly forbidden from anything more than prayer and helping in the ritual sacrifices during the winter solstice. There was a time long ago when women weren’t even allowed in the temple at all! They just heard about the services from the men when they left. She normally didn’t object to much within the temples, but she firmly believed it was not Gaia’s will that women should be excluded from any of the duties of a pious human. Thankfully, temple leaders were starting to come around on that, in part because so many folk nowadays were turning away from the temple and its strange talk of angels and sacrifices. Amelia wished there was a better reason for the Temple to be progressive, but results are results.

It was 6:34AM; she needed to be at work by 8:00 so she decided to get ready a little early. She slowly got out of bed and went to the mirror. She spied a large zit forming on her forehead, the red volcano contrasting with her green eyes below. Stress is killing me, she needed relief from these nightmares, as did everyone else. She got dressed in her grey business suit and put on a smattering of makeup. Fixing up her black hair into a simple ponytail, she took her backpack with her laptop and lunch out to her garage, ready to head out to work. Her nightmare still lingered in her mind. She decided being subjected to the gaze was not something she could tolerate right now. No bus ride today. I’m biking to work.

The commute was a mess, but it was the normal kind of messy. Cars running through the bike lane, busses passing far too close, pedestrians giving her dirty looks. All in a morning’s ride for her. Finally, she arrived at the Central Bank. Locking her bike, she slung her backpack over her shoulders and walked into the lobby when she slammed right into another person, who was just standing at the revolving door.

“Oh jeez, are you okay?” Amelia asked after having fallen down, holding her nose in pain. The other person, a short blonde woman in a black suit, didn’t even budge from where she stood, “Yep! I’m great! Wait, are you injured?” She crouched down to Amelia, her face tensed with guilt as she realized what she did, “Oh no, I’m so sorry! I was just so amazed by this… thing!” She glanced at the revolving door. Amelia got up, brushing dirt of her suit, “The door? Um, yeah I guess it’s… what do you find so interesting about this?”

“Well, it’s like a door, but no hinges! It spins! Oh my, it’s so efficient!” The woman clasped her hands together in glee. “I’ll have to bring this idea up with my colleagues!”

Amelia chuckled at the odd woman. “And who are they, if you mind me asking? Are you with the McDermont account, by chance?”

The woman leaned back in confusion, “What’s a McDermont? No, my colleagues are just curious scholars of your nation. I’m really just admiring your buildings, is all.”

Amelia nodded, still confused but glad she wasn’t some client having a mental breakdown, “Ah, well have you seen the architectural bus tour? The main station is just around the corner!”

“Really!? Could you show me the way, Ms…?”

“Amelia,” She stuck out her hand, “and, of course, it’d be my pleasure. What was your name?”

The blonde woman completed the handshake, and an oddly satisfied smile creeped across her face, “My name is Sophia”

From deep within the recesses of the Earth, tendrils of crimson vines spun out to the surface. No one on the face of Earth could see them, but the nodes at the top spewed forth energy from the underworld and took new energy back into the vines in an endless cycle of exchange. At the center of this root system lay a woman, with black hair and red eyes. She fed off the vines, sampling the energy from each root, getting stock of all the life and commotion above. She would then direct the flow of energy to vines which needed it, keeping all things in balance. The woman was not a parasitic drain on the system, she was its conductor. She has gone by many names, but the one she was most fond of was Jessamine.

Jessamine was not supposed to be the conductor. That supposedly sacred duty was performed 3 billion years ago by an ancient titan, who now was dead. Her corpse was used by the Seraphim who slew her to make a large mountain range in the Southern Hemisphere. For the last few billion years this enviable job was passed off to the lesser angels, rotating between individual celestial beings every million years or so. If no one handles this job, eventually all the energy on Earth will concentrate at its center and would probably cause all of reality to disintegrate into a singularity. Despite its importance, the head angels of the universe believed it was, per official decree by the Council, “Not Our Job” even though it was they who made it a problem in the first place. Hence, the duty was pushed off to women totally untrained in this task. Jessamine was halfway through her assignment. Jessamine is a Luminary. Her real job is to know things, absorb and retain knowledge of everything, even forbidden secrets that Seraphim don’t know. Once mortals came about around 1 billion years ago, she was to subtly influence mortals with inspiration and dreams to either push them to divine truths or away towards madness, whichever she was asked to do. She was not trained to move bits of energy around tubes constantly. Already fed up with the Council and their arrogant self-regard, being drafted into this job was the final straw for the celestial. But revenge against gods is tough, even when one is a god herself.

Luckily, being trapped down in the dirt for 500,000 years gives a woman time and space to think. By year 50,000, Jessamine had formulated a plan. By year 100,000, she was slowly implementing that plan. Through manipulating the energy flow in subtle, small ways, she can concentrate small amounts in herself safely and without anyone noticing. In a hundred thousand years, she was able to exercise that power to visit humans in dreams. Not her visage, but she could influence the progression of them and their character. This could still have an impact. Give a priest nightmares about his congregants and he’ll snap and kill some of them, damaging the Temple’s oh-so-important reputation. Produce a deep-seated fear of angels among popular movie stars so they talk about it. Normalize aversion to the idea of an angel. It didn’t happen overnight, but Jessamine slowly atrophied faith in the celestials above Earth without them even realizing or caring.

Now, it’s been 256,789 years since her assignment began. By this point, she can influence millions at a time. Humans have only been around for a few hundred thousand years, but now they swarmed Earth, far more than the other mortals who once inhabited the surface eons ago. Through their dreams she feeds off the mortals directly, their fear and anguish from the terrors she subjects them to empowering her still. She can break free from the roots and leave, using some of her power to direct flow between vines automatically, an innovation she developed 50,000 years ago but neglected to share. When I kill the Seraphim, I’ll rule the heavens. No one else will have to do this shitty job anymore, the angel thought.

Jessamine used her endless downtime to think about what to do with the mortals, too. She had over the course of her preparation realized their immense potential as a source of power. Individually, none of them mattered. They were less than dust to her. But as a group, there were just so many that a great deal of the universe’s energy was tied up in their minds. Their silly, pointless thoughts take up quite a bit of psionic energy. To harvest this (all thought, not just fear) was obviously a way to gain power, but even better is to farm them. Take control of them and nourish their minds. Elevate them and their ability to do things, make things, discover things. Make them want more and let their silly little brains overthink. For instance, she observed a rather curious effect whereby a mortal finds herself wanting something, and the moment she gets it, she immediately agonizes over whether it really is enough for her to feel satisfied. Inevitably, she’ll up wanting more, and she knows this will happen yet she agonizes over it all the same. Such a massive effort of thought over something so fleeting and insignificant. To harness this power was tantalizing for a divine being like Jessamine. And she had been doing exactly that for millennia.

A Seraphim that went rogue would likely have just killed off all the mortals, since they can be unpredictable and flighty. It was this shortsightedness that Jessamine will use to crush her overlords. Then, she will reign for eternity, keeping the mortals as a protected, infinite source of delicious, dynamic energy. And she would treat her pets well, ensuring all had plentiful food, security, health, electricity. They would love her, and worship her for it.

Jessamine focused for a few years on directing the energy, relishing in the fantasy of controlling everything, when suddenly she felt a presence trying to reach her. Only a few ever bothered these days, and she already knew who this person was.

“Ylagog. Can you hear me?”

A voice came from one of the vines, a little muddled but loud enough for Jessamine to hear, “Yes, I can, Jess. Keeping up?”

Jessamine chortled, “Well enough, I suppose. How’s the unfolding of divine knowledge?”

A chuckle came through the vine, “Barely doing any of it, lately. Breonna keeps jutting in to re-direct me every time I see a mortal with talent. I just want them to travel to space already! We were supposed to get them out there fifty years ago!”

“Yeah that sounds like her,” Breonna was as conniving as they come, and was undoubtedly wasting Ylagog’s time to make Sophia look bad to the rest of the Council. “Maybe one day Sophia will get off her lazy ass and finally behead that witch,” Jessamine imagined the scene with satisfaction.

“Well, funny you mention Sophia. I’m not just making a social call. I’m here to warn you. I think they know.”

Jessamine’s heart lurched. I’m not ready. “Are you sure?” She asked, warily.

A brief pause on the vine was followed by, “I overheard Sophia and Breonna talking a little bit ago. Your name came up. So did talk of nightmares and accounting errors for energy flow from the last 100,000 years. They’re at least at the stage of asking questions about your activities. And just now, I saw Sophia went to the mortal realm. She hasn’t gone there in 18,000 years!”

The Luminary grimaced, knowing the jig was up. It’s now, or never. She asked her old friend, “If she went, then she knows I’m up to something. Where has she landed?”

“Peshrim”

-

Getting Sophia out of the revolving door was a bit of a challenge for Amelia. The woman went through behind her, but decided to just run around it like a hamster on a wheel for a minute or so, hollering with gleeful abandon. Eventually, she stepped out, showing no signs of nausea. “Ahh… so much fun! You mort- I mean Peshrimites ought to put these things in every building you have!”

Amelia chuckled at that thought, “Yeah I guess that’d make going to the bar more interesting. Are you sure you don’t need to sit down or anything? That was a lot of spinning.”

“Oh, you are so considerate! I’m fine, thank you. Now, where is--”

The blonde woman stopped her sentence, her joy vanished from her face as she looked around frantically. “She’s here,” she spoke low, almost a growl.

Amelia was concerned, “Who? Who’s here, Sophia?”

Sophia could not respond to the question because the entire city began to shake. Earthquakes weren’t common in this part of the country so people broke out in panic. Sophia stayed fully upright, looking up at a point in the sky. Amelia looked at her as she held onto a parking meter, hoping no debris from the bank building finds their way to the street below.

“HAHAHAHA” The laugh, booming and maniacal, rung out in everyone’s mind. Amelia looked up to where Sophia gazed and nearly vomited on the street. Slowly, a naked woman appeared. Nearly a mile tall, she dwarfed even the largest skyscraper in the city. The laughs streamed from her as she slowly descended onto a small neighborhood. Amelia screamed as she heard the unmistakable sound of buildings collapsing into rubble. The woman had just crushed a part of the city!

“Hello, Sophia! I know you’re here! Let’s see who’s really the strongest now!”

Amelia shot a look of disbelief at Sophia, who for her part wore a face of fury. “Sophia, is she addressing you? What are you?”

The short woman didn’t break her gaze at the massive black-haired woman, “I am an old associate of hers. Her name is Jessamine. She is a danger to you and all the mortals here.”

Amelia thought she was still dreaming. Mortals? Is she not a mortal?

Jessamine prevented further questioning as she violently threw out her left foot like she was kicking a football. Her toes barreled over a row of high-rise apartments, undoubtedly killing hundreds, if not thousands, of people in a single movement. Amelia slapped herself to try and awake from the nightmare, but no relief came. This was real.

Jessamine laughed once more, drowning out the screams and sirens near the buildings she demolished. “Come and see, Sophia! See what you abandoned!”

Amelia wanted to run inside and cower, “W-what are you going to do?”

Sophia locked eyes with Amelia, “I’ll deal with her. You offer help wherever it is needed. Mother light your path, Amelia.”

Amelia nodded, the archaic blessing offered a bit of comfortable stability to assuage her terror, “Mother guide your steps, Sophia,” she responded in the traditional way.

Sophia rolled her shoulders and spoke forcefully, “Stand back.”

Amelia’s body complied with the order before her mind could process it, as though Sophia had taken control of her legs. She watched as the unassuming blonde woman began to get taller. Her black suit shimmered and disappeared, turning into a white tunic that ended at the knees. On top, she had a bronze breastplate adorned with runes. Brown sandals cushioned her bare feet and grew along with her. The tunic revealed that the woman was lean and strong, her thighs thick with muscle, with broad shoulders and developed biceps. Sophia grew and grew until she reached nearly five stories tall, whereupon she held up her hand and shouted, “H’EREV!” Her voice nearly popped Amelia’s eardrums, the windows of cars nearby shattered. A sword, the hilt as gold as the hair of the woman wielding it, appeared. It’s blade glistened and suddenly caught flame. Sophia lowered the sword to her waist, then crouched to the ground. Amelia ducked, her senses telling her something violent was about to transpire. Wings, the span of a ferry, emerged from the giant woman’s back. They’re real. She’s an angel! Amelia was transfixed by the divine figure before her, but she could only admire the warrior of light for so long, as Sophia suddenly launched into the air, the shockwave made from her takeoff sending Amelia to her back. As the winged figure flew straight towards the titan above, Amelia took stock of those around her. Panicked humans, cowering inside or behind cars, all looked up at the raven-haired woman who crushed the neighboring block. Spying an old man who had clearly hit his head in the commotion, Amelia ran over, calling for a medic. She said to help. Who am I to disobey?

-

Sophia ascended towards Jessamine, the demoness now having revealed herself. She does not wield a weapon, Sophia noted. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter if she only used magic. Sophia was certain she could kill this insolent lesser angel no matter her abilities. But still, Sophia wanted to say she killed Jessamine while she had something dangerous. Eons of training and I never get a real fight. At least she’s big enough to be a bit of a challenge. Sophia formulated a straightforward attack plan: run the giant through with her flaming sword. Confidence surging, she flew straight at Jessamine’s chest, the tip of the sword aimed right at her heart.

SLAM

A pale wall of flesh stopped all of Sophia’s momentum, and she found herself tumbling down to the streets below. Her mighty sword flung from her hands, landing tip first in a row of apartments, the buildings nearby engulfed in pure flame. The angel herself crashed in another row of buildings, a cluster of high-end boutique shops in the wealthiest part of the city. She felt dozens of people turn to paste under her body. Damn. I’m supposed to minimize damage! The council is not going to be happy.

Sophia stood as she heard a booming laugh. “That’s your plan, little bird? I’m the size of a mountain and you think you’ll just shank me?” Jessamine was staring straight at the angel, wearing an expression of smug amusement. “Tormenting the mortals is fun and all, but I’m glad you inferior celestial beings are joining in, too!” She took a step forward, crushing another row of buildings. “I’m far beyond you now. Your ilk have no power in this realm!” Jessamine raised her hand as a dark ball began to form next to her. Sophia’s heart lurched as she realized what the ball was made of: mortals! The dark angel flicked her wrist up and caused the ball to launch forward. It was aimed straight towards Sophia! Sophia held her hand out and called her sword again. The massive blade flung from its landing spot, slicing more buildings in its wake as it returned to its master. Blade in hand, Sophia planted a foot on the broken street in front of her and braced. She swung right as the wad of mortals reached her. The fiery sword cleanly cut the ball in half, tearing hundreds of people in two and setting more alight as the survivors splattered to the sides of the angel. Her robes, already damaged by the giant’s smack, now were speckled with gore. Jessamine’s smirk dropped, clearly not expecting Sophia to so cleanly block her attack.

I need to get closer, Sophia thought. Placing her palms together, she concentrated on Jessamine’s form. She paid mind particularly to where in the city she was. With a burst of energy, Sophia teleported to the block behind the demoness, the force of the teleportation shredding the nearby buildings. Hundreds were buried in rubble or torn to bits by the shockwave. Sophia didn’t pay them much mind; rather, she produced her sword and tried a more magical strategy. Uttering dreadful words in the language of the angels, she summoned great shards of ice and launched them into the giant woman’s ankles and feet. Jessamine had turned around by this point, and the icy spikes shattered on her toes and skin. What? That should have impaled her! Jessamine laughed maniacally, “HAH! Think I wouldn’t expect your magic? Silly little Seraphim, you have no idea of true magic!” She snapped her fingers, and the ice spikes rematerialized, suddenly shooting backwards toward Sophia. Bringing her sword up, she engaged in a flurry of superhuman parries, just barely able to break the spears and stop her from being skewered. Unharmed but clearly shaken, Sophia once again took to the sky, lobbing magical element after element at the dark-haired demon, but to no avail. Fire, light, ice, earth, nothing worked. The giant just threw everything back, Sophia pushing the limits of her ability to dodge just to stay breathing (her equivalent of breathing, at least).

Eventually, Jessamine seemed to tire of Sophia’s pathetic attempts at resistance. She taunted the angel, “Look. I can pester, too,” and pointed her index finger. A beam of dark purple emerged from the finger, striking Sophia right in the chest. She flew back, flattening buildings as she skidded on her ass over two blocks. Jessamine kept firing the beam, a fixture of pure death energy, pinning Sophia down, slowly disintegrating the breastplate. Running out of time, Sophia racked her brain trying to find some weakness. She can block my attacks. She has to be using her own energy as a shield. If I can find what form her main reserves are, I can nullify them. Sophia felt the breastplate begin to dent, the straps on the side coming loose. A Seraphim is fearless, but she understood that if she were mortal she might be afraid right now. That’s it! Sophia felt the city, felt the minds of its inhabitants. Though she couldn’t read them this way, she could feel thoughts and emotions tumbling out of them in a messy soup of psychic signals. That’s her power. Mortal minds! She uttered an old spell, and a trickle of light emerged from her head. Slowly, little lights popped from the heads of nearby mortals, their thoughts and emotions leaving their minds and traveling to her. She felt everything, now reading their thoughts, emotions, every reaction to the present moment, all at once. It was almost too much to bear, even for her. But soon, the energy was topped off, and she screamed, unleashing the psychic energy at Jessamine just as her mighty breastplate shattered from the assault. The blast of energy struck Jessamine before she could step out of the way. Losing her balance, the Luminary fell over, crushing nearly a quarter of the city in an instant as her backside crashed into the Earth. She quickly recovered, her stomach covered in burns and her back scratched up. Her defenses were down.

There. Now, time for a real fight, Luminary.

Sophia launched into the air, her beating wings generating gale force winds that blew away cars nearby. She charged Jessamine again. Sophia banked left, and Jessamine moved to intercept her. Lightning! The angel sprung her trap. The titan twisted as she prepared another powerful slap when suddenly she was struck in the back by a massive thunderbolt. The jolt stunning her, she offered no resistance as the comparatively small woman took a sharp turn right and dug her sword deep into the giant’s thigh. Riding her momentum, Sophia dragged the flaming sword up to cut a 400 foot gash in the demon, void-colored blood spewing forth onto the ruined street below. “AHHHHH!” Jessamine screamed, the shout so powerful it knocked over the already weak buildings nearby. Her massive hands descended to the wound, desperately trying to staunch the bleed. Pulling the blade out, Sophia tried to fly out of the way but was clipped on the wing by the giant’s hand. Losing stability, she tumbled down to the block she launched from, miraculously landing on her feet. There she spied Amelia, organizing a first aid station just outside the lobby of the bank she met her outside of. That’s a good mortal! Her admiration for the Samaritan was brief, as the titan behind her growled, “BITCH. You didn’t care about these mortals at all before me! You can’t have them!” She limped over to the nearby downtown, letting her hands free of the wound, blood gushing from the thigh drowned the mortals below her. Bending down, she ripped a skyscraper from its foundation. Holding it in one hand like a javelin, she aimed at the angel and threw. The massive building grew larger and larger in Sophia’s eyes as she realized she didn’t have time to dodge it. Rushing over to Amelia, she hunched over her and the other mortals, wrapping her wings around them. Speaking a prayer in the ancient language, a white bubble surrounded them, filling the mortals with an unnatural sense of warmth. Sophia closed her eyes and focused.

CRASH

Dust and fire enveloped the entire block as the skyscraper smashed into the ground. The bubble flexed and warped as debris struck it, but nothing penetrated. The humans all screamed in terror, but they were safe. As the debris settled, Sophia let the bubble dissipate, seeing the dust rush in. “Do not be afraid. I will take you all to safety,” she tried to comfort the terrified people below, but their fear surged even higher as a shadow cast over them. Jessamine, returning from downtown, brought her leg up and hovered her foot over the street. Sophia reached for Amelia and dodged away just as the giant woman’s toes smashed right on top of where they cowered. The other humans were popped into red mist under the pads of the demoness. Jessamine, her face scrunched with pain, looked wildly at the warrior angel. She let out a cry of frustration mixed with agony. Rather than continue to try and crush her, however, she simply stood up straight, blood still surging out from her thigh, and floated again, her hands clasped together. Not here. You’ll kill them all! Jessamine shouted an incantation, her words slurred and slow. Static built up around them, the air took on a smell of ozone. Sophia again brought her shield up, wrapping Amelia tightly against her collarbone, as Jessamine disappeared in a massive boom, a violent shockwave emerging from where she floated. The explosion ripped through the city, disintegrating buildings and shredding streets down the bedrock. Sophia crouched, trying to comfort the terrified woman in her hands as she witnessed the utter destruction of proud city of Peshrim. Just as quickly as it started, the chaos ended. There was nothing but rubble and smoke.

Amelia could no longer scream. The terror of what she had witnessed was too much. Seeing the giant for the first time was bad enough, but after nearly dying three times, and now knowing had she not spoken to the odd woman at the bank, had she taken too long to get ready, had she decided to get coffee at that nice cafe, she would be dead. It was overwhelming. Being pinned tightly against the angel’s collarbone was the only thing stopping her from having a stoke, she figured. Amelia didn’t know if it was natural or caused by some divine magic, but being held by the massive woman was… nice. Had she not just seen a city be annihilated she might even say she felt safe in her palm. But as it stood, the comfort of the divine only served to keep Amelia from dry heaving.

After some time of the angel crouching in place, she stood, dropping the shield that enveloped them. She held out her hand, letting Amelia stand in place on her palm. “T-thank you,” Amelia stammered, still having trouble breathing, “you didn’t need to save me, Sophia.”

Sophia wore a smile with a kind of sadness underneath it, “That’s my purpose here, little mortal. I protect you. If only I could have saved more of you! If I were just stronger…”

Amelia couldn’t really find the words to comfort her. After all, how would I know how to build a divine’s confidence? She simply said, “Well, there may be some survivors. Maybe we should help them?”

Sophia looked back towards the ruined city, “Yes. I feel some of you lived. Maybe twenty-thousand or so.” Amelia’s heart sank. Two million dead. Angels preserve us. The angel was less devastated by this realization, her excitement to help building, “I’ll summon as many as I can here. Can you help set up first aid, like you did at your… what do you call that place? Your money house?”

“Bank.”

“Yes. Like you did at the bank!”

Amelia nodded. Sophia’s face erupted in a smile as she gingerly set the human down. Spreading her wings, she flew into the air, zipping though the city at inhuman speeds. Every few minutes, she would drop ten or so humans, all hurt or paralyzed by trauma. Amelia and the able-bodied survivors helped organize the rest, getting the few doctors together to start treating the wounded. Eventually, the angel landed with the last humans. “That makes 500. Sophia, can you get any more?” Amelia didn’t have supplies for any more wounded, but it didn’t feel right to abandon the rest. Sophia’s face was no longer a smile; rather, she had a disconcerted look. “Amelia, before I get any more, will you tell me something?”

Her tone was one of confusion. Amelia got a bad feeling, “Of course. What do you want to know?”

“You mortals. Are you… good?”

Amelia raised an eyebrow, “Um. That depends on the person, I guess.”

“I can feel your thoughts. If I touch one of you, I can read every single thought and memory they have. And the survivors here, many have done great sins!”

“Well, we all sin. But most try to be good people. I guess with the demon maybe some were influenced to do worse things, but--”

“No.” Sophia’s tone got stern. “Jessamine has been influencing your dreams, not your actions. Many of you experienced no nightmares but still did things. Awful things.”

“Maybe we should focus on helping the wounded? Sort out moral worthiness later?”

Sophia glared at the woman, nearly causing Amelia’s heart to stop, “NO. I suspected things were off when I was harvesting the inhabitants’ emotions before. The survivors’ memories here just confirm it, there is sickness among you. If this is how you beings live, this life of evil and debauchery, then you are unworthy of help.”

Her sudden change in disposition was beginning to terrify Amelia, “Miss, aren’t you all omniscient? Why are you just now knowing that people can do bad things?”

“I am a Seraphim. I sit on the council and guard the heavens. My archangels observe the affairs of mortals. It seems they’ve been misleading me about how well you keep our commandments. You humans, you are… unclean.”

Amelia’s blood ran cold, “W-what are you--”

Sophia took a step forward, “I will check all of you. If I find you are without sin, then I will help you. Otherwise, you are on your own.”

She didn’t wait for a response as she walked to the first aid station, the mortals all getting out of the way while she touched each with her finger, observing their past and their attitudes. Sometimes, she’d point at a human and they’d suddenly find themselves healed. But most of the time, she merely walked past them, finding them unworthy of the gifts of heaven. Soon, she stomped back to Amelia. “Three. Three mortals are worthy. The rest of you are dirty, disgusting animals. For how long have you lived this way?”

The angel towered over Amelia, the poor woman now completely pale. “Humans have been capable of evil since Gaia made us.”

“YOU DO NOT SPEAK HER NAME” Sophia’s wings opened and she floated up, righteous fury burned in her pale grey eyes as she glared at the insolent woman. It was a grave sin to speak the name of the goddess who made the universe. Amelia finally broke, the trust she had now totally gone, “I’m sorry, angel! I mean no disrespect! Please, forgive me!”

Sophia just floated there for a minute, the other survivors cowering in the rubble, fearful of another rampage. Slowly she descended, her expression still stern but less angry, “You have more than proven yourself to be a good woman, Amelia. But even you are not free of darkness. Once I rid this land of Jessamine’s influence, I will have use for mortals like you.” The ominous way she phrased that sent shivers down Amelia’s spine.

Sophia turned to the horizon and prayed. Amelia couldn’t make out the words, but it was complicated and seemed to demand much of the large woman’s attention. Eventually, she turned back, “Amelia. The demon is at your capital city. I will go there, but I require more power to stop her. Do you understand?”

“N-no. What are you saying?”

“There is no power gained without sacrifice.”

Amelia nearly fainted, “Wait! Angel! Sophia! Please, we haven’t done anything wrong. We can be better! More devout, I promise!”

Sophia walked over and plucked the woman up, pinning her as she squirmed helplessly between the angel’s perfect fingers, “I believe you can. But the survivors of your den of sin, they will not. And so, they will feed me.”

“No, please! Don’t--” Amelia was interrupted by a shifting sound below her. The dirt by Sophia’s feet began to twist and swirl. Sophia dropped Amelia in feet first, the slow vortex swallowing Amelia as she screamed. “Don’t worry. You’ll be safe in there,” the angel said. “I’ll get you later.” The vortex gurgled, then settled back to its original configuration.

The survivors, having heard this conversation, had all started running if they had usable legs. But this didn’t matter. They were hers, now. Sophia sprung hundreds of feet into the air. She spoke, first in the ancient language, then continued her prayer in the common English,

“O Great Mother! She who sleeps eternal! I beseech thee, grant me thy blessing to purge thy holy vessel of those who defile thee and abandon thy word! Grant me thy grace to make myself as the titans of old, those mighty arbiters of thy justice and thy wrath! With these souls I do bargain! Praise to thee, O Mother of All! In thy name, I serve!”

Speaking the forbidden name of the one who made her, the bones of the Earth shifted and groaned. Slowly, Sophia could see little dots float above from the ruins of the city. Sinners. Not worthy to live in Her world. More and more humans lifted from their would-be burial sites, until all twenty thousand were suspended high in the air. Then, the mortals all congregated together in one giant ball of flesh, not unlike the one lobbed at Sophia just before. Sophia approached the ball of mortals, the humans wriggling in a futile attempt to break free, when the Earth shook again. Sophia felt her tunic begin to tighten and stretch. It’s happening. She grew, her clothes and sandals snapping off leaving her fully nude, and kept growing until her feet could span half the ruined city. The ball of humanity was now no larger than a grape to her. The Earth shook, the Great Mother demanded the sacrifice. Sophia grasped the ball in her hand, feeling the humans on the outside squish on her fingers, and dropped the mass into her mouth. The ball deformed, as the sacrifices all spread out into the hot expanse of the angel’s tongue. Swishing them around a bit, she found their flavor was surprisingly nice, she coated all the humans in saliva until around a quarter had drowned. Then, she swallowed, sending fifteen thousand living, breathing humans straight into her divine stomach in a single gulp. Her belly growled, happy to have received a meal. The first real meal in a few centuries. The Earth shook a final time. The bargain was complete. Sophia spread her wings, now the span of mountains, and flew straight West, right to the capital city, Celioth.

Right to the little heretic.

Blood.

Need blood.

Jessamine flopped over onto the mountain she teleported above as her lifeforce weakened. The gash in her thigh, coupled with the burn marks from Sophia’s parry, was doing a number on her body. Technically speaking, she would be fine even if she ‘died’ here. She had entered the mortal realm with only a smattering of her reserved energy. Thus, if this body failed, she could always rematerialize with the rest. But given how close she came to losing this battle, she decided it was time to go all in and risk all her energy. If she could crush Sophia in one swoop, the heavens will descend to take her on. With that irritating sword out of the picture, sweeping up the remaining 59 Seraphim would be simple. But I need blood. Now.

She limped over the mountain to its neighbor. This mountain looked different from the nearby ones: While the rest were capped with pine trees, this one was bare. Grey rocks cover the peak, giving it a bald and foreboding character. Underneath the mountain sat an invisible root to the center of the Earth. Jessamine tore the cap off the mountain, sticking her hand down to grasp the head of the node. The energy surged into her, closing the gashes and cuts on her body. Quicker than she expected, the energy ran out. Fuck. If this isn’t enough I might die. She would need to collect more energy from the nearby mortals, and do it fast before more angels appeared. Jessamine walked over to the hive of humans nearby, the mighty city of Celioth. At 15 million people, it was the largest city in the world. And Jessamine will feast on it until she is ready to tear down heaven itself.

The inhabitants all screamed at her approach. Having heard of the destruction of Peshrim, many were sheltering in place, praying for a savior. Others tried to leave, but the clogged infrastructure meant no one was making any progress out of the city. All they could do was watch in horror was the giant woman brought a foot up, ready to smash into a section of the metropolis. Jessamine savored the fear of the humans, ready to enhance it with blood-freezing terror as she slammed her foot down hard.

BOOM.

She did not strike the city. Her foot didn’t hit ground. She struck some kind of invisible dome about 600 feet above the neighborhood she was to destroy. Frustrated, she stomped again and again. The dome creaked and deformed, but it did not break. She put her foot down, toes clenching the bedrock in anger, as she contemplated how to break the defenses--

Her plans were interrupted by a swooshing sound followed by a force launching her to the side. Yelping, she slammed into a nearby mountain. The massive formation crumbled like sand at the impact. Reeling, she pushed the object which hit her away, and froze in fear. It was Sophia. 10 miles taller than before.

How? How could she- Mother.

She sped away from the blonde angel to get composure. She tried to put her feeling of abandonment aside, but it was failing. The Great Mother never helped her these last 300,000 years, but she’ll help the entitled Seraphim the moment they feel the least bit challenged. Their creator was impersonal, but she was not necessarily impartial. Jessamine’s hurt turned to anger at the woman in front of her. Fine. I’ll show Gaia who the worthy woman is, here.

She faced the Seraphim, craning her neck to her massive head, “You got fat, Sophia.”

The angel looked down, face still, “Your disobedience will be punished, Luminary. Surrender, and I may make it quick.”

“Fuck yourself,” Jessamine snapped her fingers. Straining with effort, the mountains nearby lifted from the ground, slowly ascending thousands of feet into the air. Jessica screamed and tossed them at the knees of Sophia, hoping to knock her over. Three massive crashes shook the Earth nearby apart. Massive cracks opened up, one of which sped right to the city. It smacked the perimeter and stopped suddenly, Sophia’s protection preventing the humans from being buried in rubble. Sophia, for her part stumbled back a half-step. Jumping on the opportunity, Jessamine summoned a spear made of hardened obsidian and shoved it into her calf with the strength of a bomb. The spear instantly shattered, the blow not even puncturing skin. Need more power!

Sophia, now restabilized, brought her left foot back. Jessamine tried to run away, realizing her plan, but the angel was too big. She kicked the Luminary, launching her miles away into a set of hills. She rolled through a scattering of villages and mines, smearing all under her massive back. Picking herself up, she screamed an incantation to the heavens above. The Earth below responded as Sophia approached at a leisurely pace. The ground erupted in fissures, from which emerged the bones of giant beasts, ancient monsters slain long ago. “KILL THE WORM!” Their red-eyed resurrector commanded. The beasts, miles tall themselves swarmed Sophia, charging at surprising speeds given their weight. They clipped and bit Sophia, causing her to bend down to swat at them. While she did so, Jessamine teleported behind her, trying to reciprocate the blonde’s strategy from prior. With a newly summoned spear she launched toward her spine, this time throwing it like a javelin at her spine. The javelin pierced skin, but only tapped at the deep muscle underneath. Sophia plucked it from her back like it was a toothpick, tossing it to the side. She didn’t even face Jessamine as she focued on the undead beasts at her feet. She pointed at them, speaking long incantations, and they set alight, massive fire engulfing the ancient bones. One by one, all the monsters burned to ash forever. Turning around, Sophia saw the little Jessamine, hope leaving her crimson eyes. “Give up, little thing. It’s over now. You do not have our Mother’s grace.”

“Death first!” came the desperate reply. Flying into the air, Jessamine screamed at the top of her lungs. The high pitched noise stung Sophia’s hearing as she noticed darkness sweep over the land. The sun, once shining high in the sky, was now blocked out by a dark circle. Jessamine had caused an eclipse. Using the fresh terror this generated in the mortals, she disappeared from view. Sophia tensed, readied for an ambush. Suddenly, she heard a pop behind her, followed by a series of jolts. She turned to face Jessamine, and she disappeared again. Another pop, another set of jolts. Sophia could feel the sting of spears lodging into her each time Jessamine appeared. She could tell the woman was running out of steam. This was pathetic, even by her standards. The blonde angel tried to step out of the way, but the pestering continued until she became truly annoyed. She stopped dodging, and just listened. Silence. Shimmer. POP. A set of stings hit her thighs, but she had learned the sequence of sounds of an ambush. Jessamine dissipated again. Silence. Shimmer. SLAM

Just as Jessamine appeared for another hit, Sophia smacked her hands together where she heard the shimmering. Jessamine was totally enveloped in the powerful clap as if she were a mosquito, completely stunned as she fell miles below. Before she could hit ground, however, Sophia grabbed her, holding her tightly in her fist.

“Time for a lesson in Order, Jessamine. The mortals are at the bottom,” She launched Jessamine straight at the city, her body slamming against the protective dome. The metropolis shook at the impact. Jaunting over, Sophia inched the raven-haired woman’s body to a clearing of grass. She pressed her foot over Jessamine, putting her bare toe over Jessamine’s left leg,

“You are a lesser angel,” CRACK.

She put her toe over her right leg now, “That means you do WHAT,”

CRACK

“I”

POP

“SAY”

SNAP

Jessamine’s limbs were shattered by the giant. Plucking the defeated angel in her hands, she suspended Jessamine by the neck, pinching her between her fingers. Slowly, she increased the pressure as Jessamine looked on in agony, her eyes begging for mercy, “And I am a Seraphim. Favored by the Great Mother. You know what that means to you?” The pressure increased, her neck nearly about to pop,

“I am your god.”

CRACK. Jessamine went limp. Her neck broken, she lost control of her body entirely. Dropping the woman to the ground, Sophia hucked a ball of spit at her corpse, “Weakling.” Was the last thing she ever said to the corrupted Luminary. The people of Celioth, still terrified, seemed slightly hopeful that the demoness had been slain. The dome dissipated in a sheen of light as Sophia approached the metropolis. Her toes flattened a major highway entering the city as she stared down at the inhabitants. Those who dared to look up felt their stomachs drop when they recognized the expression on their winged savior’s face.

Disgust.

-

The sin which emanated from this hive of mortals nearly sickened Sophia. With her incredible power, she could sense the debauchery these mortals lived in. Sophia could not let this place stand unpunished. If she did, some other lesser angel would just exploit the sin and fear and try to cause trouble, just as Jessamine did. The mortals can’t stir up the rabble. These bugs need to know their place. And there need to be witnesses.

Sophia held out her hand as she loomed over the city. A little vortex emerged above, and out popped Amelia, shaken and screaming. As she stopped, she looked up at the much larger-than-before angel who held her. “What happened? Where are we!?”

“You are at Celioth, little Amelia. Jessamine is dead. Your people have been avenged,”

She could see Amelia was happy with this outcome, “T-then, we’re safe? Why are we all the way out at the capital?”

Sophia glared down at her, “You are safe. These degenerates are not. You will bear witness to their punishment.”

The little mortal was upset again, “Sophia, please! I beg you, we can be better!”

“I know you can. But not without a demonstration. You animals respond to examples. I see now that’s the best way to teach you. You will be silent.”

This attempt at intimidation was successful as the little human no longer spoke. Sophia concentrated on the people below her. She felt their intentions, their memories, their beliefs. All to find the worthy ones. Soon, she had a count of pious people out of the 15 million residents here: 49. Speaking an incantation, toned with extreme disappointment, she summoned the pious ones to join her witness. As the humans began to arise, she lifted a foot above the outskirts, seeing a large cluster of tall buildings just in front of her. The mortals screamed in terror as they realized her intentions were far from benevolent.

49 little dots arose from the city and collected on Sophia’s right palm. Quickly, she dropped them on the invisible platform along with Amelia. “Introduce yourselves! You will be the entire city in a few minutes. But no matter what you do, I want you to remember what you see. This is the price of your sins.”

The foot slammed into the side of the cluster. Tens of blocks crumbled under her soft sole, hundreds of thousands seeing her tanned skin flatten the steel giants above them before they, too were turned to dust. Savoring the feeling of so many perishing under her simple step, she swept her foot to the right, pushing buildings and people underneath a tsunami of destruction and debris. With two little movements, three million were dead.

She took the next step, crushing more skyscrapers. She could feel a little to her left sat the infamous Red Quarter, a cluster of casinos, brothels, and bars. Filthy degenerates. Come and see what your lust will give you. She turned on her heels, compressing flattened buildings into the Earth, and sat down on the Quarter, her ass smashing and pasting millions more. She dug her backside in a little to fully envelop the den of sinners.

Seeing the city from this angle impressed upon her just how fragile these mortals were. With the slightest effort, any of these buildings could be ripped apart. Placing her thighs to the ground, she stretched out her legs to crush the as yet unharmed part of the city. She moved with agonizingly slow speed, her trained divine physique allowing her precise control over her movements. She spread out her legs, wiggling her toes as she felt more die, battering down millions an inch at a time. An entire third of Celioth met its end under the muscular legs of Sophia.

Only a few pockets remained. Some sat unharmed to her back. Without even looking behind, she moved her wings up and down. Their immense size created hurricanes behind her, blowing away entire high-rises and pasting the mortals inside. Now, every part of the captial city was in some way destroyed by the angel. In 5 minutes, she had killed 14 million people.

But that still left 1 million sinners, and a massive amount of debris. Sophia decided to enact her plan to ensure generations of proper worship among the mortals. Standing up, crushing a few pockets of survivors under her dirt covered feet, she walked over to Jessamine’s body. Jessamine was paralyzed but not yet fully dead. It was quite hard to kill an angel. But not impossible. Sophia held aloft her hand, and a bright white dagger appeared, the hilt formed from tempered bone. Holding Jessamine’s body by the chest, she slit her throat and held her upside down. She walked along the city, sprinkling her blood out across the ruined streets. Once Jessamine was drained of blood, she tossed the body aside. It vanished as it hit the ground. Where it went was of no concern to Sophia: an angel’s power is in her blood, and now Jessamine is just an empty sack of meat.

Sophia leapt into the air, suspended next to the surviving humans, all paralyzed in horror at what they saw. She kept her back to them as she held out her hands, “Great Mother, your land is cleansed of these sinners! I return your power! I beseech your blessing with the blood of traitors to reshape this land! To make it bountiful for the humans to love and worship you! Grant me this, O Eternal Lifebringer!”

She spoke the forbidden name once more. The Earth shook violently. Slowly, the blood began to move, then steam arose from it. With no warning, the blood shot out from its pools, expanding to cover the whole city in dark red. After a minute of the blood violently shaking, it vanished. Underneath, there was no city. No rubble. No bodies. Instead, there was a forest. Trees of deep purple leaves and red bark. Grasses and moss with yellow and blue shades filled out where the trees could not cover. And peppered throughout were massive boulders, huge deposits of shiny stone, their color a dark black. So dark it would swallow all light that hit it were it not for its glossy coating. Sophia shouted praise at the Great Mother. This forest was a blessing.

-

Crying.

Death hung in the air. The 49 survivors of Celioth all clung together in sorrow, comforting each other as best they could. All of them lost family, lost friends, lost lovers to the avenging angel. The angel who now held their fate, quite literally, in her palm. Amelia lost someone, too. Her uncle and cousins lived there. She guessed they were smashed by her foot at the beginning of the rampage. Amelia wanted to break, she wanted to drown in tears, but she just couldn’t start. She had seen too much death and destruction. It was like her brain shut down.

The forest that formed under the rubble scared them even more. It was unlike anything they had seen. To exist even near the alien landscape unsettled the humans. Even worse was the fact that Sophia seemed pleased it existed. The angel turned to face the survivors, all stopping their grieving to await her next move.

“Mortals. Your land is pure, now,” She held out her palm and the platform went away. All fell onto her soft skin. She continued, “You will find the forest is amenable to you. The plants are edible, and the trees provide excellent wood. This is a gift from the heavens, so use it wisely. Or there will be consequences,” She stared at the humans with cold anger.

This feels like a nightmare. Is this real? She had tried hurting herself, screaming, touching others. Nothing awoke her. There was just one more thing to try. Slowly walking to the edge of Sophia’s palm, she looked up at the woman one last time and stepped off to the colorful forest below.

Falling.

She tumbled through the air, speed picking up far faster than she imagined. The terror she immediately felt confirmed with finality that she was not dreaming. Unfortunate, then, that she was about to die this way, after having survived all the rest of the dangers. How long has it been? A few hours? Funny, I always thought Apocalypse would take longer. Her mind became blank as she accepted the absurdity of the latter few hours of her life, ending so abruptly.

Floating.

Amelia slowly descended along with the survivors above the angel’s palm. She felt a pressure on her leg that compressed bone. Sophia had gripped her with her fingers. Unfortunately, she grabbed too hard, and after a minute of resistance, her leg broke. Fire shot from her nerves as she screamed. The angel paid little mind as she descended. Sophia was shrinking down as they fell, until she returned to her original size, 50 feet. The humans all dropped one foot to the ground, and all except Amelia were safe and unharmed. Amelia fell over, her leg still damaged. Then two men approached, one of them spoke in a quiet, soothing voice, “Amelia? I’m a doctor. Let me check your leg out, okay?”

Amelia nodded in between moans of agony as the doctor examined her. “It’s broken. Feels like it shattered at a few places. I’m going to need some…”

He stopped as Sophia stomped over to them. One glance at the men was enough to get them to flee the woman as Sophia pointed her index finger at Amelia. Suddenly, she felt bones move within her leg as they set back in place. The pain was still there, but Amelia felt she could use the leg again. Sophia bent down to face the woman.

“Don’t use that leg too much. It needs a day or so to be up to snuff. I need you healthy for our new world.”

The woman grimaced in pain, shaking from fear, “What do you mean, angel?”

“You are worthy of being my voice. The mortals of this world need guidance to be pure and clean. I know how, and you will speak for me. You shall be a prophetess, Amelia.”

Amelia looked at her with confusion, “W-why me?”

“Don’t worry about that. This is not your choice to make. You are my mouthpiece. You will lead the Temple. You shall keep the flock.”

She stood, “You will build Her a great temple. Use the dark stone and mighty trees laid here. From the Temple you shall lead this realm in praise and honor of the Great Mother. You are to obey Her tenets, and Her commandments. You will ensure the piety of every mortal under the sun. You shall remember me as the executor of Her vengeance and Her authority. We will purge the heresy and infidelity from the land. And you, Amelia, are the mortal I will act through. Do you understand, little thing?”

“...Yes, O Great One. We will follow your way.”

Sophia nodded, eliciting the trust she had in Amelia. Nevertheless, she wanted to ensure she understood how this arrangement would be enforced, “Do not lead the flock astray. I will know if you abandon our Mother once again. Be faithful,” She leaned in close, Amelia still shaking on the ground. The angel of death spoke low, “I will be watching.”

She stood up, gazing at the sky, and her figure began to fade into the air. With a wisp of wind, she was gone. Amelia was helped up by one of the men, who she used as a crutch while they walked over to the cluster of survivors. The newly appointed leader stared up at a great slab of stone. Beyond fear now, all she felt was the lingering feeling of being observed. One of the women spoke up to her, “Amelia. We were thinking of setting camp away from the forest. Maybe by the mountains to the West?”

Their prophetess didn’t look away, still watching the stone, “No. Build camp here. Tomorrow we start construction on the Temple.”

White light flooded Joshua’s vision once more as he brought his head from the mirror, watching as Amelia’s view of the great black stone disappeared. “I don’t know what to say,” he was in shock. From his time in the Temple he knew at least some of the story was a lie, but this? If this is truly what happened then the Temple’s version is a total fabrication! He looked up at the giant who brought him here, her eyes narrowed in anger, the golden specks shining bright, “They killed her. For the crime of not putting up with their abuse. And they get rewarded for it! Now, half of you mortals think Sophia’s the supreme angel, second only to the Great Mother herself! For her neglect, she accrued more power than she already had.”

Joshua winced, “Well, that sounds like religion, in my experience. The awful ones get the power, then they’re given more when it’s revealed just how bad they really are.”

Ylagog sighed at this, “It doesn’t have to be this way. Your little cult may empower the Seraphim, but they’re not the only ones with power or agency.”

Joshua guessed where she was going, though he was shocked to realize it, “By the stars. You want to finish what Jessamine started, don’t you!?”

The woman looked down at him, her eyes shimmered again, “Down Sophia’s path you will be oppressed. You will suffer, all for the control of mortal women and men who use your faith against you. They don’t care about honoring Sophia! They’re just scared she’ll return to smite more if they turn from her. Jessamine wanted control, too, but she also wanted you to live rich, full lives. She offered a deal, a trade. Sophia demands your obedience for the reward of being allowed to obey her.”

“And… you want this, too?”

“I can guide humanity to greatness. I know all. I will help you accomplish feats your little brains can’t even comprehend.

Joshua was uncertain. Ylagog was a sight better than Sophia, but it seems all angels are capable of terrible acts. Will she keep to the path of a gentle, guiding hand or will she inevitably crush humanity under her heel if they stray from her?

“Do you want me to swear I will protect you? Will that help show I am committed to you mortals?”

Joshua looked down, thinking. Soon his head turned back up, “You mean a Pact? Yes, it would.”

“I will want your cooperation. We will use your bloodline to undermine the Keepers. You may find yourself with many enemies in this fight. Are you willing to accept that?”

“…Yes.”

The Luminary plucked up the man suddenly, pinning him between her thumb and index finger. She brought her other hand to her heart and uttered an incantation in the ancient language. Then, she made her promise,

“I Ylagog, Luminary, angel of forbidden knowledge, do swear upon the word of the Great Mother that I will protect and guide humanity to its highest potential, forever and ever until the end of the species.”

The world around them shook. “I Joshua, barber, do swear upon the venerable High Saint Amelia that I will assist the Luminary Ylagog in deposing the Council of Angels and their mortal lackeys. I do witness and honor this pact!” Once more the world shook, this time violently. Ylagog gently squeezed Joshua in her hand, “Thank you, little one. Now, we have work to do, don’t we?” Suddenly, they whisked away to the spot he landed on when he was summoned here. “I will return you to your village,” She said as she dropped him to the floor. “Await a package from me. It will tell you where we shall begin.”

Joshua stood a bit away from the angel, her tone betraying a gleeful sadism. “Ylagog, we won’t hurt too many humans, right? Just the angels?”

The woman looked down in annoyance, “We must act against the humans. They empower the angels. Many will die by the time we are finished. I would have thought you realized that when you swore to help.”

Joshua’s stomach dropped, “B-but you promised to protect humans!”

Her eyes flashed, “No, I promised to protect humanity. The concept. All of you as a group are mine to defend. Individuals, many will perish for the benefit of the rest.”

“Ylagog, I can’t do anything that would--”

“MORTAL. You swore. Will you defile the name of your creator by disobeying me?”

Joshua cowered at her voice, “NO! No, great Luminary, I will obey you.”

Ylagog patted him on the head with her finger, “Good boy. Now, go back to your library. I’ll be in touch.”

She didn’t wait for him to stand up straight as she snapped her fingers, Joshua feeling dizzy and his vision grew dark. Suddenly, his eyes adjusted to the library. He was sitting there, as he had before he fell into Ylagog’s clutches. An attendant, watching a clock on the wall, motioned to Joshua that his time was up. He stood, legs shaky with fear, and stumbled out of the meditation room, back to his home.

As he approached his humble abode just above his barber shop, he nearly tripped over a package left in front of the door. It was a parcel about the size of a shoe box, with a letter tied to the top. He picked it up, whatever was inside was heavy and uniform. Once he got home, he took a massive swig of rum, trying to drown out his lingering dread and terror at the divine knowledge he was given, and what it had cost him. I may hate the angels and the Keepers, but the way she… demanded my total obedience. Is she any better, truly? He couldn’t bear to decide, so instead he finished the rum bottle and tore open the package. Inside was a large, flat stone. Pitch black in color, it was shiny enough that Joshua could see his face reflected in the glistening rock. The stone was adorned with a rune on the side, painted in blood. Confused, he opened the attached letter, realizing that his life was about to get much more interesting:

Dear Joshua,

I hope you enjoy my sculpture! Rock carving is a wonderful way to pass the time. Please, feel free to gift this stone to your local Shepard. I’m sure she’d love to see it displayed at the altar of her Temple!

Mother light your path,

Miss Y.