She moved closer to the bowl, looking down into it with a face full of fear. Glancing back up at us, she swallowed.
“While I am gone, you must do your best to manage death in my absence. The scythe cannot be wielded by an angel. One of you must use it to manage death.” She glared at Yahweh, and He narrowed his eyes on her, clearly annoyed that He would still have need for demons while she was gone. She turned back to us.
“You must manage the catalog. Do not let the souls fester. Promise me.”
“Lilith,” I croaked, but Shem nodded.
“I promise, Lil,” he said, his voice coming out cracked and broken.
She pursed her lips and looked up at Yahweh over His bowl of nothing.
“You swear you will let them go?” she reaffirmed, and He nodded again.
“Yes, Lilith. I swear. Now get in.”
She gave us one last look, a large tear sliding down her cheek.
“I love you,” she whispered. Then, Lilith willingly crawled into purgatory, and I felt like I would never feel happiness again.
“Let us go,” Shem snarled next to me. I couldn’t speak—I didn’t know what it felt like for mortals to die, but I was sure it could not be as painful as this.
Yahweh turned to us, smiling that evil fucking smile, and He shook His head gently. Shem hissed.
“You just fucking swore to her!” he yowled, and I felt the clouds beneath my knees shift as Shem and I were both suddenly dragged forward.
“I promised I would let you go. I didn’t saywhen,”Yahweh laughed.
“You fuckingbastard!”Shem was thrashing in his restraints, but I couldn’t bring myself to move or care about being let go. Lilith was gone, and so was my fucking will to live.
“In you go. I’ll fish you back out when we need you again,” Yahweh hummed, dragging Shem to his feet and shoving him roughly into the bowl. The last thing I heard Shemhazai say before he disappeared was,“Fuck you, you fucking fuck!”
Yahweh turned to me next and tutted His tongue. I looked up at Him, waiting to feel angry, but I didn’t. I just felt dead inside. All I could think about was how my stupid fucking actions had resulted in Lilith being sentenced to purgatory.
“Ramel, I must say, you have been my biggest disappointment. What possessed you to think that you could run away and live with the Queen of Death?”
I shook my head, now unsure what I had been thinking. Feeling small and young again, I swallowed. My eyes burned with tears.
“I just didn’t want her to be lonely,” I whispered, reeling at the fact that I had somehow condemned her to an even more lonely existence. She was stranded in Yahweh’s bowl of purgatory. Who knew how long He would leave her there. Floating alone in a vast sea of nothingness.
Yahweh’s eyes flashed in glee at my admission. “Well, perhaps when I let you back out, and you have learned your lesson, you will realize that she deserves to be lonely, and you deserve to be the one who makes her that way.”
With that, He lifted me to my feet and plunged me face-first into a fate worse than death. I spent the next four-and-a-half millennia floating through blank space, with nothing to do but think about what I had done.
Year: 1001 AD
“The Devil is real. And he’s not a little red man with horns and a tail. He can be beautiful. Because he’s a fallen angel, and he used to be God’s favorite.”
—MADISON MONTGOMERY, AMERICAN HORROR STORY: COVEN
The massive hand of God appeared, and I jolted out of the dream-like state I had succumbed to after what had felt like an eternity. His fingers wrapped around me as if I were merely a small toy.
My stomach flipped.
It was time.
He was fishing me out.
I had no idea how long I had been here, and I had thought I might go mad with boredom and loneliness so many times I had lost count. Seeing the hand come down for me nearly reduced me to tears. I hadn’t seen anything other than blank space for so long that I’d forgotten what forms and shapeslooked like.
