I wrote this story back in 2012.
It was supposed to be a supernatural genre with a theme. It was one
of the best stories I had written and I read it to a lot of people. I
forgot about this tale, and on re-reading, I found it worthy of sharing with
very minor edits. So this is the first part of my angels versus demons
story.
Let me know what you think.
Comment below and start the discussion. Do you believe that Angels
and Demons can affect the way we think? Do you believe that God lets bad
things happen to good people? What other questions do you have? I'd
love to hear from you.
Theme: The Darkness will not overcome the Light
The Being
“Captain Darick, Sir?”
“What is it, Rogan?” I asked.
“You have orders to help John Morton,
Sir.”
I glanced up at the angel in the
doorway. “Send word that I will need six men.”
“Yes, Sir!” Rogan flew off, his wings
carrying him faster than the speed of light. I instantly grabbed a heavy, leather-bound
book from my desk, and began leafing through the pages.
“Where is it?” I asked no one in
particular. Finally, I found what I was
looking for, John Morton. I looked at
the page summarizing the life of John Morton and found that he was a missionary
in Afghanistan. He’ll need all the help we can give, I thought.
I closed the book tenderly, returned
it to my desk, and grabbed my belt from its hook on the wall. I fastened my belt around my waist as I flew
through the hallway leading to the portal. My belt had everything I needed to fight the
enemy, and without it, I would be in big trouble.
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The Man
I rolled over and groaned. My body
ached and my eyes felt like lead. I
worked hard to get them open; I couldn’t see anything when I did. Slowly, I shifted into a sitting position
while my eyes tried to adjust. Nothing
happened. I was surrounded by darkness, without one ray of light.
I was
hungry. I hadn’t eaten for a long time,
and my body knew it. It felt like the
stomach acid was eating away at my insides, since it had nothing else to
digest. I opened my mouth slowly, trying
to massage my sore jaw.
I
leaned my head back against the cold stone wall. I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face. The darkness, a suffocating blanket, completely
consumed me, and I was terrified. I was
engulfed in nothingness.
I
remembered why I was here. I had been
preaching the gospel to friends in Afghanistan. Well, perhaps they weren’t my friends; they
had double-crossed me. I had been
betrayed and handed over to a group of men known as “The Watch.”
The
Watch hated Christians, or anyone having anything to do with Christianity. They had blindfolded me and driven me to an
abandoned hospital, where they made their headquarters. They had questioned me, asking me things that
I had no idea about. I think they
finally believed me, because they brought me here.
I
didn’t know how long I had been in here. I no longer had my wristwatch; they had taken
everything I owned, except my clothing, so I had no clue as to what time it
was. I wondered if anybody knew where I
was, or if anyone even cared.
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The Being
The
portal room was a massive maze of colorful doorways, each leading to a
different country. Fortunately for me,
they were in alphabetical order so I didn’t have too far to go. I was already
late.
Joran, Phineas, Marcus, Rolf, Wes,
and Kasil were waiting next to the Afghanistan portal. Joran, a battle-scarred warrior with thick,
dark sideburns, had fought more battles than I could imagine. The huge muscular being towering over me was
Phineas. He had smashed many demons with
his fists alone. Marcus was a quick,
flexible angel; his reflexes were faster than lightning. The brown-headed twins, Rolf and Wes, were two
angels who did almost everything identically. The angel with his arms crossed over his chest
was Kasil, the Carrier. He was one of
the most vital ranks in our forces. Everyone,
except Kasil, wore a belt matching to mine.
“Alright, let’s go.” I opened the
door. The lighting was different in that
room. It was darker and more muted. I took a deep breath and walked through the
blue haze covering the wall.
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The Man
I woke up again. The stiffness in my body seemed to intensify
every time I woke up and I still couldn’t see. It scared me every time. I had never been scared of the dark, but the
feeling of being engulfed in pitch-blackness was a bit frightening.
Suddenly, a dim light flooded the
room. My eyes watered as I looked toward
the light. Through my tearing eyes I
could make out three figures entering a door in the opposite wall. As my eyes cleared, I could see where I had
been kept for what seemed like forever. I
was in a cell, with rusty, iron bars barricading my way to freedom. On the other side of the bars, I could see a folding
table and a wall full of cabinets.
I struggled to my feet as the men
came closer to me. I nearly fell down
again when I saw the malicious gleam in their dark eyes. The men looked at me and smiled, treacherously.
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The Being
The thrill of being shot through a
portal was exhilarating. All the breath
seemed sucked out of me and I couldn’t clearly see. The world whizzing by was blurry and out of
focus. I loved that feeling, but what I
didn’t love, was coming out of the portal. I couldn’t bear to be out of the warm, bright
presence of the Lord, and being in the cold, dark world that the Enemy had
claimed as its own.
I stepped
out of the portal and into another network of doorways. These doorways opened up into more portals
that, this time, led to people who were in Afghanistan. Whenever someone left the country so did his
or her door. The sporadic blinking of the doors, the shifting of doors taking
another’s place, the hissing sound of their movement, it was all mesmerizing,
but I had an impending mission, and couldn’t afford distraction.
I flew down the hallway to the “M”
section and quickly located the green door with John Morton printed above it. Green has always been the color of life, even
for humans. Green was on very few doors
I passed, and it grieved me. Most of the
doors were covered in black, the color of death. Those who had a blood red color around their
doors were inhabited by demons, and there were way too many of those. I
would have liked to enter any of these doors and fight the sin and darkness
away, but they were locked to me unless my Maker called me to open one.
I took a deep breath as I stood in
front of the one green door in sight. If
it was cold and dark in that room, entering a Veil was even more so. The Veil was like a bubble, surrounding a
human. From inside, we could ward off
demons, deliver messages, protect the human, etc. but we could not enter the
minds or hearts of the human. The Veil
was invisible to humans, unless by our King’s will, He chose to make us
visible.
I opened a pocket on my belt and withdrew
a long, slender sword. I waved it in the
air as I waited for my comrades to join me.
We had work to do.
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The Man
“You love man named Jesus?” One of
the men said, in halting English.
I cleared my throat and opened my
mouth to speak about how strongly I loved him, but I was forgetful of my aching
jaw. The pain shot through my ears and
into my skull. I groaned and nodded my
head, yes, instead.
The men laughed at me and I felt
foolish. I wished I could say something
intelligent, possibly persuasive. My
eyes were beginning to make out the details of my captors. They were all wearing the same colored clothing,
black. The one who spoke to me was tall,
taller than my cousin, a professional basketball player. The man pulling items out of the cabinets was
of medium height, closer to my size. And
the man coming towards me with a ring of keys in his hands was short, very
short.
He wasn’t intimidating while he
unlocked my cell, and he wasn’t intimidating while I stepped out. But the second I was outside the cell, he
kicked the back of my knee, and sent me sprawling to the stone floor. Very intimidated now, I stayed on the floor. Blood was pooling on my lip and I could almost
feel the goose egg growing on my forehead.
Suddenly, Shorty’s face was level
with mine and he gruffly asked, in barely comprehensible English, “Still love
Jesus?”
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The Being
With my sword in hand, I reached for
the handle of the door. Thick smoke surged
through the doorway. The black cloud undulated
in a serpentine motion towards me with alarming speed. I swung my sword through the haze and it
quickly dissipated, turning into dust.
My men rounded the corner. Joran and Marcus drew swords from their belts.
Rolf and Wes produced quivers of arrows
and long bows. Phineas had a great
hammer, which he swung uncomfortably close to my head.
Kasil did not have a weapon. The title of Carrier seemed like an oxymoron
to me, since Kasil carried nothing visible. He merely folded his arms across his chest and
waited patiently for us to move through the doorway.
Reluctantly, I moved forward. The oppressive smoke made it painfully obvious
that demons had entered the Veil. We
shone brightly as we pushed through the darkness. We could see where we were going, but there
was no hope for a surprise ambush. The
demons could also see where we were going.
“Kasil,” I called as loudly as I dared. “It is
time.”
Rolf and Wes sprang into action. The twins nocked arrows to their bowstrings
and drew them back. Kasil silently
stepped between them. Joran and Marcus
joined me at my sides, and I could feel Phineas’ breath behind me. We were ready.
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The Man
“Yes,” I said slowly and weakly, forcing my
puffy lip and obstinate jaw to move. “I love Jesus.” Every word seemed easier
as I pushed myself up onto my hands and knees.
The dwarf-man kicked me in the
stomach and my arms gave way, sending me back to the floor. I felt my body being lifted from the floor and
Tall Guy placed me in a folding chair next to the table. The medium-sized man put a plate of food in
front of me. I was wary of him,
especially because of the way he smiled at me, like the Cheshire cat in Lewis
Carol’s Alice in Wonderland.
“If you don’t love Jesus, you eat all
food you want,” Shorty said. I knew
exactly what he meant. I had to deny
Jesus to eat this food. I didn’t look at
the plate, but the smell of it made my mouth water. My stomach rumbled and I wanted to eat.
You could say that you don’t love him and get to eat, but still love him,
right? A voice seemed to ask me.
NO! What am I thinking? I can’t do that to Jesus. I thought.
But why not? You are hungry. Doesn’t Jesus want what is best for you? Does He want you to starve? The voice asked.
I… I can’t betray Jesus; just look how much He suffered for me.
Yeah, well where is He now? Why
hasn’t He come to rescue you?
Where was Jesus now? The unknown voice inside my head had a point. Where was Jesus now?
Is Jesus worth the pain you are suffering?
YES, no, well, maybe? I don’t know. I don’t know.
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The Being
“The light
shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” Kasil said. His voice rang out through the Veil. The way he spoke gave me the chills. His resonant, reverberating voice, spoke words
from the Lord Himself. Carriers were
mouthpieces of the King. The black smoke began to evaporate from
bottom to top.
Humans have always demons portrayed
as monsters, red creatures with pitchforks and horns; but I knew otherwise. Little did the Lord’s sheep know that these
fallen angels were as beautiful as the angels who had not sinned. Some were even more so, to make their
deceptions more attractive.
The smoke cleared. The absence of the dark cloud enabled us to
see everything, including the demons. I
was unnerved by how close they were without our knowing. Three beings stood before us. Nearly
everything about them was the same as us, except the robes they wore were blood
red, as apposed to our green, and they were smiling. It sickened me to know the names of one of the
demons; he used to be my friend.
Behind them, I could see another
fallen angel, a Carrier. His arms were outstretched;
his golden hair covered his handsome face. His mouth moved, but no words came out. With a quick glance to my right, I noticed
that Kasil too, had his arms extended and his head bowed.
“You have no place here,” I said
addressing their leader.
“Why can we not dwell where we
choose?” He asked saucily. Silfun had been a messenger angel and I knew
how he worked. He was bluffing, stalling
for time. I had no time to loose, I
wasn’t sure how long their Carrier had been at work, and so I cut right to the
point.
“You cannot dwell where you choose,
because you have no authority over the Lord.”
The demon paled, as did the others
with him. Without losing a beat, I
motioned for Phineas to take out the Carrier. Joran and Marcus moved closer to me. Rolf and Wes moved into a defensive crouch,
never once releasing the tension on their bowstrings. The showdown was about to begin...
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