At the first God made the Heaven and the Earth. And the Earth was waste and without form; and it was dark on the face of the deep: and the Spirit of God was moving on the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God, looking on the light, saw that it was good: and God made a division between the light and the dark, Naming the light, Day, and the dark, Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

He created them as a pair, for none could be without the other. Without light, there is no darkness, and without darkness, there cannot be light. For the absence of light is not darkness, but nothing. There is no sharp cut between the light and the dark, they flow into each other when they meet, creating a soft twilight, tender moments of morning and evening in which both are neither and neither are both. And they were made by God, who loved them dearly, as His first creations, and He saw that it was good. They were His creations of the first day, His day and night, filling the nothing. And so God sent them into His new world, into the universe, to fill it with the light of stars and the deep darkness around them, for without darkness surrounding the light could not shine in all its brilliance and glory. And so they went and created all the light and all the darkness in the universe to worship His glory and tho praise His undying love.

They were created together, to complete each other in their worship of their allmighty Father, whom they loved with every fibre of their beings, for they were created by His love and they were created to love Him. They were the first of His children, and He saw, that it was good, and so he created more of them, to be all their brothers and sisters, and he namend them Angels.

He willed to give them names and voice and form, for it was His wish to send them down from Heaven, where they lived with Him in his Silver City, to His Earth to do His willings and thus they needed bodies. He gave all of them a name of their own, a God-given gift of spirit and soul and identity. But He gave them no free will, for this was His most precious gift to give, and even if he loved them all dearly, this one gift he kept to give to the humans, whom He had created last and who were Earth-bound in their bodies, with only their eternal souls to reach His Heaven. Why He decided to do so He did not explain and He was not to be asked.

Of all his angels, His Day, His Lightbringer he loved the most. He named him Samael, the Blindness of God, for his light was to shine so bright that all other of his creation had to bow their heads and shield their eyes from the glory of God that shone trough him. But as no life can be without the light, he could also bring death and destruction, for the light is fire and is heat, wild and destructive, and thus he was also the Venom of God. But Samael despised this part of himself, for he loved joy and passion and creation and did not want too destroy it and so he buried this destructive and consuming part of his nature deep inside of him.

Of all his angels, only one was equal to Samael, only one he loved the same, the Night, with whom comes darkness. He named her Azrael, the Help of God, for she could bind the light of Day and protect creation from Samael`s brightness and she alone could calm his fire. She was darkness and relief. But she also could bear death and destruction for the night is dangerous and the full wrath of darkness is what all of God's creation feared the most. But Azrael feared this side of herself, for she loved life and creation and would do no harm, and so she buried this part of her nature deep inside of her.

And Azrael loved Samael dearly, second only to her love for God, and Samael loved Azrael dearly, second only to his love for God. And Samael made the Morningstar to praise their Father and to show how much he loved Him, so all Earth would always remember, for it shone brightest and longest. And Azrael praised her brother for creating such a wonderful gift to their Father, but also a great sadness came into her heart, for she was night and darkness and would never create something as beautiful as a star for the praise of Father. Samael felt his sister's pain and he wanted it to vanish so he made for her the Evenstar, which's brightness and beauty was second only to the Morningstar's, as a gift to show her his love and to guard her through her nightly reign so she would always remember that all his stars were shining only because her darkness surrounded them, that without her gift of darkness his gift of light would be nothing. Thus Azrael smiled again, and together they walked Heaven and Earth to fulfill their Fathers command and obey his wishes, to praise Him and to love Him and each other, and they praised His creation in all its forms and were joyful for all the living creatures around them. And God smiled upon his eldest children and saw that it was good.

One day God called upon Samael and sent him down to Earth with a task. He was to enter the Garden of Eden, which God had created as a home for his final creation, man, whom God had given the gift of free will. He wanted proof if His creation was worthy of this supreme gift of choice, and so he sent Samael to challeneg this choice, to tempt man and woman into disobeying His orders, for they had free will and were therefore able to do so. And Samael did as his Father had wished and went into the Garden of Eden and tempted the humans to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge, what God had forbidden.

The task was easy, as humans were curious by nature and had already longed to taste the forbidden fruit, so the angels's tempting was just the last push, the invitation they needed. So Adam and Eve ate from the fruit of knowledge. And with the knowledge came shame and fear and terror for they knew know about good and evil and that what they had done was not good, as it was the greatest sin to disobey God's command, and that Gods wrath was to come upon them. And it did. The Lord was furious with his creation, whom he presented with everything they needed under the one condition not to taste the fruit of one of thousands of trees, but the humans disobeyed Him and His only command. So he cast them out of the Garden of Eden forever.

Samael had no pity for the cast-out humans, for they brought the Lord's wrath upon them all by themselves for not obeying His command. Who were they not to cherish his Father's most precious gift? Who were they to even be worthy enough to receive this gift? Why had not the angels received this gift of his Father, he and his brothers and sisters, who would surely be far more worthy of such a precious gift than those humans? Were they not eternal after all? Were they not beautiful? Were they not God's first and most beloved creation? Was not he, Samael, God's most beloved child? So, was not this most precious of all gifts his to receive? This Samael thought and envy started to grow, for when such Earth-bound creatures as humans could be trusted with free will, than why not the angels either? And so in him proud and anger grew at the same time. He shared this thoughts with his brothers and sisters, and some of them agreed with him and others not, but none dared to think about it themselves, as they thought it blasphemy. And those who agreed with him, did so in silence, but did nothing more. Who are we to question our Father's will? would they say. For we do not know His plan.

This brought a deep bitterness into the Lightbringer's heart. If there was a plan, he thought, why were they not worthy enough knowing about it? Surely they could not interfere with it, having no free will. They would have to go through with his Fathers plan, whatever it was, because they had no other choice. In this troubled state of mind he was when Azrael found her beloved brother. She could feel his anger and his bitterness, as they were one. Samael confided in her, talked to her about his new longing for free will. And Azrael understood her brother, for without free will they were just tools - beloved, beautiful, sometimes terryfing, but still nothing more than tools. And tools they did not want to be.

So they went before God and asked to be given free will, but He refused. Why will You not gift us with free will, Father? Samael asked. Do You not love us? Are we not Your favourite children? Are we not worthy enough?

This angered the Lord, for He was not to be questioned and was not to be demanded from. So he forbade his children to ever come before Him with this need again.

Samael, who was fire and who was light and who was heat, was enraged by this answer, so No! he claimed and refused to leave. I demand free will! And by this he was making a choice and through this choice he had created free will by himself. And with creating free will for himself he had also created it for Azrael for they were one and what was his was also hers.

This filled God with rage. How dare Samael disobey Him? How dare he to choose without being allowed to do so? Had He not given his children everything? Had He not given them his love? Had He not loved Samael the most of all? And yet he demanded more! And whilst being full of rage, also a great sadness filled the Lord, for through questioning his decisions and creating free will without allowance his most beloved son had committed the greatest of all sins.

Your rebellion shall not go without punishment, the Lord said to his son. For you have disobeyed Me and acted against My command and are not worthy of My love anymore and of existing in My presence, and so hear your sentence: An outcast you shall be, for all eternity, banned from Heaven, not allowed to return to the Silver City ever again. And with that word He cast Samael out of Heaven and threw him into the Chaoplasma, the void of eternal nothingness, where he was to stay for all eternity, all alone, not able to bring light into a place without darkness.

And so He did and then He turned to look at His daughter, at Azrael, his beloved, who was on her knees beginng her Father to undo his command, to let her brother return. Pain was ripping her apart, for she was him and he was her and with casting Samael out the Lord took away from Azrael what was most precious to her. So Azrael cried and begged for her brother to be released from the nothingness, screaming in agony for the loss of her brother.

But the Lord was not to relent. Azrael also had free will now, but without creating it for herself, for her brother had created it for both of them. Still, she had come before Him supporting Samael's request, also questioning His will, which was betrayal, but not as much as her brother's, for she was tempted into her betrayal by Samael. Yet still she had committed sin against Her Father, so a punishment had to be cast.

In this moment, another godly presence appeared next to God, and it was the Goddess. She had once been a part of Him but had Herself seperated from His entity and was now a being of Her own with an eternal mind of Her own, but still, as She had been Him, He was omnipotent and She was not, at least not completely. She was Creation and all of His children were also Her children. After the completion of Earth She had laid to rest but now She had risen again, awoken by the agony of Her most beloved daughter and the absence of Her most beloved son. And She called upon God's mercy for Samael, for was he not the brightest of all of God's children? Was he not the one who had shown his love for God in the most brilliant way? Had he not made the Morningstar to praise God's glory?

And so the Goddess plead for Her son and Azrael begged for her brother and God decided to have mercy upon the one He once had loved the most, whom He still loved the most, but who had betrayed His love. And so God changed the sentence. He willed the Chaoplasma to transform into a place for all those doomed, all those not worthy of his love, all those, who brought sin upon themselves through their acts of free will. All those souls to come should go to this place, which he named Hell for it was where all the damned souls should be hidden from heavenly bliss for all eternity if they could not redeem themselves. And His son was to rule them all, for his betrayal was the greatest sin of all. So for all eternity he was to punish the souls of the humans he thought so unworthy of the gift of free will, to always remind him of what he lost by claiming it and what free will could lead to.

And the Goddess praised Him for His mercy and went to rest again. And Azrael looked upon Her father, her heart filled with fear, but also grateful for the changed sentence on her brother. And then God looked at her and cast His sentence on His daughter: For your betrayal I shall give you a new task to fulfill for all eternity. All My creation shall fear you, all shall shatter in terror when you come, they shall flee you and hide from you. I give you the power to kill, my beloved, to wipe out of existence entirely every single one of my creations, even your brothers and sisters. And knowing thus, they will fear you, and you shall be alone. You will be what all creation will fear most. You will be Death. You will walk the Earth and take lives at my command, lives that will not go to Hell, but will be wiped out of existence entirely. You may remain in Heaven, but you shall not be able to enter Hell, as it is your brothers realm, and you are not to see each other again.

And this was God's sentence and so was it to be. And Azrael, heartbroken and alone, feared by the angels and feared by man, as she was the Angel of Death, walked the Earth to fulfill her Father's command. She wiped out the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha, she killed the firstborn sons of the Egyptians, destroyed the army of Sennacherib, always bringing pain and misery with her. Her brothers and sisters eschewed her for even they were full of fear. And over the years, her heart grew colder and colder, to bear the pain her eternal task brought with it, staying longer and longer on Earth because she could not bear the joy of Heaven anymore. The only relief she ever found was in looking upon the sky towards the Evenstar, her brother's gift to her, a brother who she would probably never lay eyes on again. Until one day she decided that she could take it no longer and decided to lay down and rest.

And Samael, the cast-out, the Fallen Angel, sat on the throne he never wanted to rule in Hell for all eternity, the misery of the damned eternal souls his constant companion. He had used his powers to create himself some company, demons and monsters of all kinds, born by Lilith, the first soul to be cast down Hell. Of all those creatures he had forged, Mazikeen was his favourite, his protection against all the pain he felt. His father hat taken away His love, He had called him unworthy, and had seperated him from Azrael, his beloved sister. It was unbearable, but he could not stop the pain. So, over the years he grew to accept it, use it even to punish his prisoners. When He had cast him into Hell, God had given him a second face, a charred and grotesque distorted mimic of his actual angelic beauty. It was pure terror, made to put fear into people, to destroy all their hopes and dreams. It was monstrous. Now he really was the Venom of God. But he did not want to be. He refused. And so, he decided not to be Samael anymore. No more blinding people with the glory of his inner light, no more poisoning their minds with his scarred second face. All he wanted was to return to his old self, to bring light and joy into the world, to fulfill desire and enjoy life. He longed to bring joy, for that was what he was made to be. A lightbringer. Lucifer. He was the Morningstar, he was fire, he was heat. So he decided to part from being Samael any longer. This name only bore pain. He was Lucifer from now on. More a description than a name, a wish, a hope, but something to look forward to. Samael was his past. And so the millenia passed and Lucifer, the involuntary King of Hell, fulfilled his punishment by punishing the unfortunate side effects of free will. Until he could take it no longer and decided to take a vacation.

Did you like it? It is supposed to be a prequel to a longer story... I'm searching for beta readers... please leave a comment...