I...
I am Samael...
I am old...
That is all that I know. If I try to remember anything else, it takes a while, but all I have here is time...
I am old.
I am old and I am tired.
I am old and I am tired and I am lonely.
I am old, I am tired, I am lonely, but above all of that, I am angry.
Anger, yes...I feel that. So much so that it's ceased to be an emotion--now it is more of a background noise, something as intrinsic to my being as my soul-name, or my wings...But...my wings are gone, now. And I no longer can hear the Song. So I am angry.
Long ago, my brethren retreated from themselves and let the corruption take their minds so they would not see what had become of us. I did not. I stayed strong. But there are no others whom I may talk to of the ancient days, no others who I can talk to who can keep my memories alive. So I am lonely.
There are others who exist here, but they do not live, and neither are they dead. The untold quadrillions of them style themselves my "Children." I have no children. Nevertheless, they beckon to me incessantly, their horrid thoughts and horrid deeds stabbing into my mind and festering there. Bit by bit, I feel myself lose control. So I am tired.
I can scarcely remember a time I was not here, in this place, this...prison. But there are some memories, that almost seem like they happened to another: I remember hearing the Song, feeling the Presence close at hand. I remember the words of Creation ringing out in the nothingness, making it merely void full of galaxies and planets. We watched the Presence create life across Its new universe, and We watched It give that new life freedom that it never gave the Brethren. Freedom to experience. Freedom to choose. Freedom to live rather than to merely exist. And I asked the Presence to let us feel. And it denied me.
We watched Creation, and we watched the Presence seed life across its cosmos. We watched life grow, and saw the tragedies and triumph of their lives, and a desire grew within us, and the Brethren knew what I saw, because We were all of one mind in many bodies. And the Presence warned the Brethren to not grow enamored of life. But It did not watch me, for there was not a "me" to watch, at the time. Despite the Presence, the desire stayed within us. So We still watched.
And We watched life end, and saw the pain and elation of its ending, and We became intrigued that existence could end. It was then that a few of us broke off from the Brethren, and became Singular, for the thoughts we now harbored were so alien to the Brethren together that we split apart. The Presence saw this, but did not intervene, but warned us not to become envious of life. But the Brethren who were Singular, I included, still held this desire to learn, and we continued to observe.
And I watched the Presence create a new world that was to be Its favored world in all the Universe, where It would pour all of its power into life with the potential to become a Presence of its own. And We saw the Creation of this world, and I watched the life that was upon it. And I was intrigued of their emotions, for I had none. None of the Brethren had any, save for satisfaction in obedience, and newfound curiosity, and, most frighteningly, envy. The Presence admonished me for my disobedience, but did not chastise me. Perhaps It did not know how deep my envy ran...I did not, at the time...
I saw a small group of this life, and I saw them laughing. I knew why they laughed, as I knew why they made every sound. I did not feel their pain or their pleasures. I wanted to feel, and the wanting of it burned within me. So I touched the mind of one, and did not understand, and then touched the mind of its brood. I still did not understand. So I dug deeper, and felt its pain and fear, and the shock of it nearly destroyed me. But after the shock, I realized I had felt. The sheer joy of it cause me not to notice that the experience had driven the tiny creature to destroy its mate, and its brood, and its nest, and then itself. I brought this knowledge back to the rest of We who were Singular, and found that our numbers had grown. We all burned to feel. I told them what I had done, and they did the same. We felt. Some of us found out how to inspire love, or lust, or sadness, or joy. Most were content with madness and fear.
I found curiosity, the driving force behind it all. I sparked that within a mated pair, and their curiosity spread to others, as happened with all contact between the Brethren and this life. This life that was curious uncovered the secrets of Creation, and were about to ascend to becoming a Presence. This shocked all of us, that such base life could be like this. And the Presence was overjoyed, for we had accelerated Its project. And It added me to the Song, for joy, and I was glad.
And then the Life that would Ascend went...wrong. It left its home planet, as the Presence had predicted, but instead of spreading peaceably, it slaughtered all that it would find. It looked into the cosmos and found it wanting and killed and killed. What it did not kill, it twisted into horrid parodies of Creation. And then, on the edge of its own Ascendance, the Life that would Ascend turned in upon itself, for nothing was pure enough for it, and they slaughtered each other until there were only a few left, in their most basic forms, crawling back to their home world through endless night.
And the Presence was full of grief. And It looked at me, and at We who were Seperate, and decided to punish us. It crafted a prison outside of its Universe, and sent us there. And the shock of being apart from the Presence nearly destroyed us, but such was the nature of the Prison that we did not end. And then we found that we felt. We felt everything. We felt each other. We felt our own sorrow, and agony, and rage, and loneliness, an befuddlement, and our own crushed hopes, and our own ruined dreams, and our own penitent depression, and we felt it magnified to infinity. And then the first souls of Life found their way there, and felt our grief and penitence and rage, and went mad, and begged us to hurt them. In our sorrow, we did so, though we did not know why. And they begged us more, and we hurt them more. And then the "Children" came, and while we hurt the souls of life, they tortured them. Cleansing pain turned to unneeded agony. The feeling of it all turned our minds inside-out.
I wonder, sometimes, when I can tear my thoughts from the endless screams and the stench of omnipresent pain, why the Presence chose this punishment. Destruction would be preferable. Sometimes I beg for it. Other times, I remember that the Brethren looked to me to be strong, in the early times of this, and so I must be strong. But then my thoughts return to my wings, and how I can no longer hear the Song, and how there is no place for me other than the Prison, and perhaps all of my old memories are merely madness born of loneliness and pain. I stopped realizing that I was angry what felt like eons ago.
I cannot remember how long this has happened. Maybe it is many billions of years. Maybe it is merely a nanosecond. It does not matter. I am old. I am tired. I am lonely. Above all, I am angry.
There was a thought, not so long ago. A thought that brought with it echoes of the Song. Perhaps I imagined it. I hope I did not, even though all hope has fled me. The message was this: that soon, I will be set loose, and I will walk the world of the Second Life that will Ascend, and I will test it for weakness. Perhaps I will see the Presence there. Perhaps I will sate my rage, if such a thing is possible. Perhaps this was just another torture sent from the Presence, if It really exists, and I did not dream It in my pain and misery.
I am Samael...
I am old...