I awoke - or perhaps it was my first awakening - in what seemed to be a room with no visible ceiling. An infinite number of bright stars could be seen as a full moon lit up the sky and the earth on this cold night.
"Where am I?" I asked myself. Trying to search my memories I realised that I could not remember anything. Not my species, not my hypothetical family, not even my name.
Panicked -as any sane person would be- at this fact, I tried to stand up to better apprehend my surroundings. I discovered two pale beige arms and two legs, barely muscular, in short, I looked like a very ordinary Caucasian human being. I was wearing the clothes of a 19th century military officer, whose country and rank I did not recognise, the outside being black and the inside a dark green. As I became aware of my body, something caught my eye ;
a strange symbol was on the palm of my left hand. It consisted of an outer and inner circle with four Latin letters in between. Finally, inside the inner circle was a complex set of interlocking shapes, too hard to describe in words. My first thought was of a tattoo, however I could only refute this idea; a tattoo is fixed, where the symbol always seems to point in one direction. I was so fascinated and fearful of this fact that I only heard the sounds of approaching footsteps shortly before a woman appeared.
She looked beautiful to me; her white hair and beautiful blue eyes were set off by her brown skin, her body was covered by beautiful pre-Islamic Persian clothing through which one could make out a slight musculature. Before I could even say who she was, she spoke to me.
"Finally born! "Born? "I replied in astonishment;
to my knowledge there was no creature on this earth born with a complex language like ours, nor even at their adult size. Nor did I come out of any woman while no trace of eggshell was visible.
"Don't worry, it's normal to be lost once our consciousness appears. I know you have many questions in mind so I'll let you list them, then I'll answer them.
"Who... no. What am I, what are you, what is this place and what are we doing here?"
"Is that all?"
"For the moment yes,"
I answered, these four questions were the only ones that I felt were worthwhile at the moment. No other question was as important to me as these.
"Well," she replied,
"you are, like me, one of the primordial demons, the so-called first generation demons born from nothingness and soul dust. The seal in our hand is proof of that. This place is none other than our sacred sanctuary, the place where the great avenger understood the misdeeds of God, the place where our lord Baal was revealed as our king, and finally the birthplace of transcendent beings like us. "
She paused and looked at me, probably to see if I was still listening,
"Well, for your last question I am here to raise you. Teaching you the basics of power and knowledge before you can rise on your own. "
As I slowly assimilated the information given, a question popped into my head.
"May I ask you another question?"
"Of course, what is it?"
"Why do you do it?"
As I asked this question, his previously cold eyes showed a hint of curiosity,
"Can you elaborate?"
"Why are you raising me? Certainly, it has many advantages for me. However, the arrival of a new primordial demon should upset the power balance in demonic society, shouldn't it? In that case, Baal would be well advised to educate me personally so that I would trust him and become loyal, no?"
"Do you think he can waste time doing that? "If so, it would have been in his interest to educate me, otherwise he must offer his bonds to one of his trusted vassals. But it is obvious that you do not hold Baal in your heart because of the lack of conviction when you call him our lord."
"As I explained my point of view, a smile came over his face. It was a sincere smile, but for some reason a feeling of unease ran through my body at the smile.
"You're pretty smart for a newborn. "she replied, saying nothing else, dodging the question.