Atlantis, tall and proud island city. Atlantis, the ruler of the world, the keeper of the universe's secrets.

 Eternal Atlantis, crowned Atlantis, was burning. Its tall buildings crumbling to the ground.

The Nephilim, who had been mindless weapons for the emperor until now, had rebelled. These giants which had made up Atlantis' conquering legions were now tearing the city they had protected for so long down.

Where were the Grigori now?

 Samyaza, prideful to a fault, who had taken the emperor's sister for wife and had given the then prince the heavenly mandate. The name of the almighty himself.

 Azazel, who had thought the prince how to fight with the sword and shot with the bow. Who had told him of all that lay beyond the borders of the island, when before all its inhabitants had thought that it was all there was to it. That they were all alone.

Where were Baraqel and Chazaqiel? Those who helped with the building of the ships and the navigation of the ocean?

 Where was wise Penemue?

The one who thought the prince the mystery of the ink and paper and made him an Emperor? The one who demanded Emperor Nikola's heart for the gift.

Only to disappear from the man's quarters when the giants, led by his son, who he had sired on his female lover Vasiliki, rebelled, and begun to tear down the civilization that the emperor spend a thousand-year building?

Emperor Nikola looked out of his window as he saw Pallas, his stepson, hurl a stone at the palace. The building shook and Nikola resumed his drawing on the ground. He had slit his wrists for this. His lifeblood dripping down the sleeves of his once white toga.

 To better paint the symbols needed for his task. He wasn't going to die. Penemue had shared his immortality with him. Nikola cursed his consort then, for Penemue should have calmed his son.

Should have told him that the Nephilim were getting more and more rights, more so than even the Atlanteans. Penemue had chosen to abandon the island of Atlantis in its time of need, and now the only one who could do anything to stop the giants was Nikola himself. Nikola, whose ears rang with the screams of his people, his heart heavy.

He shouldn't have laid with an angel of the Lord. He should have left Penemue when Vasiliki grew heavy with child.

Poor, beautiful Vasiliki. His fourteen-year-old great-granddaughter, to whom he was supposed to give the throne.

 But he hadn't.

 And now Pallas, who wanted the throne for himself, was rebelling against the one who was both his grandfather and father, the rest of the Nephilim following him.

Nikola finished writing the last of the signs and brought the dagger to eye level. Penemue had always liked his emerald eyes. He had composed more than one poem for them. Kissed them closed after more than one night of passion, their exhausted but sated bodies snuggled into one another.

And now Nikola was going to gauge one, or both if it wasn't enough, out in the hopes that the waters of the ocean proved a worthy opponent for the spawns of the angels.

A good grave for his people, their island sinking to the bottom. If God was merciful, then a good grave for him as well.

He bit his lips and blood flowed down his jaw as the dagger begun its bloody work. He didn't scream, though. Living for 1018 years old had shown him the world for what it was. Had given him joy, had given him sorrow.

He had lived, seen it all. The people who were screaming in terror below didn't have such a long life.

 But he had to do this. For all the Nephilim had gathered on the island and if he didn't kill them all now, they would spread like a plague across the world.

His eye fell down on the floor with a wet slosh and Nikola blinked back the tears from his one remaining one. He placed his eyeball in the center of the ritual circle and begun to chant the incantation for rain.

The carnage which ruled the island would multiply the magnitude, and when he saw the first raindrops falling from the heavens, he began a chant that awoke the sleeping volcano at the outskirts of the island.

Pallas roared, and Nikola allowed himself a smile full of teeth. He was Emperor no longer, for when the storm finished its bloody work, there was not going to be anything left of the island and all the lands which he took over with fire and violence would be free.

 And he?

 He would sink to the bottom of the ocean. To be eaten by sharks, his marrow sucked out by fish. Atlantis had been a civilization, a place of learning.

The sun was setting on its magnificent white buildings, the screams of humans and giants alike it's funeral march. A worthy end for an empire.

Nikola stood up and went to the balcony. The railing was broken from a stone hurled by a giant, but he wasn't afraid of the fall. The ritual needed one more thing so that the island would sink.

The torment of the one who cast the ritual.

Nikola had never felt braver than at this moment. Penemue's name was on his lips as he leapt down. A bird's feather fell with him. It had the same black color as Penemue's wings.

Nikola allowed himself to snatch it and pretend it had fallen from a wounded Penemue who had attempted to stop his son and save his lover. He closed his remaining eye and smiled softly; the feather clutched in his hand.

The feather was too small to have come from the angel's wings, he knew, his mind refusing to allow him the small mercy of a white lie.

The reality of this hit Nikola harder than the impact with the ground. Darkness swallowed him whole, as the volcano erupted, and Atlantis, the beating heart of civilization, ceased to be.