The darkness seemed eternal, but it was not absolute. It had nuances, layers that revealed themselves only to those who stayed long enough to see them. However, when the figure appeared before me, there were no nuances. There was no doubt. It was a light so pure and unyielding that it seemed to hurt more than any fire or blade.
An angel.
The figure was tall, imposing, carrying a presence that seemed to bend the space around it. Its wings shone like newly born stars, but there was something in its features—a severity, an authority—that made my entire body tremble. It was not the romantic vision described in books, but something far more real and terrifying. There was no mercy in its gaze, only the undeniable truth.
Naka was unconscious in my arms. The sins—Lust, still shining in its purity, and the others, faint shadows—were scattered around me. Everything was quiet, but the silence was not peaceful. It was the kind of silence that precedes judgment.
"You tried to destroy what is not yours to destroy," the angel said, its voice resonating in my mind, as if it didn't need to be spoken in words to exist. "It's not just about Hell. You've gone too far."
"And you understand nothing about this," I replied, trying to rise despite my weakened body. "None of this matters. None of this is real. This place, these rules, this... creation. It's all just a distorted reflection of something that should never have been. I only wanted to see how far the emptiness you call divine would go."
The angel's eyes glowed, as if my words were a personal affront, but its voice remained unwavering.
"You speak like someone who thinks they have all the answers, but you don't even understand the questions." It raised its hand, and the shadows of the sins began to rise from the ground, as if drawn by an invisible magnet. Lust was the last to be touched by its light, but it didn't resist. It simply let itself be carried, looking at me one last time, as if telling me this was inevitable.
"Wait!" I shouted, taking a step forward, but the angel raised its other hand in my direction, stopping me instantly. It was like being hit by an invisible wall. "They have no choice! You know that! They can't change! They're part of all this, part of the creation you so revere! You made them this way!"
"And you think that absolves them?" asked the angel, tilting its head slightly, as if curious about my logic. "Each of you bears the weight of your choices. What you did here... you crossed a line that should not have been crossed. All of you will be judged. But you... you will have a choice."
"I don't want your choice," I retorted, trying to move forward again, but my legs trembled, and I could barely take more than two steps before falling to my knees. "I don't want your mercy. I want nothing from you or your Creator."
"It doesn't matter," replied the angel, its voice seeming to weigh even more in the air around me. "The choice will be made, whether you want it or not. You will be taken."
It was then that I decided to fight. Not out of pride, but because there was nothing else I could do. My hand grabbed a stone from the ground, a desperate attempt to cause any sort of damage to that untouchable figure. I advanced, with all the strength I had left, and threw the stone at it. It disintegrated in the air before even touching it.
Then, I drew the dagger I still carried with me—a blade stolen from some forgotten corner of Hell, now completely useless. But I attacked anyway, knowing there was no hope. The angel did not move until the last moment. That's when its sword appeared.
There was no sound. Only light. The blade pierced my chest as if made of pure fire, and the pain was indescribable. It didn't just cut flesh, but something deeper. My soul, perhaps. I felt every piece of me being torn apart, every thought, every memory, everything reduced to fragments that seemed to burn before even being consumed.
"You still don't understand," the angel said as I fell to my knees again, the sword still piercing my body. "You will have time to understand."
With a movement, it withdrew the sword, and my body fell backward, but I didn't die. I couldn't die there. Not in that place.
When I opened my eyes again, everything around me was different. There was no more fire, no more shadows, no more darkness. Only a white, blinding, endless light. The angel was there, and the sins too—bound in chains of light that shone like the sun itself. Even Naka was trapped, eyes closed, expression peaceful, as if simply sleeping.
"You will have millennia, perhaps more, to pay your debt," the angel said. "But only you will have the chance to leave."
"Why?" I asked, my voice barely a whisper. "Why only me?"
"Because the weight of creation is now in your hands," it looked at me with something that seemed almost like pity. "You will be the guardian of all you tried to destroy. Until you understand what it means to create and endure. Until you understand the burden carried by Him whom you despise."
I didn't answer. There was nothing to say. I knew that words would change nothing. I looked at the others—Lust, still pure, but chained like the others; Naka, still in her prison of light. And then, I accepted the weight of the chains that began to form around me, tightening my body, trapping me in the eternity I knew was only just beginning.
I dared not look directly at their faces. When I did, it felt like my soul was being shattered under the weight of their purity. Their gazes were like sharp blades, cutting through flesh and spirit, revealing my powerlessness before what they represented: a blind, relentless force that didn't care for my anguish, my pain, or my anger. They were beyond any compassion or human understanding, like something primordial, eternal, whose only function was to observe and execute what the Most High had decreed, without mercy.
More than decades in the sky... It was not what I had imagined. Trapped in its ethereal vastness, surrounded by an immaculate and uncontestable light, I lived as a contradiction: a man limited by eternity. The celestial prison is not made of bars or chains; it is made of immobility, of a light so intense it consumes any attempt at doubt.
It was a place of incessant worship, and the echo of hymns filled the air like the beating of a heart. Each note, each verse, was a reminder of the Creator's greatness, but also of the weight it placed on us, the mortals. Often, I would hear chants like this, one of many now etched into my soul:
"When you rise, beautiful, on the horizon of the sky,
O living God, the one who gave birth to life,
When you shine on the eastern horizon,
You fill all lands with your perfection.
You are beautiful, great, shining,
Elevated above all lands.
Your rays bind the lands
To the ends of your creation.
In your role as the Sun,
You reach its limits
And subject them to your beloved Son.
Though you are far,
Your rays reach the earth
And caress all faces.
Innumerable are your works,
But hidden from sight,
O one true God!
You alone created the earth
According to your will,
As well as humans,
All the greater and lesser animals,
All that lives on earth
And walks on paws,
The ones on high who fly with wings,
The lands of Syria and Cush,
And the land of Egypt.
You place each man in his place
And create what he needs:
Each one has his food
And his life span is exactly calculated;
Languages are different,
For you distinguish foreign peoples
You are in my heart,
And none other knows you,
You have made your children instructed
In your designs and power.
The earth came into existence through your work,
As you created the people.
When you rise, they live;
When you rest, they die.
You are life itself:
We live through you.
The eyes are fixed on your perfection
Until you lay down.
All works cease
When you rest in the West."
These words were as sublime as they were crushing. The perfection they exalted was something I, with all my flaws, could never achieve. As the hymns continued, my spirit absorbed them, but not with devotion; it was with a bitter contemplation. Who could exist under the shadow of a God so perfect?
Another hymn in reverence to the divine, also constantly repeated:
"The Essence that permeates all,
The Origin without origin, the Silent Word,
You are the before the beginning,
And the after that never ends.
In your designs rest the stars,
And in your breath unfold the worlds.
You are the void that contains the whole,
The mystery that reveals itself only to the hidden being.
You who drew the infinite with invisible hands,
Who spread time like an inevitable river,
And shaped us from dust with the same care
With which you created the universe that never sleeps.
How can we sing to you, O Ineffable,
When each note is but a shadow of your voice?
How can we praise you,
When even silence is more worthy than us?
You are the fire that does not consume,
The light that blinds and illuminates.
The hand that guides and the hand that frees,
The paradox in which all finds unity.
Humbly, we bow before your eternity,
For we are sparks trying to understand the sun.
You are the question and the answer,
What cannot be conceived but is felt.
You are the Creator who watches us in our despair,
And still allows us to walk,
For only in the abyss of error
Do we learn to fly towards your truth.
To you, we surrender our fragmented existence,
For even in the fall, there is your presence.
You are the beginning and the end,
And all that is eternal resides in you. Amen."
Again, from this chant came a prayer:
"In the name of God, the Clement, the Merciful.
Praise be to God, Lord of the Universe.
The Clement, the Merciful.
Sovereign of the Day of Judgment.
To You alone we worship and to You alone we implore help!
Guide us to the straight path.
The path of those whom You have favored, not of those who have been abhorred, nor of those who have gone astray."
I spent what seemed like years of torment, like a living flesh in flames, slowly rotting in a private hell. Time dragged on as my soul disintegrated, consumed by an unbearable emptiness. There was no more strength, no more breath, only the nauseating void that drowned me. I had become an open wound, bleeding inside and out, a body that no longer seemed human, but a mass of rotten flesh, of liquid pain and anger in the form of blood.
Anger turned into a devouring monster, an insane fury that ate me from within, making me incapable of distinguishing physical pain from mental. I tore at my skin with nails and teeth, ripping pieces of myself as if by mutilating my own body I could free the tortured soul that, deep inside, still screamed. My nails dug into the wounds, tearing flesh, as if I wanted to expel the hatred consuming me. But the pain only grew, like a flame that never extinguishes, a fire that feeds the very abyss.
Then, everything was revealed before me, like a snap of reality that cut me from the inside out. For the first time, I was not merely reacting, I was feeling. Anger. The anger burned in every fiber of my being, so raw, so pure. Tears flowed without ceasing, but deep down, I knew... nothing and no one could take me out of this. There was no savior in sight, no helping hand, no shoulder to lean on. I was alone, lost inside myself, and I realized, with crushing weight, that the only thing that could pull me from that abyss was me, NOTHING MORE THAN ME... NOTHING MORE THAN ME... NOTHING MORE THAN ME. Nothing, More, than, me. But, in that moment, the truth sounded like a distant, cruel, and inevitable echo. And suddenly, the pain invaded me even more, and the tears came back, stronger, more desperate, as if there were no end.
I bit my own flesh until my teeth bled, chewing pieces of myself, trying to swallow the anger bubbling in my chest. Every piece I swallowed seemed to turn into more anger, more suffering. I was becoming a monster, a walking corpse, an aberration that no longer understood what it meant to be human. The pain was no longer a sensation; it was a state of existence, as if every cell of my body were screaming for relief, for an impossible escape.
Soon, anger turned into boredom.
There, in the silence of the sky, my mind wandered. I thought of the seven hermetic laws, those I had studied on Earth, hidden among the dusty pages of the library. "The All is mind; the universe is mental." This was the first law. But here, it seemed I was surrounded by a mind so vast, so incomprehensible, that it made me feel like an insignificant fragment, a forgotten spark amidst eternity.
The law of correspondence also echoed in my thoughts: "As above, so below; as within, so without." But how did this apply here? The sky was not a reflection of the Earth, nor the Creator a reflection of us. There was a rupture, an insurmountable abyss between us, and it was magnified by divine perfection.
I also thought of the philosopher's stone, not as something physical, but as a symbol. The gold the alchemists sought was not literal gold; it was the gold of the mind, the transmutation of the crude spirit into something pure, eternal. I wondered: was my prison the alchemical fire needed to transform me? Was this the Work of Blackness, the beginning of the process?
The hymns continued, and I wondered how many more times I would hear them before my mind succumbed to forgetfulness. But something within me resisted. Something within me refused to be purified by the fire of the sky.
It was then that I realized: the sky, with all its perfection, was not a place of freedom. It was a rigid frame, an immutable work. There was no growth there, only existence. And this, as paradoxical as it was, was not something I could accept.
At times, I looked at the angels who watched over me. Their forms were beautiful, but impassive, like living statues. They carried swords of light and gazes that pierced the soul, but deep down, I saw them as prisoners too. Different from me, but still limited by their purpose.
And it was like this that my resolution began to grow. I knew my time here would not be infinite, because I rejected the idea of remaining still. I remembered another hermetic law: "Nothing is at rest; everything moves; everything vibrates." Even in the sky, the vibration of my mind continued, resisting divine stagnation.
The words of the hymns, however beautiful, became empty echoes to me. I did not want to be like those who blindly praised. I wanted to transcend. And for that, I needed to find the key.
This key was an idea that slowly matured in my heart over the years: the gold I sought was not in the sky, nor on Earth. It was in my own essence, in the capacity to question, to resist, and to create.
The sky was not my destination. It was my crucible, my furnace. And I knew that, like the philosopher's stone, I would need to endure the heat until I was ready to transmute. Not by divine grace, but by my own will.
As time stretched before me like an infinite ocean, I began to recite in my mind the words I once read, hidden on the edges of a manuscript:
"It may be ingenious to identify difficulties, but it is even more ingenious to find a way to avoid them."
I would not be defeated by eternity. I would shape it, until it bent before me.
Many years passed. Here, trapped in the sky, I am forced to witness the perfection of a creation that rejects me. Time, if time exists here, dissolves like sand carried by the wind, becoming an endless cycle of light, music, and emptiness.
The hymns constantly echo, shaped in verses that exalt the glory of God. At first, I resisted them, but soon I realized that fighting against something so vast and unchangeable was as futile as trying to contain the ocean with my hands. Listening to them, my mind decomposed them into meanings, seeking cracks in the marble of perfection. A prayer still resounds with strength:
"You who dwell in the shelter of the Most High, who abide in the shadow of the Almighty, say to the Lord: You are my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust. It is He who will deliver you from the snare of the fowler, and from the deadly pestilence. He will cover you with His feathers, and under His wings, you will find refuge."
These words, repeated countless times, became an invisible blade, slowly cutting through the flesh of my consciousness. I exist, but only as a witness to a spectacle from which I have been banished. I am like a bird with golden wings, trapped in a cage made of the very sky.
It is then that around the adoration and songs of your image, God, I decided to create my own chant dedicated to the Divine:
"O unique God, you are the positive and the negative,
The essence of all, without beginning or end,
In you, the universe finds itself and dissolves,
For you are the All, the Nothing, the Being, and the Non-being.
The wind that never ceases whispers your will,
The fire that never goes out burns with your essence,
The earth that never tires of generating life,
And the waters that, in their eternal dance, reflect your presence.
I am but the shadow of your creation,
Made of dust, seeking the infinite within me,
But I know I am limited, a finite being,
In the insatiable search for the truth I cannot reach.
With each step, I try to understand your enigma,
But I realize, with pain and humility,
That the human mind, in its limitation,
Will never grasp the incomprehensible.
You are the impossible, God, the silence in chaos,
The light that blinds, the darkness that reveals,
And the wisdom that escapes the hands of the wise,
For who can understand the mystery of the very mystery?
And yet, I follow, in search of your knowledge,
Knowing that, by seeking you, I find only more questions,
For in the end, what remains is the emptiness of understanding,
And the acceptance that all that is divine is beyond being.
O God, you are the creator and the creation,
The beginning and the end, the space and the time,
And, though I am but a reflection of your glory,
In you, all is found and lost, without ever ceasing to be."
I look at the sins around me, broken shadows that once were overwhelming forces. Now, they are murmuring specters, stripped of purpose. Even they are not immune to the paralysis of the sky. And Naka... she sleeps, always sleeps. Maybe it's a relief for her, but for me, her stillness is a cruel reminder of my solitude.
I think about what we are - me, the sins, Naka, even the angels that pass like luminous comets, ignoring our existence. Then, my mind fixates on a single image, a metaphor that defines my view of reality:
"Do you not see that we are mere larvae, crawling in our insignificance, seeking a purpose we will never reach? We are born only to form an angelic butterfly that, unprotected, flies towards Justice, only to be crushed by it. Why do you delude yourselves with grandeur, when you are no more than flawed insects, destined to fall into the cracks of a perfect creation? The souls I see here are like statues sculpted to bear the weight of a celestial cornice—bent, oppressed, folding their chests to their knees, holding something they will never understand or embrace."
This image torments me. Perhaps I am wrong. Perhaps there is something beyond this eternal cycle of hymns, prayers, and lights. But the more I reflect, the more I realize there is no room for error here, nor for doubt. Heaven is a flawless machine, spinning in divine synchronization, and any deviation is crushed under its weight.