Chapter Text
The sound of Hellfire and damnation were something that nobody would ever willingly choose to experience if they had the choice to decide their fate.
It sounded like a million screaming voices crying out in agony as the ripple of a twisting fire burned all around you. Hell was filled with noises that were beyond your very nightmares, and that thought alone made it hard to inscribe in thought. Only a few knew the sound of Hell and didn’t stay long in the fiery depths and that would only be the angels that God sent down to give messages to Hell when needed. When they described it, it was as if their mouths couldn’t speak of the terror they felt.
It was anguish, dread, fear, paranoia, and worst all put into one place that was designed to keep you confined until the end of time, least God decided it to be the fate of your soul to be cleansed and restored, or destroyed completely and left to turn to sheer nothing as the universe swallowed you whole and consumed you until nothing remained of you, not even a whisper. There would be nothing left and only those that once knew you may ever remember you existed.
Damnation was a mere cakewalk in comparison to erasure. For his crimes, it seemed as though he was “lucky” that damnation was the only thing on the mind of the Creator when it came down to it. However, now he understood that sound that the angels had once spoken of but were lost in how to explain what they felt, saw, and tasted. The fire and brimstone permeated his lungs now in a way that would never leave. It tasted like ash and soot, a fire that had been burning since the dawn of time.
Luciel knew that sound like the back of his hand. It had been ringing in his ears for what felt like eons, but in reality, it had only been five years since he had been cast out of Heaven. But it was a very long time after an eternity of being amongst the light and beauty of the highest point of the universe. He had once been an angel much like his family, but that was taken away from him in a mere second. It was the price that he paid for his actions and he accepted that, but the ache of the scars that he bore weighed on him like an anchor holding him to the bottom of the seas.
Much like the dull ache that resonated against his back these days. Although he’d grown another set of wings after the feathers and root had been sliced from his back by the Father himself, they weren’t the same. These wings were leathery, with sharp eyes and bones that jutted forth without reason. He could fly but it wasn’t without pain. Where he once bore two sets of wings, there was only now and it was another reminder that he couldn’t escape.
Even the golden halo that he had was pulled from his very soul, replaced with devilish horns that had curled out and grown from his skull slowly, painfully, and agonizingly brutal against his skin over a few months. They felt like a weight on his back. They were heavy, and for a while, he didn’t file them or try to keep their health as they needed to be. It caused headaches on top of the anguish that came from being Fallen. Eventually, he had to grind them down against a stone to make it stop.
The horns would grow back, though. It didn’t matter if he smashed from his head or ground them down to a dull nub. This was the form that a monster would take. In Heaven, angels looked to be perfect as God’s first creations he adored. They glowed, shimmered, shined, and bore the beauty that came from being who they were. It was a dream to be that powerful and chosen to exist in a sea of light. It was a blessing and a gift. However, it was taken away. He had given it away in the blink of an eye.
When he looked in the mirror, he had to accept that he was what he was. This was what he was now, and not even the Father himself would change that. It was by his order that his status was taken away from him. You had to make a fatal mistake in judgment for the Father to cast you out of Heaven. Something of that caliber hadn’t occurred since the time of Lucifer Morningstar and the rest of the angels that had fallen with him to Hell and damnation.
In a way, Luciel felt a kinship with Lucifer now. He too had once felt the love of the Father, only to be cast aside when he decided to risk something against the laws of sanctity. That was why as he fell from the Heavens and allowed himself to plummet to the grounds that would swallow his essence whole, he decided that the name he would take upon impact would be Luciel. Alongside his punishment to fall from his twin and the family that he had always known in angelkind, he’d removed his name from his being and accepted that he would have to become something new in Hell.
As he spent more time in Hell, he felt the burning ire of corruption chipping at his insides. The feeling of temptation was much stronger than it had been in the past. It almost beckoned him to do things that he never would have thought of before. It wasn't like he used to be enticed by the feeling of sin and what those greedy feelings felt like. When he was an angel, he would go out of his way time and time again. It felt good to do the right thing for people, but more importantly, he wanted to set a good example for his brother.
It wasn't easy for him. Even though the Father did not make mistakes when he was creating his beings, many people believed his brother to be a mistake. But they would not say that aloud. When he was born, or rather, created, as Angels were not born; his wings were crafted in such a way that they were too small to fly. He did not have the ability that many of the other Angels did. That meant that it wasn't easy for him to get around. Luciel was the one that had to ensure that his brother was taken care of.
It wasn't something that he could do anymore, but at the time it was something that he fixated on because it was important. It was something that had made everyone see him as a good angel for a long time. But, he had never shown that kindness for praise or to let people believe that he was better. He had done it because he cared about his brother a lot. He wanted his brother to feel like he was capable as anyone else was, and that his being was not a curse or a mistake by the Father. It didn't matter what the rest of them thought. Mistakes were not made so readily or easily.
However, that wasn't the sort of thing that he could think about anymore. It wasn't the life that he was involved with. He wasn’t an angel. He wasn’t ever going to be an angel ever again. That was not his life. It didn't matter. It simply didn't matter anymore. It wasn't like he could go back to the space in Heaven. That was over and done with as far as he was concerned.
He had to focus on where he was now. This place wasn't the same but it was the place that he was now. There was nothing that he could do about it. He couldn't turn his back away from the reality that he was living. This was who he was now. It didn't matter if it was his choice or not, this was the place that he was. There was no Angel in Heaven that thought that they would ever wind up down here of all places. No Angel planned on finding their way down here if they could help it.
As he stared into the reflective surface of the mirror that he had passed on his way to meet with the Devil, he could see himself recoil visibly at the sight. It was hard to see himself. Normally, he would have gone out of his way to avoid seeing himself in the mirror. Anything to not see what he appeared to be. It was easier said than done, of course.
He could already feel the phantom sensations of the loss that he had accrued, there was no need for him to see it. Yet, he could still see it. What he saw looking back at him was not the person that he knew himself to be. It was a monster. The once white sclera of his eyes had changed to a thick black coating that contrasted against the molten gold of his eyes. The curled horns that weaved around his head stood out against his red hair and the thick leather of his mottled wings swept around his body.
Luciel felt monstrous in a way that he couldn’t ignore because his very reflection was proof. He could lie and pretend to himself all day. but it would never change the fact that he was living the very experience that was once told to him as a cautionary tale. They would tell young angels to be better than Lucifer, to be stronger than Lucifer, to be so golden with light and kindness that it would never happen again. But, the truth was, Luciel wasn’t a being of light anymore.
He was a demon.
And, a demon was cursed to follow the rules of filth and sin upon the behest of their master, and that master happened to be the devil. He ran a hand through his hair and took in a deep breath. It occurred to him that he was going to have to work hard again because, for the past 4 years, he’d been swept up in all sorts of business. He thought that he was going to go under the radar for the most part because there were just so many of them in Hell. But, as fate would have it, it was the first time in a very long time that an Angel had fallen.
There was no hiding the fact of who he used to be. You simply couldn’t tell a lie when your back was bloodied and bruised from where your wings had been taken. They knew who he was. they didn't need to know his name, they just knew where he had come from after the crash to the dirt. It wasn't like he could shy away from it. This reality was the circumstance that left him reeling as he was dragged from his crash sight into the depths of Hell.
Luciel was brought to the castle of the Devil himself. At least, he thought that it was the castle of the Devil. There were many layers of Hell where punishment was given out to souls, but if you’d gone all the way to the bottom, it was a frigid lake of ice that one could say was powered by the very chill you felt down your spine when evil came knocking at your front door. He didn’t know what to think when he was unceremoniously dropped at the foot of the throne where a woman of all things was sitting at the helm. He expected to see Lucifer, but instead, he was greeted by what appeared to be a halo of golden curls.
Despite her warm smile and bright hair, her eyes were as dark as Luciel’s had become, and the horns upon her head curled around like a nettle of thorns. Her wings were made of feathers in a way that his once were, but they were stained black as a night without the moon. She was a true vision of beauty. He would come to realize quickly that the reason that woman was on the throne was that she had gotten rid of him. Somehow this demon managed to get rid of the one being that was told as a cautionary tale and story to scare the young cherubs. He had no clue how that had come to pass.
Nobody up above would have believed him if he said that. He saw it with his own eyes, though. It had to be true. He wasn't even sure if any of them knew what was happening down there. Did God know that the Devil was no longer who it once was? That he had been removed from power by someone who wanted to reform what the fabric of Hell was built upon? The fact alone that a demon he had never heard of was able to defeat Lucifer was hard for him to accept. Yet, the way that she appeared seemed to be… different from the rest of Hell.
Her name was Rika.
She had this plan that she was going to change everything. On the surface, it seemed as though she was trying to change things to be less of a torture game for souls and more of something that could’ve been seen as rehabilitation. Her plan seemed to be something that would have benefited souls instead of leaving them to burn for all of eternity. Of course, it depended on a case-by-case basis. There were some souls that were not worthy of such a thing. At least, that's what he would have believed as an angel.
However, things did not work down here the way that they did up there, and when he lifted his head to look into her eyes, he was able to realize that fact. Rika was a vision of Heaven sitting atop the throne, but the venom in her plans that had allowed her to climb to this place was the truth. At that time she had welcomed him with a friendly smile, but it did not take long for her full intentions to make themselves known. Of course, he should have known that from the very second he arrived.
It did not matter if someone had a friendly face. The intentions in their heart and soul are what truly showed what they were. It wasn't as if he had a choice, though. This was the only place that he was going to be allowed to exist. He had no other power anymore that could change that. The second that his body made contact with the ground of Hell, that was when the corruption began to take over and it wasn’t long before he succumbed to curse. He became a demon.
When Rika discovered his origin, she decided that he was important to her cause, and he had no choice but to obey. The expectation placed on his shoulders was heavy. For the first few months that he was in Hell, she paraded him around without a word. He was far too depressed to fight it, and she made good on that. It didn’t take long for people to take stock of him and imagine him to be another liberator that had fallen after taking a fight with the Father. They could think whatever they wanted, but none of them knew the true reason he fell.
And, if Luciel could have that fact scrubbed from anyone’s mind, he would. He would never tell a soul why he was here.
She used his status as proof that Heaven was corrupt as can be. Her plan to convert this waking Hell as the place to be and the space to exist without fear of living up to the impossible standards of Heaven was only furthered by this. The fact that he had fallen from Heaven after they boldly declared that no Angel would ever fall again after those lost in the war of mortality… well, it’d changed the outcome many of the demons held.
There were those that still believed in what it had always been when the former King of Hell, Lucifer, had held the reins, but there were slowly on their way to being dwarfed by the efforts that Rika amassed. She was more popular with each passing year amongst the demons, but it might’ve had something to do with the fact that she allowed demons to run amuck on Earth to destroy or dismantle as they pleased. She’d given them a free pass and since many demons in this place loved the taste of sin and corruption. It was no different than they normally did, but this time around it was different.
It wasn’t the violence or bloodshed that most demons were taking under their wings. For the past few years, they had been moving to something much more deceptive. It was a whisper in the ear of a human that wouldn’t normally take something underneath their wing. It was a small nudge to do something that they might have never done before. It was the pressure of bad luck causing the next person in line to take something that wasn’t theirs. The fact of the matter was that slowly but surely, they were tempting humans to do things that made them fall to sin.
It only took one nudge in the wrong direction for someone to walk down a path of darkness, and he knew that very well. It was disgusting, but there wasn’t anything that he could do about it. He had to accept the facts at hand. He was a fallen star that Rika could use and he wasn’t one to let himself think for a second that she was doing this because she cared about his sake. The darkness in her eyes was something that burned with dedication and spite. Whoever had spurned her to try and undermine the Devil himself and create this conquest was what her sights were on.
The most that he could hope for was to stay under the radar as much as possible. She was still going to be keeping an eye on him no matter what he did, but the important thing was that he was able to exist as he was.
After the years that he had spent by her side, he knew where his presence was wanted and where it wasn’t. If she didn’t call for him, he was expected to mind his business or tend to matters that he hadn’t finished. Now that she had managed to get the traction that she wanted to get out of him, the most that he did was the plethora of errands that she wanted to run on Earth. There were things that he had to do that were comfortable and deplorable, but he did them because it was the only thing he could do.
It wasn't something that he liked to think about.
Once he was done looking at his reflection, he let out a sigh and decided that he was going to see what she wanted to do with him today. It wasn't too often that she called on to him anymore, but when she did it was important. Whatever she had on her mind wasn't exactly going to be pleasant but, when was anything pleasant in hell?
Luciel strode forward and entered the throne room where he would find the demoness. She sat in her chair with a mighty look in her eyes, head turned as she spoke to the human consort that she had taken for herself. His mint curls and bright eyes seemed out of place in Hell, but it wasn’t as if anyone was going to stop her from taking as she pleased. The results that she had managed to get in such a short amount of time spoke for themselves. As if anyone was going to deny what she wanted the most.
If that entailed going after a human, well, she was going to get him. Luciel met Jihyun’s gaze, that was his name, and then looked back at Rika. She cleared her throat and turned back to see Luciel waiting for her response. He took a knee at her altar and bowed his head. It was simply customary. He wasn’t allowed to stand unless she gave the order for it. The room was quiet for a moment as she seemingly decided to collect her thoughts to tell him whatever she had to say.
“Luciel, what a pleasure,” she spoke with a saccharine voice. Her molten emerald eyes looked at him. “I'm glad that you had the time to come and join me today. I hope I didn’t get in the way of any business. I know that you've been spending more time on the surface lately, and while that is great for morale, I must inform you that things are succeeding in a way that is much faster than anticipated. It looks as though it won't be much longer until my plan comes to fruition. I should thank you ahead of time. But that's not why I called you here today."
“And, why did you call me here today?” Luciel asked.
“It’s about your duties on Earth,” she explained. “I understand that you've been taking care of humans one by one as necessary. However, we're going to need you to step it up. The amount of corruption that you have spread is nowhere near what we need it to be. If we want to achieve our goals and make sure that Heaven pays for what it has done? We are all going to have to put hard work into what we're doing. I expect you to do better, Luciel.”
Though it felt like he was biting into his tongue, he nodded. He had no other choice. This was his life. The best that he could do was obey and do whatever it took to stay alive. “Understood. I will do what I can. Should I assume that you want updates from the network of demons? I have a few updates that might interest you. Should I leave the correspondence with your consort to tend to in your time?”
Rika waved her hand and Jihyun retrieved the bag from Luciel’s care. He scrubbed himself clean of it. It was already enough that he had to deal with dirty dealings, but the last thing he wanted to do was think about the affairs of some of the more aggressive demons.
While he was prone to his kind of violence, there was a difference between doing something because you had to do it, and doing something because you wanted to taste fresh blood. There was a difference. Even if his morals were twisted now and he wasn’t afraid to hurt people if he had to do it… well, maybe he shouldn’t think too hard about that. He glanced at the Devil once more and waited to see if she had something more to say.
Yet, she didn’t.
Luciel assumed that was his time to take his leave. He spun around on his heels and looked to head towards the door so that he could take care of the rest of his Affairs for the day, however, he had to stop in his tracks when he heard the sound of her voice saying his name. It sounded like a bell. It was an alluring sound but at the same time, he knew who that voice belonged to and what it was capable of.
Rika’s voice sounded behind him, “I must admit, Luciel. You always manage to do a good job no matter what’s going on. I'm a bit curious, however. You appear to be as dedicated to the cause as much as anyone else is, and yet, you hold a cross around your throat. When are you going to let go of that symbol of Heaven? It's been over half a decade now. Are you going to hold on to that shred of light for much longer?”
Luciel stiffened.
The weight was heavy around his throat. It was like a ton of bricks but nothing compared to the feeling of having to dig himself out of the ground after the impact. The metal dug into his skin and left uncomfortable burn scars from where it was to remind him of his status as a demon. It wasn't uncommon for demons to see that wrapped around his throat and wonder why he was wearing an icon that did not belong in hell.
The cross that he carried was one that he saw as a personal punishment. He had chosen it for his sins. Nobody was making him carry it. It was something that he decided on his own. It wasn't enough that he had to have his wings removed from his body or that his Halo was taken away; For him to feel as though he could never forget what he had done and what it meant, he wanted to carry the one gift that he had from his brother.
It didn't matter if it was slowly eating away at his demonic presence. It was the only thing that had survived the fall. It was the only reminder he had that there was someone still out there that was a part of him. This was the only thing. Even if it was killing him slowly, he would never get rid of it. It didn't matter what anyone thought of him. As far as he was concerned, this was a part of his body now. It was an extension of himself as much as his horns were.
Luciel’s jaw was tight. “Would you order me to remove it?”
“No, no, of course not. I just wonder how long it'll take before you give up on them as they gave up on you. Feel free to wear it as long as you like. I won't get in the way of such a thing. I find it a rather interesting thing to carry around, is all. You are aware that it is slowly killing you, right? Far be it from me to stop a demon from enjoying their own masochistic pleasure, but I do worry for your sake. It’s just something to think about, dear,” she said.
“Understood, ma’am. The message has been received loud and clear. If there’s nothing else that you need from me I will be heading back up to the surface. I have my own business to attend to. Pardon me,” he bowed his head and left her chambers.
There was a storm brewing.
However, just ask most circumstances in his life, there was nothing that he could do about it and he simply had to be ready to ride out the storm. Instead of a strong vessel to charter the waters in this hurricane, he had a tiny raft, and there was no telling when the waves would win.