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*
It began with nothing.
Literally nothing. A vacuum, as people would come to call it, something purely theoretical that you first knew as home. You were born there, in a manner of speaking, if motherless things could be born, if “there” was a place at all.
So it began with nothing, but then, suddenly, there was something, and that something was you. You came to consciousness by degrees, lulled by the slow, easy way you floated through that space. You had a vague awareness of movement, but it seemed without direction. Somehow, you were never twice in the same spot but never anywhere new. You looked down at your body, a thing made entirely of light that shined brightest at your center. When your glow flashed just so, you could trace the edge of the great darkness that cradled you in its embrace. At some point, you became aware of something—someone—holding your hand, though you didn’t have hands and you weren’t anybody, not yet.
“Is there someone there?” you asked though you didn’t truly ask. There was no such thing as language, and there wouldn’t be for another millennium. When the darkness around you shifted, you froze when you realized the shadows swirling at your feet (you did not have feet) were not merely shadows. “Who are you?”
“I am you,” the Darkness answered.
This did not assuage you. There was something else, something besides the Darkness that hovered at the outskirts of your awareness, but no matter where you looked, you could see nothing but her. Finally, you asked her, “What is this place?”
“I do not know.” Her grip on your fingers tightened. You did not know how she was doing that. You wished she would stop. “But we are together.”
*
You will revisit this memory, your earliest memory, when Michael embraces Lucifer on the battlefield, and you hear Lucifer say, “If you have come to convince me to return home” —a slip of the tongue, a mistake he will never make again— “and not to fight, you have come in vain”; when Cain accepts the Mark from Lucifer, thinking only of his naive younger brother, then paints his harvest red with Abel’s blood; when the Lucifer Sword beats the Michael Sword to a bloody smear, all the while the Michael Sword repeating, “I’m not leaving you,” and, “It’s okay.”
As you watch it all unfold, you will laugh.
*
It was impossible for you to explain everything that occurred immediately after. It was a confusing time, made worse because you were the first of your kind. It took you a long time to learn the most basic of things. At the start, you simply assumed that your floating had a purpose, that you would eventually slow to a stop, perhaps when you reached others, but it never happened. It plagued you, thoughts of whether you had moved at all, if there was anyone else to find. If you were alone.
But, of course, you were never alone. The Darkness, as you had come to call her, was a constant presence at your side.
Just as the agitation neared unbearable, you thought, Stop, and you did. Your hand lurched out of hers as she continued to float onwards. You felt her stab of confusion, her sharp panic, before she stumbled to a stop, too. Discreetly, you hid your hand-which-was-not-a-hand behind you, hoping she would not attempt to grab it again.
“I did not think that would work. Of all your ideas, that one was the simplest,” she said, spinning in place as if to test something. She stopped when you whipped around to look at her, disturbed at what she’d said.
“What do you mean?” you asked curtly. Could she hear you even when you did not mean her to?
“Of course I can hear you,” she said, “just as I feel what you feel. It is as I said, we are together in all things.” A pause. “Did you not know?”
You hadn’t known. It felt invasive and suffocating. You two were bound, you realized. Doomed to live in isolation together, yes, but even more than that. Your souls were intertwined. There was no privacy between you. If she desired it, there was nothing that would stop her from slithering into your mind and gleaning whatever she wanted from it. Everything that was yours was also hers, and you hated her for it.
“No,” you said, turning this information over in your mind before tucking it away.
You made a game of who could move the fastest, who could manage the smoothest stop. Then it became who could find the edges of the place you found yourselves in first, then who could find somewhere new, who could figure out where you had come from, who could devise the best theory of why you were here. These games you both lost. There was nothing to discover, no one to meet.
“Would you like to play a different game?” she asked hesitantly, taking a seat beside you where you had collapsed (an empty space, completely indistinguishable from any other spot you could find).
“I’m tired of games.” You watched as her shadows circled you. You reached out, and they leaned into your touch, nuzzling.
“The games were your idea.”
“Yes, and now I’ve tired of them,” you repeated, yanking your hand back. The shadows curled away from you, and you had the sudden urge to step on them. You did not wish to discuss this, especially not with her, who would not understand.
“Why would I not understand?” she said. “What—why are you—” she began but cut herself short. She didn’t know what she was asking. Of course she didn’t know. How could she? You hadn’t invented a word for anger yet. “I was made to understand.”
“How would you know that?” you snapped, your entire being glowing bright and singing a high, discordant sound. “We do not know why we were made. We know neither what created us nor for what purpose!”
“Why should that be of any consequence?”
You stared at her in disbelief. “Does it not interest you to know such things?”
“No,” she said as if the answer were obvious.
“Then you see why you could never understand.”
*
It would take eons for you to choose a name. Until 2008 A.D., as you whispered the newest gospel in the ear of this century’s first prophet. He was a squirrely, neurotic, pathetic man. You did not know if this was a common denominator among prophets—they had always been Gabriel’s affair.
You watched as the prophet tried to rewrite your story. He re-outlined, deleting whole chapters to replace them with poorly written babble. You undid it every time the prophet left to refill his glass. It should have been tedious. Instead, it was infuriating. As if just anyone could be a writer. The Heavenly Host and the prophet and the Winchesters thought they could simply plagiarize the parts they liked and grind the parts they didn’t into the dirt. It filled you with a fury reminiscent of the flood. This was yours, this was all yours.
CHUCK SHURLEY, you whispered to him one day. I AM THE LORD, YOUR SAVIOR AND YOUR REDEEMER, THE MIGHTY ONE OF JACOB, AND I REQUIRE YOUR VESSEL.
The prophet dropped the bottle of bourbon in his hands. It shattered across the floor. "JESUS FUCK," he shouted. Then, after a terrified pause, "Um, not that Jesus, you know, does that, uh, sir."
You did not know how to respond to this. You hadn’t spoken to a human for some time, and the world was very different to what you remembered it to be. When you were younger, you might have smitten him for addressing you this way, but you liked to think you’d mellowed since then. Furthermore, the situation called for clandestinity.
CHUCK SHURLEY, I AM THE LORD, AND I REQUIRE YOUR VESSEL.
"Shit," he thought to himself, swallowing. "I didn’t, um. I didn’t write this."
NO, YOU DID NOT.
"But." He stopped, pausing to take a quick pull of his drink, then remembered it was trickling between the kitchen tiles. He opted for digging the heels of his hands into his eyes until the skin around them went pink. "You require my vessel."
YES.
He hesitated. "Can I ask why?"
You peered inside his soul, past the jackrabbit beating of his heart. Last night, he dreamed of the Lucifer Sword falling into Hell with Michael, and he hadn’t shared that with anyone. He knew it would make the Michael Sword fly into a blind rage, and it distressed him to hear the Michael Sword yell. He glowed with the faint hope that you disapproved of Heaven, that you loved your children after all, and had come to save them. If that were true, the prophet could help set things right, clear his conscience, then go back to taking near-lethal quantities of aspirin and drafting paperbacks in his underwear. A temporary sacrifice, the prophet assured himself, for the greater good, right? It wasn’t like God would hurt him.
You smiled.
*
“I am lethargic,” you said.
“You are restless,” she corrected, stretching beside you, briefly blocking even the brightest flashes of your light before her smog went still and quiet again. “It is one of your many flaws.”
“Many?” you echoed. “Elaborate.”
“Absolutely not.” Her amusement washed over you. “Not when you are so sensitive to slights against your character.”
“I loathe this assessment,” you said. “You have a plethora of flaws, too, if I may say so.”
“I am aware. You have had no reservations about recounting them to me.”
You asked, “Are you not frustrated?”
She blinked—or did something that approximated a blink, as close as she could get to it in her natural form. “By what?”
“By the monotony of our existence. Do you not long for more?”
“I have you,” she said, “and I enjoy the quiet. Regardless, we have done things. We invented language, as you insisted.” Her voice was a touch irritated. She hadn’t wanted to do it, hadn’t seen the point. (“We do not need it,” she’d argued. You’d scoffed, already knowing what she would say next. You said it in unison: “We are one and the same.”)
“Yes, well, I want to do something else.” You had put much thought into it. When the idea came to you, you were struck by the revelation that perhaps this was it. This was why you had come into being, to set this idea into motion. Your excitement sparked a shower of light that limned her shadows, making them look nearly beautiful. For all that you were two parts of a whole, you could not have been more different, and it made you feel sorry for her at times.
She evaluated you, a ripple traveling through her shadows. “Such as?”
*
You had never taken a human vessel before. It felt limiting, nearly claustrophobic. After you settled in the prophet’s body, you picked up the broken glass piece by piece instead of clearing it away with a sweep of your hand. A droplet of blood bloomed on the pad of his—your—thumb when one of the shards pierced skin. You put it in the damp, gooey expanse of your mouth and tasted metal.
Leaving the house, you walked in circles for hours. You saw children kicking a deflated ball around a craggy yard, people eating dinner in restaurants, loney bus stops, and cars zooming by on the streets, leaving the sour smell of gasoline trailing in their wake. Eventually, you wandered by a liquor store. You’d watched humans drink it since the days of Noah, but you’d never had any yourself.
You picked something at random and went to pay (fascinating!). The cashier asked for your license (even more fascinating) and phone number to look up your membership in the system. She asked, “Chuck Shurley?”
“Yes,” you said.
You spent the next few days sifting through your vessel’s memories, absorbing his speech patterns, his body language, his diet. You figured out how to kick the beaten heater back to life, how to use the laptop tucked away in the kitchen, and where the dirty magazines were kept. You watched television. You ate pizza rolls. It was exciting, being method in this way.
The only thing you changed was the curtains. You threw them out and left the windows bare. You did not like the dark.
*
“Hello, child,” a voice said to you one day. It was a voice you had never heard before, meaning it was neither yours nor your sister’s. You whipped around, followed the source, and dropped the project in your hands.
The element you had been painstakingly piecing together scattered away. A shame. It had shown promise, had nearly stabilized, and now it was dust. To make matters worse, as far as you could see, you were completely alone.
“You’ve been busy,” the voice continued, now from somewhere past your shoulder. You turned. There was no one.
You glared at the empty space, annoyed. “I cannot see you.”
“No,” the voice answered. This time, it came from above. You pointedly did not look up. “I’ve no solid form.” They sighed. “I suppose that is a privilege given to the younger generation.”
You considered this. They had no physical form? It didn’t seem possible. Even your sister, who lacked much, had a physical form. Where she was dark, you were light; where she was cold, you were warm. Whereas the voice was … nothing. It was unnerving.
“What is a ‘child’?” you asked, wanting to chase the thoughts away.
“It is you. You are the first, and you just won’t sit still.”
You did not like the voice. It frightened you, but you could not ascertain why. Perhaps it was because you could not see them, but what should that have mattered? You were at an advantage. They could not harm you.
“Where did you come from?” you asked, proud to hear that you sounded almost indifferent. “Are you an invention of my sister’s?”
“No. Once there was nowhere, and suddenly, there was somewhere. I came from that transitory moment, just as you and your sister.”
You remembered floating aimlessly through nothingness with only your sister’s hand acting as anchor, feeling the presence of something unexplainable pressed against your back. Unbeknownst to her, you probed her mind to see if she sensed what you did. Nothing. You had begun to think it was your wishful thinking playing tricks on you, but it must have been them, watching you all along.
You briefly considered running to your sister, but you squashed this urge before it could overtake you. You had other concerns, ones you did not want overheard.
“I am trying to tell a story,” you said, “but everything I make falls apart. Why?”
“Simple,” they said, the voice sounding as if they were close enough to touch. You jumped. “It is because of her.”
“Her?”
“Yes. You are Light,” they said, “and she is Darkness. But what you attempt to achieve cannot handle her destruction. You were meant to exist in harmony, not create.”
You bristled. “You have no place to tell me what I can or cannot do.”
Unconcerned, they said, “I am doing no such thing. That does not change the fact that everything you create will be destroyed by her for as long as you both exist, just as everything she creates will be destroyed by you. A zero-sum game. It is beautiful.”
“Beautiful,” you repeated with disdain. “And what of you? What is your role in all of this?”
This time, the voice seemed to come from everywhere at once. “I will be the one who reaps you.”
*
Maybe that wasn’t how it happened. Maybe you and your sister were perfectly capable of creation. It would be absurd if you weren’t. Surely it wasn’t possible that you couldn’t create anything. If you were in perfect harmony, that should have implied that together you would excel at it.
She was an eccentric mind, designing balls of gas and entire solar systems that resembled you. She created systems that could disrupt time and space, assembled jagged stones that flew at tremendous speeds. The most terrifying thing she devised was the collapse of a star, where it became a gaping black mouth that swallowed everything in sight. “You and I,” she explained, “perfectly in balance.” You were far less excitable, putting all your focus into the one planet you’d claimed as your own, but as you watched her in those moments, you privately invented jealousy.
Maybe you were lying about the lying. Perhaps they did give you counsel in a rare lapse of generosity, and your essence catapulted when you realized that you would have to choose.
Or perhaps that day went like any other. Maybe she never met them, and you only met them much later. So instead of revelations and sacrifices, your sister told you about centripetal force as you listened, spinning in slow, lazy circles. Maybe you told her about how little you cared for all this science and math she liked so much. “Where is the pathos?” you asked, and she sighed much as an exasperated sister should, and you realized you loved her very much.
Or maybe you didn’t.
*
Here was how the Archangels would remember it: They remembered being created and threatened by the Darkness, how the Light cradled them into being and asked only one thing from them. They will remember how it broke their Father to ask this, how He wept when Helel locked their Father’s Sister in the cage and bore the Mark. That will become the undeniable, unequivocal truth, as straightforward as the sunrise.
That was the story.
*
“You’re a fucking asshole,” Dean said. “You left your sister to rot, and you’ve been recreating that decision since the beginning of fucking time. Cain, Michael, us—”
“I didn’t kill my sister,” you said.
“Only because it would’ve killed you,” he said, “and you’ve always looked out for numero uno, huh?”
“Dean,” Castiel said, bloody and half-conscious behind him. Sam and Eileen were motionless just beyond, smushed under a toppled slot machine.
You had written many drafts, some far better than others. Naturally. You were a pioneer, and thus had made all the first mistakes, but you would never forget the first time you wrote Castiel—a lowly soldier. Not the finest in his garrison nor the poorest. Faithful and dutiful and dull, by all accounts. You had completely forgotten about him, putting him down like a misplaced seed in barren earth, and came back, shocked, to see he had blossomed. Some thought Lucifer was your favorite. Others believed it was Michael, but the truth was that you never doted on either. They did what they were meant to do, and never once strayed from the path you manipulated them down. It was all extremely, painfully boring. But this Castiel was different. This Castiel was unpredictable and exciting and fun.
You would be sad when you killed him.
“You should listen to him, Deano. You don’t want me angry.”
“Yeah?” Dean crowded in closer. “What’re you gonna do, Chuck?”
“Oh,” you said, “I don’t think you want to know.”
“Really? ‘Cause I kinda think you’re not gonna do a damn thing.”
“Dean,” Castiel repeated. “Dean.”
“You breathe at my pleasure,” you reminded him. “These particles move because I will it.”
“And because she wills you.”
Around them, the machines went haywire, the overhead lights flickering until they shattered. You slid your hand over Dean’s chest to his shoulder, gentle as a lover, before shoving him to his knees hard enough that he choked on a shout.
“You still think you’re the hero of this story. You poor, stupid child.” You loomed over him and smiled. “I invented storytelling. The hero of this story has always been me.”
*
“I am thinking,” you said, “of telling a story.”
“A story?” she asked. She had not heard of such a thing. You hadn’t invented it. The word was clunky in her mouth. St-ah-ree.
“Yes. Something to entertain,” you kindly explained. “A new thing for me to create with creatures of my own making, things with purpose. I think it will be very grand.”
“And who will you tell it to?”
“To you, of course,” you said, “my dearest sister.” It was a new word that both of you had thought of. Sister, brother. Two beings separated only by space, created from the same raw stuff, and bound together for eternity.
You felt her grow pleased. She hummed a sweet, low sound and nudged once, twice, thrice against you, fond. “Then tell me.”
*
You woke up and looked down at your own dead body.
“Hello,” a voice said behind you. It was a voice you’d heard before. You turned to look at them. No longer were they in the body of a man dressed for a funeral, nor the body of the woman who hated the Winchesters nearly as much as you had (which was a shame; she had been your favorite). Now, they took the form of a young girl, hair plaited down the back of their dress.
“You’re back,” you said, the taste of old rum and vomit still thick in the back of your throat.
“I’m never gone,” Death said amiably, “though you’re well aware of that. You’ve made very valiant efforts to kill me over the centuries.”
“No reason to drudge up the past, old friend,” you said, pretending not to see the raised eyebrow they aimed your way. “How are things?”
A pause. “Business is booming. As always.” They cast their eyes down to the bare mattress on the floor where your body lay. “Are we finished with the pleasantries now, do you think?”
You didn’t answer immediately. Instead, you pretended to examine the empty house around you, the one you came back to all those years ago after losing your powers to the Winchesters. Even after all this time, the house looked exactly as it did when the prophet still walked the earth. As if being cursed to live a mortal life was not indignity enough.
“Where will you take me?” you asked. Next to the mattress was an old nightstand that was surely older than the house itself. As casually as you could, you tried to grip the edge of it with your fingers. Your ghost fingers passed through it as if you were trying to hold starlight. Damn it all. “Hell?”
“No,” they said. “Heaven and Hell would reject you for lack of a soul. As would the Empty and Purgatory. No,” they said again, thoughtful, “you will simply … vanish.”
“Vanish?”
“You are no longer a god. Your power has gone to the Winchester child. You’re an empty shell of a thing that will be lost to the universe as if you were never here at all.”
A shard of panic lodged itself in your chest. “We can rewrite this, you and I,” you said. “You have the power. Together, we can channel it. We can start over.”
They considered you a moment. “You are still a child, after everything,” they said finally. Then, “We both know you are past the point of bargaining.”
Your fingers passed through the wood of the nightstand again. And again. Again. You could feel a tremor starting in your arm. “You can take my sister’s place at my side. We could be siblings.”
In the space of a breath, they were beside you, grabbing you solidly by the wrist. I have no patience for games, they told you once. You were fantastic at games, but as they stared you down, you felt—for the first time—truly like a child.
“You cannot rewrite your reality,” they informed you, not unkindly. “The sigil you prepared under that nightstand will not work. Nothing can keep you from what is coming.”
Your heartbeat was a wild thing, a bird beating itself to death against your ribcage. You clapped your free hand around the grip they had on your arm, but it was of no use. They were much stronger. “I wasn’t going to do any such thing.”
“I would say your time on Earth has made you adopt human flaws, but you’ve always been a liar.”
“I did not write this,” you blurted out. You did not know why you said it except for all the reasons you did. You created this world. This was all yours. This was still your story.
(“I want to tell a story,” you told your sister once. “I think it will be very grand.”)
“You never did understand,” they said, and then you disappeared into nothingness.
*
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