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  “JOHN! JOHN! WHERE ARE YOU?” Camilla yelled.

  “Cammy, I’m over here,” John said.

  “WHERE OVER HERE?” Camilla yelled again.

  And then the strange man appeared before her, using his T-shirt to wipe his face. But Camilla didn’t recognize him and hadn’t seen him talking to calm her down.

  “STAY AWAY, I KNOW KARATE AND OTHER DANGEROUS WORDS!!! JOHN, WHERE ARE YOU?” Camilla screamed and ran into the kitchen to get a knife.

  “Cammy, I’m right here . . . put the knife down,” John said laughing.

  “What . . . what are you talking about? John is short, scrawny, and wears glasses. You are far from either. Now where is he?”

  “Cammy, yesterday was my birthday and I got drunk, did some dancing on tables, and you let me walk home by myself, remember?”

  “Yeah, whatever. You could have been stalking him at the bar and followed him home. You could be some thug that beat him up and kidnapped him. Please just tell me what you’ve done with him . . . Please . . . he’s my best friend . . . ,” she cried.

  John thought real hard about his next move. He clearly looked so different than what he used to look like that he couldn’t convince a woman who had been his best friend for twenty years otherwise. So John thought a moment and told her a story that only they would know.

  “Do you remember the day we became best friends? I do. We were at Lake George in upstate New York. You were a spoiled little eight-year-old brat, and I followed you around because you were the only other kid there for me to hang out with at a Fourth of July barbeque.

  “Anyway, I chased you to the end of the dock, and you stopped right before the edge. You said, ‘Na nana boo bee, you got the cooties!’”

  He laughed at that last comment before he continued. At this point Camilla sat down in a chair and put the knife down to listen to the rest of John’s story. “When I turned to leave, I don’t know perhaps the dock was wet, I heard a splash and when I turned around, you were flailing around in the water. I called out for help, but no one could hear me over the music so I jumped in, caught you, and swam back to the docks with your arms around my neck . . . nearly choking me . . . but by the time we got back to the dock, everybody was there to pull you out.”

  “I wasn’t a spoiled brat,” Camilla said.

  John laughed hysterically at the comment and Camilla ran over to hug him.

  “John . . . what happened to you?”

  “That’s a long story . . . and I’ll tell you over breakfast,” John said.

  Andrea Lewis-Rose was just getting off work at the Second National Bank in Wilsonton, Kansas, where she had worked as a teller for over twenty years. It wasn’t her dream job by any stretch of the imagination, but it was all she had. She longed for the glamorous life—expensive cars, big homes, lavish jewelry, and paradise getaways. When she was in high school, she wanted to become a model and an actress because she was very beautiful back then and could have been both.

  A tall, leggy blond, with dazzling blue eyes, Andrea was the most beautiful girl in her county. This was confirmed by the blue ribbons she won twice at a state fair, and she was also homecoming queen her senior year. Her king was her boyfriend, senior and starting quarterback Kenneth Rose. She seemed to have the perfect life and opportunity to achieve her dreams, but things weren’t always what they seemed.

  Kenneth had a really rocky home life, watching his father beat on his mother and feeling his wrath as well. Abuse was a natural way of life in the Rose home. Kenneth’s father was an alcoholic and tortured him until he got big enough to fight back. Kenneth often fought other kids at school and was very angry; the only one who could calm him down was Andrea. She was the one bright spot in his life, but that didn’t stop him from lashing out at her in screaming fits every now and then.

  Andrea had hopes of going to New York or Los Angeles to pursue her dreams, but that was dependent on where Kenneth went to college. Wherever he went, she decided to follow so they could maintain their relationship. She loved him very much. Kenneth didn’t get accepted into any college because his grades were horrible.

  Sensing he was going to lose her, he begged Andrea not to leave Kansas without him. They made a plan: Kenny would go to Wilsonton Community College and play for the football team there, work on getting a good GPA, and then transfer to a major university. That way they would stay together and she could still chase her dreams, but in the meantime she would work at the bank and go to college.

  None of those plans came to pass. Kenny began partying and drinking at the local parties, skipping classes, and eventually was cut from the team. Andrea was slowly dragged down between having good, but mostly bad, times with Kenny and keeping up with her classes, until she unexpectedly found herself pregnant as a sophomore. Not coming from a family who believed in abortion, she decided to keep the baby.

  Kenny didn’t want the baby but supported her decision to keep it, and proposed to her. With the support of her family, she accepted and they were married before she began to show. Slowly but surely she felt her dreams slipping away.

  The more Kenneth drank, the worse their fights became and the more he became like his father. He even hit her a few times, but never hard enough to leave a visible mark. On one particular night, after a day of heavy drinking, Kenny and Andrea got into a violent fight about her frustrations. Angry because she was trapped in her small town, Andrea said very hurtful things to Kenny and in his rage he kicked her down a flight of stairs. Before Kenny realized what he had done, Andrea was unconscious at the bottom of the staircase in their home.

  He called an ambulance and they rushed Andrea to the hospital, but it was too late. She lost the baby in her second trimester. When she was questioned by the police, she lied about the incident, claiming a dizzy spell had caused the fall.

  She stayed with Kenny after he promised to never hurt her again, but he broke that promise over and over again, by continuing the verbal and physical abuse. In between the abuse they tried to have other children, but each pregnancy ended in a miscarriage. This cycle continued until Kenny got behind the wheel of his car after drinking at the bar and drove off a bridge.

  Thirty-eight-year-old Andrea was a sad woman who never realized her potential and hated herself because of it. She looked for any bright spots in her dark world, but found none. Eventually, depression set in. Anxiety attacks and insomnia became a daily and nightly routine. She didn’t feel beautiful anymore, even though she was still quite an attractive woman in her late thirties. She still had a nice figure and lovely hair with a small touch of gray, but her eyes that once sparkled told a different story. They told a story of a sad woman who never achieved her dreams, never bore children, and who had attempted suicide on more than one occasion.

  Once she was rushed to the hospital by her father who found her on the floor with her prescription pills spilled next to her. Another time her neighbor baked a homemade pie for Andrea’s birthday and found her on her living room floor with her wrists slit. And yet another time, her best friend Sally stopped her from driving home from the bar after getting way too drunk.

  This was all Kenny’s fault for trapping her in this small town, for keeping her from her goals, for beating her, and for taking away her chance to be a mother.

  After much counseling, however, she gained a little bit of peace in her life and even went to church a few times, mostly on the holidays. She hadn’t committed to Jesus, nor did she feel she was ready to, but at least she stopped drinking so much. She took her pills responsibly, and the urge to commit suicide began to fade. She decided to try to make the most of the life she had and went home from her job every day just happy to be alive.

  In the murky, faintly lit cave that served both as protection and home for Ornias and herself, Lilith began devising a plan to attain a better position of power in hell. She sat on her small throne made from the bones of angels and demons from wars past. She learned from war that demon and angel spirit beings could be blasted to mere pa
rticles, and although they would eventually be made whole again, that process could take years or even decades until the spirit fully recovered from “death.”

  No angel or demon truly dies but whenever they fight, limbs may be lost and need to be regrown with proper rest; Lilith took the limbs of her fallen adversaries whether they were human, angel, or even demon and added their bones to her throne. She spoke to Ornias from this throne while he played in the dirt like a child.

  “I hate it here. I hate having to submit to demons who are beneath me in every way. I am superior or at the very least equal to all of Satan’s generals. Yet I am confined to this cave, an outcast, accosted at every opportunity. Shown no respect when I could kill or outwit them all in combat and strategy. But that isn’t even what I want. I do not wish to command an army or torture the guilty. All I want is to own my own territory and live in peace, be seen as equal. If only Satan had the weakness of men this would be so much easier. But he doesn’t trust me . . . no one does. If I’m ever going to realize my full potential in this desolate place then I need to make a gesture to Satan that says we are on the same team,” Lilith thought aloud.

  “Mistress, are you talking to me?” Ornias asked.

  Lilith threw a skull and hit Ornias in the head. “Who else could I be speaking to, moron?”

  “My apologies, mistress,” Ornias whimpered. “Do you have an idea of how to go about it?”

  “No, but I thought you had a plan. Don’t you? Otherwise, what was the sense of you finding some human wench?” Lilith pondered.

  “Yes, of course, mistress. My plan is to give him something he doesn’t yet have,” Ornias said.

  “What do you mean?” Lilith questioned.

  “Well . . . no, I’m sorry — it’s stupid of me to even think it.”

  “Ornias, if you do not speak up I will singe you with a fireball till you begin to smell your insides burning,” she said as her hands began to glow a bright orange.

  “Yes, mistress, my apologies. It’s just, well, do you remember before the Great Rebellion and the Fall?” Ornias asked her.

  “No, I do not. Has it escaped your memory that I was a human woman once?”

  “Yes,” he smiled slightly. “Sometimes it does. Well, before the Fall, Satan was once an angel named Lucifer. He had the grandest position in all of heaven. Even greater than archangels Michael and Gabriel. Well, there came a day when The One left his heavenly throne to create the universe. The Father and Son left Lucifer in charge of the heavens until they returned. The One had only been gone for six days and returned by the seventh day to rest. However, they returned to civil unrest. Many angels, me included, did not understand and were upset that The One had abandoned us for so long.”

  “Seven days isn’t a long time,” Lilith interjected.

  Ornias continued. “To you it isn’t, but to us our whole lives were dedicated to pleasing and worshiping The One. Anyway, by the time The One came back Lucifer had moved his throne into the throne room, and they were very angry to see what he had done. This was not when Lucifer was banished from heaven.

  “In the days following, Lucifer was overcome by pride unlike any he displayed before. He was always a bit prideful because of his title and position, but this new display was extreme—even for him. He wanted to be like the Most High God. I remember that day like it was yesterday because it forever changed who we were as spirits. I foolishly supported the idea that Lucifer should keep his seat in the throne room because of the wonderful job he did running heaven in the absence of The One.

  “As you know, the Great Rebellion and the subsequent Fall led us here. A place without the spirit of The One. Here Lucifer became Satan, and here he still desires to be like God.”

  “That’s a great story. What does that have to do with me getting a better position in hell?” Lilith asked.

  “Everything, mistress. Satan still desires to be like The One—the Father and the Son, but what is the one thing he doesn’t have?”

  “A son . . .” Lilith exclaimed.

  “Exactly, mistress. This is why I went searching for women on earth. I think that we can give him a son, and he will gladly promote you and make you master over many.”

  “And you thought of all this by yourself?” Lilith said. Surprised that a demon that she held in such little regard had come up with such a brilliant plan.

  “Yes, mistress,” he said shyly. “This is where Andrea Lewis-Rose comes in. She has never borne a child and would welcome any opportunity to have one. The hard part is convincing Satan to impregnate her.”

  “You had me and then you lost me.” Lilith shook her head. “He would never be with a human. He despises them. Why do you think he commands his minions to torture them so gruesomely? No, that would never work . . . however . . . you could be the one to do it.”

  “Anything for you miss—wait . . . What?” said a shocked Ornias.

  “Yes, you. You should be the one to bring forth this son for him. I can present it as a gift and I will be welcomed and considered the same as any of the other demons in hell,” Lilith said confidently. “Tell me about this Andrea Lewis-Rose.”

  “Mistress, I don’t want to do this.”

  “You do not have a choice in the matter.”

  “But—”

  “YOU DO NOT HAVE A CHOICE! . . . Now tell me about this woman.”

  “. . . Very well then . . . you already know her name. She is thirty-eight earth years old; she had tried for many years to have a baby with her husband but was unsuccessful.” He sighed.

  “Is she still married now?” Lilith asked.

  “No, mistress, her husband is dead.”

  “Really? Was he saved or is he guilty?”

  “Guilty. His name is Kenneth Rose.”

  “Then we must find him and give him a reprieve from his torments, he could be . . . useful.” And a sly grin came over Lilith’s face. “You must go to the hall of records and find him in the chronicles. He will tell us the best way to seduce this Andrea.”

  “Mistress, it is not so easy. There is protocol and clearance that I must obtain. Other demons will ask me why I need the chronicles, and they know that you are my master; if my answers don’t satisfy them, then they will bring me before generals and maybe before the Evil One himself. It will not be good if I am caught.”

  “Well then you best not be caught,” Lilith commanded. “Now go find his chronicles and bring its knowledge to me.”

  Once the command left her lips, Ornias was compelled to obey and opened a dark red, vapid portal and stepped inside. Walking out in mere moments, he walked from the portal and appeared at the gates to the city of Sheol. The first city built in hell since the fall, it also served as the capital. When Satan was first cast into outer darkness, hell was the only planet in the dimension orbiting a dull orange sun very closely.

  When hell was first created, it was mostly mountain ranges and desert with few rivers and one gigantic ocean made of boiling, slick black oil—no life existed inside of it, no life could because it consumed and fed on any living thing that fell into it. Engulfing the unfortunate being that fell into its calamity, reproducing and multiplying around it in order to completely devour its prey, it was almost as if the Sea of Fire was alive. That is how it acquired the name the Sea of Fire. This planet was the home of Satan and all of the angels that followed him, and they began to shape the planet to better suit their needs as demons.

  Yet that wasn’t the first transformation to hell. During a cataclysmic event on earth called the flood, humans poured into outer darkness in the tens of millions. The demons even called this incident the flood because of the flood of human souls that occupied the city of Sheol. This occurrence marked a turning point for Satan as a sadistic oppressor. He decided to turn hell into his torturous playground, assessing how a human lived his or her life on earth and doling out punishment to fit the crimes they committed.

  They were always evil, horrible, and worse than anything any human mind could conceiv
e. The demonic holy city Sheol became a place where human souls passed through to be judged and given their eternal punishment. This is when the humans became known as the guilty. Sheol held no human prisoners other than new arrivals waiting to be sentenced, but it held a hall of records, living quarters for demons, and Satan’s palace.

  The hall of records was located just a few blocks from Satan’s palace, which was naturally in the center of Sheol. As Ornias made his way through the city and toward the hall, he saw many demons, male and female, some that were about their business and others that were just trying to exist in a world outside the love of The One. Some greeted him with evil looks, while others ignored him completely.

  Upon his arrival, he did not have trouble gaining entry. Any demon had access to the hall of records. It was the section that was dedicated to humans that required clearance. Although there were no guards watching the entrance into that area, lieutenants, captains, and generals frequented this sector to keep tabs on their human prisoners. Here they acquired information on current prisoners and new arrivals, so it was quite busy.

  Ornias focused his mind on locating Kenneth Rose’s chronicles in the hall of records. As he concentrated on finding it, he realized that the book was on the third floor, the eleventh column, in the twenty-seventh row of the human souls sector, and he instantly gated to the location of Ken’s book. Luckily there were no demons in the vicinity and when he finally found the correct Kenneth Rose chronicle, he grabbed the black book and opened it. From the outside, Ornias appeared to be reading a book, however from Ornias’s point of view he had just entered Kenneth Rose’s life.

  The whole world became pitch black, and he could see a small cell reacting to metaphysical changes. It began multiplying by twos, then fours, then eights, then sixteens, and Ornias realized he was looking at Kenneth’s conception. He quickly fast-forwarded and stopped at Kenneth meeting Andrea Lewis in the fourth grade.