Lucifer's Dream

 

On the night before his speech Lucifer was haunted, as was all too common, by dreams involving the psychic memories of a man on Onia.

 

The dream had the sense of time of a fast paced memorial collage. As always, it began with the almost politically silent overthrow of the presiding Planetary Prince. From then, but only for a time, there was unparalleled peace in the system. All war, from outside the system in, stopped as if it had been a measure of the invading Theocracy. The congress of the system still seemed to be rooted in the old ways of the Royalists, but it became subtly clear through the bills passed that the time of the Royalists had drawn to a close. Bills claiming to ensure the freedoms of the people ensued, and it was said in the media that this was to guard them from invaders mounting around the system. These shadowy people rarely had names and were easily covered by the blanket term, The Antithesisist's.

 

Cultural hell came in the from of spy hunts, as it was said that The Antithesisist's had members planted in all areas. Loopholes in the favored bills spelled doom for the people. Suspected members of the Antithesisist party were revoked citizenship, so, in a way, the rights of no citizens were harmed. In the end even congressmen were sacrificed in the name of security.

 

The man whose eyes Lucifer had sat behind so many times, began to realize this when his own son vanished after attending a political rally. He began to investigate in a suicidal attempt to save his firstborn. Only when he was pulled from his bed in the dead of night did he realize he had made a mistake.

 

The rest of his life was spent in a Theocratic housing facility, where he learned the true intentions of the regime. He was tortured, and when he thought he could stand the pain no more, it let up. After two months he had a second's peace, thought it was soon interrupted. It was just when he had assumed they had given up on him when he felt the needle pierce his back. And then he was alone again, quiet, as his mind raged to much for him to speak. It was as if, through the injection, they had found an easier way to tear him apart. In his mind, there was a war of chemicals as all of his controlling systems went haywire and he was flooded with serotonin bringing him into constant near-sleep and wakeful hallucination. He only remembered one more needle-prick, though there could have been more, on the day they paraded his family in to see what he had become. Only through sound did he recognized them. He had long since given up hope of ever seeing reality again.

 

As they cried over the diagnosis of violently progressing schizophrenia and thanked the grace of the Theocracy when they gave him another shot, he realized that he no longer recognized any more than their voices. Their minds and words betrayed him. He foamed at the mouth when the violence of his body subsided to more cries of “Thank The Universal Father.” He knew of only one way to escape and he used it then, though no one would notice until his body began to decay and stink more than it already had.

 

He ascended; Lucifer woke.