Chapter I

A shaky first chapter that I will definitely be heavily editing or rewriting later; it's an idea I've wanted to work on for a long time, and I couldn't wait to get started.

In Hell, they called me Evertus, “the destroyer.” 

                I was birthed in a time of conflict among the leading powers of the dead world, and the sole purpose of my creation was for me to be used as a weapon, a political weapon, to bring the wars to a concise end.  I was cast from fire and stone, metal and gore, shaped by the twisted, bleeding hands of millions of miserable dead.  I was given wings to patrol the darkest belly of Hell with purpose.  I was born into the un-world with just one thought in my mind: to mutilate those who stood in my way. 

                My creation was a controversy even to those on the same side, and when my name was spoken it was whispered with fear.  Many said the high priest, Etholo, had gone too far, that beasts far more powerful than he or I would intervene and end the wars themselves by destroying us all.  But no intervention ever came, save mine.  When I burst forth from the plumes of my birthing fire and cried out for the first time to my dark world, my destiny was already laid before me, forged as solidly as my metallic skeleton.  And I, a blind child of malice, embraced it.  The high priest sent me forth down the molten waterfalls and into the abyss where the beasts of rebellion clamored for their freedom.  One by one, I struck them down, rending jaws from faces, limbs from bodies, wallowing in the carnage I so freely created.  Etholo laughed above me, certain at last that his rule would no longer be disputed.  When my path of destruction was ended by a lack of enemies to destroy, I returned to the higher circles of hell and was celebrated.  Etholo stood before his council, his reputation sealed in the decaying carcasses of his foes, and I sat at his feet as his vengeful hand.  No one spoke a word.

                But as time passed and Etholo reveled in his victory, I became bored.  My mind was restless and no one, not even Etholo, recognized the spark of inquisitive intelligence in their monster’s eye.  I was not the dumb, ravenous beast they had envisioned, not just the muscle they had fed to secure their safety.  Eyes closed, I lay in the halls of Hell and listened, and I was infuriated by what I heard.  Etholo was mad!  He spoke of himself as if no other creature in this world or any other could match his power.  His demands were endless and without necessity or reason.  His words were blasphemy, even I knew this, though I had never witnessed proof that would lead me to believe otherwise. Perhaps his words were true.  Perhaps there was no higher power than he.  But naturally, I doubted it.  If he was, Etholo would have never created me.  In Hell, the passage of time is not quantified, but I could feel its flow in the way that my restless body began to ache.  Without a purpose, I could feel my strength disintegrating, and the sleep that had come naturally to me after the murders I had committed no longer weighed down my eyes.   

It was then that I humbly took it upon myself to bring Etholo crashing down from where he stood, falsely towering above us all. 

In my sleep, ash had fallen over me, transforming me into a grim mountain that unnerved the creatures who moved past it for reasons they had begun to forget.  It was with keen anticipation that I snapped my wings open once again, sending into chaos all the soot that had decorated my deteriorating body.  My muscles screamed in protest, but I paid them no heed.  The ligaments stretched, the bones creaked�"I was awake.  As I rose to my feet, shrill cries of panic sounded over my head, and the beasts of hell began to trumpet my presence to the sky.  I shook myself free, carelessly snapping the few chains that had been shackled to my wrists and ankles more for show than anything�"not a soul had suspected that they would ever be needed�"and raised my head to shriek my freedom to all of Hell. 

And he heard me.

“What is this I hear?  The dog has awakened?”

I turned to find him in one of the great archways leading into the council’s chambers.  The high priest’s jaws were parted just slightly in what was neither a smile nor a grimace.  His voice conveyed no real surprise and no fear, only vague interested, boredom. 

“Go back to sleep, Evertus.  I have no need of you.”

“Again and again you have called for a challenger to step up and knock you from your self-proclaimed throne.  I stand before you now as just that.  You have assumed a power that you have no right to possess.  Now I will take it from you.”

The beast chuckled low in his throat, his eyes sparking with bitter amusement.

“I created you, Evertus, any power you possess was granted to you only because I commanded it so.  Everything about you is my design�"except, perhaps, this pathetic insubordination.  Your curiosity is amusing.  I wonder where you found it?”

He lowered his shoulders and sprung, claws outstretched.  The collision of his weight stunned me, and I fell back.  His claws ripped into my wings as he fought to pin me down, his jaws hovering above my throat.  I braced my legs beneath his stomach and threw him off.  Overhead, the cries of a thousand circling demons had begun to descend, and I could hear my name on their lips.  

“You have forgotten your place, Evertus,” Etholo pushed himself to his feet.  “You are a threat to the council, to us all.  You have no one to defend you but yourself�"and you are nothing.”

They dropped to the ground around me, their wings beating the air like the drums of an execution.  In their claws, they carried chains, which they forced upon me.  As I fought against them, Etholo laughed, his eyes burning through the smoke, filled with malicious victory.  Their many shackles closed upon me once again, and these I could not escape.    

“Let it be heard, now!  Beasts of hell, this one has turned against us!  I sentence our disgraced brother, Evertus, to banishment.  He will spend his days confined to the mortal realm.  Perhaps there he will learn his place.”

The ground cracked open beneath me, and the flames reached up to consume me.  I roared in agony as my wings cracked and melted away, as my skin turned to dust and my claws to ash.  Around me loomed their faces, already distant and quickly fading into the smoke.  Above them all was Etholo’s, his eyes following me into the flames.