19. The Fallen | Beyond The Firmament: Tales From The Cosmos

Beyond The Firmament

Tales From The Cosmos

19. Fall

- Written by Gift C Enyadike Jr

You may be wondering, my Acolytes, what truly became of the host that followed Sevaasi out of Udamu (Heaven).

Know this: they did not fall as one body, nor did they all land in the same place. 

Some were indeed bound to Pla'daali (Hell), tormented by the very absence they had chosen. Others clung to the void between Udamu and Teyra (Earth), feeding on scraps of light and whispering to mortals in dreams.

Those who fell furthest became twisted. Their radiance was not merely dimmed, but inverted. Where once they were brilliant in colour and song, they now wore forms of shadow, forms that unsettled the eye and curdled the heart. Some clawed their way through the earth itself, hollowing caverns and pits that would forever reek of despair. Others learned to weave themselves into the air, into storms and plagues, into the very breath of humankind. 

Some of them, it is said, mated with you. Perhaps as a way to disrupt the prophecy of your offspring bringing about their ultimate downfall.

Sevaasi called them his kin, but they were not as he was. He had once stood second only to Da Suun. They had only reflected his brilliance, and now, bereft of it, they drifted in confusion, anger and hunger. 

He gave them tasks, and they obeyed not from love, but from fear of abandonment. For if Hell was separation from Da Vaada… what would separation from their own master be?

I know them as Paadlan, the Fallen. You know them as demons. And their war against you has never ceased. 

Although there was a time when they almost succeeded in completely corrupting you. Not that they always had to try all that hard, really. Again, not judging. 

I am, however, grateful that my world has never suffered a great flood.