Divine Justice, A Just Retribution

Xystus stood at the edge of a great plain, overlooking the apocalyptic scene before him, the littered debris and detritus of a spontaneous, furious war and conflagration, which had taken place just moments before. Now it was over, having happened so quickly that if he had not been there when he was he would have missed it, and that was the last thing on earth he wanted to happen. He loved wars. Curiously, though, an almost supernatural peace and calm now prevailed, and for some reason there was a sweet smell of incense, carried on the gentle breeze. Xystus, thinking on it all, found these aspects very strange, sickening really, for he had been present at countless similar wars on such killing fields before, but could not account for what he was experiencing here. Therefore, putting all that aside, and having seen all there was to see, he turned to go.

A day or so previously Xystus had left his home, the Kingdom of the Kosmos, bound for the Blue Planet. To do so he crossed a dimensional bridge, passed through an assigned gateway, and stepped out onto the designated high place. Dressed in a shirt and trousers, he assumed his natural form. He was a dark being, who seemed in a perpetual shadow of some sort, with his face, hands and bare feet hard to distinguish clearly. Obviously though, he was an extremely tall, slim and handsome being, with long, thick, beautiful dark hair reaching to the middle of his back. When he moved it was a graceful, fluid motion, and despite the shadows around about him wings could be seen, which enabled him to glide so effortlessly across the ground. However, his eyes were a distinguishing feature, for they glowed fiercely, like black coals. When he spoke his teeth appeared to be black, yet his mouth and throat glowed red, for he was a spirit being created of fire.

Xystus had been born, or rather, created, fully formed. He was of extremely high rank to a royal line, and privileged beyond belief. In fact, he could almost be considered eternal, because no one could, or would ever remember, or even know of his birth or creation. He was by nature deeply religious, part of a complex order of siblings and contemporaries. Some of these were extremely unusual beings, very powerful, with great and magnificent skills and talents. For example, some were so tall he found it hard even to see their faces as he gazed upwards, and they had various abilities, such as being able to move entire planets, piece together elements of the universe itself, or even somehow physically bend time.

However, Xystus recognized he was, in many ways, a damaged being, yet for some reason was not entirely sure why. Strange really, for he knew almost everything there was to know. The truth was that, for eons, his life had been like a paradise, with a wondrous range of tasks and activities to choose from, while time stretched out in a seemingly glorious eternal moment. However, after a time, he and some of his brothers had sickened of the fawning attitude of many toward They who called Himself EHYEH. Xystus, and those who thought like him, believed a new order should be struck with a new and better way of doing things.

It all seemed so reasonable, rational, yet for some reason this was not well received, and things went badly for them. Xystus and all his fellow dissenters and rebels, insisting on the assumed righteousness of their position, found themselves being evicted from the only home they had ever known, and thrown into a new one, a dimension known as the Kingdom of the Kosmos. This Kingdom was ruled by a despotic overlord known paradoxically as, The Shining One, and, despite any assumptions about the name, it was a shadow world of perpetual twilight. It was also realm branded and marked by fear, and loathing as The Shining One usually delegated control to the Kosmokratoras, a council known as the Rulers of the Darkness.

Then, one day, Xystus saw a new Blue Planet appear in space. It was a beautiful planet, no doubt about that, but he discovered that it was inhabited by some pitiful creatures made of dirt. Yet, because of that, Xystus found himself with a new job. A cartographer had mapped the Blue Planet, and a council was formed, with Xystus, and a number of his brothers, each given a designated area of habitation, or tribes, to watch over and care for. EHYEH established the council, which meant they were, from time to time, able to mix again with the greater family. Xystus enjoyed this new role, but he was always far from being a benign council member.

Xystus, being flawed, increasingly became a raging, furious being, always angered at the attention these bags-of-bones seemed to attract. So he would, whenever and wherever possible incite them to war, murder and every other foul act, yet it infuriated him even further how he could only go so far with these attempts. Every time he sought to push things as much as he could, there was always someone to stop or block him, to hedge him in. In particular, a sickeningly self-righteous fool called, Mikha-EL.

Xystus hated Mikha-EL, because he had led the forces against the rebels, and having them thrown into the Kingdom of the Kosmos. It was his observation that Mikha-EL had almost unlimited power, but he just seemed so weak. He had an obsessive attention to the Blue Plant inhabitants, how he seemed to care about others so much, or running off to EHYEH to report on every little thing. It seemed to Xystus that Mikha-EL could not think for himself, and so Xystus generally just dismissed him, despite his obviously almost unlimited power, as somehow soft and ineffectual.

Then utter disaster struck. His dark colleagues, the Kosmokratoras, decided Xystus should be replaced on the Council, and despite his protestations, he was pushed aside for someone, he thought, far less capable. From then on he wandered aimlessly, like a dry cloud driven by the wind, creating trouble and mischief wherever and whenever he could. Not that it amounted to much in the scheme of things, for he was a lone agent, uncared for, and uncaring.

So now Xystus turned to leave the plain only to find that pathetic fool, Mikha-EL, standing before him, blocking him. "What are you to me, Oh Great Prince?" he exclaimed, his words dripping sarcasm. But to his immense surprise Mikha-EL responded in a voice like the sound of many thunders echoing across vast oceans, "I am nothing to you Xystus. I come at the bidding of mighty EHYEH, to deliver His eternal justice."

To Xystus' utter astonishment the millennia of his existence seemed to conflate to almost nothingness, and a thought slipped unbidden into his mind. How could this be so, how could he be judged, for he thought he knew ALL things, and in that moment of time he realized he had indeed known of this happening from everlasting. It had been written, but a delusion of overestimating his own mental powers had overtaken him, and while knowing all other things he had somehow missed what was written, forgotten it perhaps.

Xystus' mind now filled with the realization that by challenging EHYEH, and treating the inhabitants of the blue planet as he had, he would be bound for all eternity. As he looked on in horror, Xystus saw Mikha-EL put forth his hand, in which rested a golden chain, fitting for the rank Xystus held. Then he felt Mikha-EL lay the golden chain across his shadowy neck, and at that very moment all sense of time and space collapsed. All he could feel was a tremendous pain arcing throughout his body. A formative scream of tormented anguish, a scream no one would ever hear, filled his red throat in what would be an eternal NOW, on and on, and on, and on.