Year 2690.
Darkness.
Pitch black darkness.
And a voice.
As cold as Mars nights.
I know this voice.
I’ve known it for over 300 years now.
It’s Andriel. The angel of death.
MY death.
He was put with me to make sure I pay my debt.
“Not now.” He says. “Not now, not ever! This is the price and you know it.”
Yes… I do know it. It’s the price I must pay for the life I’ve lived. For the things I’ve done. Immortality… My personal hell.
A loud scream of a black crow awakened me.
The light was bright gray and it was hurting my artificial eye.
A weird thing happens when you have one real eye and one fake… You see the world in weird colors. Probably if my artificial eye was fitted by a proper doctor in a proper hospital, it would work fine. But mine… I would see about half of the range of colors, for example right now I see a bright blue sky with red clouds and everything under the sky is just different shades of grey.
I looked around. The bike was half-smashed into the concrete wall that I had hit on a speed of about two coths… What was it the olden days? About 400 miles? Who cares… Those days are long gone.
Why did I even try? I’ve smashed into walls before and it never killed me. I guess it’s just a force of habit. I know there is no hope for me.
I am destined to walk this God-forsaken planet forever.
My eyes had adjusted to the light. I heard a heavy breathing to my left, I tried to get up, but it appeared that all the bones in my right arm were shattered. Damn it. It will take a good few hours to heal. Healing fast was another “gift” from God, to make sure I pay off my debt. I tried to use my left, mechanical, arm to lift myself from the ground, but turned out that the battery in it was dead. I wonder how long I was dead this time…
I rolled my body over on my back and saw a massive Gordo, a three-headed demon dog, staring at me. All three pairs of eyes were as black as the darkness itself.
“You know you can’t kill me,” I told him quietly, “But I can kill you.” I slowly got the solar panel out of my pocket and connected it to my arm. With this radioactive sun, my arm should charge in a few minutes.
I remembered this type of Gordos. 300 years ago, when I was leading Belzedar’s army against Heaven after he overthrew Lucifer and destroyed the balance, I had millions of Gordos because each was as vicious as a thousand legion demons and hard to kill.
The arm had charged. I got up and Gordo jumped me. Weird creatures they are, these Gordos… As vicious and demonic beasts as they are, they don’t attack you when you are down. Like it’s some sort of weird code of honor…
I grabbed the beast by his middle throat, lifted him from the ground, and squeezed hard. The other two heads weren’t even trying to attack. All six eyes were just staring at me. I was looking straight into them. “You and me. We are not so different,” I said, and then something happened. I don’t know why, but I decided to let the demon dog go. I never let a demon go, yet I decided to let this one go. “I better never see you again!” I said in anger and threw him to the sand with great force, but not enough to kill. It got straight up. As I was turning away from it, the beast jumped again, I was ready to catch it, but it teleported to the other side of me, and I heard a deafening demonic scream. I slowly turned around and saw a headless body of Engardi, a flesh-eating legion demon. Engardi is the type of demon I lost my left arm to. Its head was in Gordo’s mouth.
“Do you understand that after doing this, you will be banished from hell?” I asked and looked at the beast like it was gonna give me an answer. Gordo spat the head out of his mouth and sat down.
For some reason, this beast had decided to go against its nature, its purpose, its meaning… It decided to follow me, it decided to become a Soredo – a banished demon.
I looked around and saw an old “Dedra” hyper-bike near me, parked at what must have been a bar before the apocalypse. “Dedras” were always easy to hijack, and this one was no exception. I started it with ease. The top speed of this thing was about 3 coths, and in this radioactive sun, it wouldn’t run out of charge.
“I can’t tell you not to follow me, because now you are Soredo, and that makes you your own master, so do as you please.”
I looked at the road and was deciding for a minute. Then took off to the south. I had heard from the doomsday survivors that somewhere that way was the biggest concentration of demons on this side of what used to be Mississippi.
And I will kill them.
All of them.
That is my debt.
I led them here.
Now I will send them back to hell.
As I was gaining speed, I looked to my left and saw a flickering image of Gordo as he was multiporting next to me.
“You stupid motherfucker. You have no idea what you’ve got coming at you for the choice you made,” I thought to myself and sped off.
Year 2388.
Mars – Colony of United Continents of Earth.
I woke up… God… Why is it always so cold here… The “perks” of working for the government, they can send you anywhere they want. Even if it is to fucking Mars.
The communicator beeped, I looked at the screen, it was Sarge. Poor fucker. His idiot redneck father had named him Sarge as in short for Sergeant because he wanted Sarge to go to the army. I guess he succeeded in a way. Although there is almost no military at all these days, Sarge is working for GSS, short for Government Security Syndicate.
“C’mon Major, how long do I need to wait for you?” said Sarge over the com. They tried to keep the military rankings in GSS, but it was just for show. Nobody gave a shit about nobody’s rank. “I’ll be out in a minute,” I said.
I put on my GSS uniform and walked outside. Sarge was sitting in his “Spirit,” an All-Terrain Vehicle designed specially for UCE’s Mars colony. It was named after one of the 2 rovers sent on the Mars mission in 2003. By 2015 we had discovered that there is water on Mars, in 2040 Japan together with the USA sent 446 robots to build a colony, and in 2092 the first 200 people came here to work and live. And look at the planet now… Its population is almost half of Earth’s.
“You ready for today?” Sarge asked. “Always, my friend, always.”
Today was the day when a new portion of GSS operatives arrived. Just over 3000 heads of boys fresh into their 21st birthday. They dream about adventures and wars on this red, god-forsaken planet. They have no idea that all they will be doing is making sure that religious fanatics don’t make too much trouble and all bar fights are taken care of.
We arrived at the training facility… Heh… These idiots have the balls to call it a “Training Facility”… It’s basically a square mile of nothing that has a fence around it and one tower at the side of it. As we were driving up to the tower’s parking, a bunch of religion freaks were protesting next to the entrance. The holoboards said things like “God gave us Earth, we should have stayed on it!”, “Return to Earth while you can!”, “The End is near!” and my personal favorite – “God has turned his back on you! Repent!”. “If it is true,” I thought to myself, “if God has turned his back on us, then what is the point of repenting? That is, of course, if you believe in God.”
We walked into the tower and took a lift to the top. On the tower’s balcony, there was a man standing and looking over the few thousand youngsters down on the training grounds.
“Mav! How long has it been?! 8-10 years? You have not changed one bit!”
“Andrew, good to see you, my friend,” I responded, “It’s been way too long is what it’s been, but what the hell are you doing delivering youngsters?”
Andrew was an old friend of mine back from the days when the army was still UCE’s main military force, and we were youngsters dreaming about being legendary generals.
“I heard you have been promoted to General Manager, is that GSS GM’s job? Delivering kids to shitty planets?” I asked.
“Maverick fucking John, an asshole as usual,” Andrew said and laughed. “No, Mav, I heard about Layla, and I had to come here and give my condolences.”
“It happened six years ago, you took your time.”
“It hasn’t been easy on Earth, half of the planet is at war, and the other half is starting to run out of resources. I hadn’t been home in a long time, so I had no idea. I organized my arrival here as soon as I could. Your wife was a brilliant woman, Mav.”
“Ex-wife, Andrew, and yes, she was.”
“You know that she never signed the divorce papers you sent? She knew exactly why you sent them. Shit, everyone knew exactly why you sent them, you idiot. But if you would know your wife a bit better, you would know that she would follow you not just to Mars but to hell and back, all you needed to do was ask.”
“Ask for what? For her to come to this shithole with me? With no chances of a normal life? What would she do here? Mine minerals like the other 1.6 billion people here? Fuck that.”
“Okay, we can talk about this later, right now we have work to do.”
I looked over the edge of the balcony down at the boys. They were all looking up at us and waiting.
“Welcome to Mars, rangers!” I shouted. Mars was so quiet there was no need for a loudspeaker; my voice covered the whole square mile with no effort.
“You have arrived here for one rea… What the fu…?”
1… 2… 3, 4, 5, 6…
I would later find out that it was a total of 12. 12 hydrogen interplanetary warheads. Each almost 1,000 times more powerful than the A-bomb.
In short, a hydrogen bomb or H-bomb relies on combining two or more atoms together in a reaction called fusion. Fusion is what powers stars like our sun to make them so hot and bright. That should give you an idea of the potential power of this bad mother called the fusion bomb.
“Andrew, what the fuck is that?” I asked, but before I could hear anything in response, a blast of light and then nothing… Not darkness, not silence, just nothing.
And in this nothingness, pain. Pain so bad that you can’t think, you can’t understand. This pain doesn’t compare to anything. It’s not pain. It’s The Pain. The definition of pain.
The pain didn’t stop. I don’t know how long it had been. It seemed that even time stopped existing in this nothingness.
Then the voice came… It sounded like thunder mixed with an old-school fossil oil W32 type engine revving. “General! I welcome you!”
“Who is this!? Where am I!” I shouted. But my shout came out weak and quiet…
The voice laughed. Or at least I thought it was its laugh… Or maybe it really was thunder… This pain. It’s not changing. It’s like I’m stuck in time and space in this one excruciating pain moment.
“Some call me Master, others call me God. If you ask me, General, I see myself as a leader.”
“You keep calling me General,” I said, “but I’ve never been one.”
“Oh, but you ARE NOW!” the voice blasted and fell on me so heavy it smashed away the nothingness!
Millions. Countless millions of indescribable… What are they? Animals? Monsters?
“THIS is your Army!” the voice answered my silent question, “And you will lead it against Him and His army. And you WILL PREVAIL!”
“I don’t understand…” I said.
“Let me show you,” the voice responded.
And suddenly I knew it. I knew everything. I knew who this voice was. I knew where I was. I knew what I would do.
I was talking to Belzedar, Lucifer’s first general for the forces of Evil. Belzedar’s job used to be commanding Lucifer’s army in maintaining the balance between Good and Evil. The balance ever so necessary for the universe to exist. Without Evil, there can be no Good and vice versa, without Good, Evil doesn’t exist because it loses its purpose. They need each other, Good and Evil.
Unfortunately for all worlds, Belzedar, as brilliant as he is with strategic warfare, failed to see the need for this balance. He saw the agreement between Good and Evil as a sign of weakness from Lucifer himself. After building his strength for many centuries, he finally challenged Lucifer and, in a long and heavy battle, beat him by decapitating him.
By now, I guess it’s quite obvious where I was. The home of Evil. Hell. Τάρταρος. Piekło. Kalichi. Or whatever else you wish to call it.
It was quite funny, considering the situation, that I ended up here. I have always been a firm atheist. I was always sure that I was the only master of my fate. Of my life. Boy, was I wrong.
I was brought here to lead Belzedar’s army of Gordos and Engardis in the battle against Heaven. And I wouldn’t say no. Because he had Her. Layla. She was in here. In hell. Because she loved me. She wasn’t suffering. She was in hell but, in exchange for my services, she would be kept in a heaven-like fantasy.
She won’t know she’s in hell. Not now, not ever. I will do whatever it takes. I will make sure of this. And Belzedar knew this. That’s why he called me General. Because I will be General. His General. I will lead the army. And I will win. I will beat Heaven, and I will lead the army of Evil to ultimate power.
And there was one more thing I knew. Belzedar needed me so bad, he had orchestrated the end of the human race. The Apocalypse. He had fed the religious fanatics with the belief that the war between Good and Evil was already happening and the non-believers of the human race are feeding the army of Evil. As the population of Earth and its two colonies, Mars and Proxima B, a satellite for Proxima Centauri, were 97% non-believers, it was easy for Belzedar to plant the thought into religion freaks’ heads that the only way to stop Evil from winning the war is the Apocalypse.
So the fanatics got their hands on launch codes for Interplanetary H-bombs, and on one beautiful Mars morning, 12 warheads hit Mars, 8 hit Proxima B, and 5 hit Earth itself.
There were no survivors on Mars and Proxima B because the terrain didn’t have enough caves and mountains. There were a handful of survivors on Earth. The people who used to live in or near mountain ranges. The planet started to change. The forests burned down. Most of the oceans dried out to sizes of lakes. The radiation destroyed most of the ozone layer, so the sun became dangerous for living beings. The few survivors left went to live in caves and only come out to raid the plains and get water at night.
Belzedar was not bothered about the few survivors. He wasn’t bothered about the whole planet’s population or the human race altogether. He only needed me. He had taken my Ex-wife with the help of cancer first. And then he had destroyed the human race just to get me.
I felt a bit flattered even.
Chapter 3: The Weight of Eternity
The wind howled across the barren wasteland, carrying with it the faint scent of sulfur and decay. The Dedra hummed beneath me, its solar-powered engine a steady thrum in the silence of the desolate world. The Gordo–no, the Soredo–multiported beside me, its three heads scanning the horizon with an eerie synchronicity. It was strange, having a companion after centuries of solitude. Stranger still that it was a demon, a creature I had once commanded in another life, another war.
The landscape blurred as we sped south, the ruins of what used to be civilization passing in a haze of gray and red. My artificial eye flickered, distorting the colors further, but I didn’t need clarity to know where I was headed. The Mississippi Basin. Once a thriving region, now a festering pit of demonic activity. It was there I would begin my penance. My debt.
But as the miles stretched on, my mind wandered back to the past. To her. Layla. Her face haunted me, not as a specter of guilt, but as a beacon of something I could never quite grasp. Love? Redemption? I wasn’t sure. All I knew was that she was the reason I had agreed to Belzedar’s terms. The reason I had led his army against Heaven. The reason I was here, cursed with immortality, cursed to walk this broken world until I had atoned for my sins.
“You’re quiet,” I muttered to the Soredo, more to break the silence than anything else. It didn’t respond, of course. It just kept pace beside me, its six black eyes fixed on the horizon. “Yeah, me too.”
The sun was beginning to set, casting long shadows across the cracked earth. The radioactive glow of the atmosphere turned the sky a sickly green, a color my artificial eye couldn’t quite process. It was beautiful in a way, in the same way a wound could be beautiful when it was fresh and raw. A reminder of what had been lost.
I slowed the Dedra as we approached the outskirts of the Basin. The air grew thicker, heavier, as if the very atmosphere was resisting our advance. The Soredo let out a low growl, its heads snapping in different directions. It sensed them before I did. Demons. Legion demons. Hundreds of them.
I dismounted the bike, my mechanical arm whirring softly as I flexed my fingers. The Soredo stood beside me, its massive frame tense, ready to pounce. I could feel the weight of eternity pressing down on me, the endless cycle of violence and death that had become my existence. But this time, it felt different. This time, I wasn’t just fighting to survive. I was fighting for something more. For redemption. For Layla.
The first wave of demons emerged from the shadows, their grotesque forms twisting and writhing as they charged. I didn’t hesitate. I never did. My mechanical arm surged with power, the solar charge giving it a strength no mortal limb could possess. I swung, cleaving through the first demon with ease. The Soredo lunged beside me, its three heads tearing through flesh and bone with a ferocity that was almost beautiful.
The battle was a blur of motion and blood. I lost count of how many I killed, how many fell beneath my fists and the Soredo’s jaws. But they kept coming, an endless tide of darkness. I could feel the fatigue setting in, not in my body–my cursed immortality kept me strong–but in my soul. The weight of it all, the centuries of violence, the countless lives I had taken, both human and demon. It was crushing.
And then, amidst the chaos, I saw him. Andriel. The angel of death. My death. He stood at the edge of the battlefield, his form shimmering like a mirage. His cold, Mars-night voice cut through the din of battle.
“You cannot outrun your debt, Maveric,” he said, his tone as emotionless as ever. “Not now. Not ever.”
I wanted to scream at him, to tell him I was trying, that I was doing everything I could to atone. But the words caught in my throat. Instead, I turned back to the fight, my mechanical arm slamming into another demon with enough force to shatter its skull.
The Soredo let out a deafening roar, its three heads snapping at the air as it tore through the remaining demons. The battlefield fell silent, the last of the legion demons collapsing into lifeless heaps. I stood amidst the carnage, my chest heaving, my body covered in blood that wasn’t mine.
Andriel was gone. But his words lingered, echoing in my mind like a curse.
I looked at the Soredo, its six eyes meeting mine. “You made your choice,” I said, my voice hoarse. “Now you’re stuck with me.”
It tilted its heads, as if considering my words, then let out a low growl. I couldn’t tell if it was agreement or defiance. It didn’t matter. We were bound together now, two outcasts in a world that had no place for us.
I mounted the Dedra, the Soredo multiporting beside me as we sped off into the night. The road ahead was long, and the weight of eternity was heavy. But for the first time in centuries, I felt something other than despair. Something faint, flickering, like a spark in the darkness.
Hope.