I'm working on some fiction! It's a little rough around the edges. But I hope it might become something.

Chapter 1

Adrian and Rebecca lay on the roof of their house, counting moons.

“There’s Judgement,” said Rebecca. “And Exile behind it.”

“There’s Flood.” Adrian pointed to a blue crescent. “I don’t see Famine or Pestilence.”

Rebecca pointed to a red orb. “There is War.”

They searched for Hunter, Yoke and Gaol. Hunter was not up, but Yoke was just peeking above the horizon. Gaol was a pale white dot, inching toward zenith.

“When we die,” said Rebecca. “Do you think we’ll reincarnate in one of the hells?” She gestured to the night sky.

“No,” said Adrian. “We will reincarnate here, and be lovers in the next life as well.”

Fifteen years later, in the year of Genesis 2602, Rebecca died of fever. She left behind her loving husband Adrian and their daughter Aesha. They buried her in the family orchard, beneath a fig tree. Aesha was nine years old.

On the tenth day of winter in the year 2604, God came to Adrian and commanded him to murder his child.

This is how it was supposed to go: Adrian would have placed his daughter on the altar. He would have raised his knife, trusted his faith, and made his strike. And God would have turned the blade. Adrian would have passed the test of loyalty, and stories of his faith would have been told for ten thousand years.

But that is not how this story goes.

Aesha lay on the altar with her hands unbound. Her dark hair pooled on grey stone. What God had commanded, she was willing to give.

It was Adrian who was not willing to give it. Instead, he dropped the knife and cried out to God for mercy. Only then did his daughter’s face show fear.

Reality stuttered and groaned, and distant trumpets glided up in pitch as the archangel Michael crossed dimensions. He manifested in the temple as a black-and-white image, as if normal colours could not define him.

“Oh prophesied son,” he lamented. “You think you can abort God’s parable without consequences?”

Adrian’s eyes and ears began bleeding.

“Aesha, run. Now!”

Michael drew his sword, and the sound of it was like a violin screaming. “You cannot outrun God.”

“I can die trying.” He drew his own weapon. “Aesha, run! Please!”

Adrian knew his sword art was not equal to an angel’s. His experience was in battlefield formations, not in single-combat duels. But he must have learned something in his five years at war, for he saw Michael’s eyes widen slightly as Adrian blocked once, twice, and pirouetted and lunged. Michael parried the attack and returned it, and Adrian leapt backward to avoid the blade. Michael pressed the advantage and kept coming, striking down hard at Adrian, battering him. For a brief second Adrian heard the sound of bare feet slapping on stone. Michael’s eyes flicked past him to watch Aesha escaping.

In that moment of inattention, Adrian slipped under Michael’s guard and swung with every ounce of strength. The sword bounced off the porcelain skin, ringing like a bell. His hands went numb. The angel grabbed the blade in a closed fist and tore it away, lips thin with displeasure.

“Adrian of Numeria. For crimes of Treason against God / You are hereby sentenced / To eternal suffering / In Hell’s Ninth Orbit.”

A halo of iridescent mana flared about his untroubled brow, the spell growing in intensity before slamming into Adrian. “[Banish].”

The world blinked. Adrian was assaulted by freezing winds and darkness. Solid ice burned against his hands and knees. A snowstorm howled in all directions.

Adrian knew he would die of exposure if he didn’t move. His sword was gone, his clothes were not fit for these conditions. Already his teeth were chattering.

He screamed, and it tore painfully at his throat. Why God? I have served you, and I have loved you, and I am here, God… please!

The Mark of the Covenant sang in his veins, searching like an antenna for a signal. But Hell is the absence of God, and there was no reply.

Through frost-rimmed lashes he saw a faint yellow light, and stumbled towards it. The buffeting winds grew weaker as he approached, and suddenly he stepped across a threshold into preternatural calm. His breath plumed into the freezing air.

There in hushed twilight he saw the Colony for the first time. A huddled mass of gaunt and dirty sinners, faces like skulls, pressed together for warmth. Their dead eyes stared through him.

At the center stood a cloaked, horned demon with a shepherd's crook. Heat rippled off his red skin and orange light bathed the congregation. They crowded pathetically toward the warmth.

Adrian studied the scene while his fingers grew numb. He could recite chapter and verse the doctrine of samsara and the atonements demanded by the nine moons of hell. God had sent him here to suffer in the darkest orbit, forever.

My daughter is still alive, he thought. I am not yet ready to die.

He slid down the snowy slope and joined the crowd. They were packed together like fish in a net. The entire mob slowly churned as those at the freezing edges pushed their way back to the warmth at the centre.

For hours he shuffled this way and that, unable to rest. He gazed up at the night sky and saw streamers of green and blue fire. Planet Earth rose above the horizon, half in shadow. White clouds swirled over blue oceans. Adrian looked at the Earth and began to cry. He cried until he fell asleep, still held in the embrace of murderers and thieves.

Adrian was awoken by the feverish mumblings of a madman.

He was warm—pressed against bodies on all sides—though the soles of his feet were cold and the wind lashed his face.

“Can’t you hear that?”

Adrian saw the light of madness in the man’s eyes.

“Can’t you hear that? They said I’ve suffered enough. I’ve learned my lesson—God knows I have!—I’ve been redeemed! I just have to—“

A small scuffle broke out as others shoved him back.

“Don’t listen to the voices, Soleman. They’re not real.”

Adrian looked where Soleman had pointed. Out beyond the circle of the demon’s lamp, unnamed things waited in the shadows.

“I can go home again,” Soleman whispered, leaning drunkenly against his friend.

Adrian felt the warmth of an open furnace, and turned to see the red demon parting the crowd. The shepherd’s crook was planted at the centre of the Colony, and the lamp hung there. The demon walked alone out into the darkness and there was a sharp crack, then a shriek, and the lurking shadows were suddenly fleeing. Then the demon returned to the light.

As he passed by Adrian, the demon spoke. “Adrian, come with me. We need to talk.”

Adrian walked beside the demon at sunrise. The ice was painted pink and gold in the east, and the shadows of the sinners were long in the west.

“I am Sangrun, the Archon of Gaol. I balance the sins and suffering.”

“I know.”

“You doubted God.”

“I did.”

“You disobeyed God.”

“I did.”

“And for that you are punished.”

Adrian balled his fists. “I did what I had to do!”

“God does not care about your good intentions. Sins shall be balanced with suffering, that is the Law. God has decreed that you shall be punished for eternity.”

“For what sin? The sin of love? The sin of mercy? Fuck you! Send me back!”

“Do you think you’re the first to say they shouldn’t be here?”

“You just don’t care? Am I so insignificant to you?”

“Insignificant?” Sangrun gazed at the horizon. “Adrian, I have been here since before the first sunrise. I walked alone with the first man to ever take a life, and I have shepherded the broken in spirit ever since. You have no idea… what I would give to find significance. In this ocean of time.”

Adrian looked up also. The earth and its moons were fading in the brightening sky.

“Then what am I to do?”

They stood in silence. Demon and man, silhouetted by sunrise, above the host of the damned.

“In the oceans of Gaol swims a creature called the Leviathan. It was created before Sin. No demon nor sinner may harm it.”

The wind whistled between them.

“I want the Leviathan’s heart, Adrian. I hunger for it, I yearn for it. But the hand that casts the harpoon must be without sin. Do you see? If you truly have not sinned, then you can harm it. You can bring me the one thing I cannot have. You can bring me the Heart of the Leviathan.”

“What will you do in return?”

“I will set you free, Adrian. You and anyone who aids you in this quest.”

“And if I refuse?”

“Then we shall spend eternity together, brother. God has abandoned you. In a hundred years, in a thousand years, what will you regret? One tiny act of blasphemy, or that you never heard your daughter’s voice again? She’s alone, Adrian. Will you save her?”

“There is no wood or iron nor food in this wasteland. Even if I wanted to, how would I hunt it?”

“I trust you will find a way.”

“Then how do I know you are not lying? And how will I convince others?”

Sangrun cut his palm and held out his clawed hand. “Mingle blood with blood, and seal the pact. Your palm will be marked by a [Devil’s Bargain]… until the terms are fulfilled.”

Adrian bit his own palm and watched it drip to the snow. His gold wedding band was stained red with it. God had already injured his family once. He would not let it happen again.

He shook hands with Sangrun, and the pact was sealed.

Chapter 2

Nothing in the gospels prepared Adrian for the cacophony of a thousand waking sinners. Coughs, scrapes, grumbles, gasps, curses, one man calling piteously for a friend, another one preaching the end of days.

Penitents began to prostrate themselves in neat rows, their heads facing towards the Earth in the heavens. Others clustered in quiet groups and listened to whispered sermons. Tussles turned into fights, and rings of spectators formed around them to shriek encouragement and insults.

Amongst them all, the catatonics simply stood and stared at nothing.

Sangrun walked amongst the sinners, finding the ones that were too weak to stand, that were missing fingers and toes, and he cast healing words upon them. One by one he dragged them back from the brink of death, restoring them to exhausted, starving, shivering life. Every man that he saved despised him for it. Their dirty faces were streaked with tears and creased with hate.

To be continued...