barren. All about them masses of bones lined the floor disturbing the commander. “I believed Yahweh would never come back here.”
“Why, Rafaela? Why are there so many bones in here?” The stranger’s quiet whimpers suddenly resided, she hung her head staring down at the floor.
“This is where the humanoids of the garden came to shelter and wait for Heaven’s return, but –” she fell quiet.
“Did the nephilim find them?” The malakhim shook her head.
“I killed them... I destroyed all that Azazel built, what he gave his life attempting to preserve.” Those words all but confirmed Samyaza’s fears, her leader was dead.
“Why?”
“I was ordered, for the subjects nature was sinful, nothing but cruelty and war, they had regressed far beyond anything our species might one day wish to become. I lured the nephilim to the garden, day by day enticing them ever further into the haven’s confides until their primitive minds could remember an entry route,” she began to blubber, “I had wished only for them to destroy the subjects, I did not wish for Azazel to get hurt, he gave his life for these things.” The malakhim looked up, her stillot’s glare focusing upon the humanoid with Samyaza’s team. “Azazel never knew he was being deceived. But we have all been deceived.” Rafaela sighed, pressing at her thigh, with a light scrape her visor fell apart from around her skull. Samyaza gasped at the sight of her peer’s skin. Her flat facial features were horrendously shrivelled and gaunt, her irises as grey as the deceased watchers of Amazarak’s ophanim. “Tell me,” she winced, “how does the malakhim Michael fair?”
“He is well.” Rafaela laughed lightly yet stopped before smiling at Samyaza’s response. Her dead eyes welled with liquid which coursed down her flat face.
“The vessel is in working order though its fuel is depleted, I entered through an open way towards the rear of the cavern.” The malakhim leered up at Samyaza, struggling to hold her posture, she made little effort to resist Eden’s atmosphere poisoning her lungs. “I am sorry, commander.”
“Who has deceived us, Rafaela?” She collapsed upon her hands, crumbling into a ball, huffing frantically as her final breaths left her ancient body.
“Yah... weh.”
6.
Samyaza stood in confusion, staring at the cave floor. “I don’t understand. Why would he destroy these humanoids? They were the subjects of the garden.” A malakhim stepped forward abruptly grasping the humanoid by its limbs.
“Did you know of these people?” Stricken in fear the being shook its head before he was dropped.
“They died over a thousand Eden years ago,” Samyaza spoke up, “he would know nothing of them.” She knelt by the quivering humanoid, looking across its dark skin and protruding facial structure curiously. “Where do your people reside now?”
“My people live beneath, hidden from the monsters, but they cast me and my family out, we were sent to our deaths to keep the giant’s blood thirst at bay.” The humanoid began to weep aloud. “They killed my family, my daughter.” Clutching hands to eyes the male blubbered uncontrollably, he sat back huddling knees to chest and began rocking back and forth. With a sigh Samyaza looked once more across the bones all about the empty cave.
“Let’s search deeper inside, if Rafaela spoke the truth we may be able to return to Heaven.”
“If she spoke the truth, commander, it may not be safe for us to return to Heaven.” The malakhim’s words caused Samyaza to halt, she turned to her crew.
“Do not speak of such things, until we know more we cannot pass judgement nor lay blame.” Her team nodded yet their words resonated to her, keep them calm, Samyaza. Together, with stillots lighting the way, the five of them stepped beyond the open chamber into a wide corridor. At intervals it broke away into smaller rooms, many of them with further skeletal remains, some laying hand in hand, others appearing to cower in corners.
“I’m surprised her life support lasted so long, commander.”
“As am I, Danel,” Samyaza stopped in an archway, she looked upon a skeletal body which had come to rest against the chamber’s back wall, above it was the image of a tree etched into the cave’s grey surface. “I wonder how many others are still alive, resting in ophanim across this world, how many have lost hope, believing we have abandoned them.”
“Commander! I see Rafaela’s vessel.” With one last glance at the primitive image Samyaza turned, rushing through the stone way until her crew reached a chamber at the deepest end of the cave. There, resting in its centre stood an ophanim, illuminated from above. The commander stepped into the room, into the light, looking up she glared at Eden’s moon, it shined with a chilling potency directly down into the humanoid’s cave through a small circular entrance, too high up for any living being to safely descend through without shattering its body upon landing.
“Even in the darkness, he gave them light to live.”
“ -mmander! Come in commander!” A trembling voice suddenly occupied her attention, she recognised the sound of her friend.
“Tamiel?”
“Yes, Yaza, are you okay?” Her captain’s words caused the commander to sigh with regret.
“Those of us who survived. Where are you, captain?”
“We are scaling Hermon, commander, the fires are our wreckage?”
“Yes.” She fell quiet for some moments, staring up at the glowing body in Eden’s night sky. “We will meet you there, Tamiel, stay safe.” Without waiting for a reply the commander turned, leaving the moonlight and her only way of contacting the other survivors within the stone complex. “Let’s go,” she nodded to her team as they each strode with haste back towards the cave’s entrance. As they retraced their steps Samyaza’s thoughts fell upon Azazel’s final messages to the ark, there must be more information in the cube, Samyaza, I hope Zebub is awaiting contact.
Scarcely noticing the moments pass Samyaza’s team greeted Ertael and Zavebe, the two stood peering out at Hermon’s landscape with a steadfast loyalty to their commander’s word. “Any signs of life?” She spoke to them upon vision far up the narrow corridor.
“No, commander. It has been quiet, no sightings, nor sound.” She nodded to them stepping out into the night yet clearing the cave’s cover she immediately paused.
“Yaza?” She heard Tamiel whisper through her headset.
“We will be with you shortly, captain. Remain at the ark.”
“I think something is watching us, commander.” Samyaza’s heart began to thud.
“Hide, Tamiel.” Some bestial roar thundered in her ears joined by calls of distress. “We are coming!” Yelling, Samyaza began with her crew back along Hermon’s rocky facing, striding towards their troubled team.
“Help us, commander!” At those words a malakhim in her company burst up from the mountainside, thrown through the air by flaring stillots.
“Ertael! Do not waste your suit’s life, stay together!” As her wreck’s burning fuel returned to her vision in the darkness of the night the commander could only look on at the sight of Tamiel’s team fending themselves off from an onslaught of some gargantuan bipedal beings. Their pale skin and naked bodies crashed and stomped in and out of the lit ground surrounding Samyaza’s broken ophanim.
What remained of her crew were encircled, swiping the air frantically with burning stillots in efforts to deter the deformed beasts as they coursed without direction about the blazing mountainside. Beyond her protective life suit Samyaza could hear the bloodthirsty roars of the giants, from within her ears were struck by sounds of horror. “Aid them!” On her command her team’s suits came alive, their stillot tips exploding with flames. “Keep the cube safe!”
The commander’s thoughts evaporated as her crew charged at the towering monstrosities. She pulled a stillot from her shoulder blade, despite having never wielded the rods in combat in her lifetime. With a shriek she threw herself into the fray, amidst the wreckage and burning fuel she swung her stillot at the closest hulk she could find. The s
earing rod sliced deep into the being’s pale skin causing it to convulse with a scream, bolting about it swung a wild arm crashing against Samyaza’s skull.
The brutal strike sent her plummeting in a moment of darkness. Colliding with the ground a savage tension gripped her ankle. In a daze she glared down at the slathering beast’s wounded back, it dragged her through the mountain’s undergrowth with a feral gurgle. Immediately the commander bucked her feet causing the monster to turn about, she looked briefly into its enormous black eyes before it grasped her legs with a second hand, “master!” It drooled, tugging at her ankles before she bucked her feet again.
“Help!” She yelled into her headset, flailing her stillot at the beast before thrusting herself off the floor, in a violent explosion the stillots on her back erupted with flame lifting her feet into the air yet the gargantuan deformity held on tight. Again she slashed at the screeching beast. “Help -” With a wild stroke the monster slammed her back to the ground, it struck her abdomen with its fist turning once more to continue dragging her down Hermon’s slope.
Still kicking at the nephilim, she breathed heavily, desperately attempting to dislodge herself yet her efforts were worthless. As her panic climaxed and her efforts became manic a giant entity swooped down before the fleeing nephilim in a roaring inferno. A malakhim struck out at the beast with its fiery stillot at last