Embedded Files
There was no time to reminisce about Mason, though, for the Exorcist had landed in a suspiciously small room. On the far side, a large, plush bed had been pushed into the corner. At its footboard, a grand wooden desk sat, strewn with papers and pens. The chair was well-worn, covered in splotches of ink and scuff marks, but most interestingly, it was turned on its side—almost as if its inhabitant had hastily stood up and overturned the chair. And next to the fallen chair, almost laughably obvious, was a simple door with a warning sign.
The Exorcist slowly made her way around the room, trailing her fingertips along a dusty dresser. There was no way in high Hell that the door to the next level would be there, out in the open, just waiting for someone to use it, right? She tried to use an eye to see what was on the other side of the door, but surprisingly, none of her eyes could make out anything clearer than a mass of bright lights. It seemed, she realized resignedly, that she would be going into this blind.
Well, she would be, if she could find the blasted key to this door. It wouldn’t open no matter how many times she jiggled the handle, or smacked the lock, or yanked, or pushed. The Exorcist even bashed it with the chair a couple of times, which left the door unharmed but her upper right arm quite sore. She’d just been gearing up to waste a few bullets trying to shoot the lock off before suddenly, an eye on her upper back caught the glint of a small object.
Without wasting a second, The Exorcist was tearing apart the dresser she had just passed. Every drawer and every compartment was searched—she even went as far to shove it away from the wall in order to check the back. Once she finished ravaging the dresser, she turned her attention to the neatly made bed, which she made quick work of. After all, there’s only so many places a key-like object could be on a bed, of all places.
What The Exorcist was most looking forward to was the desk, however, was the desk. There lie pages and pages of blueprints and sketches (she, with a feeling that could only be described as hateful annoyance, caught a view of the bothersome devil-machine she had encountered before falling into this bedroom) mixed with long lists of technologies she hadn’t even heard of and article clippings showing places she had never been. One tattered sheet told tales of a tire-sized reactor capable of powering a whole planet, crafted by a shop in the galaxy next door. Another paper, apparently ripped from a magazine or newspaper, advertised their sleek guns capable of shooting particles even faster than the speed of light (for the low price of 3 goblin brains!). A scrap of paper thrown to the side had a rudimentary sketch of the plant room The Exorcist had visited earlier, complete with a shopping list on the back detailing what venomous plants were on sale.
With one sweep of her arm, she cleared them all into her bag. Later, when she was reunited with her ship, she could make some modifications and finally turn it into the combat vessel she’d always wanted. Oh, to be rushing through space in a souped-up ship chock full of light rays and blasters and advanced radars…
A cacophonous crash yanked her out of her blissful thoughts of commandeering an intimidating gunship. Right where she had landed earlier, a boy in a star-spangled sweater lay sprawled on the ground. The Exorcist shot him a glare, before turning around and returning back to her search for the door key.
A cough came from behind her.
“Excuse you,” she hissed. Perhaps one or two of those bullets for the door lock could be spared in order to use now.
“I’m excused, it seems. How are you, dear?” The person from earlier called, seeming immune to whatever awkward tension The Exorcist was clearly feeling.
She wheeled around to face him. “I’m not your ‘dear,’ kid. Get lost.”
They seemed to pay no attention to her words, though, as they had just gone slack-jawed. “Laerith????” He exclaimed, still agape.
The Exorcist looked at him weirdly. “I beg your pardon? I’m not Laerith.”
They just shook their head excitedly. “No, darling, you don’t understand. There’s no way you aren’t Laerith. Tell me, angel, did it hurt falling from Almighty Heaven to the Circles of Hell?”
She rolled her eyes. “You’re looking at the wrong person, buddy. Leave before I personally ensure you do.” She flipped over a cup of pencils rather forcefully at this last sentence, sending a couple toppling onto the ground with an unceremonious clatter. She haphazardly shoved the others back into their container, nudging their fallen brethren with her foot in order to pile them up.
“No, you’re Laerith XVII, the famous fallen seraph! My father told me all about you, how you and him had grown up together only for you to disappear one day and never return. You know, honey, your disappearance was the first time a seraph had left the gates of Almighty Heaven,” they plowed on, ignoring The Exorcist completely. “Later, rumors swirled around that one of the Sins had taken you. But my father never believed that, and he told me not to as well. He passed believing that you would one day return to your rightful home.”
This made her pause mid-crouch on her way to the pencils. Fallen seraph? Almighty Heaven? Taken by a Sin? Yes, she’d been raised in the Circles of Hell (if you could even call the Sin of Greed’s shoddy, negligent care of her as a proper upbringing), but was that not the whole story?
The Exorcist looked down at the figure, who was now preoccupied with summoning small stars in the palm of his hand. “How do you know if I was raised in the Circles of Hell or not?”
He scoffed. “Sweetheart, haven’t you been listening? Don’t you know who you are? Don’t play stupid with me; you’ll regret it.”
The Exorcist’s eyes all narrowed a sliver. Originally, she’d thought of him as a possible information source, seeing that he was so willing to divulge so much knowledge. Now, it seemed, their arrogant attitude would stand in the way of that. She resumed her search, shooting off the locks on the desk cabinets with piercing BANG!s.
“Looks to me like you don’t know a damn thing about your own story. Wouldn’t you be stupid to ignore me?” He said, now flipping around a star staff.
The Exorcist took a long breath and turned around. “What’s your name?”
They grinned. “That’s more like it, darling. I’m Lunar, God of Eiluthieas Moon. My father said you and him grew up together.” He proffered a hand to shake, which The Exorcist ignored.
“Well, Lunar, I’ll say this one last time: You’ve got the wrong person. I’m no seraph, much less a fallen one. Tell your father he remembers incorrectly.” She sneered. What she hadn’t told them, though, was that she was stolen from the Almighty Heavens; at least, that’s what she overheard the Sin of Envy snap during one of the many arguments between Envy and Greed. The Exorcist had always wondered about that line—”You’re harboring a stolen good from the Almighty Heavens! It’s just a matter of time until they descend upon us to pick us apart for your mistake!”—had meant, and if it were true, why she had never been picked up again by the Almighty Heavens. The Sin of Envy wasn’t a frequent liar, and so every time the Sin of Greed had pushed her aside, forgotten her, thrown her away, The Exorcist had thought back to that quip. But as the decades passed, her longing had soured into bitterness. They were the Almighty Heavens, for hell’s sake! They couldn’t find one 4-armed creature?
“Tell me, Laerith, do you have scars on your back?” Lunar called to her again after an uneasy pause. Instinctively, she reached to the bumpy, rough lines running down her back. What she knew was that she had sustained an accident of sorts; the details of the accident, the Sin of Greed never cared to provide. And after a few centuries, she had forgotten to ask.
The Exorcist heard Lunar chuckle at her knee-jerk reaction, so she redoubled her search efforts. The desk cabinets hadn’t resulted in many good findings; she had pocketed a fancy-looking compass, but still no key. Maybe the artwork on the walls hid more enticing secrets.
As she walked around the room, she could feel Lunar’s eyes trained on her. They followed her as she tore painting after painting off of the wall, shaking each one vigorously in the hopes that a key would drop. They followed her as she threw down the last painting in frustration. They even followed her as she pulled out another pistol, ready to shoot at the door’s lock again.
Some higher force stopped her temporarily. Hadn’t my entire childhood been spent wondering what would I have done if I were actually created by the Almighty Heavens, The Exorcist thought with a mounting anticipation. She glanced at Lunar again. “Fine, tell me about myself. If you insist you know so much.”
Lunar shrugged. “It’s in all standard God education. Why wouldn’t I know so much about it? The story goes as such: you were born Laerich XVII, a seraph. When you were young, one of the Sins escaped the Circles of Hell and kidnapped you in the middle of the night, then tore off your wings when you arrived in the Circles of Hell. Without the wings, your most identifiable feature was taken away, leaving the Almighty Heaven scourers sent to find you to see nothing. Eventually, you faded to unimportance.”
With a hearty CLUNK, the door’s lock fell off. The Exorcist stared straight ahead blankly, gun still raised. Was what Lunar was saying all true?
She looked back at him, still throwing around that star staff. “Thank you for telling me this, Lunar.”
He raised his head, surprised, and nodded.
The Exorcist stepped through the dark doorway, mind swirling with questions.
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