I was back in the garden again. At least, I thought it was the garden. Everything around me shimmered—familiar and wrong at the same time. The air felt too still, too dense, as if the world waited for a decision I didn't know I was meant to make.
Five figures knelt before me. Their forms were angelic, perfect in shape and radiance, each one shining with a purity that made my skin ache. I knew them. Somehow. Their faces stirred something deep in memory, but whenever I reached for the reason, it slipped through my grasp.
Only four bowed.
The fifth remained standing.
Uriel was the first I recognized. Angel of truth, of knowledge. His light was steady, unblinking, and it carried the weight of every answer I had ever feared to ask.
Beside him knelt Michael. His hair was black as polished stone. His eyes darker still. Yet nothing about him felt cruel—only disciplined, powerful, shaped for war. He radiated judgment. Not hate. Judgment.
Gabriel was harder to see. His face blurred at the edges, shifting like smoke in wind. A messenger, a trickster, something sharp and brilliant beneath the softness. He reminded me of the clown. The cursed one. Though I couldn't say why.
Raphael knelt with a smile, warm and gentle. His eyes flickered with colors I couldn't track. Love and healing poured from him in waves, and the sight of him hurt in a way I didn't understand—like pressing on a bruise you forgot you had.
And then there was the last.
He stood tall, refusing to bend. His hair glimmered gold, but not the simple gold of sunlight—twisted, defiant, burning more than shining. His eyes were stranger still: brown laced with red, full of a pride I had never seen before. He wasn't afraid. Or maybe he was, but refused to show it.
That courage—or arrogance—terrified me.
Samael.
Lucifer.
He stared at me as if I were unworthy of breathing the same air. Hatred radiated from him, sharp and focused, and for a moment I almost dropped to my knees—not in worship, but out of raw fear.
And yet, even he was nothing compared to the being on the throne.
The throne itself seemed carved from pure shadow, towering and terrible. The figure seated upon it was… impossible. My eyes could not hold the shape of his face. Every time I tried, the world blurred. But I knew who He was. Just as I knew He saw every thought in my head.
God.
His presence filled the garden like gravity—pulling everything inward. I felt drawn to Him, almost painfully so. A son to a father. Or a mirror to its maker.
Every angel trembled. Gabriel's wings quivered. Michael's hand twitched toward a blade that wasn't there. Even Raphael's smile wavered.
Only Samael remained still , facing god face to face .
God spoke then, calm in tone but heavy enough to crack the world open.
"Why do you refuse to kneel, Samael?"
Samael lifted his chin. Confidence flickered across his face, but it trembled at the edges.
"Why should an archangel such as I bow to such a poor existence as that?"
Silence followed. The kind that rattles bone. I wanted to speak—tell them not to bow to me, that I wasn't worthy, that I wasn't even sure I was real—but my body felt locked in place. My voice belonged to someone else.
The garden shifted. The air turned sharp and electric. Rain began to fall, thick drops running down leaves and skin. Lightning cracked across the sky, illuminating Samael's face in cold flashes. His legs shook beneath him.
God's voice tightened.
"Do you think yourself my rival, my son?"
"No," Samael whispered. "I do not place myself above my brothers. I do not claim greatness."
He swallowed hard.
"But I will not kneel to another existence that is not you. I cannot."
For a moment, God was silent.
Then He touched Samael's cheek.
A gesture soft enough to break the heart.
"You were flawless," God murmured. "My brightest creation. My greatest love."
The pause stretched—terrible, full, absolute.
"But now you are no son of mine. Not angel. Not beloved. I condemn you as my first and last failure."
The words shattered something in Samael. Pride collapsed inward. Fear rose. His breath came in shaking bursts.
When God stood, the throne cracked.
When His fist struck it, the black stone fractured.
Something screamed in the sound—Heaven itself, breaking.
Fire burst beneath Samael's feet. It climbed his legs, devouring wing and feather, cracking bone beneath skin that once shone pure. His perfect face twisted as the flames rose, burning beauty away, leaving nothing but ruin.
He begged.
He cried out to his brothers.
None of them moved.
That broke me most.
"Then hear me!" Samael roared through the fire. "I will haunt you all! Heaven and humanity both! I will not stop until the day I kill you, Father!"
The flames consumed him.
When they fell away, he was gone.
Not Samael.
Not angel.
Only Lucifer.
The remaining angels rose, eyes full of shame. God did not speak. And I—watching what looked like punishment wrapped in love—felt something inside me twist into knots.
Was this really God?
A father who destroyed His own son?
I remembered my father then—his fist striking my stepbrother again and again. The look in his eyes. The righteousness of his cruelty.
Maybe God was human after all.
Human in the worst way.
A thought formed—dark and sharp.
If we are made in His image…
what does that make Him?
Uriel's voice returned as the vision blurred.
"Humanity is not God's reflection," he said gently. "You are a fractured imitation—both pure and corrupt. And He wished to see which path His first creation would take."
My pulse spiked.
Heat rose in my chest.
"If I'm the closest image of God," I snapped, "does that mean He's just as broken and sinful as I am?"
Uriel laughed—not cruelly. Soft. Like he already knew the answer.
"Maybe, Heaven's Heart," he whispered. "Maybe."
My eyes opened beneath the cursed tree.
Eve's lap beneath my head.
The world quiet again.