Asmireen
©2024 by Jonathan Scott
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Chapter 15 - My Struggle - 5
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People have often asked whether or not I feel any guilt for my wrongdoings. As a rule, I usually respond to their question by consuming them. But, because my goal with this book is to accurately and adequately explain myself...to justify myself, perhaps a chapter dealing with my own belief system is called for.
I will state that, in general, I feel no guilt. I will admit though that most would. There have been billions and billions of people that have come to Earth through the years. A huge portion of them have found their way here. At least one half of these billions I myself have consumed personally. This means that I literally have caused the infinite and eternal misery of billions solely for the sake of preserving my own peace of mind; solely for the sake of not having to chance becoming as one of them; the Damned.
Am I justified? Am I justified in giving away billions of times more misery than I would experience myself were I to become a victim? Is it somehow my own moral responsibility to risk enduring eternal misery so that billions of others might not?
You must remember that those that come here are not innocent. Papa Voice's placement of them here tells me this. Therefore, because they are not innocent, their misery is justified to some extent. Therefore, my consumption of them would not be as evil as perhaps the consumption of a light would be, were such a thing possible. Of course, this line of reasoning would also justify my own consumption. Therefore, were I ever to be consumed, my only recourse would be to view my doom as justified.
Next. Yes, it is true. I do send my armies to Earth to try and talk the children of Papa Voice there into sin. I do this in hopes that more will come here, so that in turn I may consume them and become even stronger than I am today. Is this justified? Do I have the moral right to persuade people to be evil? My answer is this. Yes. I have it because I know that Papa Voice never leaves his children in the dark regarding what is good and what is bad. Everyone knows morality innately, and the extent to which a person does not know it is not held against them at the time of judgement. All I do, is offer them apparently pleasant or apparently justifiable alternatives. It is entirely up to them though whether or not they sin. No one comes here unless they have chosen to come here through their own deeds. In my eyes, I am justified.
The last point of all of this being the most important. WHY SHOULD I CARE WHETHER OR NOT I AM JUSTIFIED AT ALL? I am here for all time and all eternity. I cannot change my eternal fate. Good works are worthless here. Good works will profit me nothing. There is no reason for me to care whatsoever about the welfare of anyone else. The only activity that I can engage in that will bring me any happiness whatsoever is self-preservation. And this is what I do. I preserve myself; even at the cost of the freedom and happiness of billions of souls. I do not care whether or not I am justified. I have no higher conscience to appeal to. Conscience here is a handicap that is even more deadly than a fear of pain. This is the most important thing that perhaps you could ever understand about me: I care about no one. I care only about me. My happiness. My freedom. My pleasure. My entertainment. And if you can serve me in any of these capacities, I will consume you. And if you hold for me even the slightest shade of threat, I will consume you for that as well. My existence is the only existence that matters.
I did feel guilt once though. Immense guilt. This was before my first trip back to Earth and after the Eves had fallen. Please let me explain.
One day, long ago, I simply chose to leave the Entry behind. I desired to see Heaven. I flew around the circle that had become such a wondrous, immense and beautiful thing and decided to continue doing so for the rest of eternity. I had fully and completely decided to abandon my kingdom in return for the opportunity to be a vagrant, endlessly circling the beautiful circle of Heaven, never at home, but always content with the only beauty available to me. It was as though I starved, and knew that I would never cease starving, so instead chose to feast solely and eternally on aroma.
Months passed and still I flew. My days became blurred together so completely that weeks would pass and I would not be able to recognize whether centuries had gone by or merely minutes. I looked to my left, always. I flew around Heaven in a counter-clockwise direction, therefore, I always looked left. My head and neck became fused and trained so intensely that it actually became painful to look in any other direction.
And then it happened. I heard a scream. But, unlike other screams that I had heard throughout the years, this one did not come from above. This scream came from before me. I forced my head to stop looking left and focused my eyes ahead of me.
Far in the distance, I saw a giant behemoth of a devil, perhaps two hundred feet tall, adorned in all manner of weaponry and armor half-running and half-flying towards me at full speed from dozens of miles away. At the time, I believe I was but one hundred-twenty five foot tall.
Where had this monster come from? I was thoroughly intrigued. Had this monster come from some place other than the Entry, he would be the first "outsider" I had ever encountered here.
When the monster finally came within speaking distance of me, I began to converse with him:
"Sir, where did you come from?" I enquired.
"YOU SHALL NOT SUCCEED! YOU SHALL NOT SUCCEED!" the beast frantically bellowed.
"What?"
"YOU SHALL NOT SUCCEED!"
"Sir, What is it that I wi..."
"YOU SHALL NOT SUCCEED! YOU SHALL NOT SUCCEED!" the beast frantically bellowed again.
It was then that I noticed that this monstrosity was afraid of me. His eyes were wide with fear and he flailed wildly at me with his great fists.
I was much faster than he was though. I simply avoided his attacks one after another and continued speaking. I desperately wanted to hear where he had come from. It was useless though. His fear blinded him to all reason and all civility.
In the end, I did all that I could do. Until I had seen this beast I had thought that I was the strongest and most powerful being in this world. The absolute serene sense of security that comes with this knowledge is priceless. Now that I knew of the existence of someone that was more powerful though, I could no longer feel this security. The loss of this feeling was a loss greater than I could bear. So, I ate him.
I flew about him in tight frantic circles until he found himself unable to move. And then, when I was perfectly poised, I launched my entire being at his jaw, violently twisting it to the side. He was such a fool! The brute thought that by merely being large that he would be safe. The monster lost consciousness and fell to the ground with a great and magnificent thud. I then consumed him, piece by piece, consuming the most important parts first quickly so as to prevent his regeneration.
"Where had he come from?" I said to myself after finishing.
I sat down on the ground to see how I had changed. I was enormous. I had consumed the two hundred foot tall giant, and as a result, had become an even larger giant myself in the process. I began examining my body and noticed that nothing about it was different, other than in size. I was concerned because I had never consumed anyone who had themselves consumed others before. I examined myself carefully. Happily, I had not changed in shape or proportion. I breathed a sigh of relief.
I then was able to deduce that the first consumptions of a person in hell were the most important in the shaping of a body. My first two consumptions were fornicators, thereby bringing me my claws and horns. My consumptions after that though were somewhat varied: thieves, molesters, gossipers, the proud, etc. I really did try to consume in a balanced manner. And this discipline apparently preserved my own image. In fact, I still appear, even today, much as I did when I first came here; I still resemble humanity. This is something I am quite happy about.
I sat, pleased with my new larger body and welcomed the warm feeling of absolute security that returned to me. In that moment of calm though, I noticed something that I had not noticed before.
I could hear a small hum. It was in a perpendicular direction from the wall of Heaven where I sat. There was something vaguely familiar about the sound, but being unsure, I decided to take to the skies and investigate.
As I flew, I noticed something that made me smile. I saw a bump in the horizon. For millennia, I had watched the horizon here in Hell, and it remained constant no matter where I traveled. Always, always, always, it remained a single infinitely flat and unwavering line. Now though, here, I saw a bump in the horizon. I was intrigued.
As I flew, the bump in the horizon grew larger and larger. The hum also became larger as well. Then, I finally came close enough to the hill to understand its meaning. I also began to understand more and more the meaning of the hum. As you may remember, the giant that I had just consumed had been approximately two hundred foot tall. A two hundred foot tall man, depending of course on his build, weighs approximately seven and a half million pounds. When you divide this number by the "magic value" of sixty-eight, the average number of pounds gained from a consumption, this leaves us with a total of about one hundred ten thousand. This number happens to be the number of souls one would have to consume in order to become the giant that I had encountered. And this is what I found. I found a hill composed of the moaning bodies of approximately one hundred ten thousand Damned. It was quite a sight.
Unlike the giant, I used the Damned in my Kingdom. In my kingdom, I laid the Damned end to end and constructed paths out of them. As I believe I mentioned previously, the Damned do not move much aside from their writhing. They will stay where they are placed somewhat. Therefore, the Damned, being my only natural resource in Hell other than rock, did have their uses.
This giant though, never thought to use his waste for anything. And so, he apparently just piled them up and out of his way and left it at that.
The mountain of quivering life was quite intriguing to me though. I sat down and watched them writhe. I wondered how it could be possible for them to move and moan as such, but still remain there in a pile. I would have assumed that their undulations would eventually upset the pile and all would slowly settle back to the ground. Perhaps the giant simply kept restacking them. I didn't know.
I began to think though. I stood up and looked around and saw perhaps four dozen new arrivals hiding on the other side of the hill. As soon as they saw me they began to run. I had no desire to attack them. But, I did need information. And so, I followed them. It was actually quite interesting to watch them scamper.
I picked up the closest one and began to speak to him.
"Where did you come from?" I asked politely.
The soul began to scream and shout and spasm uncontrollably.
Knowing that I would probably get no information from this person in their current state, I asked again, but this time much more softly and with even a bit of feigned love.
"Where did you come from?" I asked politely.
At my repeated request, the soul seemed to calm down and to gather up some form of control. And so, I asked him again.
"Where did you come from?" I asked for a third time with as much brotherly love and geniality as I could feign.
"I'm from Riverfront." he replied cautiously.
"Riverfront? What is 'Riverfront'?" I asked.
"It's where I'm from." he said. He was now quite calm and even slightly happy, probably mostly because he was not yet dead. I deduced that the man was telling me about his birthplace in the previous world.
"Oh, I understand. But, where did you come from recently?"
"I fell down here a few days ago and I've been trying to understand where this is ever since."
"This is Hell and I am Asmodeus."
"Asmodeus?" he asked.
"The Devil." I responded blankly.
And with that, the man began to stare at me in complete wonder. I could feel him shaking slightly in my hand.
"Thank you for the information." I said and dropped him.
The man fell from my hands to the surface of the ground ninety feet below.
There was more than one Entry! I had had no idea. This changed everything. How many entries were there? Did each have a devil that I would have to consume in order to remain free? The one thing that I knew for sure though was that I had become fully justified in everything I had done so far. Had that giant met me in an unaltered state, as when I was a new arrival, I would have been consumed. I was justified. I sat down on the ground and slept. This would be but the fourth time that I had slept since I first came here so long ago. I felt as though I deserved it. Part of me also felt as though I needed it. I viewed my sleep as a form of rebirth of myself. Because, when I would later awake, I would become transformed into more than just the ruler of Hell, I would also become its primary explorer as well as its uncontested King and conqueror.
I awoke refreshed and focused and began the explorations of my world. Unlike the explorers of Earth though, I had access to several very important tools that they didn't. With many thanks to the covetous that I had consumed over the years, I had gained the ability to move myself through space in the blink of an eye. I called this method of motion 'blinking.' Please don't confuse this blinking with the blinking of the fallen religious as I mentioned in a previous chapter though. They are not the same. I know that these similar labels may cause some confusion, but as I also mentioned in a previous chapter, I don't particularly care about any discomfort that you may encounter. I don't care. It's kind of a major theme of this book. If you haven't learned this yet, perhaps you should pay closer attention.
And so I began to blink upwards, miles at a leap until I finally hovered over my world fifty miles in the sky. It was then that I could finally see that my planet indeed was a planet. Below me, the globe of my world revolved. I sat there in the vacuum surrounding my world for minutes, looking in great detail at the world below me. My lungs burned for lack of oxygen. But, despite any pain, I forced myself to stay aloft, and forced myself to continue studying. Even, from time to time, when I would lose consciousness from lack of oxygen, and plummet back to my world, once reformed, I would simply blink right back up and continue studying.
In time, as my eyes became accustomed to looking from this great height, I learned how to look for longer and longer intervals. I learned how to blink down and breathe every few minutes or so, and then return in the blink of an eye and continue my studies.
Within one day, I had learned all about my world. I learned that there were in fact seven entries. I also learned that Heaven took up approximately two-thirds of the surface of the world and that there were, in fact, two different parts to Heaven, with Hell running in a somewhat vague loop between the two sections of it.
This last fact seemed to boggle me somewhat. It seemed strange somehow to split Heaven into two. It seemed like it would somehow decrease the freedom of Heaven's citizens. So, because it did not make sense to me, I chose to look at this new second Heaven closer.
In time, I landed next to the wall of this other Heaven and looked within. Within there were the trees, just as in Heaven. There was also the grass as in Heaven. The sky was there as well. Somehow it seemed different though. Somehow it seemed less attractive to me. I placed my hands up and leant on the invisible barrier that held me without. I was desperate to know more.
And so I began to fly about the perimeter of the land trying to see what I could see.
Then, finally, I came to a clearing. I found a spot where the forest disappeared and my view became unobstructed for miles and miles.
And there, far off in the distance, I saw a city. It was quite an ugly city though. All of the buildings were thrown together in the most unfortunate way. Some of the buildings within the city were pleasant, but so many were so unkempt looking that the entire city itself looked poor. From this distance though, it was hard to understand anything. And so, I continued to look.
I once again took to the skies to look for a new vantage point. I soon found one, and began to look again. This spot was much closer to the city so I found that I had a much better view.
Now that I was close, I found that I could see people, massive amounts of people. Just from the number that I saw at this one spot, I deduced that there must have been a million living within this city: men and women.
What was this place? It didn't seem like Heaven completely. And it certainly wasn't Hell. This was new to me, and I knew that I had much to learn of it. I took to the skies once again but vowed to return and to explore further.
Once my studies were complete, I began my minor conquests of each of the remaining entries. Really, there was not much to any of them. Only one other entry had anyone there who had bothered to consume anyone else, and even then, once he'd found himself sufficiently larger than anyone else, he stopped consuming.
I was actually quite amazed. The exploration and conquest of my entire world took less than a week. It hardly seemed like an achievement.
As I mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, I once felt guilt. This is when it occurred.
There were no more threats to my safety. There were no more threats to my existence whatsoever other than Papa Voice and He for whatever reason was choosing to leave me alone. I was king now and I was as fine as a person in hell could be.
I sat there in my kingdom, alone, naked on the ground and began to wonder what I would do for the rest of eternity.
It was then that my guilt occurred.
I saw a Damned that I was sitting next to. And for whatever reason, I chose to pick her up.
When I picked her up, I grabbed her as she was laying on her stomach somewhat on the ground. I then picked her straight up looking only at her back, not yet looking at her front. I looked at her dark ashen gray dirty little shriveled body. She then coughed in the most unfortunate manner. Then she coughed again. In the time that I held her, she must have coughed more times than I bothered to count. And in fact, it was probably her coughing that brought her to my attention. And each time she coughed, the cough was a long rasping desperate cough that told me of her difficulty in breathing. I put her back on the ground and simply chose to watch her momentarily. Still the coughing continued. I watched her for five minutes and still the coughing persisted. So, I once again picked her up, but this time I turned her over to look at her face.
This is where my guilt began, for when I turned her over and looked at her, I saw the misshapen features of a woman desperate for non-existence. I saw a woman that was desperate to die. It was hard to see this at first. The woman's face and features were so withered and sickly, it was hard to recognize her even as a human. But, once I did. Once, I was finally able to recognize her features, once I finally became accustomed to her form of humanity, I could see the pain in her eyes.
Her body had been reduced to pain and suffering. And, then my mind interjected the following...
...And I had been the cause of it.
My mind doesn't often intrude on my thoughts. As a rule, I only think about the things I choose to think about, more or less. This interruption of my thoughts by my mind was actually quite an oddity. So, I chose to pay attention to it.
My mind had chosen to remind me that this woman's pain was my fault. This was absolutely true, by the way. This was the entry that I had fallen to so long ago. And, here, I, at this time, had been the only one to consume. I had not yet allowed others to consume. All of the Damned here, they all were the discarded waste of my own personal growth. It was indeed a fact that I had consumed this woman.
So, I looked at her again. I looked into her eyes wild with pain. I listened to her eternal rattling cough. I looked at her misshapen form. I then realized that she was, by her standards, in perfect health. Her DNA had been reformed after her consumption to fit this new wretched form. This was her maximum of health. This was how she lived, and would live day after day after day for the rest of eternity. And her state of existence made her desperate for death.
I looked away from the woman. She continued to cough in my hand. On the ground, I saw another Damned.
I started to pick him up with my other hand but at the slightest touch, the man began to scream. I picked him up nonetheless. As he rose, I noticed that his arms and legs swung in abnormal directions, hinged in abnormal places. As he got closer, I could see that his arms and legs were broken, not once, but several times each. I turned him over and laid him down flat on the palm of my hand and then forced my hand still. In time, his screams ended, and then I looked more closely at his face. There I saw the face of a man similar to the woman's, but different somehow. Here, it seemed, the man was not desperate to die, or at least death was not his chief desperation. Rather, this man was simply desperate to not move or to be moved. I began to consider what his state must be like. How could one fear motion eternally? Bodies were meant to move. Their natural state is one of motion. Even when a person sits still, the heart still pounds, the lungs still expand and contract, the eyes still blink. I watched the man closely. And his eyes were fully focused on something. I could see him thinking. Apparently, he was even trying to regulate his breathing to reduce his pain. I asked him how long he had been here, but he chose to not answer me.
I held both of my hands in front of me and looked at the man in my right hand and the woman in my left. My hands then involuntarily jiggled and the man began to scream again until he managed to contort his form into a less painful shape, then, the intense look of focus returned to his face. The woman simply hacked and hacked away endlessly. Here, in each of the palms of my hands I held eternal pain and suffering. And I was the cause of it.
I placed the man and woman back on the ground and began to look around me. I looked from body to body of each of the Damned that were close to me. Each probably had a similar condition attached to them. I simply had never bothered to look before. They were each and every one of them in the midst of infinite and exquisite pain, and I had been the cause of each. I then stood and looked over my kingdom and saw the hundreds of thousands there that writhed, moaned, screamed, and wept.
I was the cause of this.
Was I justified?
I'd never really stopped to consider this before, not at this level. The Damned were not simply in pain. They were being tortured. And I was the cause of it. Were I to look into the eyes of each of them, each and everyone of them would show to me their own intense form of suffering. They had experienced their suffering as I battled the behemoth at the other entry. They had experienced the suffering for the months that I had flown about the circle seeking peace and serenity. They had experienced the suffering as the Eves had fallen. I thought of all the times that I remembered thinking about their suffering. Then I thought about all of the times that I had not thought about their suffering, and then realized that they had been suffering through all those times as well. I had given to each and everyone of them eternal torture. Me.
I sat on the ground and began to weep. I'd never wept before over guilt. I had always been so callous that really, I'd never even bothered to think about them, the Damned, for much more than a glance. Now though, for some reason, I could do nothing but think about them in the most intricate way.
I could no longer bear my own guilt. I lifted my head away from the Damned and looked at the sky. It was dead gray and sullen.
Then, my own mind rescued me. Simply, I found myself telling myself the following...
"Better them than me."
"Better billions of others than me."
My tears were gone. My eyes were dry and they would never again weep for something as pitiful as these worthless creatures. They had been worthless in their own lives, and they were even more worthless now. I was safe. I was secure. This is all that mattered to me.
Then, very far away in the distance, I heard a cough.