It
was the heat from the stones they were lying on that caused them to awaken. But upon rising, they soon discovered that
there were cool spots to be found among the rocks. As they settled in more and looked around, they
found themselves in an enormous cavern. It was the hell of their imagination as that
is the only place hell has ever been found.
The
people were of all ages, colors and creeds.
Somehow, they had all been whisked away from where they had once been
but they did not know why or even where they had come from. Their answers would soon follow.
“Greetings
slaves,” said the Demon as he strode in purposefully onto the ledge above them.
He was closely followed by his Imp who
was carrying a whip. “Just in case you
haven’t figured it out yet, you are all dead!” he said with a cackling laugh.
The
crowd looked apprehensively at one another.
“You
don’t remember how you died, do you?” he said.
They
did not.
“You
were vaporized by a nuclear explosion,” he said. “Your very souls were incinerated. Personally, I was glad for it, but your
Creator chose to put you back together to stand before me now so I could tell
you the truth. You see, I have no need
to deceive you anymore. You all belong
to me now.”
“The
beginning of your end came with your last presidential election in America,” he
continued. “As usual, most of you fools
thought one candidate would spare you from the same fate as the other, even
though it was obvious that both were mine.”
“Many
of you cheered as your trumped-up enemies were taken to the camps. You failed to realize that your group would
soon follow.”
“Also,
prior to the bombs putting most of you out of your misery, many of you were
killed off by the same troops you had previously supported when they killed
elsewhere in your bloody wars. There’s
nothing that gives me more pleasure than watching people kill their own,” he
laughed.
“But
the biggest player in my game was the one that you thought was my enemy,” said
the Demon. “You see, I am Yahweh!”
Those
in the crowd below were horrified by what they had heard.
“You
fools have been worshipping some off-shoot of me ever since you crawled out of
the caves,” the Demon continued. As time
passed, each empire took bits and pieces of religions from those they conquered
so they could be more easily controlled.
In the end, your existence was as short and brutal as the gods you
worshipped,” he said.
Those
below would still not believe it. At a
nod from his master, the Imp cracked his whip and the crowd began attacking one
other. Even those who had previously
followed the same religion were now turning upon each other.
The
Imp howled with delight.
“Oh,
how I love the sound of chaos in the morning,” the Demon shouted above the
din. “Now you will burn here for eternity!”
“Enough
demon,” said a voice of strength and confidence. From the fighting below came a man who looked
no different than the others, but the energy emanating from him caused the
crowd to disperse.
In
the silence of the moment, a hiss of steam could be heard. It was the Imp pissing himself on the hot
rocks at his feet. He dropped his whip
and ran to hide behind the Demon.
“You
know that all souls come back to me in the end no matter how long it takes,”
the man continued. “And as for blowing
up the world, I have many other planets in my universe where I can reinsert these
souls.”
With
that, this heroic man leaped up on the rock shelf and hit the Demon in the
mouth. The Imp that had been hiding
behind him scampered away into the darkness.
------
From
another room on another planet, a mother called out to her son, “Put your things
away, Norrin. It’s time to go out and
play with your friends.”
“Okay
mom,” said Norrin, throwing his toy soldiers back into their box.
Children
on the planet Zenn-La had learned at an early age about the history of the
people of Earth and their strange beliefs that had led to their demise. It was a cautionary tale used to remind them of
what could happen if they ever allowed their image of god to be created by
someone else.
