Masquerade: Prologue

Okay, this is a rather unrefined beginning to an idea that I have recently thought of. I've redrafted this piece twice but I'm still unhappy with it, which is why I really would like some advice on how it could be improved. Reviews would be much appreciated. ;)  

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Let me tell you the story of our world.

            Like all explosions, it began with fire and heat. Science is not the calmest of creators, and it gave birth to our planet as it had all the others before – in hectic, disorganised chaos. It’s strange to think of our planet like that – all fire and burning and pandemonium. It’s so unlike today. 

            In the beginning, we were no different to the other planets – no lesser or greater. However, once Earth begun to cool, the divide between us and our terrestrial neighbours became far more pronounced. Though we were all born in the same fire, from the same mother, we were destined for difference, even then. Earth was a mother in itself.

            There is nothing like life. It is the essence of existence, the shaping and formation of everything that is and could ever be. Life is the force that takes creation into its own hands and manipulates it, brazenly, for its own means.

            That is why it is so dangerous.

            That said, life’s beginnings on Earth were steady and undisruptive; plants and bacteria are not particularly disturbance-invoking organisms. The growth of life on Earth was, for the most part, fairly tentative, for even once the animals came – even the predators – they were complacent creatures, and only took what they needed.

            No one could’ve predicted the humans.

It is said that, when mankind was created, sins came into the world. No creature wants like a human does, and no creature shoulders the greed and determination that they wield. Mankind is a species that chokes itself in its own desire, bleeding out the essence of want that is their very shaping.  

Mankind was Earth’s downfall.

The planet, despite being left unkempt and befuddled at the hands of science, then evolved into a corrupt world, distorted and manipulated by humans and their desire. They were violent creatures, acting out of want rather than need, tearing the world open without any concern of consequences or morality.

Nevertheless, it is said that with every broken race, there will be a saviour – a being who has the strength and means to soar above the others and create a world that is bigger than themselves, who sees the rest of the race for what they really are.

            For mankind, there was Eve.

            Little is known about her, despite the monumental effect she had on our history. No one knows of her character, no one knows of what she liked – all we know is her purpose, and her goal. Her goal to change humanity.

             The tale goes that she worked tirelessly for years, roaming the globe and trying to change the ways of the world. She knew no one, and did nothing but attempt to dissuade humankind out of its sinful ways. I wonder how it would be to be so consumed by an obsession that that it dominates your whole existence. I wonder how it was to be Eve, sometimes, though they tell us to remember her purpose, not her personality.

            Though that’s hard, if I’m honest. Especially when I think about Adam.

            Adam was not a saviour. He was the opposite of Eve in every possible way, a wild, violent man without concept of morality or righteousness. He did not want to be saved, nor to save anyone, and was satisfied in letting the world burn so long as he was fed and dominant.

            Yet he just so happened to be the man that Eve fell in love with.

            No one can explain it. Her whole life was central around the changing of humanity, yet she fell for a man who was the very root of her fight. It’s nonsensical. I don’t understand it. No one does.

            But fall she did, even though he did not want her. She discovered him half-dead in the harshness of a violent winter, dragging him back to the warmth and security of the cave she inhabited in order to nurse him back to health. He was unconscious for more than a day, and Eve dedicatedly warmed him and cared for him despite never even speaking to him. She must have already been in love.

            I think she must have hoped that such care would win his heart, but that was not the case. From the moment Adam awoke and took in his surroundings, he forced Eve from her cave and out into the blizzard, commandeering her home and possessions in return for her care.

            You’d think that such loathsome behaviour would shock her out of her captivation, but, if anything, it intensified it. She abandoned her purpose, stopped trying to change the world for the better, and instead took to following Adam from a distance, devoting her very existence to helping him and keeping him alive, even though he had nearly killed her by casting her out.

            She followed him for years. He generally never knew she was there – though on the occasions he did discover her, she barely got out alive. She found him food and left it in his path, collected firewood and scattered it near his camp, and, when a foe attempted to steal Adam’s provisions, she attacked them, far out of sight. She was obsessed, more than anyone has ever been. Her old resolve was gone, replaced by this crude, unhealthy substitute. As long as Adam was alive, she was happy to let world fall apart.

            Sometimes things need to be broken for them to be fixed. And, in the case of our world, it was Eve’s heart.

            Adam died seven years after Eve started following him. She was asleep when the wolves attacked, and she would’ve been incapable of saving him either way. She awoke to the sound of his screams, the tear of teeth on flesh, and charged to his aid one last time. As she pounded after the creatures that killed him – a picture of hate and destruction and all she had ever hoped to abolish – she refused to stop until her feet bled and her body collapsed.

            The story tells us that she slept dreamlessly for a whole day, and when she awoke, it was to a beautiful morning that was naught but a masquerade for the distraught world she lived in.

            And as she looked to the sky, staring through the leaves of a gnarled apple tree, she uttered the words that changed everything.

            “Save us.”

            She knew not if anyone could hear her. All she knew was that she wanted nothing more than to die and save the world from the hatred it thrived in, because she had perished along with Adam. It was all she could do.

            Then the world began again.

            A frisson pulsed through the Earth, and Eve’s whole body moved with the tremor. She forced her eyes open, tears still clinging to the lashes, and felt her senses burn out into nothingness as her mind became swarmed with thoughts that were not her own. Fragments whirled, her body weakened, and every inch of her soul was consumed by a purposeful creature with the power to do what she no longer could – save.

            As Eve, who was no longer Eve, rose to her healed feet, a world, which was somewhere further than science and physicality and substance, yawned open into a black abyss; dark, empty and waiting to be filled. Known now as the Well of Sinners, as the Other Place, this fissure cracked open into a prison built to contain all the monsters who dominated Eve’s world. Hell was born.   

            The Earth was ready to be cleansed.

            For too long had God gazed upon our science-ravaged world and watched us tear it apart, for too long had he watched the humans break each other to pieces due to their own untamed desire, for too long had he seen Eve struggle in a place that was so clearly not built for her mentality.

            So He intervened. At Eve’s last, pleading words – at the very first prayer – God sent down an angel to take control of her faltering body – Xalvadora. The angel who saved Earth, who ripped the sinful souls from their own physical forms and forced them into the deepest and darkest pits of Hell. Within a single week, the world was ridded of the sin that had previously dominated it, leaving behind the few wholesome souls that would build the future human race.

            That is how it is, and always will be. Our tamed world, created by the wildness of science, was taken by God and his angels to be ruled and cleansed. We live in peace, with the threat of demonication – having our souls torn from our bodies - still hanging over us. Hell, our eternal prison,HehH still holds the demons that were forced into it on the first day of the new world, and it remains open for any sinners who choose to act as they did.

            No one ever gets out of Hell. That's the bottom line. The angels say that the day may eventually come where God listens to the tortured souls and forgives them, reuniting them with their bodies and allowing them to walk among us again, but as of yet God has paid them no heed. So no one gets out. Ever.