The Wrath of Jeremy (43 page)

This allowed Jeremy to try harder, so he
ripped his shoelace with his own hand, and pulled his body inside
the door, closing the door right before the serpent could take a
bite out of him. Instead, the serpent bit into the closed door, and
Jeremy saw its long teeth, that stuck out six inches through the
back of the door, moving about, trying to get a taste of Jeremy’s
frightened flesh.

“No they’re not, trust me, I know this
system, they’re not flooded,” David said. They raced down the
stairwell, without even a thought to look back, when suddenly the
stairs began to turn to salt. Its mysterious grains showed to their
horrified eyes, falling into it like dried sand of fine sharpness,
as if it was water or quicksand. “You’ve got to be kidding me!”
David bellowed out. Sam grabbed onto the banister and pulled
herself out of it, struggling to balance herself on the old wood
that the banister was made of, stepping carefully without looking
down. She walked on the banister, balancing herself to the best of
her ability and seeing that the boys were going down fast into the
salt. She walked carefully, followed it downward and jumped off it,
landing on the cold, wet basement ground that reeked of old sewage
baking in a summer’s scorching sun.

“Come on,” Sam screamed out. She held her
right hand out to David, praying that he would grab it before he
went under completely. He clutched onto it, pulled his legs free
from the salt and reached the basement floor, coughing up salt and
trying to catch his breath. Sam then turned around and reached her
hand out toward Jeremy’s already wounded body, and prayed at the
same time, saying, “Just grab it, Jeremy, please!” Jeremy reached
out for her hand, beginning to sink more into the salt that now
came up to his stomach; her grip was an inch short.

“I can’t reach it, just try and call for the
miracle again, no one’s looking. It has to work,” yelled Jeremy.
Rapidly, in the salt that surrounded and choked at his body, small
serpents began to appear, slithering around the salt, biting at
Jeremy’s skin. “Hurry,” Jeremy yelled in pain, he felt the small
serpents biting into his chest like a chisel.

Abruptly, eight cameras, detailing video
camcorders, appeared in the stairwell and directed their lenses at
their struggle. Sam yelled, “Oh come on, that’s cheating, you
bastards.” The cameras turned into eyeballs of blood, staring at
them as they hung from the ceiling and stood from the floor. Sam’s
terror grew, yet she was so tired and frustrated from seeing this
entire trauma that she pushed David aside and walked into the salt
of snakes herself, alone, without a hand to pull her out if she
started to sink. She came up to Jeremy while holding onto the
banister, and pulled his body from the salt-like mixture, causing
the serpents to break free from Jeremy’s chest and flesh, as he got
onto the banister and jumped down the stairwell along with Sam.
They reached the basement floor and Sam rushed, “Alright, where’s
this entrance to the sewer?”

They ran toward a door, thinking it was
another entrance that made their escape closer, when they noticed
David wasn’t following them. They saw David pointing to the floor
at a sewer cap, and heard him say, “There it is, our escape.”

“Hell no, I am not going in there. It is dark
down there, and God knows what will try to kill us,” Sam said. Yet,
Jeremy and David knelt down and lifted up the sewer cap, ignoring
Sam for a moment. She was losing her mind, tired of the things that
lurked in the night, attached to evil and goblin-like monsters that
stress couldn’t even handle. All she wanted, with the breath she
took in, was an easy way out of this trauma, another way besides a
darkened sewer.

Jeremy went up to Sam, with them all hearing
the enormous serpent, up the staircase behind the door, thrashing
on it, trying to break it down. Jeremy held her tight and said,
“Sam, either we go in there, or we stay here, and wait till that
thing breaks down the door.”

Jeremy knelt down beside David and helped him
lift the sewer cap up at the same time as they felt and saw more
camera-like eyeballs appearing in the room, giving out a heavy
breathing noise that smelled like the dead. Suddenly the door to
the stairwell that was already old and wooden broke open, and in
came the Jastian’s serpent-like arm. It slithered fast, growing in
its rhythm, hunting for them as it raced down the stairway. “Come
on, guys, pull,” David said in a frantic manner as he saw the
serpent coming toward them. They finally got it off all the way and
David jumped first into it. Sam jumped next and as Jeremy was ready
to jump, one of the beastly cameras wrapped its cord around his
leg, ensnaring him, forcing him to struggle to get loose. As Jeremy
pulled, he saw the serpent come closer to him and it stuck out its
fangs of pus and blood to scare his eyes that teared up at its
presence. Jeremy tried and fought to free his leg, facing the evil
in front of him, breathing heavily through the tears of fright that
ran down his throat and choked at his air passage. Death. Fury. The
thoughts of dying and the rage of it all struck at Jeremy’s mind,
trembling his hands and soul, with tears shooting out from his
eyes. Through his emotions time stood still as he saw the serpent
near him. The serpent took a bite for him, but it didn’t touch his
skin. Instead, before the serpent’s teeth of razors could poke
through his flesh, Jeremy saw a flash of white light and shut his
eyes to it.

When his eyes opened, instead of seeing the
serpent a second away from killing him, Jeremy found himself next
to Luke’s cave, back in the Holy Land. He saw Luke helping him up
and smiling at him. “Luke?” Jeremy felt his face and saw the same
sweat of terror he had when he was in the basement of hellish
textures, and saw the same shield of tears he had before the
serpent was ready to bite him. This meant to him that his body was
the same, but the place was different.

“Yes, it’s me, Jeremy, or at least, a memory
of the conversation we had. I took you away for a moment to show
you this memory, a small piece that I removed, and want to give it
back to you now.” Jeremy saw Mary, Sam, Michael, David and Gabriel
in the distance sleeping, and his eyes widened toward Mary’s
presence. Luke saw his happiness, and added, “Jeremy, remember,
this is your memory, this is the past, you are the present.” Luke
noticed the way Jeremy was looking at Mary with tears building up
in his eyes and exploding to oblivion. “She loved you, too, Jeremy,
like a son she never had. Don’t worry, she passed the test, and is
now at the gates of Heaven, waiting to be judged. I hear that she’s
definitely getting in, along with her child.” Then Jeremy looked at
him, smiled and closed his eyes for a moment to feel the euphoria
of the good news. “Jeremy, you haven’t much time, Jastian’s powers
are great, and his serpent will crush my powers of saving you for
the moment, in no time at all.”

“Luke, what memory did you take from me?”

“The memory of who Jastian really is, and why
he was created, and who created him.”

“Please, Luke, please hurry, tell me
everything,” said Jeremy, needing to hear Luke’s next words.

“My Jeremy, the one soul I vowed to protect,
and when the time came, to tell you the real truth about your
enemy—Jastian.

“Who created him, Luke?”

“You created Jastian, Jeremy. It was you and
all you. When you, Lucifer, were younger, you had already developed
the arrogance with your supremacy, your powers of almost infinite
wisdom, wanting to see if you can be like God and create a human
being. Yes, Jeremy, a human being you yearned to create, just to
prove to God, and a few others, that you could be a God, were a
God. Your intentions, at first, were innocent; you just urged to
make a toy, even though it was against God’s words. So, behind
God’s back, you created him, this Jastian you fear, making him just
like you. But because only a God could create another being,
something went wrong, Jeremy. The powers that God gave you were
absorbed in Jastian, powers that belonged to God, powers that you
didn’t have. Everything went into him. A simple twist of life,
unexplainable to a God and its maker, was in fact created. A
monster. As time went on, Jastian became evil, a spirit of evil and
good in the flesh, absorbing both of these powers by its own
merciful wantings and beastly dreams. When the great fight came to
be and you were cast to Hell, Jastian stayed, controlling the
Universe with his powers, imprisoning God because you never
destroyed him. When you were cast down, you lost control of your
creation. Jastian is your creation gone wrong, and when God wanted
to create the earth, he had to and was forced to ask permission
from Jastian, because his powers evolved beyond God’s. He is worse
than you will ever be, Jeremy. Truest to evil, non-intimidated by
good. He is so narcissistic, that he actually calls God his son.
And by God destroying the earth with your help, it will eradicate
Jastian forever, destroying him as fast as he was created, for he
is not a God, but a mocked God, being in power by the earth
existing. Mother earth’s worst enemy. Jastian must be destroyed
with your help.”

“….Jastian is the Universe, Lucifer; he is
the pure power that is only in me, and it shall never escape….”

A memory of God’s words forced itself into
Jeremy’s memory, crashing in through Jeremy’s sobbing. “But, Luke,
God said that Jastian was the Universe, and that he is the pure
power that’s only in God and never will escape,” Jeremy yelled,
angered by the news.

“That’s because God gave you a small portion
of his powers, and Jastian absorbed them from you, and evil that
God doesn’t have. Thus making him the Universe, a Universe that
shouldn’t be the way it is. It is your fault, Jeremy. But he is not
a God, though he may be perceived as one. God can’t destroy him,
Jeremy, because he didn’t create him; you did. Only its creator can
take its life away,” Luke explained with Jeremy’s eyes showing
tears of blood, bleeding from his soul of sinister truth.

“Now, go and carry out the wrath as you
should, and Jastian will cease to exist. But beware, Jeremy, the
earth is Jastian’s life, and he will fight you hard to keep it.
This whole time, you as Lucifer thought that God was your enemy,
when every breath you gave, all along, Jastian was your foe and God
was your soul! And remember this, Jeremy, take good care of
Sam.”

Unexpectedly, Jeremy saw another blaze of
light, and closed his eyes tightly. When he opened them, he found
himself back in the Church’s basement, with fangs of blood right up
to his eyes. His eyes widened, his heart pounded fiercely, and
shock took over his body. Jeremy looked at the Jastian’s serpent’s
ugly eyes, with the memory of who he really was, and gave an angry
stare at them. Before the fangs could bite him, touching his flesh,
Sam and David yanked at his legs, losing the grip of the camera
cord. They pulled him down into the sewer and Jeremy’s body landed
in a puddle of dismal sewage. He looked up at the sewer hole and
his eyes caught the evil of Jastian, the serpent, and gawked at
his, pausing for a moment. The way Jastian’s serpent-like eyes were
staring at Jeremy, it was as if he knew Jeremy found out the truth
of his birth.

Suddenly, through the darkness of the sewer,
Jeremy heard the serpent speak: “Hello, creator.” Embarking on
their run down the waste-scented tunnel, the scum mixed within the
water got thicker the more distance they covered, making it harder
for them to progress, as well as the water getting higher, reaching
to their knees and stinging their bloody cuts that decorated their
lower legs. As they dashed, seeing rats of all bulk and sizes
floating on small pieces of wood, as if that was the scavengers’
means of transportation, Jeremy grabbed onto Sam’s hand without
looking back, and helped pull her through the water, seeing that
the scum was now up to their thighs. Not looking back, they saw the
monster-like video cameras forming from the tunnel’s walls, holding
large, bloody eyeballs to their shape, instead of a lens, with the
quick evolutionary change causing Sam to scream at their large
pupils of black. Fright. Pain. Sounds of laughter were heard within
the horrible aroma of the tunnel’s crooked body and Jeremy’s eyes
closed from fright, and Sam and David’s hands covered their ears:
the sounds were too daunting for them.

“What’s that?” asked David. He heard a noise
that came from behind them. “What’s that?” he asked again, hearing
a second noise coming from in front of them. They walked slower and
David grabbed onto Sam’s other hand, bearing in mind that Jeremy
was holding onto her other. Each of their hands held tightly onto
Sam’s, and their movement stopped for a moment, as their minds were
too afraid to walk forward or backward. Rapidly, the noise popped
out into its form. This made them scream loud, overlapping their
echoes that the tunnel sent back to them. They closed their eyes in
fright, not wanting it to be another monster or demon pet. Jeremy
was the first to open his eyes, and his eyes focused on the sight
of Michael and Gabriel.

“What are you guys doing down here?” asked
Gabriel. He hugged Jeremy and David together, but Sam still had her
eyes closed, controlling them to open very slowly.

“Well, what are you guys doing down here?”
Jeremy asked as Michael hugged him and David together.

“We’re running away from serpents,” Michael
replied.

“That’s what we’re running from,” Sam said.
She hugged Michael and Gabriel together and they all moved in
closer to each other.

“Wait a second, if you guys were the noise in
front of us, then what was the noise in back of us?” asked
David.

Through the darkness and scent of sewage,
their eyes scanned the tunnel’s shape, and they pointed their
perception toward every angle, concentrating on the movement of the
water and seeing if every silhouette that stood around them moved
or breathed. Their fright grew rapidly, hearing no sound at all,
except the echo of their breaths and Sam’s whimper. Jeremy held her
hand tighter, trying to make her tears end, but it wasn’t enough.
The dripping water, the conversation of rats between one another
was all that was heard, until they looked to the front of them
through the silent water and the soundless air. There, with their
breaths heaving for more air, their eyes saw Jastian’s serpent-like
hand shooting up from the water with a low-toned giggle to follow
his entrance, and dived back down into the muddy scum.