Of Life and Death (OPEN)

[SARIEL]

Sariel stopped sadly and stood before the mouth of the pits of hell, the soul following him suddenly getting an odd look on his face. "But.... I don't understand. Why are we stopping here." Sariel always had to wonder if the people really didn't know why they'd come to this particular spot or if they had thought that without confessing their sins and giving them up that somehow they were doing enough good to balance that out.

"You were embezzling money from your company for the larger part of your life," Sariel stated calmly. "You never gave that up nor did you confess that particular sin. You can go to church and confess whatever other sins you want, you were a greedy person and you didn't see what you were doing as at all wrong."

"Please. Please, take me back. I promise I can change,"

Sariel looked at the man sadly. "It is not my place to decide when you died, nor is it my place to decide whether you go to Heaven or Hell. The former is done by the Horseman of Death and the latter is decided by your own actions. You are meant to apologize for your sins while you were still living."

He placed a hand on the man's shoulder. "I am sorry, but you had your chance. Besides which you are not truely sorry. I'm well able to tell the reality from an act.

With a push the man was sent over the edge. Sariel's actions may have seemed cold and cruel, but inside his heart pained for the man that had, even in seeing his fate, been unable to see what he'd done as wrong. He didn't enjoy casting the lost into the depths of the underworld, but some of them were just beyond redemption. He cast one more look at the fiery depths into which the sould had vanished before fading into smoke and vanishing from the wasteland he stood in.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Sariel had returned to the Holy House of Eden after that action, not having any meetings at the funeral home he ran under the guise of the mortal Caleb Laurens for several hours. For now he sat here, in suit pants and a white dress shirt with the top button, partly dressed for work and lounging on a couch. His mind was somewhat burdened by thoughts of his task, because after so many years he wondered if he was slowly growing numb to the pain of the souls he was casting into the eternal fires.

He wondered if it was wrong for an angel, an archangel at that, to question himself. He had always pitied the souls that never repented, and the unrepentant ones always left him feeling a little off after he returned from guiding them to eternal suffering. Most likely he was just feeling remnants of his sorrow for the soul of the greedy man who would never know eternal love. God does not make mistakes. Not with the mortals, nor with the tasks he has assigned each of us angels to, Sariel. He would not have given you this task if he did not think you could handle it.

He sighed and flipped open the papers to the obituaries. Any mortal who read those first would be considered abnormal, perhaps even insane, but Sariel was not just any mortal. He wasn't really even a mortal. One would hope that the Angel of Death reading about death in the paper was not nearly so concerning.

[URIEL]

From inside the pit another watches Sariel try to comfort the damned soul and eagerly he awaits the time when he can put this soul on the rack and punish him for his sins. Uriel frowns a little as Sariel tries to bring some form of comfort to the man, some understanding to why he is here. Uriel knows exactly why this man is been tossed into the pits of Hell, into Tartarus. This man has strayed from the path of God, he has sinned and corrupted his eternal soul, there was no redemption on his deathbed. When the man is pushed Uriel uses his telekenesis powers to pull the man towards him, taking on his full angelic form, his wings spread out wide. "You have come to me as your punishment, you are to stay here to burn and writhe to pay for your sins in your mortal life".

As the man comes closer to him, screaming in terror, Uriel draws his flaming sword, ready to bring imaginable pain upon this mans flesh. Uriel could have been in Tartarus for hours, days, weeks or even mere seconds, time is runs differently in that place of pain then it does on earth. After putting various blades to the flesh of the man Sariel had sent down Uriel sees it as time to go back up to earth, there are things to do and so little time. Before he leaves the angel looks at the man, a blood y mess of cuts and bruises. With a small movement of his fingers seals the wounds wkith fire. "I will return and when I do we will continue this".

~~~~

In the main entrance hall of the House of Eden there is a sudden flurry of fire and flames, and from out of these flames steps the angel Uriel appearing in his mortal form, with the faint smell of somthing burning following him. For a moment there is a look of happiness for what he was doing to that mans soul, but it quickly fades away to be replaced by his regular look of constant thinking. Casually he walks into the sitting area to find the angel Sariel, who he greets with a smile. "Another one sent down, you should not try to think too much about why you send them down to me. They have made their choices and there is nothing we can do once their souls have been cut loose by Death".

[SARIEL]

"True," Sariel said as he looked up from the paper. He gave Uriel a smile before his face returned to its usual look, somber and yet there was a kindness and something contemplative in his eyes. Some part of him had expected Uriel to bring this up at some point. When it came to the souls of the damned, Sariel and Uriel seemed to have very different ways of reacting to them.

"However I believe it has been proven before that you and I have different feelings toward the lost souls. My method is usually pity, because more often than not they expect to somehow still show up in Heaven. They have been so corrupted by the demons that they cannot see their wrongs. I sometimes must wonder if that is their failing or our own. Were they just that easily influenced by Lucifer and his kind, or did the angels not do enough to try and pull them back." Sariel sometimes assumed that it was only his somewhat neutral stance that allowed him to question whether the angels could have done more for a soul, or if they were just a lost cause. Any soul, it would seem, would have the same chance of ending up in Heaven or Hell. The destiny was not predetermined, so why did the people not repent when they had the chance?

"Still, in the end it is their actions, something neither side controls but only influences. It is hard to know how much of an influence we are and if anything more could be done, but it is certainly worth contemplating. Not that you or I have much affect on the mortals. Our tasks don't leave us with a lot of time to influence them, even with me consoling the grieving as the owner of a funeral home in this life." If anything more could be done, very little would seem to be within Sariel's power to do.

[URIEL]

"Humans know the consequences of their actions, they know that been sinful will send them to Hell but still they act with depravity and lack of morallity. They are no better than the demon scum we are destined to destroy". "It is not us who have failed but them. We offer an existance after death of peace and harmony, it is they who ignore this and continue to sin and do not repent before their deaths. Don't forget that I see their true faces down there, I see who they truely are behind all those lies and fake smiles".

Uriel almost laughs at Sariels idea that angels do not influence humans. "You have never appeared to a wayward soul on the brink of self-destruction then I take it? Appear to one in all your glory and they soon know the truth path to follow... a few cuts with a flaming blade does not go astray either". "How do you consol someone when you know their loved one has gone to Hell? How do you lie to then Sariel".

[MICHAEL]

A gust of wind announced Michael's presence. Here, in his sanctuary from the troubled world around him, he let go of his mortal guise, leaving him in his angelic splendor. He didn't bother to disguise the look of disgust he cast in Uriel's direction. He had loathed Uriel ever since the angel had taken his assignment. True, it was a necessary assignment, but that didn't mean Uriel had to enjoy it so much. Michael was God's lieutenant, but he didn't relish the taking of lives. Part of the reason Sariel was such a good choice as the Angel of Death was that he tried to bring individuals to the other side with a minimum of struggle and suffering. Sariel wasn't good at his job because he liked taking lives but because he was loathe to do so.

"Your association with Hell has poisoned your mind, Uriel. Sometimes you seem more demon than angel. Your duty is to judge souls, not to torture them. Leave his agony to Lucifer."

He stepped closer to the twisted angel, until mere inches separated them. "Sariel has good reason to minimize his involvement with humans. Gabriel and I involved ourselves in the lives of humans more than 2000 years ago, and we are still paying the price for it. Humans twist our words to suit their own material purposes. They refuse to believe truths which inconvenience their primitive lifestyles. What more would you have us do...force them to be good people?" His tone was acidic. "Yahweh gave them free will. Unless you seek the same fate as Lucifer, do not encourage others to disobey His edicts." His eyes stared deep down into Uriel's searching for some sign of defiance. He had no wish to slay another of his kind. There had been enough of that already. But if Uriel continued to make such blaspemous statements, he would be forced to do so.

[SARIEL]

Sariel felt something inside him twist, it was that sense of your stomach being tied in knots as your emotions fought to make sense of all that you were feeling. There was anger, but not so much as there was.... maybe pity for Uriel. Sariel did not ever expect he and Uriel would understand the opposing view of the other, and he almost wished Uriel weren't so prone to being hard of heart toward the sinful.

"Humans are not perfect, unlike us. Many cannot see the error of their ways. As to appearing to one in all my glory, how many times do you see a demon take their demonic form in trying to corrupt a human? If I cannot influence them by remaining disguised, then I tend to believe that it is not me who is meant to make that impact. There are many angels and many good men who may be meant to impact that life."

He was about to retaliate to the comment about consoling the grieving when Michael appeared, his form drawing much more attention than the mortal forms of the other two angels. A part of him had wished to continue standing up for himself, but there was some other part grateful for Michael's involvement in the situation. Besides, how could he explain what he was doing. He didn't lie to the humans, he just didn't tell them the information he knew about where the soul had gone. He'd taken his mortal role seriously and treated that life as if it were separate from his angelic one. Caleb Laurens was a mortal. He did not, could not, know the things that Sariel did as the angel of death.

Death was a messy business. All Sariel tried to do was ease the pain caused by it for all involved. Neither in the case of souls going to Heaven or Hell did he tell the living where the dead had gone. It was a case where often not knowing was more comforting than knowing.

[URIEL]

"Humans fall to the power of demons because they are weak, because they have removed the faith of His powers from their hearts. Demons feed off the doubt, the hatred and the anger in the minds of mankind. There is only kind of human I like out of the whole lot of them... children, in children we can instill back that knowlege of Him, that faith which has been lost". Uriel's one weakness is children, he adores them. in them he sees hope that mankind can change, that they can rise above what they have become.

Without having to see the face or hear the voice Uriel can tell who has made an appearance with himself and Sariel, only one would give off those feelings of self-importance and righteouness. Smiling to himself Uriel turns around to look at Michael. "My job is to punish those who have transgressed our Lord, to punish those who have sinned and not repented. I am the one who shows that our Lord is not always forgiving, that he will strike out against those who doubt his power and conspire to bring him down".

Uriel returns Michaels stare. Perhaps his belief that human can change is to lead to his undoing, perhaps his ideas are too drastic for the others and could be mistaken as blaspemous, but Uriel serves his Lord with all his heart, he acts out the Lords word when told. "I was there beside you Michael in that battle against Morning Star and since that battle I have done all that is within my power to try to steer humanity back towards the righteous path. They have free will but they do not choose of their own free will to be seduced by demons. I use no trickery or illusions to appear before a human. I use only truth and the words of the Lord himself".

[MICHAEL]

Michael took a step back, giving Uriel more space. If the other angel is willing to be civil, he will be civil as well. He nods reluctantly. "Perhaps we misunderstood each other. I did not mean to imply you are deceitful in any way, Uriel. However, I must point out the flaws in your argument.

"Free will means the ability to choose between good and evil. Demons do not force humans to become evil, nor can we force humans to be good. Humans do choose to be seduced by demons. The very word 'seduction' implies consent, Uriel. In fact, your very job is based on the premise that humans can choose between good and evil. After all, what is the point of judging a soul if it cannot be held responsible for its actions?

"To be human is to wrestle with the meaning of good and evil. Although Morning Star's actions in Eden were meant to make humanity suffer, they also made every benevolent human act more meaningful. We are born knowing what is right, so it is expected we will act righteously. When we fight evil or help others, we risk little because of our immortality. When they do so, they risk everything."

[SARIEL]

"Humans are not weak, merely scared," Sariel said when both Michael and Uriel had spoken again. "It is as Michael said. They risk much in helping others or fighting good and it takes a brave soul to do that. It often seems easier to do the wrong thing than to do the right. The demons make it seem glamorous and exciting. But what waits for them if they do the right thing? They cannot look far enough in advance to see death and heaven. They have no idea what the afterlife is like. It looks only like the harder road and the road where they give much of themselves and get little in return."

Sariel paused for a moment before continuing. "There is no soul beyond saving until after they have died. They always have the choice to do the right thing. This is why I pity them, that they could not find something that gave them that courage." And then there was Uriel's comment about angelic revelation again. It hadn't been repeated, but it hung like an argument against what Sariel had just said. "Is an angelic appearance is the only thing that can save them? I feel like if we must resort to that measure than surely we will lose this war because the demons can seduce without ever revealing the monster within. Why can we not do the same?"