Regarding the events in Dec 2010
The Pandemonium Awakening of Casstiel
“It's hard to remember dreams, they are amorphous wispy things. But my memory of this will always stay with me. No one ever forgets their Awakening, It shatters you, it completes you with pierces you in ways you never could have imagined. Even an Astral glimpse of the Supernal Truth marks the soul and shocks the mind to its foundation. You will never forget yours either. But up until that though my memory may be a bit off.”
“I had a dream in which I woke up, lying in bed at my grandparent’s in the middle of the night. The room was dark but I could see pretty well from the light filtering in from the streetlights near the small basement window. Then I heard this clacking sound. Then more. It reminded me of those toys where you wind up those teeth and they chatter all over the place. Chattery Teeth. I will dread this sound until the day of my death.”
“The door to the room slowly opened. These things came into the room and surrounded the bed. The bottom dropped out of my stomach. Somehow I knew they were once people. Short hobbling forms crouched over as if they couldn't straighten their legs all the way. They wore white strait jackets and their arms were crossed and tied, their legs had restraint chains keeping them closer together too. The white jackets were stained with blood at the seams; they were sown into the flesh with obsidian black cord. And their faces... god I will never forget those horrid visages of pain, torment, and despair. Dark gray dead flesh, pulled back so hard the eyes and features all dissolved into taunt lines where they joined in a thick glass jar jutting out of the backs of their heads... glowing with a faint corpselight through the glass. No face, no eyes, just a lipless mouth of reddish gums and human teeth, perpetually chattering together as if in so much strain, maddness, and pain that they couldn't stop. You could feel sorry for them if they weren't so horrible... and I knew they wanted to hurt me just as bad. They wanted to lash out and inflict pain. The chatterers, we all saw them in our dreams that night, but that wasn't the worst of it.”
“Because then the Man came in. Tall bald man in a black leathery suit also sown into his flesh. His head was the same gray as the chatterers but smooth. His eyelids gone, his mouth a perpetual smile of yellowing teeth, no ears. The Gentleman, we now call him, back then he was just The Man. He never said a single word to us, just smiled. His eyes were not smiling, they burned with yellow hate and his mouth was strained. He glided across the floor to my bedside, floating inches above the ground, producing a scalpel from his sleeve. Words did not need to be exchanged. I dove out of bed for the door. The creatures got in my way, but with their hands bound they could only body check me and snap those powerful jaws at my flailing limbs. I struggled through them and through the door, almost closed.”
I shake my head and blink my eyes a few times. “Don’t worry, we got him too. He’s toast. And all those kids who killed themselves had been his doing, they had been turned into those Chatterers. Their souls had been stolen in their dreams before the Gentleman forced their bodies to self-terminate. They had been trapped in his service until we burned them all down. It was a long story… a lot of Beulah’s darker history dredged up.”
“I don't remember running, I remember the others being with me? Running with me and freaking out. We tore through the cold winter night in empty dark cold Beulah streets. Barely any light, absolutely no people, no sound but our feet and yells. It was our first taste of the the Temenic Realm of the Despair of our hometown. It’s okay, this story requires too much metaphysical explanation. Let’s just call it a collective dream of Beulah shared by its past and present residents. I've long since trod through that place many times, looking for things that I may have left there in my own trials while I lived there. Perpetual winter, always empty, biting cold and silence. Falling snow, no wind, utter loneliness. We split up, or I got lost... or the others were never running with me in the first place. We each had our own road.”
“I remember finding a cold path through ditches full of snow. I thought I was heading to the Eagle's Club. But things just got darker and more unfamiliar. They stretched out into the infinite and I could go no further because I was impossibly far away and also close to my destination. I blinked and was in darkness. I thought I had gone blind. I couldn't feel my body. Completely detached, it was a horrible feeling. I think I floated, maybe I didn't go anywhere. Vertigo. Blackness. I was nowhere and suddenly this wasn't a dream it was too vivid and yet I felt nothing. A nothingness so complete it hurt.”
“Then a light, an orb, lifted to show the face of my demon guide. Rather than going all Lovecraften and saying shit like it was so scary I lost my mind and I can't even describe it to you I will actually try. Ever seen the movie the Relic? Think that thing with teeth as long as a door and a mouth twice as wide. A wall of needle teeth fills this things head. Add to that aspects of an angular fish and a dragon, and maybe a horned warthog. Add to that an impossible intelligence and bone-crushing menace. Take that to the 29th power… that barely describes my first Pandemonium demon IN the actual Abode of Demons. It was happy to see me in the worst possible way. I will never forget what it said to me either.
"You who left the path that does not stray, welcome to hell. The longer you stay the more you shall learn, WELCOME TO HELLLLLL." it dragged out that last bit impossibly slow. Its voice was like the grating of the entire earth. It shook my body, well I didn't really have a body, I had a mind form, it shock my mind and soul.”
“Then the 'lights' came up. I was in a forest of gnarled trees that looked like they may have been people. Demonic monkeys swung though the air and tore at the pained trees. The broken branches bleed. But we were only at the edge and there was so much more to see. There was an Iron Labyrinth beyond the edge of this horrid suicide forest. The demon slashed at my flanks and drove me to the gates.”
“This first march was so hard. The violent slave-driver. The endless run to the gates of Hell. I wouldn't be lying if I said it was a million miles and also a thought away. I wouldn't be lying if I said it took forever to get there. Lesson one, matter and distance have no meaning there. There is only will and the mind... and the true terrors that lie within it. Also you find out how much of a horrible person you have been. All of it. There is a fallen reflection of Pandemonium, far less order, it’s called Abbadon and is the abode of the Infernals. From what I can tell, that is much more the corruption of an actual hell. But Pandemonium was the realm of the True Demons and every nightmare image locked in the human heart. You have felt the bell’s chime in the darkness, the combined horrors of all mankind’s imagination and so much more.”
“Once I entered the greatest most horrible rubix cube in creation the fun really began. This part gets very private. Actually I may have PTSD from my trip there. This is the first time I have ever gone into this much detail about it. All the other times I was asked I always say "I went to hell, it was horrible, I don't want to talk about it."”
I break off and look down into the heart of my half empty cup. I stare into it, brows furrowed. Then I snap out of it and keep going. My tone goes from matter-of-fact to tired and resigned. Acceptance.
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