by Emily Cooper
July 1, 2004
Chapter 1
How It All Began
True humans first became aware of thee 60,000 years ago. A war was to start between the two realms of death. Every thousand years, a war rages between Heaven and Hell. The winner gets all of the loser’s men. In the last 60,000 years, Heaven has won 57/60 times.
December 10, 1999: an argument raged up in Heaven. “We are to go to battle in 21 days,” said the Lord.
An angel rose to the stand. “Heaven is overpopulated. We should forfeit.”
If we lose, then Hell will be overpopulated,” said another.
“True, all very true,” God said. He walked over to the permanent records to check the profiles of people. “Looks like 20 more people will go to Hell within the next three weeks. That should help them out.”
Meanwhile, down in Hell, an argument was also raging. “Hell has a population of 6.3 million. Heaven has a population of 20.2 billion!?” The Devil sat there, reading the paper to all the demons. “This is ridiculous! We haven’t won a battle in 10,000 years.” He was furious.
“You haven’t been training us properly,” said one of the demons.
This time it’s different. I’m having my daughter fight,” Satan said.
“I won’t allow it!” said a woman in the back.
“Do you want to be sent to the spirit realm?” He roared.
“That’s it!” called a demon.
“What’s it?” the Devil questioned.
“We tell God to send 80% of his people to the realm of ghosts, thus giving us a better chance,” he answered.
“Not bad. Not bad at all. But he’ll never approve. The only way we’d win is if we had someone on the other side fighting for us. That’s it!” He ran over to the permanent records. “Here are two. Melissa Tayon-Ray, born 1985, developed cancer at age 12, is set to die in three days. Placement at death: Heaven. Michael McCorman, born 1968, killed three people – that is murder in the first degree – and he’s set to behanged tomorrow at noon. Placement at death: Hell. I’ll just switch these two and wait.” He then walked over to his table and began to write. “Dear God, Heaven is deeply overpopulated. Please send a bunch of your people to the spirit realm. P.S. I’ve decided to call off the war.”
God received the letter. “Not a bad idea.” He walked over to the spirit realm file. “Let’s see, the population of the spirit realm is 2.6 million. I’ll give them 16.7 billion.”
Two days later, both Melissa and Michael died.
Chapter 2
Melissa Tayon-Ray
Melissa was born on October 2, 1985. She developed cancer at age 12 and died on December 14, 1999. Before she died, the Devil switched her profile with someone who was supposed to go to Hell.
December 14, 11:30am. A man walked into the hospital.
Hi, my name is Mark Tayon. I just got a phone call telling me that my daughter Melissa is in here,” the man told the clerk at the front desk.
“Room 208, and you’d better hurry, I hear that she’s in her last minutes,” the man at reception said.
Mark rushed into the room to find Melissa’s mother kneeling beside her bed, crying.
“Sara, what’s going on?” Mark asked.
Sara looked up and saw him. She immediately stood up. “What are you doing here? You leave me and my daughter for ten years, and you think you can just waltz in now? Oh no, Mister!” She then turned back to look at the monitor and saw a straight line. “No, no, Melissa, hold on! You’ve got to hold on!” her mother cried.
“I’m sorry, she’s dead,” the doctor said.
“Wake up Melissa. Wake up.” The Devil knelt down beside her.
“Where am I?” Melissa felt queasy. “Am I dead?”
“Yes, Melissa, welcome to Hell,” the Devil answered.
“Welcome,” came a chorus behind her.
“What? I, I can’t be in Hell! What sins have I committed?” Melissa panicked as she asked question after question.
“Don’t worry Hell isn’t as bad as the living say it is,” the Devil replied. “Come now, we only have seventeen days before the battle.”
“What battle?”
“Every thousand years there is a battle between Heaven and Hell. The winner gets all the loser’s men,” said one of the demons. He walked over to her.
“Why am I here?” Melissa asked the stranger.
“Satan switched your profile with a murderer who was recently hanged,” the demon answered (his name was Zack).
Just then, two red, hot sores grew out of Melissa’s back. “Ouch! What’s happening?”
“Your wings are growing in. See?”
“You’re pretty nice for a demon.”
“I only committed one sin.”
Just then, Satan received an urgent call from God, saying that he sent 16.7 billion people to the spirit realm. “So he finally listens to me.” He trashed the note. “Fine, the war is off. No wait. This is perfect. We’ll attack Heaven by surprise.”
“What do you mean?” asked someone in the audience.
“God thinks we called off the war,” Satan responded. “We’ll attack him by surprise.”
“You truly are the Evil One,” they all replied.
“Come on, demons! Let us train!”
The next ten days were really hard on Melissa, but luckily Zack was there with her every step of the way. Finally, the day arrived.
“We shall kill all of God’s men, and possibly God himself, too!” roared the devil. Melissa ran up to Satan to ask him a question. “If they’re already dead, then how can we kill them? Where would they go?”
“Such a foolish question!” he roared. “Why does that matter? If you really want to know, you can find out for yourself!” He kept on walking.
Just then, a pair of beautiful red wings came out of Melissa’s back. But they weren’t the wings of a demon. Instead of being rubbery with scales, they were feathery, and there was no horn on either side of here head. Also, her tail didn’t have a triangle at the tip. Melissa had become a fallen angel.
Chapter 3
Michael McCorman
Michael was born on August 11, 1968. He was a wanted criminal in over ten cities. He had attempted murder ten times and killed three people.
December 20, 1999. Michael was sitting in his jail cell, waiting to be hanged. “This is it. In an hour, I’ll be rotting in Hell,” Michael said to himself as a little tear trickled down his cheek. “I’m 31. I’ve lived my life.”
“Michael,” the guard called. “Time to go.”
He got up. The guard took out the handcuffs and handcuffed himself to Michael. They then walked down to the killing stage. It was still bloody from the last hanging. A crowd of a couple hundred people had gathered outside to watch.
The guard took the handcuffs off him and placed the noose around his head. He dropped the killing stage, leaving Michael hanging in mid-air, thus killing him.
“Michael Roger McCorman, may you forever rot in Hell,” the guard said.
Minutes later, Michael was standing on a cloud, surrounded by a beautiful kingdom: Heaven.
“What! I got into Heaven?” Michael jumped up and down, screaming at the top of his lungs.
Just then, an old, wise man walked over to him. It was God. “Welcome to Heaven, my child,” he said in a very deep and pleasing voice.
“I got into Heaven. I got into Heaven,” Michael repeated.
“Yes, yes, that’s quite enough. Come in.” Michael followed him into the palace. Many of the angels were already gathered there. “Welcome,” they all said.
Just then, a familiar face caught Michael’s eye. It was one of the people he had killed.
“What are you doing here?” the man said.
Suddenly, a pair of white wings grew out of Michael’s back. They weren’t regular angel wings, but were scaly, and he also had a tail. As this happened, an earthquake started amongst the clouds.
“You!” Everyone pointed at Michael.
“A risen demon?” God was furious. “What am I going to do with you?”
“Ahhhhhhh, accept me as one of your people?” Michael was getting scared.
He took to the air. God grabbed a bolt of lightning. “Go ahead! you can’t kill me; I’m already dead,” shouted Michael.
“I banish you to the spirit realm.”
“What?”
“You’ll roam around amongst the living as a ghost.” It was almost as if God were whispering.
“Better than hell.”
“I can’t send you to Hell. Now be gone!” And just like that, Michael disappeared into thin air.
Chapter 4
Hell’s Reign Begins
11:00pm, December 31, 1999: Satan led his army of demons to the gates of Heaven. The walk was about an hour (half of the demons flew). “I’m a demon who has lived for billions of years,” the Devil said to himself. “Every millennium, I make this trip by foot, while I watch everyone else fly. It’s pathetic.”
“How much longer, Zack?” Melissa whined.
“Hey, I’m tired too, but we’ll all get there eventually,” Zack replied in a cranky voice.
They came to a door and everyone stopped. “Is this the gate to Heaven?” one of the demons asked.
“No, this is the doorway to the battlegrounds!” the Devil replied.
“Then why are we going through here?” the demon came back at him. “I thought we were going to go to Heaven and attack God and the angels head on?”
“Yes, but we have to go through here first,” the Devil explained. He walked over to her and yelled in her face. “No more questions!” He threw her all the way down the stairs.
When they entered the room, there were all sorts of people inside. They were walking around, minding their own business as if they didn’t see any of the demons. The people appeared to be translucent. Melissa was getting scared. Zack grabbed her hand. “It’s okay. This is a place on Earth. We are invisible to these people. This whole area was probably a forest a millennium ago,” he said.
“You really think so?”
“I know so.”
Melissa let go of his hand and ran to catch up with the group.
“Melissa, wait! Don’t leave me like this!” Zack cried out to her.
“I’m not. I just want to catch up with the rest of the group,” she said.
“Oh…okay,” he answered.
They crossed the room and went through a door on the other side. He opened the door and everyone rushed over him. “I’m getting too old for this,” the Devil sighed.
It was a day like any other day up in Heaven when God suddenly heard the sound of millions of people marching into the kingdom. God turned back to look. “Satan, what are you doing here?” He was surprised.
“I’ve come to destroy you and all your men!” he roared. “For millennia, I’ve lost everything to you. Now you must pay!”
All of the demons rushed toward the angels.
“I’ve waited 10,000 agonizing years for this moment,” the Devil said. “Every millennium I gather my population only for it to be taken by you, but not this time.” The Devil rushed toward him with his pitchfork. God got his lightning bolt and fired it at him.
Melissa saw what was happening from a distance, “Nooo!” she jumped in between them. “Stop!”
“What’s this? A fallen angel?” God dropped his weapon. He was staring at her.
“Now’s my chance!” The Devil grabbed his pitchfork and stabbed God in the chest. That was it. The Devil had killed God. “Hell’s reign begins! Hell’s reign begins!” the Devil roared.
“Hell’s reign begins!” the demons echoed.
“Hell’s reign begins,” Melissa cried, “and it’s all my fault.”
Pretty soon, all of the demons left, except Zack.
Chapter 5
The Story of Their Deaths
“Come on, Melissa”, said Zack. “Hell’s reign begins. God is dead, as dead as you and I.”
“I know, and it’s all my fault. If I hadn’t had jumped in between them, he’d still be alive.” Melissa couldn’t stop crying. “I’m not even supposed to be here.”
“If you weren’t here, you wouldn’t have met me,” Zack started. “You’re the first real friend – girlfriend – I’ve ever had. All my life I was tortured, bullied, and alienated by other kids for no good reason. I couldn’t take it anymore, all the teasing, the insults, getting beat-up on a regular basis. It was just too much for me. So one day, after my 15th birthday, I made one of the best decisions in my life. I decided to commit suicide. I used my dad’s old gun.”
“Wow, cancer doesn’t even come close to that,” Melissa began. “I grew up with my mom. My dad left when I was just three years old. When I was 11, the doctor found a tumor in my left lung. At first, he thought it was just a side-effect of my asthma. So the doctor ignored it and gave me a stronger puffer. One year later, the doctors diagnosed me with lung cancer and said if they removed the tumor, my lung would collapse. If they didn’t, the tumor would keep growing and kill me within two years. A few minutes before I died, my dad rushed in, and an argument started. The last words I heard were ‘Hold on, Melissa.’ I think my mom said it”.
“Do you feel better now?” Zack asked.
“Yeah,” Melissa replied.
“Then let’s go, Hell’s reign begins.”
“Hell’s reign begins.”
Melissa and Zack flew back down into the caverns of Hell.