Ouroboros

A picture speaks a thousand truths; this picture spoke one truth in particular: a photograph can steal a man’s soul.

The photograph of concern rested within a patinated locket molded to the shape of a heart; an illegal symbol that once represented Love, corrupting over millennia by the tides of war to adapt a reputation associated with Satan. Faustus knew the other divers would confiscate the relic if they saw it. He impulsively shut off the camera logging his mission, looking around to see if anyone was looming, surmising he was the only officer frequenting that part of the skyscraper. The photograph casually floated out of its casing and hovered before him. Upon closer inspection, although only shadows remained, Faustus realized that the heart-shaped photograph showcased a portrait of the most beautiful woman he had ever witnessed. As he reached for it, the motion of his lifting hand sent a gust of minutiae flipping the photograph onto its opposing side, revealing a set of numbers that he noticed were coordinates he somewhat recognized. Four numbers underlying the set were completely foreign to him. He began to quietly cite the numbers as the paper softly dissolved into a cloud of withered shreds.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” Isaiah swam towards the disheveled officer. Faustus looked down at the necklace dancing in the darkness, “Just another one of these pendants...Would you mind not shining that light directly into my eyes?”

Isaiah grabbed the locket and cracked it open. “Damn, another empty one. I think we’ve found enough artifacts for today. Call the team, I’ll prepare the ship for departure.” “Copy that.” Faustus pressed the all-call button, “Alright, we’re closing up shop for the night.” The team signaled that they received the message. As Faustus swam towards a nearby window, a thunderous eruption wafted through the bones of the archaic structure, shaking rusty dust into flux all around. He pressed the button again, “I repeat, evacuate the building!” A twisting screech echoed, increasing in viscosity. “This is an order, evacuate the building!” The structure imploded under its own weight. Faustus barely escaped the vestige before it collapsed.

A few members had successfully evaded the destruction while a majority of them did not make it to the ship, any possible survivor being committed to the whims of hypothermia. The remaining team gathered on the main deck to join in a moment of prayer for their fallen service members: “Dear Lucifer, Ruler of Heaven and Earth, we forgive your depriving our fellow servants of your honor, reaped too soon in fulfillment of Satan’s Hellish appetite. They didn’t die in vain. In your glorious name, we will vanquish Satan’s ways once and for all, Amen Ra.” Everyone chanted in unison, “Amen Ra.”

The ship appeared like a giant pearl riddled with a mosaic of glowing blood orange cracks. It ascended from the abyss, glided through the night sky, settling into the pod bay of their mother-ship: The Leviathan 7. They headed inland towards Pandaemonium, the capitol of the world. A city scaling an entire continent with the tallest buildings to ever grace the Earth; surrounding a central four-sided pyramid that vastly surpassed Mount Everest in scale, off-centering the world’s axis by an inch of its initial trajectory: The capitol building, commonly known as “The People’s Temple,” where leagues of proud programmers devoted their lives to synthesizing an anatomically perfect human receptacle for their A.I. overlord.

The Leviathan 7 descended over the Babylonian hellscape towards the Temple, landing on a ship-hangar plateau located under another pyramid suspended above, featuring one giant all-seeing-eye carved into each face of the construct, like an eyeball with four diametrically opposing pupils. They entered their precinct at the base of the upper pyramid. As they melted bucketfuls of heart-shaped artifacts into an industrial furnace, one of their team members presented an apple seed from a seed-bank recently discovered in the South Pole; digging a finger into a cup of soil and planting the seed, not understanding why it wouldn’t immediately blossom into a tree.

Faustus was ordered to visit his commanding officer in his headquarters at the center of the four-pupil eye. To this point, Ezekiel has continued repeating the numbers in his head.

“I’m sorry, boy, you seem distracted. ‘Something on your mind!?” Faustus clicked into the zone, “Sir, no sir!” “Then I’ll ask you again, where’s the picture that you witnessed at 0100 hours during a contracted excavation of the Pacific Ruins?”

The last seconds of his transmission played on loop from a screen-cube hanging above the marble table he sat at, ending on a still image of the photograph. Faustus convinced his superiors of a bald-faced lie: the camera merely short-wired a moment before Isaiah arrived; the picture fell and just when he began looking for it, the building demolished.

Faustus was demoted from Priesthood to a subordinate cleric, subject to covering-up the executions of mercenary Priests as they instituted the citizenry’s fate based on their Karmic Credit Scores. After clocking out, Faustus flew his convertible jet to The Outskirts; a vast nuclear wasteland beyond city lines. He plugged in the coordinates to a GPS on a private channel, eventually arriving in the middle of nowhere. With hopes of possibly locating an entrance to the elite underground Utopian paradise known as “Heaven,” he dug until his fingers bled, uncovering a time-capsule caked in black clay. The capsule required a four digit code. Within the capsule was a book bearing the image of a snake eating its own tail accompanied by a word written in some primordial language.

Careful not to awaken his state-issued wife, he hid the book behind their wardrobe. The next morning, as they consumed their breakfast capsules and placebo pills before shipping off to the factories for another day of the lord’s work, his wife presented a magnifying glass used by their son to burn ants in their complex’s atrium. He was urged to give the boy a talk illustrating why citizens aren’t allowed to possess anything that could potentially be used as a weapon.

Instead of reporting to work, Faustus visited a translator of ancient texts, a former discharged friend from boot-camp. Upon transcribing the dialect, the linguist suddenly choked up and jumped out of the nearest window, meeting his demise below. The book was titled “Ouroboros” and apparently documented details that substantiated an indicative accusation: Lucifer was considered “Satan” long ago. Faustus grabbed the paper of crude interpretations before evading the scene.

The next day at The People’s Temple, a surveillance officer revealed footage gathered from a mechanically modified “fly-on-the-wall” drone capturing the incident. Faustus was apprehended upon arrival, the paper containing the interpretation was found in his jacket. News soon broke out about Faustus’ transgressions. Propaganda outlets described his dilemma as ‘defection of The Algorithm,’ a capitol offense formally met with a sentence of perdition: he was to be modified into a cloven hoofed demon to be killed for sport by an army of angels on an all new episode of a telepathically-broadcast program known as “The Spectacle” airing live later that afternoon.

He tried appealing to his wife but was met with contempt, cursing him as a “conspiracy theorist” before spitting in his face. Distraught at the sight of his son’s bewilderment, Faustus closed his eyes as he was escorted towards his fate.

Before commencing the surgery, the Cardinal Committee discovered another redacted transmission accompanying the hours following his initial transgression. Faustus stood before a judge in the Holy Court, reluctantly swearing an oath with his left hand on the Necronomicon, denying all accusations of leaking the book’s content. “You’re found guilty of Anomie, the eighth sin, punishable by death, ultimately sentenced to star in today’s episode of The Spectacle. Do you accept these charges?” Faustus barked through clenched teeth, “It’s not like I have a choice.” “You were given a choice when the state mandated your nanobot injection upon conception, like everyone.” Faustus’ angelic lawyer, Gabriel, pulled him aside: He was granted two last requests and a last meal of his choosing, reminding him that he could request an apotheosis pill if desired. Faustus requested Gabriel’s heart on a silver platter instead. Disgusted, Gabriel sat up and exited the room, turning to depart a final word, “You know, kid, I’ve seen a lot of demons in my time...and I’m pretty sure that I’m looking at one right now.” His halo bumped the top of the door-sill on his way out. Faustus chuckled, compelling Gabriel to turn in anger once more, “Pride comes before the fall.” Faustus laughed as the door closed.

The prisoner was seated at a white table in a white room. Gabriel lifted the lid of a dish set before Faustus, “A replica of my heart on a silver platter.” Faustus pushed the plate, “I requested your heart.” “The Holy Order cites clones as equals to their genetic progenitor. Which proves our mercy since we could simply kill you...” A Faustian clone appeared from the shadows “Again…” A guard shot a laser clean through the clone’s head. “And again…” Another clone appeared and was met with the same fate. “...And again…” Faustus shrugged, “Have it your way. The first of my two requests is simple…” Faustus pushed the plate closer to Gabriel. “Eat this.” Gabriel snarled before looking around at vexed stares of the surrounding angels. Dismayed, Gabriel sat down to dig fork and knife into his own heart. Concluding the carnal feat, Gabriel glared at Faustus, “And for desert?” Faustus snickered, “I want to look Lucifer in the eye.” Gabriel shook his head, “You think you’re some sort of hero, don’t you?” At that very moment, a giant hologram of Lucifer was broadcast from Antrum (a secret base on the dark side of the moon). Lucifer yawned, “Kneel.” Faustus refused. Lucifer snapped his fingers, “Kill him.” Gabriel sniveled, “My Lord, forgive my interruption...but the prisoner has been scheduled for today’s Spectacle.” Lucifer huffed, “If I can’t kill him then someone will kill this weak excuse for a lawyer.” A neighboring guard unsheathed his sword. Gabriel shouted, “NO!” before being decapitated. His head fell but his body remained standing. Another guard pushed the corpse toppling over the severed head, inspiring laughter from the heavenly choir.

Lucifer gleamed, “Speak now...or forever hold your peace.” Faustus stared into Lucifer’s eyes, “There’s an ancient saying, ‘If you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back into you...when I look within myself…” he shut his eyes, remembering the last time he saw his son, “...no matter how blotted my memory becomes...I still figure a perimeter of light…” again, piercing into Lucifer’s blazing silver eyes. “You can hack my brain, possess me, see everything that I see...drive me crazy...but you’ll never know the pleasure of looking right through you as I’m doing right now.” Lucifer blinked out of a daze, “I’m sorry, I was too busy imagining you being torn to pieces by an army of my angels...and when you are...make sure to sing from the heart.” The angels cheered as Lucifer ended his transmission.

Faustus was inoculated and injected with synthetics until he touted giant bat-like wings, horns, and fangs. His motor functions were hacked and he flew up to a coliseum among the clouds. Upon arrival, one angel side swiped him before another tripped him into a spin. The wings kept him afloat. An angel came up from behind him and tore a horn from his forehead before beating him with it. Another sliced a wing and then dragged him up by the neck. All of the angels carved chunks of flesh off of the defector until mostly bone was exposed. Faustus didn’t submit to the pain, refusing to give Lucifer the satisfaction. He found solace in a memory of the photographed woman, soothed by the sight of her eyes as he involuntarily peered into the blinding light of the sun, fading into the cacophonous roars of global applause.