Good and Evil: The Barren Land

Good and Evil

Part 2: The Barren Land

The seal to the prison had been broken, and the fallen angels in slumber had awoken. They both looked at each other in confusion as their chains melted away and their prison disappeared around them. They found themselves in a freshly dug hole and were greeted with two dead bodies, one of them still twitching.

“Is it time?” The taller one asked.

“Doesn't seem like it.” The relatively shorter one answered while looking around. Harut and Marut had been condemned to sleep in their underground prison till the Day of Judgment. Their sin, disobeying God. Their motivation, love of a human woman.

“This does not look like the Day of Judgment. It appears we are in the middle of nowhere.” Harut checked his hands and feet, the chains had disappeared without leaving a mark.
 “Doesn’t appear to be Babylon either; their buildings are similar to the nation of Aad.” Marut could always see over great distances, he could see two towns nearby.

“Have we been forgiven?” Harut was still confused.

“Our wings would be back if that were the case, we are still trapped in these mortal bodies.” Marut could not hide the disappointment in his voice. The human bodies could only hold so much of the angels' powers, and without wings, they were just a fraction of their true selves.

“If God did not forgive us, then how are we out of the prison?” It seemed as if Harut was about to ask many questions, but he was interrupted by the sound of a pickup truck stopping nearby. The angels had been to many worlds, and had witnessed many technologically advanced civilizations. They had seen similar travelling devices before, so the vehicle did not surprise them; however, the woman who stepped out of it did.

“Zora!” Both of them could not believe their eyes. This was the woman. Before meeting her, they taught magic to the people of Babylon during the day, and ascended to the heavens during the night.

“Shouldn’t you be in heaven right now?” Marut asked with a hint of sarcasm.

“You haven’t aged a bit.” Harut still had the hearts for her, even after all the years of punishment.

“We need a more private place to talk.” Zora was as cold as ever.

“There is no place where He can’t hear us.” Marut hissed, his eyes shooting daggers at the woman he once loved.

“Oh, but we can always try.” She snapped her fingers, and with that the two fallen angels felt their bodies disintegrate. The experience was more painful than anything either one of them had felt before. They wanted to scream in agony, but had to wait till their bodies came back together, this time in a barren waste, most probably on another planet far away from Earth.

“Before the two you start speaking, let me fill you in on the details.” Harut and Marut were still recovering from the painful journey, but Zora wanted to make sure she dominated the conversation.

“The words you taught me. The words that were supposed to give me the ability to fly to heaven, those words failed. I spoke them, and I found myself here, on this barren land. I spoke them again, and I was back in Babylon. I do not age since then, and nothing can kill me, so I guess I have to thank you for that. But I have to ask you, why did you betray me? I mean you drank the wine, and you killed a man for me. You even worshipped an idol just to make me happy. But you didn’t teach me the right words, why is that?”

Marut was about to say something when she interrupted again. “It doesn’t matter now. What matters is that I was finally able to free the two you. And now you will help me go to heaven. Not by doing good deeds. Not by dying a pious woman. You will help me go to heaven alive, in my physical form.”

“Let me guess. The two dead bodies on top of our prison were your doing.” Marut sounded disappointed and resentful at the same time. 

“You figured out a way to break the seal.” Harut was elated.

“Do not allow yourself to be fooled by this woman, brother.” Marut warned Harut. “She hurt us once, she will hurt us again.”

“Not if you help me go to heaven.” Zora smiled. The same smile had made the angels forget about their calling, and had set them on a path of sin and disobedience. 

“Why are you so obsessed with heaven? Why do you not try to go there like a normal person?”

“You mean by asking for God’s forgiveness? By committing good deeds? By being kind to my fellow humans?” Zora could not hide her skepticism. “If you haven’t noticed, the punishment for my sins is immortality. While the two of you slumbered, I have seen all my loved ones age, and wither, and die, right before my very eyes. I have seen humanity destroyed by great floods. I have seen the destruction and rebirth of civilization. I have seen the rise and fall of empires. I have seen it all, and I am bored. Just like I was in the ancient times.”

“We will not be your entertainment this time around.” Marut said in a firm voice. Harut seemed confused and double minded, but he kept quiet.

“Then you will rot here until you change your mind. The horrors of this place will make you yearn for your prison.” With that, she snapped her fingers and disappeared into thin air.

“What did she mean ‘the horrors of this place’?” Harut asked Marut. The two angels looked around but there was nothing and no one on the barren land. Even with his supernatural sight, Marut could not see any living being on the planet. 

“Let us explore this land, and let us pray for God’s forgiveness. That is our only option.” Marut sighed as the fallen angels got down on their knees and looked to the sky.