Ten thousand years.
This was how much time Adam had spent in Heaven, year more or year less. By now he himself had lost exact count of it. Maybe it was a few decades too far ahead or too far behind. Maybe even a few centuries. It mattered little: he hardly noticed anymore. Time had become an almost abstract concept for him, nothing more than an eternal line sanctioned only by a few cyclical events such as the Extermination.
Adam had spent more time in Heaven than any other soul. He remembered meeting them all. It was inevitable: no matter how hard you try, if you have infinite time ahead of you, it was certain that sooner or later he would cross the road together with every one of his descendants. Yes, descendants, because humanity had all come to him. And through them Adam had been able to listen to endless stories. Stories of lives that really happened, which on the surface might have seemed boring. Stories of fathers who cultivated fields to feed their family. Stories of mothers who felt the immense joy of holding their child in their hands. Stories of explorers who had discovered new lands. Stories of blacksmiths who had found new methods to melt metal. Stories of inventors who accidentally discovered something new, allowing society to progress. Stories of scientists who dedicated their lives to improving human knowledge.
So many stories, which no one on Earth would ever remember, but which contained the lives of all the souls who had reached Heaven. Adam had heard them all, all those stories of heroes who would never be remembered as such, of men and women who had built the society in which every modern human lived. Every story of every human life that had earned Heaven, in all its entirety, without missing even a single detail.
Adam had initially been happy about this, because he could know how things were going on Earth; and Earth was in any case the place where he had left his family, all his numerous descendants. And in a way, he also discovered that he was a little nostalgic. It almost made him laugh: it was strange to miss a world in which he had done nothing but break his back for nine hundred and thirty years, and yet he did it from time to time. And beyond the nostalgic element, Adam loved hearing those stories. All those stories of simple men and women, who lived in villages and huts, who worked all their lives helping each other, feeding the family with what they produced with their own hands, watching their children grow while they became old together with their partner... it was nice to hear them.
But soon, hearing those stories had a horrible side effect. The souls in Heaven were many more than those in Hell, and each of them had beautiful stories; but unfortunately, a single human being who ended up in Hell had the ability to ruin the lives of tens, hundreds, thousands, even millions of people. As human civilization became more advanced and sophisticated, Adam heard stories that were beautiful, but contained a slight hint of sadness. They were stories in which there were always people towering over other people, stealing their food and forcibly demanding obedience. Similar elements recurred in all the stories, to the point that they almost became obvious at a certain point. And then... there were the worst stories. Those in which bad people didn't just command, demand and tax, but carried out all kinds of surprises. Stories of innocent people who even in Heaven bore the signs of trauma suffered due to rape, murder, torture, torture, abuse, psychological pressure, slavery, and every other type of wickedness.
Adam had looked at the entire history of humanity that way: through the mouths of every blessed soul in Heaven, even the most horrendously massacred ones. And with every story he heard he found it harder and harder to remember that there was a lot of good in those stories, or that many more souls ended up in Heaven than in Hell; the more time passed, the more he could only focus on the evil his descendants perpetuated towards his other descendants. He was disgusted by such cruelty, that cruelty that came to Earth because of the forbidden fruit that the two traitors had given to his wife. He had tried to remedy it by proposing himself as general of the celestial army and leading it to Hell to exterminate those sinners, all those souls so deviant that they no longer had the right to call themselves human beings. But even if initially he had received a small bonus, over time even that had become a pathetic action in his eyes, while the story continued to unfold and be told to him by souls who did not spare themselves to describe the evil they had suffered.
The first millennia were almost all the same: human civilization was based mostly on small villages dedicated to agriculture, and only sometimes to trade. There had been some interesting events, especially that this was the time when God was actively intervening on Earth, trying to remedy the effects of the evil fruit. Adam remembered the Tower of Babel, Sodom and Gomorrah, all the various prophets and patriarchs, and finally the Great Flood; after that last attempt, God had promised Noah that he would never again unleash calamities, giving him a rainbow as a promise. Adam would have preferred that God gave his descendants a minimum of intellect or at least the ability to learn from History, because not even a few centuries later had they started to commit the same cruel acts for which the Flood had been unleashed. They hadn't learned anything. Lots of water and a little color in the sky, that was the only result of the Flood; otherwise, the world had remained exactly the same. Who knows what a disappointment it had been for God, who had thought he could fix things once and for all and instead, after having promised not to unleash his wrath again, he found himself with a humanity identical to before.
With the arrival of civilization, things had slowly gotten worse. Expanding one's nation meant more security, more trade, more scholars studying the mysteries of the world; but it had also meant the birth of oppression, slavery, and large-scale warfare. The Egyptians exploited thousands of human slaves to build the pyramids, the Babylonians and Assyrians massacred each other, the Greeks razed the entire city of Troy to the ground for a woman (oh, there was ALWAYS a woman involved! Incredible). God had kept his promise and no longer intervened directly, and therefore since then he had sent emissaries to carry out the task for him, and in this case he gave him powers with which to make himself heard. And so there was Zechariah who challenged Nebuchadnezzar and Moses who took the Jews away from Pharaoh. Adam had found all their actions amusing and worthy of praise, but in any case he had doubted that they would have been of any use: what was the point of having a people who preached, if not even the flood had been able to change humans? But he remained faithful and certain that God knew what he was doing. He had continued to obey and watch, and indeed after some time he had begun to think that he had been completely wrong... because indeed there had seemed to be hope.
After a long series of kingdoms, republics, city-states and so on and so forth, one empire in particular had risen above all the others. Rome had expanded more than ever, and actually seemed capable of conquering the world. The Romans had brought wars, slavery and abuse wherever they passed, but also unity, peace and solidity, and also efficient laws that favored people and common well-being. And precisely in the era in which Rome was in its maximum splendor, the Messiah had arrived, bringing words of peace, justice and love; words which then expanded thanks to his faithful to the point of Christianizing the entire empire. For a while Adam had believed that there was finally hope: with the Roman Empire intent on uniting the world and making it progress socially and intellectually, and the Church taking hold bringing the word of God, he was sure that one day the world would once again be united under a single flag aimed at social well-being and the love preached by the Messiah. It was only a matter of time, he told himself. So he had endured everything, every war, every slave, every dictator, every mad emperor, sure that it was just a small obstacle to completing a greater plan.
But then, it was all in vain again. The Roman Empire had fallen, breaking into hundreds of small nations constantly hostile to each other. The Church remained, but had become greedy, demanding more and more obedience and ownership. The Middle Ages that followed were therefore once again a jumble of ever-increasing cruelties, in which entire armies went to the Holy Lands believing that they were fighting for God, and that they would earn Paradise that way. Fools... a useless carnage, this was the crusades. What about witch burnings? Did he want to talk about it? How many people had been burned, just because they had behaved slightly differently from the norm, or even because of false accusations from envious people? Adam remembered Joan of Arc, an extraordinary woman whom he had found himself admiring greatly, who had met that very end in a rather unfair manner; and she was just one of many. And then there had been other messes, like the tyrannies of the nobles who treated the serfs as if they were things, often impoverishing the fiefdoms with the result of starving the poor people, and who stabbed each other in order to obtain consent from the king of the moment, or even committed regicide if the current king's policies did not suit them. Oh, and of course there had been wars, looting, riots... those were never lacking.
The discovery of America and new nautical routes to access the East had brought new messes one after another. The first was obviously the destruction of the Native Americans, who had either been enslaved and turned into machines for extracting diamonds and gold from the mines while the Europeans razed and plundered their cities, or who had seen their lands taken away one after another the other and be exterminated if they dared to react. And then there was the colonization of the rest of the world: the Europeans had expanded, imposing their supremacy on every existing people, suffocating them with their demands and their greed, taking away everything they could carry. Very few managed to resist. And then there had been the American Revolution, and as violent as it had been, Adam had hoped that finally now that the people had rediscovered democracy things would go well; instead, the new nation became a people of slavers, bigots, and murderers. And then there had also been France, and it was useless to list all the years of terror that had followed the arduous revolution for which thousands had given their lives.
As time passed, for some reason it seemed to Adam that the years began to pass by more quickly in his eyes; perhaps it was due to tiredness, or perhaps because he had lived so long that he could now hardly distinguish a century from a second. He could see cities grow and become larger, and factories spring up, and new, ever more massive trains travel on ever longer and faster tracks. He was able to see the economy collapse, recover and then become more prosperous than ever and politics enjoying a period of splendor. He could see the prosperous reign of Queen Victoria, and at the same time in another place far from London, the Crimea, he could see the outbreak of a terrible war between Russia, England, France, the Ottoman Empire, and even one of the tiny kingdoms of the peninsula Italian. And that same Italian kingdom had expanded shortly after, occupying the entire peninsula and reunifying a nation that had remained divided for centuries; Adam had listened and admired the stories of all the treaties, the discussions, the courageous words of the men who aimed to unite Italy; he had been able to see a thousand men in red shirts disembark in the ports of Palermo, led by a general with a thick beard and great charisma.
Then there was the scientific revolution; Adam had been able to speak with a man, some guy called Charles, who had proposed an alternative theory to the birth of the species on Earth, and another (Mendel? Was that his name?) who by growing peas and observing their flowers had laid the foundations for what would become known as genetics; he had heard about the birth of hot air balloons and then of dirigibles, enormous balloons flying above the skies of large cities, carrying dozens and even hundreds of people, challenging the limits of human beings to whom the sky had always been forbidden; and then again a strange object had arrived, something similar to an iron eagle, capable of taking flight and soaring in the skies like a bird, not with the grace of angels but it was close. Adam had watched from Heaven as the first airplanes filled the skies of Earth, and felt proud of his descendants, and suddenly began to think that perhaps humanity just needed to break down its barriers, and that the invention of new means of transport and communication would have facilitated union, peace and mutual understanding. He was convinced that this was precisely God's plan. And what happened next seemed to confirm it: carts were invented that moved by themselves on rubber wheels, powered by steam boilers similar to those in factories but much smaller; glass globes containing light, the light bulbs, were invented and illuminated cities and villages. Technology was making giant strides, and with it so were men. Adam had been able to speak with a man who, when he arrived in Heaven, had been bearded, with a top hat, with a strong and determined look; it bore the name of one of the ancient prophets, Abraham, and was the one who proclaimed the end of slavery in the United States of America. Adam could not help but welcome that man into his home with all honors, and celebrate his arrival in Heaven with great applause and praise. And after that event there had been others that demonstrated that humanity was also progressing socially: Adam had learned of a great iron tower that had been erected in Paris as an iconic symbol of French freedom; he was pleased to discover that in New Zealand for the first time she heard someone was talking about giving women the right to vote; he had seen the Spanish colonies of the Philippines rebel and gain independence from the tyrannical mother country; and he had seen with satisfaction the many states of Germany that had been divided for too long unify into one great German Empire. Adam had beamed: humanity really seemed to want to unite more and more and create new laws and systems of justice that were fair and favorable to all. And again he had believed, and kept his faith in God's great plan.
But his illusion was soon destroyed. Words of ignorance and misery began to spread throughout the world, which however were masked by tradition, glory, patriotism, justice, honor; words of power and strength that everyone heard and many repeated aloud, and wherever this happened tragedies occurred. Adam had unfortunately learned that the American nation had split in two, consumed by civil war and hatred, all because slave owners refused to lose their interests; he learned that the Pope, the one who should have been happiest with the newfound union, had refused to lose his power over the Papal States, and had therefore opposed Italian reunification; those scientists who had made great discoveries told him that they had been denigrated and ridiculed in favor of ancient and false beliefs; he learned that Russia and Japan had torn the Joseon peninsula apart, sending thousands of men to slaughter; and he learned that the Balkans had been engulfed in the flames of war. That unity that humanity had the chance to achieve never materialized, and on the contrary more and more people wanted to divide, and more and more people closed their hearts to the suffering of others, and more and more people looked with smiles at the tragedies that occurred they consumed in the rest of the world thinking only of their profit.
And then came World War I. More and more people listened to the cruel propaganda words and turned a blind eye to the suffering of others, and talk of expansion and imperialism was passed off as honor and patriotism, until tensions between nations exploded. Entire legions of men ran to the front full of dreams of glory, but what they found was a hell of trenches, bombs and death, and the blood flowed like a river; the sky filled with airplanes shooting at each other and dropping bombs on cities, and huge chariots like iron elephants rode on tracked wheels and fired shells that took the lives of dozens of people at a time, and horrible weapons capable of releasing toxic gases and causing people to suffocate to death in atrocious suffering were created and used on the battlefield, destroying any ethics or morality. The whole of Europe was torn to pieces and human lives became miserable figures on paper; thousands, no, millions of men sacrificed for trivial causes, who were reaped like wheat in a field. And soon the war spread to the colonies, also encompassing Africa and Asia, and then the United States also entered; a real carnage, whose number of deaths could not be defined otherwise than astronomical. Twenty million broken lives, twenty million souls traumatized, desperate or condemned to Hell.
And after the war there was no peace. Only more suffering had come. The glorious Russian empire was destroyed by the revolution, caused by the tsars' ignorance of the people's needs and the poverty to which they had reduced them; and France and England laughed at Germany, a losing nation, and instead of working to ensure that a second tragedy like the one they experienced was repeated, they tore it to pieces and reduced it to poverty, certain in their blissful ignorance that it would never be possible to recover; Spain was torn apart in civil war; and the United States closed itself in isolationism, ignoring the suffering that was happening in the rest of the world and indeed laughing and mocking them for their misery. And the power-hungry monsters found easy listeners in that devastated world, speaking of revenge, revenge, justice; and everyone listened to those words, even those nations that had won the war but had been forgotten at the winners' table like Italy. Adam remembered descriptions of a man standing proudly in front of a crowd in the city of Berlin; a short man, with a strange mustache under his nose, dressed in an authoritative uniform and with a hat on which was the symbol of an eagle; Adolf Hitler, that was his name. His were words of cruelty, yet the crowd listened to him, and everyone raised flags with his terrible swastika. And other souls had told him of another man, bald, with a penetrating gaze, who spoke aloud from a balcony above the city of Rome; and yet another, with a thick mustache and who resided in what in the modern world was known as St. Petersburg, but which the Russian people of the time called by the strange name of Leningrad; and others still, scattered throughout the nations of the world, all heralds of ignorance and misery, but all loved by the people. Anyone who dared to oppose was captured and locked up in prisons, prisons which then became real death machines; and all the minorities were sent there, Jews, black people, hom*osexuals, gypsies, Jehovah's Witnesses, stateless people, all those elements that society, in its ignorance, considered different and therefore undesirable, and were therefore dragged into a hell of misery like no other never before had it been seen on Earth; in those places that people called concentration camps a real genocide took place, and the screams of millions of men, women and children could be heard as they were burned alive in horrible crematoriums.
And then the war had come again, a war even worse than the previous one, which devastated piece by piece all of Europe and then the whole world, and Adam had been able to learn about the birth of horrible weapons, of new machines aimed at the sole purpose of kill more and more; and the blood ran down and covered the earth like rain; and the rest of the world also fell into war, and Japan launched itself against China and then against Hawaii, and the United States began to fight in turn, and with them also all the colonies and all the neighboring states and all the vassals and all protectorates; no one was spared. Years and years passed while people were killed as if they were wheat to be harvested; the big cities were razed to the ground by aerial bombardments and the innocent were the first victims. Adam remembered by heart every horror that every blessed soul had described to him: all the cruelties of the death camps, all the monstrosities of Unit 731, all the horrors of the gulags. And in the end, one day a plane flew over Hiroshima and dropped a bomb; that story had been told to Adam by hundreds of thousands of people, many of them unable to offer an effective explanation. For a brief fraction of an instant a second sun appeared, burning everything and generating a shock wave that swept away every building, and a column of smoke rose upward, taller than any mountain, like a gigantic dead tree bringer of suffering. And then Nasagaki also suffered the same fate, and the desperate screams of the population filled the air under that tree with ash, part of which certainly came from the victims incinerated on the spot, but perhaps they were the luckiest since they were the ones who had suffered less. The cruelest weapon ever created by humanity entered the world. A weapon that was supposed to guarantee peace. What a stupid concept.
The Cold War had brought only terror. People argued that it was a good thing that Russia and the United States had bombs, because that way they avoided going to war with each other. Adam would have liked to punch them: what was the point of building peace on the promise of mutual destruction? It was obvious that the slightest thing was enough to trigger a catastrophe of continental proportions! Was it possible that no one ever learned anything? 1963, 1979, 1983, 1995; so many times when a simple accident had nearly led humanity to self-destruction. How could anyone be such an idiot? Adam hadn't been able to figure it out. Maybe because he was too busy talking to all the poor victims of every other conflict, from Korea to Vietnam; or perhaps because he was busy caring for those who were dying of hunger in Africa without anyone helping them; or perhaps because he simply saw so much suffering already that he didn't want to ask himself the reason for such stupid beliefs.
And now, in the twenty-first century, nothing had changed yet. Humanity was always the same, ten thousand years served absolutely nothing. They had so much knowledge and technology, and what did they use it for? For stupid games of power and money. They could travel into space, colonize new worlds, create a civilization where no one would ever suffer from hunger or disease again. A world where life was considered a right, and not something that each person had to provide on their own, risking losing their home, family and food if they lost their job, generating intense competition even in the simplest and smallest social sphere and only creating new mischief.
Ten thousand years, and yet, humanity was still the same as when it left Eden.
Adam had hoped that over time the power of the evil fruit would wane, but he now realized that he had just deluded himself. Humanity was doomed for eternity; and even if they had all the necessary means to at least minimize the effects of that curse, they seemed to do everything to avoid it.
Adam was tired. Tired of hearing too many stories of suffering. He knew that for every evil man there were at least a thousand good ones, yet he could hardly focus on the good ones anymore. He could no longer smile thinking about all those good and honest men who did their best to help others. Every time he thought about his descendants, he remembered only the evil. And every time he cast his gaze towards the Earth, and saw a polluted and increasingly exploited planet, with world leaders once again threatening each other with nukes, on the edge of what could effectively be called the sixth mass extinction, he could no longer be optimistic.
He couldn't take it anymore. He hated to admit it, but he felt old. It seemed to him that he was the last relic of a past that no longer existed, an anomaly in a world that no longer had anything of what he remembered.
He didn't want to hear any more words of suffering. He wanted to find a way to wipe out the effect of the damned fruit from humanity. But he knew that his wish was just a stupid one, and that he could never destroy the power of the apple that Lucifer had given to his wife.
But... maybe what he has to do... was supported it instead.
The epiphany came to him while he was watching a film about aliens. A fairly classic plot: a group of aliens arrived on a spaceship trying to conquer the Earth, and then the heroes on duty saved the whole thing with a brilliant intuition. Total bullsh*t; why on earth would aliens capable of traveling between the stars fight humans in such a ridiculous way and be defeated by a simple cinematic trick? Movies like that were pointless, but at least they were enjoyable to watch. Ideal for an evening when you had nothing to do and wanted to switch off your brain in front of the television. He had watched films of that type with Lute quite a few times: she liked them... even if at the end of the film she usually complained because she had rooted for the aliens, the zombies or the monsters that should have been the villains.
In any case, Adam's epiphany came when he saw one of those film. Independence Day, that's what it was called, if he remembered correctly. It had been one of the few times he was alone at home, probably because he wanted to relax a little; Even though he was a sociable guy, he liked to be on his own from time to time. The film had been no different from other films about aliens, but towards the end Adam had laughed when he saw the montage in which humans from all over the world banded together to prepare for the counterattack against the aliens. "Well done!" he had exclaimed. "Did it take that long for you to work together? You dickhe*ds, you needed an alien ship to figure that out!"
He had said that phrase almost absentmindedly, but it remained imprinted in his mind. And almost without wanting to, he ended up thinking about it.
He started by having a marathon of apocalyptic films. Aliens, zombies, monsters, even asteroids. They all had the same common thread: enemies came, the world was seemingly bent, but then humans recovered and won. And they won because they stayed united.
In each of those films, humans banded together to stand together against an enemy they couldn't defeat alone. The conflicts they had until two seconds ago? Totally forgotten. Faced with a greater threat, humans did not hesitate to join forces and bring out the best in themselves.
Adam initially laughed at this, claiming it was just science fiction.
But the more he thought about it, the more he realized that all those films were absolutely right.
And at that point he had reached an absurd and at the same time profound awareness.
Humans needed an enemy.
After the Fall, all living creatures had acquired an enemy. Nature had become a merciless world where everything was constantly trying to eat each other. An eternal battle in which the various species fought strenuously. And precisely because there were already dangerous enemies around the corner, the most intelligent species, such as elephants or whales, instead of fighting when they met, preferred to establish friendly relationships and protect each other. More individuals meant greater protection against the common enemy.
But humans didn't have an enemy. Even after the Fall, humans had always been apex predators. Some might have expected this to be a good thing; yet, the humans had continued to search for someone they could call an enemy. The glorious Roman Empire had reached heights never seen before, yet it had continued to advance looking for new peoples to face. Genghis Khan had conquered half the known world in his time, yet he continued to advance until he died. And there could have been millions of other examples.
Someone might have foolishly called such actions greed, avarice, cruelty, but it was a rudimentary view. The truth was that humans wanted to find an enemy at all costs. The fact that there was still someone to fight meant that there was still someone to fear... and therefore someone to hate.
This reality had become more evident than ever in the modern Western world. Twenty-first century America and Europe, though full of problems, had been at peace for eighty years; and yet, the people there were constantly looking for someone to hate. This was why a lot of movements and protests arose, some sensible, many others bordering on the ridiculous. The aim was always one: to find someone to accuse, to curse, to crush. Someone you can pour out your pent-up anger and uncontrolled hatred on. Whether it was a politician, an ideology, an action, a behavior, or even a neighbor, everyone was looking for someone to accuse.
It was all damn clear; Adam had finally understood the truth. When the Fall occurred, the power of the evil fruit had turned all living creatures against each other, but not humans. The humans did not have an enemy, but all the evil of the evil fruit had still penetrated their hearts. Evil which in most cases was limited to a simple hatred towards someone, but which could sow the seeds for greater tragedies, creating the foundations for every sin. Did you hate a group of people because they were different, to the point of persecuting them? It meant considering oneself better than them, and therefore committing the sin of pride. Did you hate another nation to the point of making war on it? It meant committing the sin of wrath. Did you hate a defeated nation so much that you plundered the inhabitants of all their wealth? It meant committing the sin of greed. Did you hate a person because he had a beautiful woman, and you wanted to deprive her of that good? It meant committing the sin of lust. Did you hate a person and want what they had, going so far as to use subterfuge to steal it? It meant committing the sin of envy. Did you hate people of other castes to the point of keeping all the grain for yourself, to the point of starving them? It meant committing the sin of gluttony. Did you hate a group of people so much that you ignored their suffering and their pleas for help? It meant committing the sin of sloth.
The root was always the same: humanity needed something to hate. But unlike all other creatures, humanity had no natural predator, and so it vented that hatred on its own kind. It could be said that the evil that humanity brought out was a biological consequence of an imbalanced ecosystem due to the infamous Fall.
The more Adam thought about it, the more he realized that his idea was absolutely right. And as a result, he also understood the solution to the problem.
Humanity was not supposed to receive the message of salvation from a hippie from Bethlehem. Humanity had to receive an enemy. Someone against whom all their weapons, all their technology, all their power, was totally useless. Someone who would push them away from the top of the food chain and keep the constant threat that they could come and kill them at any moment.
In short, there was basically a need for an alien invasion like in the movies... even if it didn't need to be so destructive.
Adam found himself brooding deeply about his sudden discovery, and a strange scenario formed in his mind. Let's assume that a monster suddenly appears on Earth; a monster that can take atomic bombs and use them to make a bonfire, and that can fly so fast that it can circle the globe in a few hours, effectively being able to attack any city in the world at will. A monster that could enter a highly protected bunker and take anyone inside. A monster against which, in fact, humanity could have done nothing. How would have humans reacted?
The answer was obvious. The monster didn't need to do absolutely anything, other than give an initial demonstration of its strength and occasionally make a few flights here and there to remind humans of its presence. But otherwise, it could have easily found an island and settled there: what was important was that this monster existed. After the initial panic, all the world's conflicts would have vanished instantly: the threat posed by the monster would have been too real to afford to waste weapons and resources on a conflict with other humans. Much better to keep your firepower ready to face the monster so dangerous and consequently so hated.
The presence of a common enemy would have united humanity like never before in history: with its mere appearance, the monster would have immediately put an end to all wars. Nations would have united in powerful organizations aimed at common defense, and not only that: the longer the monster remained around, the more even individual human beings, too busy hating him, would slowly stop hating their fellow men. Why despise someone for their skin color if that someone is more useful by your side in case the monster attacks your city? Of course, some dickhe*d wouldn't let go of the old values; but the more time would have passed, the more people who wanted to unite with others to defend themselves from the monster would have become, while the individualistic ones would have become fewer and fewer until they disappeared; survival of the fittest, but with cosmopolitan ideology instead of natural selection. In people's minds, the monster would have become the problem, while the humans around them, even those most diverse in race, caste, social rank, fortune, job or political position, or whatever, would have become people who could be trusted and supported each other to face the monster.
And that would have had a lovely side effect. Obviously humanity would concentrate on researching, studying and discovering a way to kill the monster; however, weapons research had often led to advances in other fields. Research into ICBM launch sites had enabled the space race; research on bacteriological weapons had allowed enormous advances in the medical field and in the understanding of the human genome and consequently genetic engineering; chemical weapons research had led to the discovery of compounds and substances that had helped shape the modern world. Simply by hating the monster, the human species would have made enormous advances in all fields of science. And furthermore, humanity was smart: consequently, they would have also taken into account the possibility of not being able to kill the monster. Therefore, to avoid potential extinction, they would accelerate the new space race. Within a few years, the first cities on Mars and Venus would arise. Terraforming and colonizing new worlds would no longer be a choice that common people and governments often ignored, too busy with useless disputes among themselves, but rather a necessity to guarantee the survival of the species. Colonizing space meant more resources, more energy; and again, they would try to build other weapons to kill the monster, weapons that could be useful for much more than that. What better way to create a super laser than a Dyson Sphere capable of capturing the energy of a star? And it didn't end there: other fields of science, such as genetic engineering and human/machine fusion, would also receive more funding than ever. It would have taken bigger brains and stronger bodies to face the monster; and a hive mind composed of an immense digital network would have united humanity even more, allowing everyone to give everyone information about the monster even if they would have been killed immediately afterwards by that so much hated creature.
Simply by existing, the monster would have catapulted human civilization forward thousands, perhaps even tens of thousands of years. Socially, technologically, governmentally, and scientifically, humans would reach unprecedented heights simply by channeling all their hatred into a single enemy they could not defeat. And even if they finally managed to kill the monster, progress would not stop: because the fact that there was at least one monster in that infinite universe meant that there were probably others somewhere. Humans would not return to slaughter each other, but rather they would get on their spaceships and start a massive colonization of the Milky Way, expanding more and more, trying to find the place where the other monsters were hiding to track them down and kill them. Their hatred would remain focused on that monster they had worked so hard to kill.
Adam couldn't help but shout "EUREKA!" when he understood it. Everything was so clear: all he had to do was give the humans a monster. A terrible Godzilla who, after a very rapid display of power, would retreat somewhere to do nothing except destroy all the weapons that humans sent against it. The last monster of humanity, to fight which humans would have forgotten all enmity between them.
It was the perfect plan.
With that brilliant idea in mind he went to Sera, and explained everything to him with enthusiasm. The head seraphim had listened to him with much interest and admitted that what he said made absolute sense, indeed it had an excellent chance of succeeding. However, much to Adam's disappointment, he had declined his request.
“While sending an angel to Earth to wreak havoc and scare humans might unite them more than ever, we cannot do that. Earth is the realm of humans, and our ability to interfere with them is limited. We can send advisors and aid like cherubim, but we cannot cause such large-scale events that would change the geopolitical situation of the entire planet. Sorry, but that's a no"
Adam had been quite disappointed. However, he also had tried to be understanding: Sera was still a subordinate of the older angels, and therefore had to obey their orders. So he appealed to them directly, and they too said no. At that point he had tried to ask to God himself, the one who had officially established that humans had total dominion over the Earth and therefore angels could not interfere. Result? The deity, as almost always, had not shown himself.
Adam couldn't understand. Why was God so insensitive? If he had done as he proposed, everything would have changed for the better. Humanity, too focused on facing its common enemy, would have progressed to the point of almost no longer sinning. There would be no more suffering, wars, abuses, miseries, tyrannies. Overpopulation, poverty, limited resources, diseases, all would be solved by the advances that science would make. A golden age would begin, not like Eden but very similar.
But maybe that was the problem, Adam found himself thinking. For God to accept his proposal would have meant admitting that there had always been the possibility of repairing the world. That there had never been any need for any Flood, any Messiah, any other bullsh*t he had done. It meant admitting that using a modicum of intelligence was enough to give humans the chance to shine again. And God could not admit this.
Adam had tried to convince himself that the deity was right, that it knew things that he didn't know; yet, that feeling of disappointment had not left his heart. God was rejecting a way that would have saved almost every human soul on Earth. How could he fall into such vileness? Adam realized that he felt an emotion very similar to hatred towards the deity; and in the end he had completely stopped praying, attending Mass, or doing anything that any good servant of God should do.
Maybe that's what it meant to lose faith.
Adam had moved on, obviously: even if he was disappointed, depressed and disheartened, he still had duties and was not willing to put them aside. But with each Extermination he always found himself wondering what he was doing. What was the point of killing those sinners? More would come, and the following year he would have to do it all over again. If instead he had been able to implement his plan, the flow of sinners would have decreased enormously. Perhaps an annual Extermination would no longer have been necessary; after a few years every decade would have been enough, and after some more time one every century, until practically exterminating sinners or not would no longer make any difference. Wasn't it better that way?
And finally, Adam had made his decision.
If God wasn't willing to implement his plan... he would have done it himself.
He was still the first man, and as such he was among those who had jurisdiction on Earth. Even though he had died and ascended to Heaven, he was still human. He could go to Earth and do whatever he wanted. And precisely because he was the first man, nothing could compete with him; and after becoming an angel he had acquired even more powers. His strength was incomparable; the most powerful of the dinosaurs would have been a match against him. The armies of the Earth could not have done anything if they found themselves against the leader of the angelic army. He would show off his power and then retreat to a desert island, maybe near Hawaii, and let the humans do everything else.
It had been a painful decision, obviously: because doing so actually meant rebelling against the laws of Heaven and the will of God, and this meant falling. Adam would lose everything: all the people he had known, all his friends, his soldiers... one of them in particular. He would spend eternity surrounded by nothing but hate. Hated by Heaven for betraying, hated by Hell for his actions during the Extermination, hated by humanity for simply existing. The most hated man in history, with no one around to give him comfort. A life of loneliness and despondency, this was what awaited him. And who knows, maybe one day humans would actually manage to kill him somehow.
But in the end, he decided it was okay. He was tired of sitting on the sidelines and seeing all that suffering spread across the Earth. If he had to be the most hated person in the history of the universe, so be it; but at least, no one else would have to cry and suffer anymore.
It was his duty. His duty as a general, who had to worry about the well-being of all his soldiers, and consequently had to do everything to expose them to as little risk as possible, included decreasing the Extermination further and further. His duty as a human being, that he had to do his best to create a better world, one where the harm that men did to other men would be just a memory. And his duty as a father, the father of all humanity, who had to make sure his children stopped crying.
He was tired of being on the bench. He had spent ten thousand years among people who loved him. He could have spent ten thousand more among people who hated him.
He himself would have been the last monster of humanity.
But there was a problem. If he had fallen, he would not have gone to Earth. He would go to Hell. Those who were banished from Heaven ended up there.
Unless... someone shut the door in his face.
At that point he would have only one realm to go to.
And he knew exactly who to turn to for this.
"Are you really sure?" Lilith asked him.
Adam let out a grunt. “Did I bring you here or not?” he grumbled, pointing to the beach around them, which, like everything in Heaven, was beautiful and idyllic. "Now fulfill your end of the deal"
Lilith looked him in the eyes, and for the first time in a long time, she seemed truly undecided to Adam. “Do you realize that if you do this you will never be able to go back?”
Adam raised an eyebrow. "Are you really asking me this question?" he asked her rhetorically.
"Adam, I'm serious" Lilith told him. "Do you realize what this means? Your life, your home, your position... you will lose everything for nothing"
The first man narrowed his eyes in disappointment. "The simple fact that you ask me if I realize what will happen to me fully demonstrates how little you know me" he replied acidly. "Stop wasting time. Do what you have to"
Lilith bit her lip, and then she cupped his face in her hands. Dark energy emerged from his body and through his palms penetrated Adam's soul. "With these words of mine, I banish you from Hell forever. Its gates will always be closed to you" she proclaimed, and the dark energy flowed through Adam's body and then condensed onto a small bracelet on his right hand. After did so, she let him go. "There. Now, my prohibition is concentrated in that bracelet. Destroy it, and even if you fall, you can't end up down there"
"Good" Adam said hastily. "Then I'm going. Goodbye"
"Seriously?" Lilith stopped him. “Don't you even want to know why I wanted to come to Heaven?”
"No, I don't care. Do whatever you want, as long as, as we agreed in our deal, you don't harm human souls" Adam replied to her. "I long ago stopped caring about what cross your mind. Now you're someone else's problem. If you want to make a mess, go ahead: let your husband fix it, not me"
Lilith didn't miss his angry tone. "Adam..."
“Lilith, I didn't bring you here to make conversation” Adam stopped her immediately. “You wanted something, I wanted another. Our interests were aligned, and we acted to satisfy our desires. End of the story. Ours was just an ordinary partnership. Don't mistake my actions with friendship”
Lilith sighed tiredly. "Yes, I know" she admitted. "At least let me tell you that... I admire you. Not everyone would make that choice"
"Tsk! Now you admire me. When I'm about to rebel against Heaven, you decide I'm worth admiring. f*ck you" Adam commented.
"You just can't say goodbye to me in a good way?" Lilith asked him. "This time we might really never see each other again"
"I'm not so sure. I had hoped for it once before and I was disappointed" Adam replied to her. "Don't pretend that there is something between us that makes me want to see you again. I won't miss you at all"
"Well, I think I'll miss you instead" Lilith admitted to him.
Adam didn't know whether to be surprised by her words or not. In fact, he found that he didn't care to find out. He just huffed and started to walk away.
"Adam" Lilith stopped him. "What will you do... if you're wrong? If your solution isn't the right one?"
Adam let out a chuckle. “Then you and your husband will no longer be the biggest idiots in the universe” he replied simply.
Lilith clearly didn't appreciate that dig, but she still maintained her stoic expression. "I never thought I'd hear you say those words"
"Like I said, you don't know me" Adam told him.
"Maybe you're right" Lilith commented. She was silent for a moment, and then she asked him: "Is there anything you want me to tell someone? A message, a farewell letter?"
"No" Adam replied. "If anyone asks you anything, paint me as a misanthrope, a traitor, a monster. Use your imagination to describe me in the most colorful way possible. Make anyone feel disgusted at just the idea of coming after me"
“Do you really want everyone to hate you?” Lilith said in a small voice. "Your friends, your family, your soldiers? Don't you want anyone to have fond memories of you?"
“The more they hate me, the less likely they are to follow me” was Adam's quick response. "I don't expect you to understand"
"I think I understand very well instead. That's why I approve" Lilith replied. "You don't want me to tell the truth even to Lute?"
Adam let out a grunt. He didn't answer directly, but he simply said: "I told you no"
Lilith nodded. For the first time since he'd known her, she had a genuinely sorry look in her eyes. "So... goodbye. Good luck"
"Goodbye" Adam replied without any emotion in his voice, and took off without saying anything else to her. Lilith looked at the point in the sky where his shadow was getting smaller and smaller, and instinctively she raised her hand and moved it as if she were greeting him, even though the first man no longer even looked at her.
Seven years had passed since that moment. Adam had never returned to the beach, he had no longer gone to talk to Lilith. He had no interest in spending even another minute with her. In those seven years he had tried to find a way to disappear without someone chasing him from the first moments. He knew Lilith was doing what he asked of her, secretly painting him around as an asshole; and he himself had behaved as such, so that fewer and fewer people wanted to maintain strong relationships with him.
And finally, he had found the perfect excuse to disappear. Ironically, it was Lilith's daughter who offered it to him on a silver platter when she told him about her plan of redemption. Adam had found it ridiculous, if not downright grotesque; however, even if that project didn't have the slightest future, it was exactly what he needed to disappear without anyone asking questions for a very long time. He had thwarted the dear little princess of Hell in every way until her only option was to face him in battle. Needless to say, hitting the sweet daughter meant making the father intervene; and in fact Lucifer had arrived and defeated him. Unfortunately the fallen angel had stopped halfway through the job, and Adam had feared that his plan had failed; but fortunately one of those stupid demons, that pathetic one-eyed dwarf, had thought well of stabbing him.
Too bad that what the demons didn't know was that that was exactly what Adam wanted. He actually wore a small armor under his robe; the golden blood came from bags hanging from his waist. All he had to do was get down on the ground and pretend he was knocked down. At that point he waited until no one was looking at him anymore and replaced his body with that of a cannibal, and left. Now that everyone thought he was dead, for a long time no one would bother to look for him; and even after they discovered the truth, they would probably be too busy dealing with whatever mess Lilith and her offspring had caused to care about what he did on Earth. And when everyone knew that he had actually faked his death, that would be the last straw even for the people who cared about him most; after all, if someone was willing to give others such pain, then it wasn't worth remembering. In any case, Adam would have had centuries at his disposal, perhaps even millennia. More than enough time for what he had in mind.
There had only been one thing that had really hurt him: Lute's desperate face as she thought he was going to die. Seeing her cry like that had hurt his heart, and he would have liked to get up and tell her that it was all an act, but instead he remained still. He couldn't let her know he was okay, he couldn't risk her following him. But he couldn't bear to see her cry, so in an attempt to give her some comfort he gave her a smile, as if to tell her that he was fine, that she shouldn't despair like that. Only when Lute and the angels had finally left and the demons had no longer cared about him, and after he had secretly escaped, had he allowed himself to cry a little in a corner, cursing himself for the pain he had caused woman who had always supported him and had been close to him since he had known her.
He wanted to go back to her.
He wanted to tell her that everything was fine.
He wanted to apologize to her.
But he couldn't. If he did, she would have followed him. He knew she would have followed him. It was much better that she thought he was dead and then she hated him as soon as she knew he had fooled her. That way she wouldn't come after him.
Lute would have been happy there, in Heaven, enjoying eternal praise, far away from him. Better for her if she never saw him again.
It was better that way. It must have been no sympathy for the monster.
He had by now made his decision. It was time to take the last big step.
Adam reached the gates of Heaven, disguised as a common angel, where he was greeted as usual by Saint Peter. It didn't take him long to convince him to go away and leaving the edge unattended beyond which falling meant never returning: the guardian of the kingdom of paradise had been duped in three seconds and had accepted his offer to replace him while he went to deal with a problem that the first man had invented on the spot. And that was supposed to be the gatekeeper of the blessed realm? Ridiculous. In any case, there was no one there now. Adam walked to the edge of the cloud, and stopped for a moment before passing it. He raised his hand beyond it, and could feel that the weight of the air there was much greater; if he jumped, he would never be able to fly up again.
He withdrew his hand, and lightly removed one of his gloves, revealing the bracelet containing Lilith's curse. With one sharp blow he broke it, and in an instant he felt as if a seal had been placed upon him. Hell could no longer welcome him now.
He turned and looked one last time at Heaven, the place that had been his home for ten thousand years. He looked at the clouds, the light, the buildings, everything. With his mind he said goodbye one by one to the people he had known, who for some reason had all suddenly reappeared in his memory, even those with whom he had exchanged a maximum of three words thousands of years before and had never seen them again.
And then, he closed his eyes and took a step forward.
Gravity hit him immediately; he suddenly felt crushed as if a boulder had been placed on him. He fell down violently, as if a chain had grabbed him and was dragging him down. He felt as if something inside him had just been broken: suddenly, he no longer felt the grace of God in his heart. It was as if someone had ripped a part of him away from him. Heaven expelled him from its fields forever, and let him fall into the abyss.
Adam opened his eyes slightly and could see his golden wings fading; they maintained the same color, but from bright and luminous they became dull and dull. Just like what happened to Lucifer's wings when he fell too. So that was what Falling meant. It wasn't as painful as he'd expected; perhaps he had let his imagination run a little too wild. His body fell towards Hell, but then it stopped; it was as if Hell was rejecting him, as if it were emitting an energy that hurled him away. Adam didn't resist and let the dark realm throw him away, towards the only other realm still existing, the only place where he could go. Finally, a blue and green ball appeared in the distance in front of him.
Adam didn't consider himself a very emotional person, but he couldn't help but feel his heart sink when he saw Earth. This was his first home, the place where he was born and had spent almost a millennium. And now he was returning. Even though he knew he would spend the rest of eternity absorbing all of humanity's hatred, he still felt happy to finally be returning there. Earth was so different from how he remembered it, no longer wild and pristine, but it was still home.
Yes... Adam was going home.
But suddenly a shadow darkened the sky above him. He looked up and saw the unmistakable silhouette of an angel appear. His eyes narrowed: had they perhaps sent someone to get him? No, they didn't have the right, Earth was his home and he could do what he wanted with it. If some idiot wanted to try to stop him they would find themselves with a very broken pair of bones. But the closer the angel got, the more Adam realized that something was wrong: the angel was also being dragged by the same force that was dragging him. It too was falling, but it was using its wings to propel itself, as if trying to fall even faster. Adam's eyes widened when he recognized a familiar mop of silver hair.
Why she was there? Lilith had told her something? Did she spy him? Did she see him jump?
He wanted to shout something, but Lute reached him just then. She didn't grab him by the tunic, by the arms, by the hair; on the contrary, she gently took his face in her hands. Adam could feel the softness of her palms, which although hard due to the underlying muscles, still possessed the typically feminine sweetness. Adam looked at her confused, but Lute only smiled. A sweet smile he never thought he'd see on her.
Adam tried to ask something, but he realized there was no need. He just needed to look at Lute's eyes to understand. Eyes that held a strange light, a light of understanding and approval. It was as if Lute was telling him that she knew why he did it and agreed with him. Which combined with her smile it made her expression one of the most beautiful things Adam had ever seen. There was no reproach, no doubt, no hatred. Only a silent promise to follow him also in their last adventure.
Words were superfluous. That simple gaze was enough. Adam already understood, and Lute knew he understood.
She had always understood it. He never needed to tell her anything. She always knew what he was going to do and say, and she stopped him before he said or did something stupid and anticipated him when he wanted to propose doing something together. She knew right away when he was tired, exhausted, angry, disappointed, fed up, or irritated, even if he hid such emotions behind his trusty mask and idiotic behavior.
Adam remembered when he first saw her, a rookie in the ranks of the Exorcists. He remembered that even then she seemed to have a pole constantly stuck up her ass and wanted to beat everything and everyone; yet, at the same time, there had also been a strange awareness between them. As if she already knew something that no one else knew. As if she had understood what their boss who seemed constantly on acid actually thought, and without Adam having to tell her anything she had done exactly what he expected her to do.
Adam had felt a little uncomfortable the first few times. He wasn't used to having someone around who knew what he thought. He had learned that it was best not to let his emotions show, as he never knew when someone might stab him in the back. The fewer people who knew what was really going on in his head, the better. But no matter how hard he tried, Lute always seemed to understand what he was thinking. Her hawk-like eyes were always trained on him and seemed to study him, or rather, see something strange and absurd that no one else could see.
Perhaps this was how Lute had discovered his intentions. Lilith hadn't told her anything, and she didn't spy him: she had figured it out on her own... as always.
How, Adam wasn't sure he could figure it out. But ultimately, he didn't care.
Maybe it was because he smiled at her.
Maybe she had understood it even before.
Maybe she had always known, and she hadn't told him because she knew he would try to push her away from him, even though she understood and approved of his intentions.
In the end, it wasn't important for Adam to know it.
He mirrored himself for a long time in Lute's beautiful eyes, those eyes that were normally always angry or at least irritated (often at something he had done or said), but which at that moment showed no aggressive intent. That wasn't the look she gave him when he said something wrong, nor the one he gave her when they spent time together, when he invited her to his house to watch a movie, when they went to a concert, when they had a barbecue, when they played a video game. They were eyes that gave a strange sense of security, and that seemed to tell Adam that he would not be alone.
The two of them crashed onto the ground with a bang, fortunately in a fairly deserted place; perhaps in some corner of the Sahara given the amount of sand around them. Adam was the one who took most of the impact: his body was the one facing downwards, and therefore he was the first to crash and also shielded Lute. It mattered little to him: he barely felt the force of the impact that would have shattered an ordinary human being. A crater at least five meters deep opened beneath him.
They remained in that position for an indefinite time; Adam in the center of that hole, with his belly facing the sky, his arms and wings open to their full size, and Lute above him, lying on top of his belly, her head resting on his chest. In the end it was Adam who broke the silence: "Why? You just gave up Heaven"
"What are you saying, sir?" Lute asked him in a falsely confused tone. "My Heaven is right here"
There was no need to say anything else. Adam lowered his head slightly towards his chest and placed his lips on the forehead of his trusted lieutenant, even if it was useless to call her so anymore. Lute reciprocated by climbing a little higher on him and reaching the level of his face, where she could finally connect their mouths.
Maybe the last monster of humanity would not spend the eternity alone. One person, one single person, still chose him no matter what.
Perhaps it wasn't such a bad thing.
After all, every monster needed its holy maiden.
