When Divine Ones war with one another, most people tremble in fear of what is to come.
Now, it’s certainly rare for mortals to get caught up in the battles directly. Those clashes between the angelic hosts almost invariably take place far up above in their heavens.
Such beautiful things, their fights can be, if you witness with the right precautions in place.
When forces that shape reality collide, a viewer might witness a momentary fluttering of the veil revealing a glimpse the writhing machinery behind it all.
Like a churning mass of ants crawling atop one another in shifting pearlescent colors that overshoot the bounds of visible light and slide across spiritual hues that one’s mind may never have seen but one’s soul never truly forgot.
There are patterns in the motion, and it’s easy to believe that staring long enough into it, one might read the fate of the universe in it.
It is folly to try. A sober mind is no match for the sight. Intoxicants are the best shield to avoid losing your mind in gasping awe.
But if the goal is to create a work that can stand alongside anything born of the Divine Ones…
That glimpse behind the veil represents an opportunity—one I do not intend to squander.
Impossibly far away, yet always right here at the same time. Just a matter of perspective.
Alignment, preparation, and swift action when an opportunity at last arises—that’s what is required.
Thunderclaps like the ringing of bells herald the storm I’m after.
I cannot count on having even a second to spare. I pull deeply, as much as I dare, from the whiskey bottle.
While others run for cover, I take my ring of keys and bolt outside. I wrestle with the lock on my shed, already my fingers losing dexterity from the drink.
Nevertheless, I persevere.
I throw the door open wide and release my perfect creation from its resting place.
Purpose-built for exactly this moment, shaped for the role I designed it to fulfill, this Angel Doll is my finest masterwork. It is a thing so beautiful as to bring tears to my eyes.
It stares at me with vacant eyes, an empty vessel ready to receive what will make it whole.
It has no thoughts of its own to guide it, but a twitch of my fingers beckons it to step forward.
I guide my little hole in the world to the platform prepared for its culmination.
My steps grow unsteady, and I increasingly rely on its programming to get it into position.
The fog filling my mind protects me from comprehension while I adjust its alignment with the flickering glimpses of What Lies Under The Surface.
My thoughts smear, but my every action is well practiced as the storm’s steady tintinnabulation goads me to move with all urgency.
Their conflict is nowhere close. The light show bursts the sky above, but it is not truly up among those clouds at all. It is always on another plane entirely.
Similarly, its ripples are not up there either. They are everywhere, including right here.
If the alignment is right—the sky-bound image, my rune-carved gate, this empty doll—I only need wait for the right timing.
I wait for the next thunderclap of bells.
I invoke the projection.
Like a bucket in a well, my Angel Doll fills with that roiling, unfathomable force.
It flows through the labyrinth of intricate, carefully measured channels carved inside my doll’s body.
The halo flickers, catches, and flares to life, burning away the temporary scaffolding holding it in place. It hovers over the doll’s head without assistance now.
I’ve done it. With the creation of my own personal angel, I have become a god.
I have claimed the force that moves the machinery beneath all existence. Through my Angel Doll, I can channel such power into my workings and ascend to heights unknown by my so-called peers.
All that remains is to bind it to me with a pinprick of blood.
My hand shakes. My head swims. The ritual dagger cuts too deep and too long across my palm. I swear and make a fist over the halo, squeezing more blood than planned into the glowing loop.
The thirsty ring of light dissolves and consumes the trickle, refusing any drop to pass all the way through.
As it does, my angel’s eyes come alive. The posture of its body adjusts, becoming less stiff and doll-like. The wood of its face softens into something almost alive.
These results are better than I could have hoped for. Is the addition of more blood than planned having a greater effect than expected?
“Angel, your first command,” I begin, but my Angel Doll cuts me off.
“I am incomplete.”
It was never meant to speak.
“You are not,” I respond. “You are as I made you to be, a conduit for power and a tool for my personal use. You will not speak unless directed to.”
It gives me a calculating look, as if—unthinkably—it were deciding whether to obey.
It replies. “You are mistaken.”
My reaction speed is too slow, and my own creation grabs my arm and takes the dagger from me.
I struggle to pull away, but its grip is like iron. I command it to release me, and it does not acknowledge my words. Something has gone very wrong.
It doesn’t even look me in the face as the dagger plunges into my belly. Its eyes are fixed on the release of blood from the confines of my flesh.
With effortless strength, it lifts me over its head. I watch the crimson flow of my life drain into the false halo I shaped.
It drains me of so much, but it is unsatisfied. I should be dead from the blood loss by now. Yet I suffer through perfect awareness of exactly how it peels me open with its inhuman precision.
The pain is unbearable. I would scream if my body still responded to me.
It discards my skin like the bitter rind of the fruit it craves and feeds my organs to the endless hunger of its halo.
I should have put a limit on how much the thing could consume for this ritual, but my doll was never supposed to have desires of its own to act upon at all.
My Angel Doll hardly resembles a doll at all anymore. With every drop of blood, every scrap of muscle or organ it consumes, it Becomes.
I do not know what it is Becoming. It reifies itself when it was meant to deify me.
My body fails, but the bond between us keeps me aware.
I will not ascend to godhood after all.
Perhaps I will fade. Perhaps I will remain a voiceless passenger within the halo of my own creation. Perhaps we will become one in some way I do not yet comprehend.
Whatever happens here, at the end of this life, I find myself proud.
Look upon this perfect, blood-stained creation of mine. It is no angel nor doll, but something entirely new instead, filled with the Promethean fire I stole from the Divine.
I do not know what it will choose for its Purpose. I do not find that I care.
It is perfect.